Entries tagged with windows live mesh - Channel 10

Mesh Your Bookmarks!

sarahintampa — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:11:00 GMT

One of the most useful things you can do with Live Mesh, beyond just syncing files and folders, is syncing your bookmarks. This is as simple as right-clicking on your Favorites folder and adding it to the Mesh. (Doug has more detailed instructions on this here). When you do this on all your machines, you’ll end up with a merged directory of all your Favorites so you can manage your bookmarks from in one location, no matter how many machines you have. How handy is that? You can even access them from any other computer that has internet access just by logging into your Live Desktop. And don’t forget that Live Mesh lets you invite others to share a folder, so, if you wanted to share your bookmarks, for example, with a team at work so everyone could contribute, you could that, too.

Live Mesh Expands To More Countries

sarahintampa — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:43:00 GMT

Today, the Live Mesh team announced the expansion of their service into other markets. Now the list of countries that will allow sign-up without a wait list for the Live Mesh Tech Preview includes Canada, India, and Ireland. This is in addition to USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, for whom Live Mesh has already been made available. The announcement was posted today to the Live Mesh blog, where they also pointed us to other Live Mesh resources, including these Channel 9 videos and the link to the Community Forums, which is where you can send in Live Mesh feedback.

Live Mesh For Mac Is Here

sarahintampa — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:57:00 GMT

Windows Live Mesh, the new S+S (software plus services) platform for data synchronization has received a lot of attention this month. First, it opened up its private beta to all of the U.S. (and others who were willing to edit their regional settings), next they released their mobile version, and then the rumors of the Mac version were revealed to be true when LiveSide discovered the Mac client. But today, Mac users don’t have to wait any longer to try Live Mesh - the Mac version has finally been officially released.

According to this page on Microsoft’s Live Mesh site, the Mac version is now ready for download. It reads that with the Live Mesh Mac extender, you can

Add your Mac to your Live Mesh - it will appear with your other devices on www.mesh.com and throughout the Live Mesh UI.

Synchronize files between your Mac, your other computers, and your Live Desktop.

Synchronize folder contents between your Mac and other folder members.

Easily access Live Mesh news, your Live Desktop, and manage your devices from the Live Mesh menu bar item.

Receive notifications through Live Mesh when updates are available and easily update the Live Mesh extender for Mac.

But, be warned, the Mac version is still under development, so there may be issues with it. Please use it at your own risk.

Now that you’ve been warned, go get it.

Live Mesh Updated

sarahintampa — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:34:00 GMT

The next big update for Live Mesh has arrived and with it several new features have been added thanks to popular demand. One of the biggest new features is the ability to sync Live Mesh folders peer-to-peer only, excluding your Live Desktop. This means you can sync files across your devices but bypass the Live Mesh cloud storage service where you’re currently limited to only 5 GB of storage space.

This is great news for me because I maxed out my Live Desktop long ago - now at least I’m no longer prevented from Mesh’ing up everything I want – I just won’t be able to access those additional files online from other computers that aren’t my own.

Additionally, the new version of Live Mesh lets you manage file conflicts on the Live Desktop and it adds new “News Events” for when you add or delete folders from Live Mesh. A few more bug fixes and performance improvements round out this release.

Now, I’m off to Mesh up (hmm, that sounds wrong…) every folder I have.

Live Mesh Goes Mobile

sarahintampa — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Yesterday, the Live Mesh team surprised everyone by m.mesh.com to your mesh, which can then be used to move your mobile content to – for example, images and videos you took with your mobile phone. There’s also a homepage link that can be used to create a Mobile Pictures folder for you. To see a bunch of screenshots of the mobilized version of Mesh, check out LiveSide, who broke the news (img courtesy of LiveSide)

It’s Official – Live Mesh Now Open to All of U.S.

sarahintampa — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:11:00 GMT

Before we even had an official announcement, LiveSide was reporting last night that folks were able to sign up for Windows Live Mesh if they were located in the U.S. This morning, they confirmed this to be the case. The official announcement was made in the Live Mesh Forum. It read:

Live Mesh is now openly available to anyone in the U.S.

The Live Mesh team is pleased to announce that anyone in the U.S. can now use Live Mesh just by signing in to www.mesh.com with a valid Windows Live ID. No sign up needed to participate!

International Customers

With Live Mesh open to anyone in the US, our international friends can join in the fun early as well - with one caveat: you must be willing to change your Windows operating system region and language setting to EN-US. Once you do this you will be able to immediately sign in to Live Mesh with a valid Windows Live ID. Please be aware that this may cause other applications that specifically require your native country region and language settings to encounter problems.

Feedback

Once you've begun using Live Mesh, we'd love to hear from you! We are working hard to create the best experience and appreciate any feedback you have. Please send us feedback using our online form. You can also submit (and view others') feedback and bugs here on the Microsoft Connect website.

Thank you,
The Live Mesh team

About Live Mesh

If you haven’t checked out Mesh yet, you should. This software+services data synchronization platform isn't built with proprietary code, but rather with open protocols like HTTP, RSS, REST, ATOM and JSON. Although Mesh's FeedSync is somewhat new, it is an XML protocol based on ATOM and RSS.

With Mesh running on your computers, you can simply right-click any folder and choose "Add to Mesh." By doing so, that folder and all the files it contains are synchronized with all of your other computers you've added to your personal Mesh. It also syncs those files to the Live Mesh Desktop, which is Mesh's "cloud" - an online web site you can access from any computer. At the moment, the online storage is limited to 5 GB, but that could change in the future. However, Mesh's recent update allows you to set folders to sync via peer-to-peer, bypassing Live Desktop. When folders are Mesh-enabled, a small panel appears to the right of the folder in explorer which catalogs any changes to the folder (file adds/moves/deletions) as well as notes and comments left by any of the folder's members.

Live Mesh also lets you access all your “meshified” computers remotely, so if you have software that is installed only on one PC, you can use Live Mesh to access that computer as interact with it as if you were sitting in front of it.

Although today’s release doesn’t include a Mac version, we know that it’s under development and should be available soon.

Live Mesh Screencasts & Videos

sarahintampa — 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:

Playing with Live Mesh: First Experiences

sarahintampa — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:17:00 GMT

Since I got invited to Live Mesh earlier this week, I've been playing around with the settings, adding devices, and sharing folders. It's pretty impressive how easy Mesh was to install and set up. I just downloaded and installed a small software app that runs in my system tray and then, on www.mesh.com, I added the computer I was using to Mesh.

On each PC, I picked a few folders (Documents, Downloads, and Pictures) and right-clicked on them, choosing "Add Folder to Your Live Mesh." It was that easy, I swear.

What's really cool about Mesh is that I could finally sync up my documents, photos, etc. from all my PCs to essentially merge together and become one, big, "meshed" folder. It didn't get all confused that I was syncing up a folder called Documents to another folder called Documents. It just knew what I wanted to do. After syncing, I was surprised at how much duplicate content I had, probably from having to move files to and from PCs the old fashioned way - email, USB drives, via the network, etc.

When conflicts arose, I had the option of viewing both files and choosing which one to keep. But what was really great is that the conflicts weren't displayed as annoying pop-up messages while in the middle of syncing, thank goodness - they were just items in a list that I could review at my leisure.

I'd like the option to keep both copies of some files, but, at the moment, you have to pick one to keep or just leave the conflict be. The only problem with this is that Windows Live Messenger chat logs for the same contact had the same name on different machines and I wanted to keep both logs. Other than that, I could rename documents and photos to resolve the duplicately named, but different, files, but I'm still hoping for a "keep both files" button in a future release.

When viewing a Mesh-enabled folder, a pop-up window appears next to the Windows Explorer window, showing the history of your interactions with the folder (Sarah added this, Sarah deleted that), conflicts, members, and synchronized devices.

Although Mesh is going to do much more than just this syncing in the future, for now, it's providing a great way to keep my files in sync as I move from computer to computer.

I also discovered that I could invite some friends to Mesh by sharing a folder with them, something that could be done from either a PC or my Live Mesh online desktop. If you have Live Mesh and haven't shared your invites, please do so! I know some people who are *dying* for them.

If you want to learn more about Mesh and its future, I found the article and interview by Steve Gillmor, speaking with Microsoft Mesh lead David Treadwell (who should really start blogging again) absolutely fascinating. Be warned though, this isn't the kind of article you should skim quickly. Save it for when you have some time to grab a cup of coffee, sit down, read, re-read, and really take it all in. It's worth it, I promise. If that sounds like something you would like to do in that alternative universe where you can actually sit down and read things, well then, just go get the podcast and listen to it on your commute instead.

Vídeo: Live Mesh

Galileu — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A Microsoft anunciou hoje o Technology Preview do Live Mesh, uma plataforma de Software + Serviços cuja finalidade é colocar você no centro de sua vida digital. O Live Mesh permite que você acesse e trabalhe com as informações, os programas, as pessoas e os dispositivos que são relevantes para você – tudo isso de uma forma transparente para que você sempre tenha acesso à sua vida digital. Technology Preview quer dizer que essa plataforma está restrita a um grupo de usuários nos Estados Unidos para testes. O beta ainda não foi anunciado, mas quando for eu avisarei aqui no on10.

Então, o que o Live Mesh permite nesse momento? Bom, ele serve para sincronizar seus arquivos entre PCs e o Web Desktop. Este último é uma área de trabalho, parecida ao Windows, que armazena até 5GB de dados para você e ainda faz uma sincronização automática entre os seus PCs e o espaço na Web. Dessa forma você sempre tem acesso aos arquivos mais importantes. Mesh é inglês para "rede", então pense no Live Mesh como uma rede centralizadora.

A visão do Live Mesh é que a plataforma permita uma conexão entre todos os seus dispositivos e suas informações e programas. Eventualmente, você poderá instalar o Live Mesh em seu celular, em seu Xbox 360, em porta retratos digitais, em impressoras, até em carros. Se você tiver umas músicas no seu Mesh, por exemplo, o seu Xbox ou seu celular poderá acessá-las ou tocá-las. Ao mesmo tempo, desenvolvedores poderão criar programas que rodam na Web ou em um dispositivo para permitir uma experiência conectada. Você poderá inclusive instalar programas remotamente em dispositivos através do Web Desktop.

Outro ponto importante sobre a visão do Live Mesh é o compartilhamento, que está completamente integrado no Mesh. Você poderá compartilhar o seu conteúdo com colegas para modificação ou simples acesso. Quando arquivos forem modificados, você terá informações a respeito na área que se chama "News" (notícias). Dessa forma você sempre estará por dentro do que está acontecendo naquele estudo dos amigos da escola ou projeto do trabalho. E todas as ações são sincronizadas automaticamente.

Para os amigos técnicos, o Mesh utiliza tecnologias como Atom Publishing Protocol, JSON, FeedSync, RSS, WBXML e POX. Em breve teremos APIs para anunciar. Por enquanto, recomendo assistirem os vídeos no nosso blog irmão Channel 9, onde você confere todos os detalhes e uma entrevista com o Ray Ozzie. O Ray Ozzie foi o grande visionário dessa plataforma e ele vem trabalhando a muito tempo com tecnologias de sincronização, padrões abertos e interoperabilidade.

Para os estudantes, há um vídeo no Channel 8 (outro blog irmão) falando do impacto dessa plataforma para vocês que estão aprendendo tecnologias e linguagens para desenvolvimento.

Por último, o Channel 10 americano também tem um vídeo falando sobre a experiência para o usuário que essa plataforma trará. Todos os vídeos estão em inglês.

Outros links que recomendo para mais detalhes:

Blog Oficial do Live Mesh:
http://www.mesh.com/blog

Blog do Amit Mital com o anúncio oficial:
http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2008/04/22/279.aspx

Blog do Angus Logan:
http://blogs.msdn.com/angus_logan/

Eu gravei um vídeo mostrando a experiência do Live Mesh como ela é hoje. Assistam via streaming no próprio site ou baixem em seu formato preferido para assistir depois.