LiveViews

Last month in the Windows Live Team Blog Post - A few changes to the blog, I had suggested in the comments as-

Vasudev wrote:
Yes, these additions are nice and were required as 'get help' , 'download Essentials'. Also I would also like to see the 'year' along with Date and month for blog posts, like for this one, April 13, 2009. many times we come across a direct link to blog posts and when opened doesn't have the 'Year' info. So I think this is also a must for any blog post…………..

Replying to this,

Windows Live team wrote:
@Vasudev - Good suggestion for including the year in blog posts. I have changed the date format (on Spaces General Options page) so now it shows the year………..

Thus this suggestion of displaying ‘year‘ in the Spaces blog Post was included in Windows Live Team Blog

Thanks to The Windows Live team for implementing my suggestion. And thus I also came to know about this option and I too immediately implemented this in my Spaces blog to display the ‘year’, but I did not blog about this at that time. 

If you are a Spaces Blog user, I would also suggest to implement this. Just sign-in to your Spaces, and goto ‘Options’ > ‘General’

And choose the ‘Date and Time Format’  which shows the Year along with Month and date.

That’s all and your Spaces Blog Posts will show the ‘Year’ also.

This feature is very useful when we come across any Spaces Blog post link and we open but couldn’t make out when it was published, whether its a new post or old. SO I would also suggest to Windows Live Spaces Team to make this option as default and also provide more ‘date’ Formats so as not to get confused from American and British date format and the best will be to show Post date as , May 12, 2009.

I am posting this Blog post , as I saw Jamie’s similar post- Display the year of publication for a Spaces blog post helped many people.

And Yes, even such small things we learn if posted on blog, helps lot of people.

Many a times you wanted to have your 2 Hotmail accounts window opened at the same time in your browser but you can’t as it would not allow you to do so. You had to logout of one and again sign-in to other. But now with Internet Explorer 8, its possible.

After signing into one Hotmail account, Just click the New Session option on the File menu, and a new browser window will open, and this will not share cookies with the original browser window. So now you can sign-in to other Hotmail (and most other Web applications such as Twitter etc.)  as a different user.

If you don’t see your Menu bar in IE8, you can right click on empty space near the tab and tick Menu Bar. Else you can use the keyboard shortcut, Alt+F, I, Enter to invoke a new session.

Here you can see, I have signed into my 2 different Webmail accounts at the same time.

For more Technical details regarding this option in IE8 check IEBlog.

Check out this compilation of Windows 7 Tips & Tricks from Microsoft Partner Program. It illustrates some of the enhancements that are new in Windows 7.

Download this 3 parts documents in pdf format. Each part contains 7 Tips. The complete Download is a 5,964.0 KB zip file, which can be downloaded from here.

These tips includes -

1. Shuffling Through Program Windows
2. Managing Your Windows
3. Project Your Display With Ease
4. Multi-Monitor Window Management
5. Aero Peek Your Desktop
6. Live Clutter-Free
7. Help the Help Desk Help You

1. Put a “Pin Up” of the Folders You Use Most
2. Double-Up Your Windows
3. Clear, Crisp Display—It’s In Your Control
4. Order and Reason for Your Taskbar
5. Taskbar Traversing
6. BitLocker To Go Protection
7. Your Own Personal Help Desk: Windows Troubleshooting Platform

1. Change the Scenery
2. Crunch The Numbers
3. Smart Printing 
4. Shake It Up 
5. Clean Your Desktop! And Order It Too 
6. Right-Click Mania
7. Unveil Your Hidden Drives

Download the Tips & Tricks document from the link given at the top and check out these tips in details.

I am member of Microsoft Connect and do participate in testing various Microsoft products. At present I am involved in testing Windows 7 Beta as one of the main products along with some others at Connect.

So we regularly have lots of Live chats and Live meetings with Microsoft Products Team members. This is the best part, where else can one have the opportunity to interact with these experts who are involved in developing such great products. During such chats we discuss various queries, suggestions and all these are answered by these Products Experts.

Recently during one of such Windows7 Live chats,  I had won a prize for the ‘Best Suggestion’ . From time to time one gets goodies for “Best suggestions’ , ‘Best Question’ etc put up during the Live Chat. So its all fun mixed with Experts talk. And last week I received the Windows7 Swag. They sent a Windows7 USB Aquarium, Bobble Pen and a Notepad. Here’s a screenshot :

Thank You Windows 7 !!!

In few hours, 81st Academy Awards - Oscars will be announced. Many of us will be searching more information about the nominee. In how many categories Slumdog Millionaire has been nominated ? Who else are there in those categories? A.R. Rahman is nominated against whom?  And many such questions. And you don’t have to waste time searching and scanning from bunch of site summaries. Just go to the Live Search  and type Oscars to get all the nominees related links. And after the awards you can again come back and search for Oscar winners and you will be given every information about the Oscar Winners.

Check out and find out all about Oscar nominations, winners etc.

But again these Live Search has been optimized for United States and you will not get the same results if you are searching from other countries. So make use of this link http://www.live.com/?mkt=en-us wherever you may be. I hope soon Live Search Team address this issue.