LiveSide - News blog : LivedotCom

Personalized page moved to http://My.Live.com

Sunshine — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:24:00 GMT

Your personalized page has moved from Live.com, which is now Live Search Home page, to http://my.live.com

You can still reach your personalized page from live.com, just click Personalized page at bottom right.

The team wrote the following on their blog:

We have a new URL! You can now access your Live.com personalized page by signing in with your Windows Live ID at http://my.live.com.

Visit http://my.live.com today to view your personalized page and make our new URL your Homepage or add to your Favorites.

Updated Directory

While you are on your personalized page, check out the new Directory items under the Add Stuff link. We've reorganized and added new feeds from a wider variety of business, technology, and entertainment sources. In addition, new collections have been added to the Windows Live > Collections folder for Business, Technology, and US Politics.

...(read more)

More @live addresses available: India, Philippines, Spain

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:44:00 GMT

Posted on the Live Wire blog earlier today, news of some new additions to the @live.xx family. If you live in these areas, you can sign up for a country specific @live address now, by going to get.live.com/mail/overview

India: You can now get @live.in e-mail addresses, in addition to @hotmail.com addresses.
The Philippines: You can now get @live.com.ph e-mail addresses, in addition to @hotmail.com addresses.
Spain: You can now get @hotmail.es addresses, in addition to @hotmail.com addresses.

Register your @live.xx email now!

Chris — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 04:19:00 GMT

Microsoft just enabled the @live.xx signup! Go grab yours now! http://get.live.com/getlive/overview for the local domains (eg @live.co.uk) or use the following link for @live.com - @live.com signup.

So far the list of confirmed available aliases is:

Country	Domain
ARGENTINA	LIVE.COM.AR
AUSTRALIA	LIVE.COM.AU
AUSTRIA	LIVE.AT
BELGIUM	LIVE.BE
CANADA	LIVE.CA
CHILE	LIVE.CL
CHINA	LIVE.CN
DENMARK	LIVE.DK
FINLAND	WINDOWSLIVE.COM
FRANCE	LIVE.FR
GERMANY	LIVE.DE
HONG KONG	LIVE.HK
INDONESIA	WINDOWSLIVE.COM
IRELAND	LIVE.IE
ITALY	LIVE.IT
JAPAN	LIVE.JP
KOREA	LIVE.CO.KR
MALAYSIA	LIVE.COM.MY
MEXICO	LIVE.COM.MX
NETHERLANDS	LIVE.NL
NORWAY	LIVE.NO
PAKISTAN	LVE.COM.PK
PERU	LIVE.COM.PE
PORTUGAL	LIVE.COM.PT
RUSSIA	LIVE.RU
SINGAPORE	LIVE.COM.SG
SOUTH AFRICA	LIVE.CO.ZA
SWEDEN	LIVE.SE
SWITZERLAND	WINDOWSLIVE.COM
THAILAND	WINDOWSLIVE.COM
TURKEY	WINDOWSLIVE.COM
UK	LIVE.CO.UK
USA	LIVE.COM
VIETNAM	WINDOWSLIVE.COM

Signup is still somewhat buggy as it is being rolled out so just bear with it.

Regarding the transition from @hotmail.com to @live.com, a pretty straightforward process is given on the new Windows Live site at http://www.windowslive.com/freshstart. Although you can automatically migrate your Hotmail inbox using TrueSwitch, anything else tied to your Live ID such as your contacts, Space, Xbox Live Gamercard etc cannot be automatically moved across due to legal and privacy issues. You can manually move across your contacts by exporting and importing into Windows Live Messenger, but unfortunately that's it. There's some useful tips if you do want to migrate though.

Microsoft launches new Windows Live Home beta

Chris — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:26:00 GMT

Yet another bolt out the blue (maybe not), Microsoft just launched the new Windows Live Home beta portal. At the moment it offers only basic functionality, ie no integration, just access to all the Windows Live services. Funnily enough, it also links to the new Windows Live Suite, though the page isn't up yet. Oh dear.

(Click to enlarge screenshot)

Your existing Live.com personalised page is still available. Check out the new Windows Live Home at http://home.live.com/

@live address questions answered

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:18:00 GMT

Jacky Mok, another Product Manager for Windows Live in Toronto, has posted some information on the upcoming @live addresses, which he says will be available "in the fall", along with "a rich family of products" around the same time.

According to the blog entry on livechronicles.spaces.live.com, there will be no migration of address names from current hotmail addresses, so if you have liveside@hotmail.com, there's no guarantee you will get liveside@live.ca. It's on a first come, first served basis. Apparently country code addresses will only be available in countries outside the US (I'm assuming a bit here, as Jacky talks only about .ca, Canadian addresses), so that a Canadian will be able to get an @live.ca address, but not an @live.com one.

Some limited migration will be available, for contacts. Other information will stay with your current accounts:

"such as: Windows Live Spaces contents (photos, blogs, etc), your emails, subscription status (hotmail plus or premium), association with other products (Favourites, OneCare, etc)."

New @hotmail.com addresses will still be available, as they are now.

Mail gadget for Live.com is back

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 18 May 2007 13:46:02 GMT

After having to pull the gadget because of some security issues, the Live.com blog has just announced that it's back. The gadget adds a view of your Windows Live Hotmail account to a Live.com page. You must be using Windows Live Hotmail to use the gadget, it won't work with an old-style Hotmail account.

Add the Mail gadget to your Live.com home page

More on why the gadget was pulled in the first place.

The end of start.com

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 16 May 2007 07:27:00 GMT

Well this is kind of sad. Sanaz Ahari announced on the Start.com blog today that in one week (May 22, 2007), start.com will redirect to live.com, ending a most unique and fun project.

"This is a bittersweet moment as I reflect on what start.com accomplished from it's inception in February 2005, helping pioneer ajax homepages and gadgets on the web. We accomplished great things both in terms of technology as well as being an agile small team and connecting with our customers. A successful incubation project that evolved to live.com. Unfortunately it is now time for us to retire start.com as our incubation ground for live.com. Effective next Tuesday, 5/22/07, start.com will redirect to live.com. "

If you are still using start.com, head over to the blog post and get some instructions for what do do next.

Mix 07 Set to begin: what to expect

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:38:00 GMT

Mix 07, the Microsoft sponsored web developers conference in Las Vegas begins with registration tonight and the Ray Ozzie/Scott Guthrie keynote set for 9:30 PDT tomorrow (Monday April 30). So what to expect? Well lots of news and in depth coverage of a whole new set of APIs (application programming interfaces, a way for programmers to request services from a computer system or program that would otherwise be unavailable to them). New APIs have been announced for Virtual Earth/Live Maps, and for Spaces, and expect more to come from Live.com, Messenger, and others.

The big non-Windows Live news will of course be around Silverlight, formerly called WPF/e (Windows Presentation Foundation/everywhere), but Windows Live will be featured prominently, as well.

The Ray Ozzie keynote will be webcast live on Monday morning, we'll be watching and have a full report:

Ray Ozzie Keynote at MIX07
April 30, 2007
9:30 a.m. PDT / 12:30 p.m. EDT
In an address from Las Vegas at the MIX07 Web conference, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and Developer division General Manager Scott Guthrie will discuss the full breadth of Microsoft’s developer vision and roadmap for Silverlight, Microsoft’s cross-platform application for delivering the next generation of media experiences.
View Live Webcast:

100K
300K
500K

In addition, many of the sessions will be webcast as well, you can check out the particulars at http://visitmix.com

(Hot)mail coming to Live.com again soon?

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:08:00 GMT

Live.com has offered, among many others, a gadget to put your Windows Live Mail on a Live.com page. Problem is that the gadget hasn't worked for quite some time, and now we have an explanation, and a reason for hope that it will again.

According to the Live.com blog:

"The gadget was pulled due to a security issue, which we initially believed could be fixed in a relatively quick fashion. We take security very seriously, and once we became aware of the issue, disabling this gadget was the best way to protect our users.
As our developers worked with the Hotmail developers to see how we could restore the gadget's functionality (while ensuring your data was secure), it became evident that the task was originally much larger than anyone anticipated. The gadget had to be rewritten to "talk" to Hotmail in an entirely new way, and the Hotmail team needed to add new functionality on their end as well. The time needed to design, implement, and test this new functionality is the reason that the gadget has been broken for so long."

While no definite date for the return of the gadget is forthcoming (bad luck, indeed!), the Live.com developers "have entered the home stretch", and, although you will have to upgrade to Windows Live Hotmail (the beta will work, apparently) from a Hotmail account to use the gadget, you should be able to soon.

Live.com Sharing enabled

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:24:05 GMT

Tonight brings an update to the Live.com home page, allowing for sharing of Live.com collections, which we recently posted about. By clicking on the new "Share" button on Live.com:

You can share your Live.com collections, either by email or by posting them to Gallery.Live.com, where you'll also find some new celebrity home pages to share:

Check out more at the Gallery.Live.com Collections page

Live.com Product Tour

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 03:48:23 GMT

Thanks to Brandon for pointing out the Live.com Product Tour, a marketing effort that includes some simple how to's on setting up Live.com and some truly awful videos.

Not big news, to be sure. Expect something with a little more substance coming up soon, but for now you can watch a table tennis freak wishing he had a Wii Remote. Have fun.