Archive for August, 2007

MSN.com in Powerpoint

August 21, 2007

Yesterday, I blogged about the page turning experience in MSN. Today its running in Powerpoint! Check it out at http://www.msn.com/defaultO.aspx. As with most previous MSN.com office experiences , this will not last more than a day.

 msnppt

via istartedsomething

 

MSN runs a page turning Geico Ad

August 20, 2007

MSN homepage is running a page turning Geico ad. I have seen similar Ad representations on other web sites, but never before on MSN.

geicomsn

Here’s a quick screencast.

 

Want a Halo 3 theme for Spaces ?

August 17, 2007

 Xbox team has added a couple of themes for Live Spaces. One is a Halo 3 theme which I have currently applied. The other one is an Xbox 360 theme. Cool stuff

halo3teheme

1. Log into spaces

2. Visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/h/halo3/livespaces/default.htm

3. Click to view the Halo 3 theme

4. Continue

5. Save

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Celebrating 60 years of Independence

August 15, 2007

To my country:

Though I may be miles away,

The Pride I take in You, nothing can sway

No matter how far or near you are

In my heart, no one there is, as dear as you are

Happy Independence Day!

Welcome SkyDrive

August 10, 2007

My favorite Windows Live product, Windows Live Skydrive, got an update today! Making it ever more better and usable.

Since this is a new service, I will try to explain what is Skydrive. As the name suggests, its your harddrive in the "sky" (cloud), currently providing 500MB of free space.  Which means you can use it for storage and access it from anywhere, as long as you are connected to the Internet. What more it lets you share your file with your friends or everyone. Of course by default, only you have access to it. Skydrive is currently in beta and very simple to use. Of course this is a basic version, I am sure there is more bells and whistles to follow.  

Now back to  talking about the updates.

Skydrive (also Windows Live Folders) has an updated landing page once you sign in.

Skydrive landing page

 Features:
* Basic integration with spaces It pulls out your display picture information from the Spaces profile.

* Simple interface. Lets you easily add files, folders and "permission"  your content.

* Keeps track of your recent "friends"

* Also has the new Windows Live Header which looks very pretty.  

Thumbnails

They have added thumbnails!

Embed

You can embed thumbnails in your webpage.

http://cid-8449bd54e6288575.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/Photos/antares.jpg

 Star of the show – File upload tool

Its like Zen. Drag and drop. Or Browse. Right there.

The best part, this is the beginning. I can totally see integration with folder share coming. And the start tells us that this one is going to be very promising.

Btw, you can add your public folders to your space!

 

 

Windows Live comes home

August 9, 2007

Windows live has a new home. Basic. But pretty. And oh yes, the color changes as the time of day changes :). Cool huh!

 

You can still get to your personalized live.com page 

via liveside

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Xbox 360 price drop official

August 7, 2007

Microsoft announced the impending price drop for Xbox consoles.

Console New Price Drop
Xbox 360 Premium $349.99 $50
Xbox 360 Core $279.99 $20
Xbox 360 Elite $449.99 $30

via microsoft

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Create your own cartoon with MSN Cartoon (China)

August 6, 2007

LiveSide has proved yet again that they can dig up really well! This time they found this really cool MSN Cartoon website which you can use to create different avatars and emoticons 

1 0 8

from your photograph!! But, its in Chinese only! But worry not. Because the folk at LiveSide have a solution for that too. Sukesh has uploaded a screencast on soapbox, showing how to create your own avatar/emoticions! Check it out! Try it out!

via LiveSide, Sukesh

Live Spaces get another update

August 6, 2007

This is old news now. But this update is worth mentioning. So Live Spaces had a, primarily, look and feel update. However, it was a much need one to move its status from being a blogging site to a social networking site. The spaces page now has a new header:

 windowslivehearder

The live header looks incredibly similar to the Windows Vista taskbar!. The next important change has been to the "What’s new" page to give its social networking aspect a lift. It also displays upcoming birthday’s in the "What’s new section".

whatnew

The "Me" area has been updated to make "Add a friend", "Share photos" etc more discoverable.

image

 

Templates – Because there are so many ways to customize spaces, it is very important to have templates. And yes this update adds templates.  

templates

There are several more little updates which make Spaces more and more attractive. Keep up the good work 

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A quick but important stat

August 6, 2007

Microsoft shipped 60 million copies of Vista. Nathan sums it up all:

Microsoft announced to financial analysts last week that it has already shipped over 60 million copies of Windows Vista, in addition to 42 million corporate licenses of the operating system. More than 20 million were sold in the first month, making about 40 million in the last four months. By comparison, computer makers only sold 67 million copies of Windows XP in the first year and total sales were just 46 million after nine months. Analysts believe Microsoft has already sold close to 60 million of the shipped copies.

via blognewschannel