We are almost at release stage with the suite of Live applications from Microsoft.
In the bundle is:
- Live Messenger (Instant Messaging)
- Live Mail (Mail Reader with Integrated RSS - Great Outlook Express Replacement)
- Live Photo Gallery (Online Photo Storage and Organization)
- Live Writer ("Universal" Blogging Tool)
- Live Family Safety (Make Sure the Kids are not Being Naughty!)
- Live SharedView (Desktop Sharing Tool)
As well as the host of services offered by Live such as (and not limited to):
- Live Spaces (Profile/Blog)
- Live SkyDrive (Free, Secure File Hosting)
I personally use the Live Messenger, Live Writer, Live Spaces and Live SkyDrive applications/services a lot. And I have to say, I love them.
We all know that Spaces & Messenger are great, they are pretty mature already due to their massive amount of usage. The two you may not be so familiar with are Writer and SkyDrive.
Live Writer
Live Writer is designed to be the blogging tool you use for all of your blogging needs.
I only had one single gripe with Writer. When posting to Google Blogger, you were unable to post images from within Writer, well guess what folks, this has all changed with the final and third Beta release, image uploading to Picasa is now supported!. This is a huge plus in my eyes.
Here are the main selling points for me:
- You can write straight from your desktop, no signing into websites.
- You can write and save drafts for posting later.
- Categories and tags (from many providers) are supported.
- You can quickly and easily post content to several blogs providers.
- It's genuinely easy to use!
- Install process is almost one-click, and it never fell over.
NOTE: it was slow though, I was sat looking at "checking for installed products" for a while - be patient!)
The culmination of all of that is a one-stop tool for all your blogging needs! Sold!
Live SkyDrive
I got wind of the existence of SkyDrive via an RSS feed. So I thought I would check it out, at this point I was using Messenger and Writer extensively, and really impressed with both, so was keen to see what else the Live guys at MS where offering.
Live SkyDrive is basically a free file hosting solution, all you need is a Live ID. And you can post up to 500MB in your account. You can then make these files available to the public, or contacts (which also need a Live ID for authentication) or just keep them for yourself.
I have found the transfer speeds can be a little slow in today's terms (30k/sec download) but hey, it's free, and I think it is all ad-supported, but I never noticed anything obtrusive. So thank you very much Microsoft!
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