Sarah In Tampa

Customizing Vista's Search

Sarah Perez — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:49:00 GMT

Remember how I told you that you could add Wikipedia to your choices in Windows Vista's default search? Well, there are other ones you can add, too, like these:

Live Search: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=%+

IMDB: http://search.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%+

Dictionary Search: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=%+

Now what I need to know is how I can use all of them - the gpedit.msc section (see earlier instructions on this) only lets you pick one. I want them all! Any ideas?

A Notepad With Plugins

Sarah Perez — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:48:00 GMT

Despite all the advances in word processing tools, sometimes, a simple Notepad will do - especially if you use it for coding. However, if Notepad turns out to not be enough tool, you can always upgrade to Notepad++. I just learned something even cooler about this software from gHacks: Notepad++ has plugins! Martin recommends these: XML Tools, Hex Editor, Compare Plugin, FTP Synchronize, Multi Clipboard, and the Windows Manager, but there are 26 more to choose from on the plugin page.

The HTC Touch Diamond

Sarah Perez — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:01:00 GMT

A very elegant, innovative touchscreen phone just launched, the HTC Touch Diamond. With the Diamond, you can check your email, view photos, and listen to music - all through touch. The phone features a 2.8-inch touchscreen, a TouchFlo 3D graphics processor, 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera, HSDPA internet, 4 GB of internal storage, and an integrated GPS. This is also the first device to offer Windows Mobile 6.1. No word on pricing yet, though. Want to see more? Geek Sugar has the teaser video up and Jason Langridge is linking to YouTube coverage of the launch.

MSN Environment Launched

Sarah Perez — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:59:00 GMT

For eco-warriors and environmentalists, there's a new channel on MSN that will be of interest: MSN Environment. On this site, you can read news and blogs, watch videos, get eco-friendly tips, plus get access to tools like a carbon calculator and a water usage meter. The site is only on MSN UK (for the U.S., we have MSN Green instead), but there are certainly features on the site that will appeal to everyone interested in these issues.

If you want to follow various sections of MSN Environment, there are several RSS feeds to choose from, including:

Environment Blog: Matthew Yeomans is the co-founder of Custom Communication an online media consultancy that provides environmental reporting. He reports for MSN on The Climate Report blog.
Environment Features: All the feature stories from MSN Environment Editor including analysis.
Environment Photos: All the photo stories from MSN Environment Editor including analysis.
Environment News: Updated throughout the day with breaking and feature news stories
Environment Videos: Stand alone features from VideoJug
Green Living : Reports on Green Living

(via vnunet)

Office Labs is Live

Sarah Perez — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:58:00 GMT

A new web site called Office Labs has just gone live. Here, you will find all sorts of projects, prototypes, proof-of-concepts, downloads, and more, all of which are centered around productivity. The site features tools for the Microsoft Office system and SharePoint, too. To get the launch started with a bang, Office Labs is already offering a bunch of cool projects you'll want to check out, including the following:

Community Clips - Community Clips is a place where you can find "how to" videos made by other users like yourself; you can also easily create your own.
Search Commands - This is quite possibly the hottest of the current Office Labs offerings, considering how strong user demand was for just this sort of tool. Search Commands is an experiment designed to see if search is an effective way for you to find commands in complex software applications. You can download the Search Commands add-in into your Microsoft Office 2007 installation and begin using it today to help you find the command you need.
InkSeine - A tool for Tablet PC users, InkSeine offers an innovative new interface for pen input
Task Market - This is an online marketplace that can help you find freelancers skilled in graphic design, writing, editing, translation, and more.
SharePointPedia - SharePointPedia is social community application that can help you find useful info about SharePoint technologies, tools, tips and tricks.

To stay up-to-date on all the latest news from Office Labs, you can follow the new Office Labs blog, available here.

Live Mesh Screencasts & Videos

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:28:00 GMT

Steve Clayton just found some great links for those interested in Live Mesh - screencasts! Available from the "Learn More" section of the Mesh homepage, these screencasts show you how certain aspects of Live Mesh work:

In addition to screencasts, you can also find videos on Channels 9 and here on 10 about Mesh:

Live.com - Your FriendFeed Search Engine

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Being somewhat of a FriendFeed addict myself, this story on SEO and Tech Daily caught my eye: "Live.com Heavily Indexing FriendFeed." If you haven't already heard about FriendFeed (where have you been?), it's the hot new lifestreaming aggregation service that lets you keep tabs on all of your friends' activities on the social web. In one continuous stream of information, you can see when they post to their post, share a video on YouTube, add a picture to flickr, Digg a story, and much more from an ever-growing list of services. What's great about FriendFeed is that all your friends don't have to be on the service for you to enjoy using it - you have the ability to create "imaginary" friends if you know your friend's username on the service(s) you want to follow.

So, back to the blog post. What blogger Charlie Anzman noticed was that an ego-search (when you search for yourself on a search engine) on Live.com returned FriendFeed results for both the #1 and #2 spots. No one else seems to be doing that yet. I think this is great since finding someone on FriendFeed will quickly get you to their social network profiles where you can find out more about them. Of course, if that person if well known enough to have a Wikipedia page or something more official, those results would get ranked higher, but FriendFeed still has a strong showing.

It looks like I'll be people searching on Live.com from now on!

Get a Deep Zoom App in Less Than 5 Minutes

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:58:00 GMT

We told you about PhotoZoom, the easy-to-use app that turns your PhotoZoom into a deep zoom collage and their Facebook application, but what if you want to build something a little fancier? For that, you'll need to download a copy of the the Deep Zoom Composer (and Silverlight, of course). Then, thanks to this excellent B.E.T.A. Daily blog post, you can have Silverlight app built in less than five minutes. Here are the steps:

Click on “New Project” and give a name to your project. I have given the name as “Hide and Seek”
Click on “Add Image” in the “Import” section of Composer and the add the desired images for your project.
Go to “Compose” section and drag and drop the first image, that you want to choose as the background image, in the compose area. Select “Fit To Screen” in the “View” menu from the top menu bar.
Drag and drop other images on the background image and shrink them till the time you start seeing a pointer instead of the image. See the areas marked in red boxes in the image below for example.
Go to “Export” section, give a name, choose the export destination, select “Export as Composition” and “Export Images and Silverlight Project” and click “Export” to download the application that you built.

For more information, visit their blog for more details on this process. You can also check out the app they built using Deep Zoom here.

Get Multiple Desktops With Dexpot

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:55:00 GMT

Dexpot is desktop manager software that lets you easily manage multiple desktops. One of its best features is that it offers different ways to switch between screens - which is arguably the most important feature in a multiple desktop program. In Dexpot, you can use keyboard shortcuts (my fav) or you can click on the Desktop Manager interface, which hovers above the Windows Taskbar. With the program, each desktop can be customized with its own settings, files can be quickly moved from window to window, you can preview other desktops, and a lot more. Best of all, the program is available for free for personal use - you can download it from here. (via MakeUseOf)

How to Put Games On Your Zune!

Larry Larsen — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:09:00 GMT

Can't wait to play games on your Zune? Here's what you need to get started. Jump over to ZuneBoards.com and see instructions from a forum member who gives you the step by step guidelines to get started.

They point to two games to get you started, Galactic Wars 3 and Alien Aggressors (if you know of any others, leave them in the comments here.) The first reply in the comments on the ZuneBoards site says "More complicated than I hoped." Keep in mind you're in the land of early adopting here. :)

Wikipedia / Virtual Earth Mashup

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:48:00 GMT

Now this is a cool mashup and its built right into Virtual Earth! In Wikipedia, you may have noticed that some articles have coordinates in the upper-right hand side of the page that locate that place on a map. (See this example). Clicking on the coordinates from the Wikipedia entry will take you to you a map. But if you want to go the other way - from a map to Wikipedia - then you've got to check out what the Virtual Earth team has done. They've been indexing all these links in their Spatial Search and Explore indexes so you can surf the maps with Wikipedia displaying in the sidebar. If you want to try it out for yourself, turn on Live Map's Explore feature and then select the Wikipedia Tag, or just click this link to see it in action now.

Live Search Gets a Facelift

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:47:00 GMT

The Live Search page got a new UI. I actually first heard the news from a quick post over at the Windows Live Chronicles blog, so I went to check it out. I think it's rather pretty myself. What do you think?

There's a post on the official blog of the Live Search team about the redesign. Apparently, the homepage wasn't the only thing that received a makeover. In fact, quite a few changes have been made recently, including:

Search box near results - the header is slimmer putting the search box closer to the results page
Room to breathe on the page - the page is centered, on a fixed-width page, which is great for widescreen users
Crisp, clean type - In addition to new colors, the team decided to use Arial improves readability
Intuitive video search - video search is simpler, streamlined
Health results integrated from many sources - in health search health information comes in from many different sources and is available all from one place

Microsoft has a growing design community that cares about figuring these things out. We even have some nice articles that will interest designers.

Mother's Day Photo Contest: Portraits of Mom

Sarah Perez — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:17:00 GMT

For this year's Mother's Day, the Windows Live Team is sponsoring a photo contest called "Portraits of Mom," where you submit a photo of mom from your Windows Live Space and get your friends and family to vote for it. During the contest's run, there are daily prizes, weekly prizes, and grand prizes that will be given out which include things like a Canon PIXMA mini 320 Photo Printer, a Canon PowerShot SD1100 Camera, a Canon PIXMA MP610 All-in-One, a Canon VIXIA HV30 Camcorder, and a perfect-for-mom, pink Sony VAIO TZ Series notebook. For more info on this contest, see the contest rules.

More on Mesh: Running the Cloud

Sarah Perez — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:14:00 GMT

Now that I'm learning more about Mesh, I'm surprised at what a big undertaking it is. For example, this recent post on the Live Mesh blog talks about how they run the cloud services, which offers some interesting insights into how Mesh's "services" part of their "Software + Services" works.

In Mesh, writes Alex Mallet, a dev lead on the Live Mesh team, cloud services can be grouped into four areas:

Feed & Data Sync
Authentication & Authorization
Maintaining & Fanning out the Transient State
Connectivity Services for Sync and Remote Desktop Access

Mesh's front-end services are accessible only via HTTPS. Back-end services use HTTPS and custom protocols layered on TCP. Most services are written in C# and all services sit on top of a common runtime library.

What's really interesting though (and funny!) is when Mallet describes building the full-scale datacenter deployment and management system: he says they "chose the lazy smart route" to do so. The Mesh team used the the Autopilot framework, which is currently used by the Windows Live Search team to manage tens of thousands of datacenter machines. Mesh isn't there yet, but hopes to be!

If learning more about the services part of Mesh is the sort of thing that interests you, go ask your question in the comments section of his post.

How To Build Games With the Popfly Game Creator

Sarah Perez — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:13:00 GMT

By now, you've heard about the Popfly Game Creator and you're ready to get started building your first game. Great! But what do you do? Well luckily, there is the Popfly Wiki to help you out. On this web site, you can find helpful info and documentation about Popfly, including how to use the Game Creator tools. However, if you're a more visual learner, there are also several video tutorials available that walk you through making games using the Popfly Game Creator. These include the following videos:

Let us know about your game!

i'm Making a Difference - Now in Your Email, Too!

Sarah Perez — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:12:00 GMT

You've heard about the i'm initiative before - it's the charitable movement that allows you to donate to your favorite causes just by using IM. Now, you can participate in both Windows Live Messenger or Hotmail or both. You can choose to support the same organization in both places or pick a different one for each service. To get started, go to http://im.live.com to join. This program is currently available only in the U.S. and benefits organizations like the American Red Cross, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the National AIDS Fund, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, ninemillion.org, Sierra Club, StopGlobalWarming.org, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, The Humane Society of the United States and the U.S Fund for UNICEF. (via LiveSide)

Office 2007 "Legacy" Mode

Sarah Perez — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:40:00 GMT

No, it's not really a secret setting. It's an add-in for Office 2007 that will finally give IT admins relief from that one user who resists change in all possible forms. The one that reminds you every day that how they had everything the way they liked it in Office 2003 and why did you have to go and change it on them? Who cares that Office 2007 offers awesome new features, they want it to be exactly the same. Had enough? Just download the Ribbon Customizer, an Office add-in that is available in a free starter edition or a paid Professional Edition. Using the tool's built in "Classic UI Tabs" you can turn back time and make Office 2007's ribbon turn into Office 2003's classic look.

However, it would be wrong if I didn't mention that Ribbon Customizer can do a lot more than just enabling a legacy mode of sorts - the tool can also be used for redesigning the Office 2007 ribbon UI in any way you see fit. You can add, remove, and edit tabs, reorder them, create groups, move commands around, make customized tabs you can turn on and off, and much more. The Ribbon Customizer is available here if you want to download and try it for yourself.

(via Aaron Tiensivu)

New for Photogs: Pro Photo Tools V1

Sarah Perez — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:58:00 GMT

Just recently, a new tool for photographers was released which helps you better manage your digital photos. The tool is called Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1 and this free application lets you geotag your photos as well as edit the photo's metadata - even in RAW format. The geotagging feature lets you organize your photos by location taken - info that can come from a GPS device or Live Search Maps. You can see some some screenshots of how this geotagging process works on the Windows Experience blog.

In addition to the Pro Photo Tools download, Microsoft also released Expression Media 2, a new version of its digital asset management software, which is designed to work with the Pro Tools software. Expression Media 2 helps save time when it comes to managing and organizing large collections of photos and other digital media, and it includes geotagging functionality built-in. Expression Media 2 also lets you quickly export of photos into multiple formats to produce slide shows, video, and interactive Microsoft Silverlight-powered web galleries.

“Geotagging is a hot new area in digital photography, and like other popular digital photo features, I expect photographers will be asking themselves how they ever lived without it,” said Ron Glaz, analyst at IDC. “Until now geotagging has been hard to do, requiring special expertise and tools. The time has come for an application that even the weekend photographer can use."

Well now with Pro Photo Tools V1, even the weekend photographer can do geotagging!

Windows Live Messenger on Facebook

Sarah Perez — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:42:00 GMT

If you're always using your Windows Live Messenger for IM'ing with friends, then you're going love this news! The Windows Live team has just announced the introduction of a new Facebook app that lets your friends chat with you via Windows Live Messenger right from your Facebook profile page. When your friends visit your profile page, they can start an IM conversation just by clicking on the chat window. Then, their IM messages will come directly to your messenger client running on your computer. And, don't worry, your chats are private - others visiting your profile won't be able to see what you're saying or view message history. The new app also lets you add the owner of the Facebook profile to your contact list in WLM directly from the app itself. To add this to your Facebook profile, click here.

Find Cheaper Gas on MSN

Sarah Perez — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:38:00 GMT

The price of gasoline just seems to be going up and up and up, but there are online tools to help you find the lowest prices in your area. One of these tools is available right from MSN Auto. On the gas prices page, MSN Auto displays the prices for gas in your zip code by using data that is updated daily via the Oil Pricing Information Service (OPIS). More than 90,000 stations across the country are covered so you can find the best prices. (via Click)

Windows Speech Recognition Macros Tool Beta

Sarah Perez — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:22:00 GMT

The Microsoft Speech team just announced the introduction of a new Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool (WSRMacros) which lets you create macros that are triggered by spoken commands. Macros can record a series of actions on your computer, which can be as simple as entering in your mailing address, or as complex as to allow you to interact with various applications via speech.

The tool is currently in "pre-beta" (hey, isn't that alpha?), and they want to hear your feedback about it at release notes and you can follow all the news from the team on their blog.

Who wants to bet that someone is recording a macro right now that involves them saying "Computer, Show Map On Screen," or "Computer, Tea, Earl Grey. Hot." ...Oh right, that's me.

April's Virtual Earth Updates

Sarah Perez — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:21:00 GMT

The Virtual Earth team had a busy April, adding 22 TB of data throughout the month to bring us even more Bird's Eye and aerial imagery to Virtual Earth/Live Search Maps. The update included new images in both formats for certain areas worldwide, and Bird's Eye images added for major cities in Canada (Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Victoria, Edmonton, Vancouver), Australia (Gold Coast, Sydney, Hobart, Wollongong), and parts of Europe (UK, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Greece). However, my favorite new images from this update are the Bird's Eye images of the Sydney Opera House. By using the rotate buttons in VE, I could see the Opera House from angles that you usually never see in photos of the iconic landmark.

I'm constantly impressed by VE's imagery - even my house (which is outside of Tampa in Pasco County, Florida - an area that doesn't often get updated), shows up in both aerial and Bird's Eye view with recent images (I can tell because of our brand-new landscaping in the yard), while other mapping services still show outdated images of my neighborhood. Check to see if your house has a Bird's Eye view of it yet - you'll be impressed! (via LiveSide)

Smart Touch UI for Windows Mobile

Sarah Perez — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:19:00 GMT

The mobile interface called Smart Touch UI, designed to run on Gigabyte's GSmart Windows Mobile phones, is an innovative UI that lets you interact with your phone by pressing buttons on your phone's LCD screen as well as sliding your finger across the screen to interact with various features, like the analog/digital clock. The interface proved to be popular enough for an unofficial version to appear on the net, in the form of the "Gmart Today Plugin," a download from the site Freeware for Pocket PC. According to the download page, the plugin runs on both Windows Mobile 5 & 6. Once installed, you can flip between the GSmart interface and the default Windows Mobile interface by pressing the "Today" icon. (via Download Squad)

ShareMaster Gadget for WHS

Sarah Perez — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:45:00 GMT

The Home Server Hacks blog has just announced a new Windows Vista Sidebar gadget just for Windows Home Server users. This gadget, called "ShareMaster for Home Server," gives you quick access to the Windows Home Server's standard shared folders (Music, Photos, Public, Software, Users and Videos). The gadget has six icons on it that correspond to those six shared folders on the server. Clicking an icon on the gadget will open up that network shared folder. What's even cooler, though, is that you can drag and drop files onto the icons themselves to automatically move them from your PC to your Home Server. That's handy! This is definitely a must-have tool for any Windows Home Server owners. You can download the gadget from here. (image via Home Server Hacks)

Favorite Sidebar Gadgets

Sarah Perez — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:31:00 GMT

Ed Bott put up a post about his favorite Vista sidebar gadgets the other day, which I thought was worth sharing. His favs included the clock and the notes gadget (both standard gadgets), as well as iWeather, a tweaked version of the standard weather gadget, Remote Desktop Gadget 2.0, App Launcher v3, a customizable collection of icons to launch favorite programs, and the Windows Search Indexer Gadget, which we covered here. He asked what others favorites are, so I'm going to revisit this topic and respond with some of the gadgets I'm running now:

Of course, I love the Channel 10 gadget, but did you know there are gadgets for Channel 9, Mix Online, and TechNet Edge, too? As a blogger, I also love the Feedburner Readers gadget, so I can obsessively check my subscriber numbers, and since I collect Coke Rewards point, I was happy to find a gadget just for that. I've also added the System Control gadget, which is definitely one of the better shutdown gadgets out there, offering you the ability to do more than just the normal Shutdown, Restart, Lock, and Sleep / Hibernate. It also lets you Switch User, Log Off, Run Task Manager, open the Run Window, and run the Command Prompt.

We've covered a lot of cool gadgets in the past, if you're looking for more cool ones to try. Laura even posted a video about our favs back in December. If you love gadgets, you can also stay updated on the latest arrivals by subscribing to the Windows Live Gallery feed. (img via frankarr)