Category Archives: Microsoft

Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly grateful for all the polishing and silver plating that was done on Spaces, but that’s not what it lacked or needed the most (at least in my opinion).

What about more functionality? More features? More options for bloggers? More options under commenting? We still don’t have tagging for blog posts yet on the site? More ‘good looking’ themes? And I am sure other users can come up with many other requests in a heart beat.

I love using my Windows Live Spaces account and I love to blog often on it. But I am missing a lot of blogging options that has been available on other popular and free blogging platforms for a long time now.

When will Windows Live Spaces add extra useful features and, more specifically, update their dated blog module?

After several days of thinking out loud with the family we decided to go overseas to visit our relatives in Syria. Being that we are the only ‘Eltawil’ family in Canada, we had no option but to spend an arm and a leg to be with our relatives during the holidays. God, oh please god make it worth every penny!

So, after it’s been confirmed, approved and given the green light, I sparked up my Windows Live Calendar and added in the necessary entries that represents my flight’s itinerary. It would’ve been awesome if my BlackBerry Bold gets the latest changes done to my Windows Live Calendar and syncs it with my BlackBerry’s calendar. But until that dream comes true, I have to enter the dates into my BlackBerry’s calendar manually…again.

Usually whenever I travel anywhere out of town, I will eventually be forced (either by a friend, relative or most likely a family member running after me with a stick) to take a couple of pictures. Those pictures will eventually find their way on my Windows Live Spaces account either by sending them directly from my BlackBerry Bold using the built in camera or by uploading them from my digital camera directly into Spaces using the quick-n-easy upload tool.

Since I like to blog often, I will be updating my Windows Live Spaces blog using (as always) my BlackBerry Bold. Like when I am on the way to the airport, checking in my luggage, waiting for my plane, entering the plane, sitting in the plane and getting yelled at by the flight attendant to shut off my BlackBerry while the plane is taking off. Yeah, somewhere along those lines, I will be definitely blogging about them. Compose email, type it and send it to my blog’s email. Voila! A new blog entry has been created and is almost instantly displayed on my blog. You wouldn’t even know it was written thousands of miles away from home (hopefully when I land safely)!

Keeping track of my email using only PCs is something of the past. My phone will be with me and it will push any new email that arrives in my Windows Live Hotmail account to my BlackBerry Bold (or at least I hope it still does that overseas, if not, back to PCs I guess). Open email, read it, hit reply, type away and send. All from the comfort of a third world country café.

Windows Live Contacts will definitely come in handy when I get introduced for the first time ever to the many (many many many) relatives I will meet in Syria. Adding their contact information into Windows Live Contacts will definitely provide a guarantee to me that I’ll be able to get back in touch with them and see what they’re up to on Windows Live Messenger. Let the video chatting begin!

In the end, no matter how far or close your travels are during the holidays, Windows Live will always be right by your side. I mean, why else would I not use all the great and (I have to add) free services available that Windows Live provides? Plus, all services are well integrated together which makes passing data between services a breeze. And with all the exciting updates we’ve seen (and more coming soon), it makes more sense to continue using and fully experience Windows Live.

It’s simple and straight forward. Set up an email for your blog using the ‘Blog Options’ page on your Spaces account and that will be the primary email you use to send to whenever you need to create a new post on your blog. That’s what I have been doing for a long time now when I am not near a computer and it certainly came in handy many times.

Think of that email as a direct link to your blog and it’s available only to you wherever you are. It’s certainly one of the many convenient options available free of charge right under your fingertips from Windows Live Spaces.

With all the Windows Live face lifts lately I wonder if there is something in the works for Windows Live Spaces.

Lately, we’ve seen a major update for Windows Live Hotmail as well as Windows Live Calendar. But Spaces seems to have been left behind in the scenes. Is it not worthy or is the Spaces team waiting for the perfect time to surprise us all with a better looking, faster and more user friendly interface? It’s just that I constantly use my Space for blogging and it feels that there hasn’t been much thought spent in that area by the Spaces team. I personally see that as a major disadvantage compared to the other free blogging services out there.

There is a tremendous amount of features and options missing in the Spaces blog module especially on the interface side and I couldn’t resist but wonder if our precious Spaces team are aware of that. Plus the major indication that there is update in the works is for the fact that it doesn’t look similar to the recently updated services like Hotmail.

Whatever update coming from the team sooner or later I am sure it’ll have a lot to do with improving the user experience, or at least I deeply hope so.