My family and I recently traveled from Sammamish, Washington to Thailand for a winter vacation, and it really struck me how much things have changed in the last few years with regards to technology.

For one thing, I didn’t need to spend time looking for Internet cafes on this trip, because Wi-Fi was everywhere—in cafes and hotels especially. On the other hand, it wasn’t available in the apartment where we were staying, so I was often in need of tools I could use both offline and online. The solution that worked for me and my family? Windows Live.

Full disclosure: I do work for Microsoft, but not on anything related to Windows Live, so many of the features of Windows Live were as new to me as to any of you out there. I was pleasantly surprised by how incredibly helpful it was to have Windows Live along on this trip.

Here are a few highlights of how Windows Live worked to help us stay in touch while we traveled.

• Windows Live Mail

  The web is great, but Wi-Fi connections aren’t always available, and they sometimes cut out at inopportune moments. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to download your mail while you have a good connection, and then read it later. With Windows Live Mail on my laptop (a free downloadable program; part of Windows Live Essentials), whenever I found a Wi-Fi network to connect to, I’d open Windows Live Mail, click the Sync button (note: this used to be called Send/receive), and it downloaded all my mail while I worked on other things. I could then read my mail later back at our rental apartment where we didn’t have any Wi-Fi.
  Another advantage to Windows Live Mail is that we could download mail from all our e-mail accounts at once, instead of having to go to several different e-mail websites. Great on vacation when you’d rather be out snorkeling than waiting around for various webpages to load.

• Windows Live Photo Gallery

  We could work offline to upload all our pictures from the camera, tag the pictures, add captions, and then, when we had a Wi-Fi connection, I selected the photos I wanted to post online, and published them as a photo album up on Windows Live Photos. Our friends and family (anyone we gave permission to view the albums), got to see our photos even before we came back from vacation.

• Windows Live Writer

  This is another great product to help you work offline, in this case, for blogging and publishing  photos. With Writer, I was able to write all my blog posts offline, and take time to have my wife review them, and to consult our travel books for the correct names of all the sites we’d visited. Once we connected to Wi-Fi, I just clicked Publish. By the way, Writer allows you to publish to almost any blog service you use, not just Windows Live Spaces.
  Writer also allowed me to easily include maps of where we were traveling, and helped me arrange a series of thumbnails of the pictures I’d published earlier, so I could link to them from my blog.

• Windows Live Spaces

  We use Spaces as a family website where all our pictures are available, along with our blog posts. Our extended family has it bookmarked and visits regularly to get all our latest updates and photos.

• Windows Live Profile

  “What’s new with Kevin” on my profile page allowed my friends to keep up with all my new blog posts, pictures, and Twitter updates as they happened. They only see an update under “What’s new with Kevin” if they have permission to view the content that it refers to. For example, my blog posts are public, so all of those updates appear to anyone who visits my profile, but I shared my photo albums with family and friends only, so people I don’t know don’t see any updates about my photos.

• Twitter and Facebook

  These aren’t Windows Live products, of course, but they do work with Windows Live. Since so many of our friends use these services, their compatibility with Windows Live made it easy for more people to follow along on our adventures.  I used a Windows Live Writer extension called Twitter Notify to send an automatic update to Twitter every time I published a new blog post. I also set up Twitter to update Facebook, and added Twitter as a web activity on Windows Live so that my tweets appeared in my Windows Live “What’s new” list, too.
  Soon you’ll also be able to add Facebook as a web activity on Windows Live. Either way, every time I add a blog entry, my friends on Windows Live, Twitter, and Facebook are all updated. No need to update in more than one place!

It was great to be able to stay so connected during our family vacation. I hope you enjoy trying out a few of these features yourself. Have you used Windows Live to stay in touch with friends when you’re out of town? Leave a comment and let us all know how else you’ve used Windows Live.

Happy travels!

- Kevin Bartholomae
  Microsoft

If you are an MSN Calendar user and have not yet moved over to using Windows Live Calendar, the following is an important update announcement. By now you should have also received one or more e-mail messages from the Calendar team about this update.

Q: What is happening?
A: MSN Calendar will be retired soon, as it is being replaced by Windows Live Calendar. If you have not already started using Windows Live Calendar, your calendar information will be moved from the original (MSN) calendar to the new Windows Live Calendar. As soon as everyone has moved over, the original (MSN) calendar will retire.

Q: When is this happening?
A: Your calendar data may be moved as early as March 1, 2009, after which you will no longer be able to access your original (MSN) calendar. The original (MSN) calendar is estimated to close on July 1, 2009, at which date we anticipate that all users will have moved to Windows Live Calendar. NOTE: the final close date is subject to change.

Q: What do I need to do?
A: We’ll do most of the moving for you; we’ll move over your appointments, meeting requests, tasks, and notes. However, if you have attachments in your original (MSN) web calendar, please save the files from your calendar to your computer by March 1, 2009. After March 1, 2009, you may no longer be able to access your attachments.

Q: What data will not be automatically moved over to my new calendar?
A: Deleted items (such as items you deleted from your original (MSN) calendar and items older than 3 months, which are automatically deleted from the original calendar) will not be moved over automatically. Additionally, if you have added attachments (like presentations, documents, and spreadsheets) to your calendar through Microsoft Outlook Connector or the MSN® Premium desktop client, your attachments will not be moved to your new calendar. If you have attachments in your original web calendar, please save the files from your calendar to your computer by March 1st, 2009. After March 1, 2009 you may no longer be able to access your attachments.

For answers to additional questions about this move, please see our FAQ: MSN Calendar Migration

If you use the Outlook Connector to access your MSN Calendar, please see important update information here: Outlook Connector and migration to Windows Live Calendar

- The Windows Live team

Hi, my name is David and I’m a Program Manager for Windows Live Calendar. The service has infinite cool uses, but did you know that it can help lower your gasoline/petrol bill, help save the planet, and decrease roadway traffic? It’s true! You can easily use Calendar to coordinate a car or vanpool. In fact, some of our own team members are doing that right now. It’s simple. Here’s how:

Create a carpool calendar

1. Go to http://calendar.live.com and sign in with your Windows Live ID or create one if you haven’t already.
2. Click New, and then click Calendar.
   
    
3. Enter the name and information about your new calendar—I’ll call mine “Carpool Calendar” for simplicity—and click Edit sharing.
   
    
4. Save your calendar and select Share this calendar.
5. Decide which carpoolers can see to-dos, add all the people in your carpool, and decide what you want each person to be able to view and do in the calendar. We like to give everyone in the carpool “View, edit, and delete items” permissions so that everyone in the carpool can quickly update the calendar if their plans change. 
   
    
6. Click Save.
   

Using the carpool calendar

The new calendar appears in your calendar list on the left side of your page. To show only that calendar, select the colored box next to its name.

Everyone you added to your calendar is sent an invitation to join. It may take a few minutes for them to get the e-mail message. Your fellow carpoolers simply click Accept in the e-mail invitation and sign in with their Windows Live IDs (or create a Windows Live ID if they don’t have one). They will now see the new Carpool Calendar in their lists, as well!

Quick tip—it’s a good idea to select Receive a daily e-mail schedule for this calendar so that each morning you will know who is planning to ride that day. The e-mail reminder is sent at 4 AM each day, so you’ll have it in time. It’s a good idea to go to http://alerts.live.com as well, to make sure all of your alerts for the calendar and for Windows Live will be delivered as you’d like them to be.

Ask everyone to update the calendar on a weekly or daily basis with the days they will be riding. They just need to click New, click Event, and add the details and recurrence information, making sure to select the name of the carpool calendar in the Calendar box.

That’s it! And carpools are only the start of it—just imagine what else you can organize in your everyday life using Windows Live Calendar! It’s especially powerful as a tool for family calendaring. Coordinating your kids’ schedules is a breeze. We’d love to hear how you use Windows Live Calendar and to get your suggestions for making it even more practical and powerful in the future.

Happy commuting!

- David & The Windows Live Team

In October, we told you about plans to close MSN Groups. That time has come, and we want to mention it one more time, to make sure you migrate your groups to Multiply or save data from those groups locally before the service closes. We originally planned to close MSN Groups on February 21, but have extended this to February 23, so you still have the weekend to prepare.

If you are an MSN Groups user, you’ll need to move your group to the Multiply service before Monday, February 23, 2009. On February 23 we will close MSN Groups and you will no longer be able to access your group or any of the data in it. 

We’d like to take a minute to answer some of the most frequent questions we’ve heard about this. For more details, visit the MSN Groups Resource Center at http://msngroupsresourcecenter.spaces.live.com/.

Why are you closing MSN Groups?

It is our goal to always provide the most current and user-friendly technology to our users, and over the past few years our research and user feedback indicate that MSN Groups fell short of that goal. At the same time, we have been making huge investments in the Windows Live suite of services. In the long term, closing MSN Groups helps us move users to new group experiences that over time will give them more ways to stay in touch with the people they care about. In December we released a brand new service for groups on Windows Live, building it from the ground up to provide great value for our customers.

Since the new Windows Live Groups service was built on a new platform with a different mix of features, we weren’t able to retrofit it to use the data contained in MSN Groups. However, it is very important to us that you can keep the data you’ve created using MSN Groups and can continue to enjoy those experiences. So we have partnered with Multiply to provide you with a way to transfer all of your MSN Groups data and keep your groups going into the future on Multiply.

Why Multiply?

Multiply is an online group and media sharing service that PCWorld recently called one of the ten most underrated tech products. Multiply has worked diligently with us to understand all the ways our customers use MSN Groups, and has prepared its service to receive and host MSN Groups and their data. Multiply prepared a special opt-in migration method that puts group managers in control of moving a group to Multiply and inviting members to rejoin the group in its new location.

Why not allow current MSN Groups to migrate to Windows Live Groups?

Windows Live Groups was built on a new platform with a different mix of features from MSN Groups. The features in Windows Live Groups are optimized for smaller groups of up to 20 people, like clubs or families, whereas MSN Groups caters to a wide variety of group sizes and types, including large public groups. Because the two services differ in their intent and features, they were built using different technologies, and a direct migration from MSN Groups to Windows Live Groups wasn’t possible. Multiply offers a similar set of features to MSN Groups and therefore can more effectively receive all of the MSN Groups data at this time.

If you have a smaller group and would like to try out the new Windows Live Groups service, now is a great time to do so. You can’t transfer all of your MSN Groups data directly, but you can invite former members to start over again with a new group on Windows Live. Groups on Windows Live with fewer than 20 members can enjoy group chats using Windows Live Messenger. If your group has between 20 and 1000 members, you won’t be able to use group chat, but you can still create a group, and can take advantage of the group website, calendar, discussions, and other features of Windows Live Groups. You can find more info about Windows Live Groups here.

Where can I learn more?

If you have other questions, visit the MSN Groups Resource Center for the most up-to-date answers to common questions, information about migrating a group to Multiply, contact information for our support staff, and important dates.

Thanks for using MSN Groups. Whether you decide to move your group to Multiply or start over using Windows Live Groups, we wish you and your group all the best.

- Charlotte Jones, Group Product Manager

Check out the LiveUpload to Facebook plug-in for publishing from Windows Live Photo Gallery. It allows you to upload photos directly from Windows Live Photo Gallery to Facebook. It even preserves the people tags you added in Photo Gallery and matches them up with your Facebook friends.

Since we’ve made the Photo Gallery upload API public, allowing third-party developers to create upload tools for Photo Gallery, a number of plug-ins have been created, making publishing to your favorite photo-sharing sites really easy.

LiveUpload to Facebook allows you to match your
Windows Live people tags with Facebook friends

Are you a developer?

Start building your own plug-ins for Photo Gallery or Movie Maker (beta) using our SDK. Take a look at the resources we've provided at http://dev.live.com/photogallery.  

Got any great plug-in ideas? Have you already built a cool Photo Gallery or Movie Maker plug-in? Please tell the Photos team about it! 

- The Windows Live team

Technorati Tags: Windows Live,Photo,Photo Gallery,Facebook,LiveUpload,Live,Movie Maker,photos,upload

Windows Live Tags: story,clubhouse,Windows Live,Photo,Photo Gallery,Facebook,LiveUpload,Movie Maker,photos,upload

A new update for Windows Live Messenger and the other Windows Live Essentials programs is now available for free download here.

Over the next four weeks, whether you’re still running Messenger 2008 (versions 8.1 or 8.5), or you just installed Messenger 2009 in the last few months, you’ll see a prompt encouraging you to upgrade to the latest version of Messenger.

For those who have not yet tried Messenger 2009, this update brings you improved video and audio calls, a new way to see your favorite people at the top of the list, display pictures that can change with your mood, and a fast and easy new way to share photos, among other things. We think it’s the best version of Messenger yet, and we’re not the only ones. PC Magazine gave Messenger 2009 their Editor’s Choice Award!

We’ve also made a few smaller improvements to this release (Build 14.0.8064.0206), so even if you already installed the new Messenger 2009 as recently as January 2009, you should consider getting the update. The latest version includes a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements that you may not notice if you already have Messenger 2009, but that will help Messenger and the other Windows Live Essentials programs all run a little more smoothly.

If you see the above prompts and accept the upgrade, the installer will begin upgrading Messenger, and will give you the option to add other programs that are part of the Windows Live Essentials suite. Click each program to get more info before you decide which ones you want, but they’re all great additions to your Windows PC, and they’re all free. If you already have versions of any of these programs (Windows Live Mail, Photo Gallery, Family Safety, Writer, Movie Maker (beta), or Toolbar), they’ll be automatically upgraded to their latest versions along with Messenger, so that all the Essentials can work together properly.

Upgrade today, and let us know what you think, either here in comments, or through our feedback site at http://feedback.live.com.

All the best,

-  The Windows Live team

P.S. If you need help with Messenger sign-in or other errors, please visit http://messenger-support.spaces.live.com/. For help with webcam connectivity in Messenger, see this blog post: http://messenger-support.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8B3F39C76A8B853F!14323.entry

Angus Logan from the Live Services team posted recently about Safer Internet Day and how Microsoft has been working with outside web developers to get their sites working more safely with Windows Live, without compromising on ease of use. Windows Live has been focusing this effort in two areas:

1. Setting up a safer way to exchange address book information (only when a user requests it of course, like when you want to import your list of friends to another network), without allowing sites to use the unsafe practice of screen-scraping.
2. Working with other websites who use Windows Live ID, to create a safer, easier way to sign in to their sites while retaining the look and feel of the host website.

For details, see Angus’s post on Live Services: Making the Internet a Safer Place.

- The Windows Live team

Hi, everyone! Have you made your plans for Valentine’s Day? We recently conducted an online survey about how people show affection online, and the results are in. Online romance is alive and, well, flirting, this Valentine’s Day. In fact, a survey of more than 1,000 men and women found that online instant messaging services like Windows Live Messenger are among the leading ways people prefer to flirt, second only to in-person and outranking text (SMS) and e-mail.[1]  

So, if you still need to make your Valentine’s Day plans, consider using Messenger to set the stage for the evening. Send a flower (F), a heart (L), or even a hug (}) to help set the mood. Use the emoticon menu in your Messenger conversation window, or type one of the codes shown with each emoticon at left.

You can also blow a virtual kiss or send a wink to your Valentine with Messenger’s new dynamic display pictures. Just create several webcam snapshots to use as your display picture, with a different picture for each mood. Your display pic will change to match your mood whenever you type “:)” or “;)” or “(k)” (see below). Fun, right? Learn more about dynamic display pictures from this blog post on the Messenger team blog.

Here are some of our Valentine’s survey findings…

• Men use IM more often than women when they have some kissing up to do.
• Men are also more likely than women to use IM to pursue a secret relationship, or to test the waters to see if someone is interested in them.
• The main reason people prefer to flirt online is because it allows them time to come up with witty, romantic responses.
• Flirting via IM is not just for teenagers! 11% of 55 to 64 year-olds and 5% of 65 and older have used IM to ask someone out on a date.

The survey also found the following to be some of the WORST pick-up lines people have received via instant message:

• “Are you tired? Because you have been running through my mind all day."
• "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"
• "Do you have a Band-Aid? Because I scraped my knee when I fell for you."
• "Hey baby, if I could change the alphabet I'd put ‘u’ and ‘I’ together."

Happy Valentine’s Day!

- Dharmesh,
  Windows Live team

[1] The survey was conducted online with a random sample of 1021 men and women aged 18+ who use instant messaging-- all members of the Impulse Research proprietary online panel, which was carefully selected to closely match US population demographics and whose respondents are representative of American men and women 18 and over. Research was conducted January 28 - February 2, 2009. The overall sampling error rate for this survey is +/-3% at the 95% level of confidence.

Not all users have been affected, but it appears that some of you are temporarily being redirected to msn.com when you click one of the Help links on Windows Live. We just wanted to let you know that we are working on this issue, and that we expect to have Help working properly again for everybody within 24 hours. In the meantime, if you are seeing this problem, keep in mind that you can still get help with any Hotmail questions at the Hotmail Online Solutions Center, and with all other Windows Live products by filling out the e-mail form at https://support.live.com/default.aspx.

Thanks for your patience!

Antonia
The Windows Live team

UPDATE: This issue was resolved, and help for all Windows Live products is available at http://help.live.com/.

Howdy, I’m Ian Tien, part of the Windows Live product management team here in sunny Redmond, Washington, USA.

Ever have trouble getting files from one computer to another?

You’re at school and you forgot a document at home. You’re at home and you forgot a spreadsheet at work. You’re in Beijing, China and left your photo library in Redmond, USA but your mother-in-law wants to see pictures of your new house tonight…

We waste a lot of time schlepping stuff from one computer to another, whether it’s copying and pasting files to a USB drive, or burning a CD or a DVD, or e-mailing files to yourself so you can get them later—these are hassles!

Imagine a world… where your files and folders are available across all your computers all the time—and the changes you make on one computer magically appear on all the rest.

SHA-ZAM!

That world is here with Windows Live Sync! Now you can keep updated copies of your files across your computers, so no more worrying about “having the latest version.”

Here’s an example:

I’m in Beijing right now, keeping it real with my home boys at Microsoft Research Asia. Here’s the laptop from which I’m blogging today:

My work laptop

Tonight, my wife’s parents are having us over for dinner and I’ve learned my mother-in-law wants to see what our new house looks like.

In addition to my fascinating family dynamics, this is an interesting scenario for two reasons. First is the fact that I originally downloaded photos of my new house onto my home computer, not my work PC in Beijing.

My home computer with all the pictures on it

Second is the fact that my home computer is a Mac (Sure, I work for Microsoft, but back in 2005 I was so taken by the iLife ‘05 sales pitch I dropped $2K on an 12" iBook G4. Little did I know my infatuation with GarageBand would wane after 30 minutes of actual use…).

At any rate, I’ve now got oodles of files on my Mac—including the photos I needed for tonight—so what’s a resourceful son-in-law to do?

Nothing.

You see, I installed Windows Live Sync on both my Mac and my PC, so the photos I add to one computer are available on both.

Add, edit or delete anything from one computer…

SHAZAM!

…those changes appear on the other (note: if you delete a file from one computer, the file appears in the Recycle Bin of all computers that had copies of that file).

Okay, but what if one of my computers doesn’t have enough disk space for all those files?

DOUBLE SHAZAM!!

You can choose which folders you keep copies of—hence controlling any extra disk space usage.

Here’s the screen where you can choose which folders to keep updated:

But… what if I need a file that wasn’t in the folders I selected?

TRIPLE SHAZAM!!!

You can set up your computer to allow remote access to any of its files from any browser on the Internet, and your files are protected by the same sign-in you use for Hotmail—so no need to remember extra passwords.

Your desktop, your documents, your favorites, your music, your pictures, your videos, all that stuff on your hard drive—yes, yes, yes, it’s available:

Cool!

(Note: By default this feature is not enabled. You can turn it on by opening Sync from the Start menu, clicking More, clicking Settings, and then selecting Allow remote access to this computer.)

Now… what I really want is a way to share files and folders with other people, not just myself.

Ahem, I have friends… they’re, like, important people and stuff…

QUADRUPLE TURBO DYNAMO GALACTIC SHAZAM!!!!

You can share folders with friends! You can even decide which friends can copy files and which can also edit and add files—you stay in control. Here’s an example of the screen where you set permissions:

The service even helps you send invitations to invite your friends to check out the folder you’re sharing.

What about limits?

Well, you can share up to 20 folders. Each folder can share up to 20,000 files… Each file can be up to 4 GB in size. You could theoretically share 1,600,000 GB in total!

How big is that? Imagine Xbox 360 Elites stacked 0.7 miles high.

If you regularly use more than one computer, you really need this software. And lucky you, you can get it here for free. You also might be interested in this blog post about how Windows Live Sync works with Windows Live Photo Gallery to keep all of your photo collections in sync.

Isn’t this stuff awesome?

In the history of the world, it’s never been easier to get the files you need from anywhere in the world.

Mother-in-laws of the world rejoice!

- Ian Tien

Windows Live team

-----

PS: Many thanks for everyone’s comments on my last post. It’s been great seeing people discover new aspects of Windows Live—and helping people find the features they’re looking for. If you have functional questions about Windows Live Sync (which used to be called Windows Live FolderShare), please also visit the Sync team blog or the Sync newsgroup.

It’s finally happening! The Hotmail and People pages are getting the latest new features, rolling out to users worldwide over the next couple of weeks. Read all about it in this Hotmail blog post.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect to see:

• More storage in Hotmail. Start with 5 GB, and watch your storage grow, as you need it.
• More themes in Hotmail (including some that change based on time of day or weather)
• The top banner ad moved to the side. (You’ve been waiting for that, haven’t you?)
• Quickly add maps, directions, movie times and more to e-mail messages. It makes planning a night out so much easier. (UK and US-only, for the moment)
• See “what’s new” updates from people in your network on Hotmail’s Today page.
• Get Hotmail on your mobile phone’s e-mail program. POP3 access is becoming available to Hotmail users in the US and Brazil, in addition to the countries we told you about earlier. For more about this feature, see our earlier blog post.
• Create e-mail signatures in HTML. Get as fancy as you want to be.
• The People page has been re-organized. Read more about changes to the People page in our blog post about managing contacts.

For more details and some pictures of what the update will look like, see the blog post from the Hotmail team.

Please continue to send us feedback about Hotmail—we’re always looking for good suggestions for how to make Hotmail even better. Please visit the new Hotmail Online Solutions Center to get answers to your Hotmail questions, fast.

Note: If you haven’t seen any changes yet, they’ll be rolling out gradually, so you should see them in the next week or two.

Thanks for using Windows Live Hotmail!

Sincerely,

The Windows Live team

Hi, I’m Jamie Cannon, a Product Manager on the Windows Live team. Part of my job is to help keep our customers safer & more secure from threats on the Internet. I want to share a quick update on why this is important and what we’re doing in this area.

Something remarkable happened this past December. The Internet quietly passed the 1 billion monthly user mark. This means that one billion people from around the globe are now regularly connecting to a growing online community. Sending e-mail, downloading music, instant messaging, and sharing photos is more common than ever. This is a watershed moment.

This type of growth is exciting for everyone. It creates opportunities and builds bridges across geographies and languages. At the same time, these new opportunities provide those with malicious intent new ways to take advantage of Internet users. There are viruses and malware programs, phishing scams, spam, and increasingly unsolicited IM or SPIM.

At Windows Live, we aspire to arm you with the same level of privacy, safety, and security that you expect when you’re not on the web. Our goal is to ensure that your experience on the Internet, and on Windows Live, is safe and secure and that your privacy is protected.

Windows Live aims to protect you in these ways:

• Blocking instant messaging spam and inappropriate communications in Windows Live Messenger and providing a means for you to report abuse.
• Filtering incoming e-mail messages in Windows Live Hotmail for spam/junk.
• Scanning attachments you receive, download, and send in Hotmail.
• Scanning comments on Windows Live Spaces for spam.
• Monitoring shared photos for abuse and inappropriate imagery.
• Providing abuse@hotmail.com for issues you want to report directly to our Direct Mail Abuse team.

Most of these investments are part of a continuous improvement process. In other words, we monitor the Windows Live servers to help ensure that malicious programs don’t make their way to you. In the event that we confirm activity as unlawful or malicious, we block the offenders and work with local law enforcement on appropriate actions. This ongoing work is rarely seen by users and it’s our intention to keep it that way.

Another part of achieving our goals on safety and security is customer participation. We need you to report abuse and malicious activity as part of the solution. If you come across abuse or inappropriate imagery, harassment, nudity, spam/SPIM, or a virus, please notify us at https://support.live.com or at one of the direct links provided below.

Reporting abuse in Windows Live Messenger 

Remember: Always block unwanted or inappropriate communications and report malicious activity and/or content that violates the Windows Live Terms of Use.

You’ll find a link to “Report abuse” at the bottom of most Windows Live webpages, and on the Actions or Help menu in Messenger. In Hotmail, there are buttons to instantly mark any message as Junk or Phishing.

In addition, here are direct links to report abuse for each of these Windows Live services:

• Messenger: Report abuse
• Hotmail: Report abuse 
• Spaces: Report abuse
• SkyDrive: Report abuse
• Calendar: Report abuse
• Events: Report abuse
• Groups: Report abuse
• People: Report abuse
• Profile: Report abuse

We’re excited about 1 billion monthly users on the Internet. We’re even more excited for the next billion, and the billion after that. Together, we can help ensure that the experience for these billions of users on the Internet, and on Windows Live, is safe and secure, and that your information is only shared with the people you want it shared with.

- Jamie

Hey everyone,

Today we're making a change to Spaces that is a direct result of the feedback you gave us here on the Windows Live team blog, on the Space Craft blog, and via the feedback form. We heard that earlier changes we’d made to the Spaces header actually caused you confusion and made it more difficult to navigate to other Windows Live services after viewing someone’s personal space.

As a result, we’re beginning to update Spaces today to add the standard Windows Live navigation links across the top, so you have a consistent way to navigate to and from all the Windows Live services.

Here’s the old header in Spaces:

And here’s the new one:

If you don’t see the new header yet, wait a day or so – we’ve got a lot of users to roll this out to, and it generally takes a little while to get updates out to everyone.

We hope that this change helps make it easier to stay in touch with your friends and family on Spaces and throughout Windows Live. So go ahead, check out your space now!

As always, keep the feedback coming. We are listening.

- Chris

Hello all, Marcus here, from the Windows Live Community Clubhouse.

Are you passionate, or even just curious, about what more you can do with Windows Live? Would you like to know how others are using it? The Windows Live Community Clubhouse might just be the place for you.

With all the new capabilities of the latest Windows Live release, our Clubhouse is buzzing with activity. In the Clubhouse, you can share your tips and learn new things from real experts, both inside and outside Microsoft. You can learn from other community members and share your own how-to’s and stories about using Windows Live. You’ll be surprised at what’s possible – not to mention how easy it all can be.

Clubhouse members review and rate each others’ blog posts, and the most highly rated contributions appear on Windows Live websites like this one (look under “Learn from people you know”), or in one of our newsletters. In fact, one of our members’ posts has already attracted tens of millions of views! People love reading great tips and interesting stories, and that’s what our community is all about.

See if the new Clubhouse works for you. Just check out http://www.windowslive.com/clubhouse/join to find out more. We look forward to seeing you in the Clubhouse!

Marcus Schmidt
Community Manager

http://marcusatmicrosoft.spaces.live.com