Dave Kemick

A lot of people these days tend to hate on Microsoft.  In some cases their gripes are completely legitimate, in others they’re completely overblown.  Regardless, there are some areas where Microsoft is doing some great things and, unfortunately, they tends to go somewhat unnoticed.  The newest thing I’ve started to really dig is a product of Microsoft’s "Windows Live" initiative.  This isn’t like Xbox Live (though that’s great too) but instead it’s a suite of online and desktop applications that revolve around Internet activity.  Namely email, calendars, online storage, and blogging.  I’ve talked about Windows Live Writer before (I still think it’s the best blogging tool there is, I’m using it to write this) but the rest of the Windows Live experience was sort of under my radar.  That is until I heard Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott interview Dave Fortin from the Windows Live team, and they were able to discuss a lot of the current and upcoming Windows Live applications.

I had seen the latest revision to Microsoft’s hotmail which I liked, but that alone wasn’t enough to topple Google’s online presence.  Then Dave Fortin talked about the calendar they have integrated with Hotmail and the new SkyDrive which is basically virtual storage space.  You only get a gigabyte through SkyDrive right now but if you’ve ever needed to host some documents, music, or pictures online where you can have access to them from any computer with an internet connection I think it’s a good way to go.  With these breakthroughs in mind I went ahead and created a Live account and I was impressed from the start.  You’re offered a Google IG-like page with a clean interface allowing you to access your upcoming calendar events, your email inbox, your SkyDrive so you can upload and downloaded media, your Windows Live "Space" (think MySpace + blogging), and so forth.  This is all offered in an extremely tidy little page that I think is pretty attractive.  One thing I never liked about Google IG is that when you start adding all of your extra little doodads and widgets the page can become cluttered fast.  That’s not so with your Windows Live homepage.  You can’t really add anything extra (no RSS feed support or anything like that) but I think that’s a definite benefit.  There is however one-button access to composing an email, adding a calendar date, and starting a Windows Live Messenger session (plus more).  Think of Windows Live as your professional online presence where as Google might be your personal.

My favorite part of the package has to be hotmail’s new interface.  You no longer have to use a hotmail ID (though you can use one if you have one, or create a new one).  You can instead sign up for an @live account which allows you to access all of the other features I’ve gone over already.  Hotmail now looks a lot like Windows Mail/Outlook looks on the desktop – except it’s in your browser.  If you’ve ever used an exchange webmail account you’ll be right at home and probably even more so since you can customize the look of your inbox easily.  If you haven’t used exchange what this means is that you can get more robust access to your email.  For instance you can get email previews, little snapshots of your email without actually opening the message.  This comes in incredibly handy when you just need to check a message real quick.  There is also a lot of contact integration.  The other shining star here is the calendar application.  I think it destroys Google calendars personally – it’s easier to manage and much more appealing to the eye which, with a calendar, is key.  Again it’s similar to Outlook calendars you might have used in the past but it’s encapsulated in the browser.  What the Windows Live team has successfully done is come as close to replicating Microsoft’s email client in Vista and XP, only now you can access it in your web browser. 

Still – what if you’re just not one for webmail?  What if you absolutely HAVE to have a desktop email client?  Windows Live has you covered there too with their Windows Live Mail app.  Live Mail is nearly identical to Live Hotmail with one caveat – you can access multiple accounts simultaneously.  After you install Live Mail it will ask you to create or sign into a current Live account (this includes Hotmail), and once you do that you’ll have all of that account’s email right in front of your eyes.  If you want to check a different account all you have to do is click the account drop-down in the top right, click ‘Change Sign-in ID’ and bam you can login to a different account.  The best part about this is that it keeps all of the different accounts in the left pane of the application so you can access messages from different accounts with one session (and one window).  It doesn’t sound like much but it’s another handy feature.

So that’s my Windows Live post.  I’m really getting hooked on it and I wish it would take off and have more success then it currently has.  Windows Live is a shining example that, although Microsoft gets a bad rap online, they’re still doing some pretty cool things.  Give it a look and let me know what you think.  If you’re feeling particularly adventurous you can go ahead and send me an email about it at dmkemick(at)live(dot)com!  I’m trying to get used to using that account more and more as I move forward.  I don’t know if home.live.com will completely replace Gmail for me but at least it’s a nice change.   Also, when I came back to link this post a few hours after I wrote it I noticed that the colors of my Live homepage had changed to a nice darker color to coincide with the weather displayed in the top left corner.  Earlier today the color was a lighter blue and now that it’s night it has changed to a dark blue/purple.  Just another nice little aesthetic touch.

Now Playing:
Flogging Molly – Laura