LiveSide - News blog : Channel 9

Live ID with CardSpace support announced as in beta

Chris — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:45:00 GMT

Yes the Information Card support in Live ID v5 we've been raving about has now been announced. To recap, CardSpace, and the Information Cards it manages, allows you to log into a website without entering your password, reducing the risk of both phishing attacks and keyloggers. Angus Logan gives a great walkthrough showing how to enable this Information Card support (I count 16 screenshots!) and includes a Channel9 video not yet posted on the main site.

Another key way to reduce phishing scams is by using certificates to verify the identity of websites, which as Bink spotted is why login.live.com now shows a green address bar for IE7 users (Firefox gives me a yellow address bar?). Unfortunately this only appears when using the Enhanced Signin option (https), though with all the wifi sniffing demoes going on in recent months this is something you should consider setting as default.

For those noticing the increase in Windows Live content coming out of Microsoft, Catherine Heller is the person responsible for organising all these Channel9 and On10 videos. On the topic of Live ID, there is a recent one that discusses the Web Authentication SDK. If you want to subscribe to all the Windows Live videos, here's the Channel9 feed and On10 also.

To wrap it all up, for those with multiple Live IDs who want to link them together, the response seems to be "Stay tuned :)" - that smiley face is Catherine's, not mine ;-)

Financial Analyst Meeting 2007: Windows Live Suite, Live ID, and Cloud Infrastructure

Harrison Hoffman — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:16:00 GMT

As you may or may not know, Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting wrapped up a few days ago. There were a few important points for Windows Live that were talked about, so let's jump right into that.

Windows Live Suite
Kevin Johnson, President of Microsoft's Services and Platforms Division announced that they will be releasing a Windows Live Suite. Basically, the Windows Live Suite is a collection of services and applications that are bundled together in one single download. For example, you may download the Suite and have the option to install all or just a few of the Windows Live applications like Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, and Writer. If this sounds familiar, that's because Google did that about a year and a half ago with Google Pack. The concept here though is that it will be an essential download for anyone who is setting up their new computer since a couple of the applications offer upgrades to existing Vista applications.

Windows Live Cloud Infrastructure
Also, last week Mary Jo Foley reported that Steve Ballmer has coined a new buzzword: Windows Live Cloud Infrastructure. Windows Live Cloud Infrastructure is essentially going to be the backend to Windows Live Core. So now that they are starting to talk about these things, maybe some more details will begin to emerge about the ever mysterious Windows Live Core.

Among the other things that were talked about was Live ID. They made a point to stress the importance of Live ID in the scheme of Windows Live, part of which is that Live ID allows for more targeted ads.

If you want some more information on the Financial Analyst Meeting, be sure to check out David Hunter's wrap-up.

Windows Live Platform discussion on Channel 9

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:44:00 GMT

Catherine Heller, Windows Live Technical Evangelist, interviews Group Program Manager Koji Kato and Architect Danny Thorpe of the Windows Live Platform team on Channel 9. They discuss internet software, Windows Live "components", customization plans, support for multiple browsers, the Windows Live Contacts Control, and the Spaces Photo Control, along with much more. Check it out on Channel 9.

http://dev.live.com

Windows Live Contacts Control

Windows Live Spaces Photo Control