As you may have noted, LiveSide recently added the Windows Live Translator tool (tell us what you think). 

We actually use quite a list of Windows Live products at LiveSide, some we’ve been using for quite a while. So here’s our list, along with some notes on how the products are used, and some non Windows Live products we can’t seem to do without.

On the site:

• Windows Live ID:  We were among the first to implement Live ID authentication.  A few bugs to work out, but convenient.
• Windows Live Admin Center (was Custom Domains): all of our mail is handled through the Admin Center, and we’ve just added redirects to our Spaces site, now at http://spaces.liveside.net.  All of our Windows Live pages (our Spaces page, Hotmail, etc) are now co-branded with LiveSide.net.
• Windows Live Spaces: we maintain a site at Spaces, mainly at this point to allow you to add LiveSide as a friend on your Space.
• Live Search: Live Search powers our search box.
• Windows Live Alerts: Get alerts when we post.
• Windows Live Translator: We added a translation tool to our website, you can add it to your site or blog.

Some more we’re toying with:

• Messenger IM Control: easy technically to implement, a little harder to dedicate the time to chat – we’re thinking about this.
• Windows Live Events: Should we have a LiveSide birthday party? (2 years in January).
• Windows Live Calendar: Added a Calendar, but not much on it yet.

Managing LiveSide:

• Windows Live Mail: For managing multiple Hotmail accounts so we can keep track of your tips and feedback.
• Windows Live Writer: Using it to write this blog post.
• Live Search Maps collections: 200 of our closest friends are on LiveSide Stickers Around the World!

Other tools we find useful:

• Feedburner: manages our rss feed, provides statistical information on our rss readership.  Also manages rss ads, a nice bonus.
• Google Analytics: website traffic information – we’re still waiting for a Gatineau invitation.
• Community Server: We wish it was easier to maintain, and the featureset is overkill, but it has served us well.
• Federated Media ads: We don’t make much money running LiveSide, but we seem to be keeping up with the bills.
• Nick of NB Development: our CS guru, simply not possible for us to run on CS without some help, and Nick has been great.
• 1and1.com:  After tipping over a few times last year, we moved to 1and1, on Windows Server 2003 and a dedicated box, and haven’t had a problem since.