Windows Live Writer (the 2009 Release Canddiate released in December 2008) has many and varied options to give you lots of opportunities to layout photos in a blog entry. Although the latest Wave 3 version (December 2008) of Live Spaces enhanced the Add photos option, Live Writer is still the best way to give your photos all the glory they deserve when you’re publishing onto your Live Space.

Getting started

So start up Windows Live Writer, type a few lines of text and press Enter to start a new paragraph, just as webDotWiz has with this post. Now either click Insert from the top menu and choose Picture… or click Picture… from the Insert option in the right-hand task pane of Live Writer.

You’ll be taken to your My Pictures (Windows XP) or Pictures (Windows Vista) folder from which you can select the photo you want – click the Insert button at the bottom of.the Insert Picture window. Your picture will appear in Live Writer as shown in the screenshot to the right.

Notice the placeholders around the picture – this tells you it’s selected. As well, the right-hand task pane changes to show you what changes you can make but more about that in a minute.

You might be tempted to resize your photo at this stage by grabbing a placeholder and moving it to get a larger (or smaller) picture. Don’t do it!

If you look in the right-hand pane, under Layout, there’s a sub-heading called Text wrapping. You’ve just inserted your picture and that setting is automatically set to Inline which means the cursor is down alongside the bottom right-hand corner of your picture and any text you start typing will be placed there – your post will look a bit strange. Inline text wrapping is quite appropriate for small pictures such as icons but avoid using it for large photos.

Text wrapping

Other options for text wrapping are Left, Right and Center. At this point it’s worth bearing in mind that we’re trying to place images in a web page not a Word document, for example – a Word document is a completely different type of document than a web page and what’s possible in Word can only be approximated in a web page. With that said, Live Writer does a great job in making a difficult page layout problem seem easy. Web masters know from first hand how difficult it is to use web page markup language to get pictures placed just so.

Well, the easiest option for text wrapping is Center.

webDotWiz has found to use the Right setting, it’s best to type a few lines of text then place the cursor at the beginning of the paragraph, Insert the picture and finally choose the Right text wrapping option. That should work for Left as well.

You’ll see from the screenshot at right you’ve also got the option to choose different Borders – we’ll come back to those later.

The next important step you’ll want to do just about every time you insert a picture is to re-size it – that option is under the Advanced tab.

Size of the picture

Under the Advanced tab (highlighted in the screenshot to the right) is where we can re-size our picture. Depending on the size of your picture, this setting will probably appear as Small but there are other options once you press the down arrow.

This is the list of all options: Small, Medium, Large and Original.

Each of these will also tell you the size in pixels. A pixel (picture element) is a small dot on your screen and together with millions of others makes up your screen display. As a guide, the screenshot on the right is 204 pixels wide and the centre column of webDotWiz’s front page on his Live Space is about 600 pixels wide. If you’re reading this post as a full page then the width is greater.

So webDotWiz always inserts his screenshots with a width less than 600 pixels. Live Writer also helps out with this because after downloading the theme and settings from his Live Space, Live Writer shows a pane about 600 pixels into which this text and accompanying pictures/screenshots are being inserted. Depending on the layout for your own Live Space, you might only have a width of about 400 pixels into which you can type your text and insert pictures. webDotWiz uses a maximum width for a photo of 590 pixels for his Live Space and 390 pixels might be the best for your site.

This means there won’t be many occasions on which you will insert one of your pictures at Original size since digital cameras these days can take your photos with widths up to about 5000 pixels.

Under the drop down list of possible sizes are two boxes, one for width, the other for height. Use the Width (or Height in certain circumstances) to manually set the width (or height) of your picture. Before entering a value, make sure the Lock ratio box is ticked so you picture isn’t distorted when you set the new width or height. Type in a value for the width (or height) you want and click the other box to set a size to your own preference.

Actions – Tilt, Watermark, Black and white Effect

Look back at the screenshot above and there’s another section – Actions – which contains some interesting extras. Now you don’t want to go and use these willy-nilly. For example, webDotWiz wouldn’t be treating you kindly if he had used the Tilt… action on the screenshot above – he’s supposed to be helping you out in this Did you know not using all the whizbang features that are available. However if you have some holiday snaps you’re inserting into a blog post, then the Tilt… action can add some interest.

Another Action is the Watermark – you might like to add this to inform visitors to your site that the photo they’re viewing belong to you so you put a personal signature on the photo or you simply give the viewer some information such as the location or time and date the shot was made.

Hidden away somewhat and often forgotten is the third tab namely Effects. When you click this option you might wonder where they are (the effects, that is). Click the big green plus sign + to add one of the available effects (Black and white, Sepia, and more).

A final hint: if you’re inserting a picture and want to place to the left or right of some text, begin a new paragraph by pressing Enter on your keyboard and then type in a couple of lines first. Now place the cursor at the start of this new paragraph and insert the picture. Choose Left or Right text wrapping to position the picture.

To leave space alongside the picture (e.g. you want to begin a new paragraph that doesn’t relate to the picture or insert another picture positioned with left or right text wrapping), press Enter on your keyboard until the line of the new paragraph will pass beneath the picture.

To finish up: you can create some attractive blog entries using the picture enhancement tools (we didn’t get around to using Borders under the Picture tab – webDotWiz will leave that feature as an exercise for your homework). A little experimentation will help you discover what’s possible and you’ll soon become familiar with placing your photos with an appropriate size on your page.

------------------

Posted using the 2009 Release Candidate of Windows Live Writer.

In the old version of Live Spaces (pre-Decemeber 2008), adding a photo to a blog entry only put in a thumbnail of a photo so that was a bit disappointing when you wanted to show off one of your best photos.

Of course, the work-around for this situation was to always use Windows Live Writer to write up an entry and insert photos where you had more choice about their size. The 2009 Release Candidate of Windows Live Writer has even more options for inserting photos but here webDotWiz wants to show how the Live Spaces blog entry Add photos is much improved in the December Wave 3 release.

Go to your Live Space. The easiest way to do this is to load your Profile page (profile.live.com) which  you can do from any of your Live pages using the menu across the top. Or, use the More drop down list at the top of each Live page.

Now click Add to start a new blog entry, fill in the title and choose a category. Type your text and now we’ll Add photos (link is at the bottom of your blog entry).

After a few moments the photo upload tool will load (there’s a circling indicator in the centre to keep you amused). webDotWiz normally has Live Photo Gallery also open when working with photos and screenshots so you need to position Live Photo Gallery on your screen so you can drag ‘n’ drop the photos (select the photos, hold the left mouse button down over one of the photos you’ve chosen and drag to the Drop photos here box in the photo upload tool).

As soon as you drop one or more photos onto the upload tool you’ll see over at the top right that a photo upload size input box appears. As well, under your photo will be an approximate size of your photo.

Click the arrow to get other options Original, Large (1600 px), and Medium (600 px).

In the old version of Live Spaces, Add photos only inserted a thumbnail into a blog entry. The Large option used to be called Print quality that we could choose when uploading photos into an album from Live Photo Gallery (if you remembered to tick the box) and Medium (600 px) was the default setting for uploading photos into an album from Live Photo Gallery. In each case our photos were reduced such that the maximum width or height was 1600 pixels for Print quality and 600 pixels for the old default. You can check your photo sizes by using the Info tab in Live Photo Gallery.

You can see how large your photo will be by clicking each option:

Here’s the size if the photo’s Original size is chosen:

Adding another photo to upload and choosing the Large (1600 px) option gives:

Click the Upload button at the bottom of the photo upload tool and things start happening.

When your photo(s) has/have uploaded, remember to click Publish entry and have a look:

Because of webDotWiz’s layout (he’s got a narrow, wide, wide layout of his columns – check http://warangabasin.spaces.live.com), the photos he’s just uploaded can’t be seen in all their fullness. So click the photo and one of new Live Spaces’ features comes to the fore:

To finish off, if you Add photos using the Original size setting, visitors to your site on slow broadband may be left staring at their browser window waiting for the photo to appear. It’s probably best to Add two blog entries to your Live Space, one using the Medium setting, and another using the Original setting with a note in your title to indicate a high-resolution photo is in the entry (just add Hi-Res photo to your title and that should be enough for visitors to your site).

-------------------

Posted using the 2009 Release Candidate of Windows Live Writer.

If you’ve read through webDotWiz’s previous post – Do you know how to get to your Live Space? – and you’ve got the Friends module on your Live Space, you’re just about there.

Click the display pic of the friend whose Live Space you want to visit and choose View space from the drop down list:

What if you haven’t got the Friends module on your Live Space yet?

Well, we can always go back to Live Messenger and use the What’s new pane at the bottom of the window:

You’ll have to scroll through the new items (use the arrow keys) until you find a recent entry that your friend has add to their Live Space. So that’s another way.

Or you’ve just opened your Home page (home.live.com) so now you’ve got a list of new items from people in your network. If you’re lucky, your friend may have recently posted an entry so a link to their Live Space is at the top of the list:

If you can’t see a recent entry on your Home page, then click on What’s new with your network to bring up a page of all the latest things your contacts have been doing. By the way, this is the same as clicking on What’s new at the bottom of Live Messenger.

Still nothing new from your friend and you want to get to her/his Live Space?

You might think of looking at your People page (people.live.com) but that page is for mainly getting in contact with your friends either using email or a private message one-to-one.

So it’s your Profile page (profile.live.com) – it’s the one that deals with whom you have included in your network of friends and contacts.

Use View more if need be. Clicking on the display picture of your friend’s Live Space gives you the following:

Once you’re on your friend’s profile page – and assuming that person has set their permissions to allow you to see it – you’ll find a link to their Live Space on the left side of their profile page:

Click Space and you’re at your friend’s Live Space!

Logically, if you can get to one of your friend’s Live Space from their profile page, then you can easily get to your own Live Space from your profile page.

Hopefully you’re starting to see different ways to get to the same place, so to speak. The more you explore the content on each of your own Home Profile, People, Mail Photos pages and those on the More button, you’ll see how Windows Live makes it easy to find what you want – it just depends where you are at the moment. Your friends are your Home and Profile pages and the other links at the top of each of your Windows Live pages.

------------------

Posted using the 2009 Release Candidate version of Windows Live Writer.

Update: to see the easiest way, go to the bottom of this post :).

Before the latest changes in December to Windows Live with the new Wave 3 look and feel, webDotWiz advised his webDotWizards and others to sign in to Live Messenger (the “old” one) and click the third icon along the top of the contacts list because that linked to the person’s Live Space.

However if you’ve installed the latest version of Live Messenger, you won’t see those icons any longer:

So how do you get to Live Space?

Well, if you’re in the habit of firstly signing into Live Messenger, simply go down to the What’s new section at the bottom of Live Messenger and click What’s new to get to your Live What’s new page – from there it will take just another two clicks to get to your Live Space:

That’ll being up What’s new with your network:

Now click More to choose Spaces:

And you’ll be here, at your LIve Spaces home page (which is much simplified and updated from the “old” version which we used to get to by clicking that third icon on Messenger):

Click View your space and you’re there!

The reason for this major change is that Live Spaces is no longer the central point for all our Windows Live activities (years ago Messenger was the central, starting point). Windows Live is now much bigger! So now our Live Space is purely for writing up entries for our website (i.e., our Live Space) with the added bonus that visitors can easily get to our photo albums.

An alternative method of getting to your Live Space is to load up Internet Explorer and straightway go to your Windows Live Home page (home.live.com) and then use the More link as above. However, webDotWiz urges everybody to sign into Live Messenger first so he prefers that method.

The Simplest Way to get to your own Live Space: go to your profile page (profile.live.com) – click Profile on the top of page menu of any of your Live pages - and there’s a link on the left:

It’s getting late… Bern’s dynamic theme says so!

-----------------

Posted using the 2009 Release Candidate version of Windows Live Writer.

The Wave 3 update (Dec 3 2008) brought several enhancements to Live Spaces.

Now when you click a photo in a blog entry (it may not be showing fully but you want to see it) it will come up in its own window.

For example, you may be looking at this blog entry:

Click the photo and you’ll see it in full over the top of the blog entry page in its own window:

Click the Close button at the bottom right to return to the blog entry.

As is usual with these sorts of things, it was George (founding member of Rushworth Community House’s webDotWizards) that accidentally clicked the photo in his blog otherwise webDotWiz would never have found this little piece of niceness in Live Spaces.

Note: webDotWiz is not sure if this effect requires Silverlight to be installed. On old blog posts, clicking a photo opens a new browser window to see the full photo (which is pretty yukky compared to above).

After the update to the Windows Live Internet Services last week (Dec 3), the default font used for entries to Live Spaces was changed to the Segoe UI font for readability and tidiness.

You have to do a little bit of work to have Live Writer use the new font by default by getting Live Writer to update its theme from your online Live Space – here are the steps (which only take a couple of minutes to complete):

• Start Live Writer
• On the Weblog menu choose Edit Weblog settings…
• Choose Editing from the left-hand pane of the dialogue box
• Choose the Refresh button
• Wait until your Live Spaces theme is downloaded to Live Writer
• You now have the Segoe UI font as your default font in Live Writer, just as it is on your Live Space.

Note: if you have changed your default font before the Live Spaces update of last week, your choice is preserved so you probably won’t need to do anything.

-----------------

Posted using the Wave 3 trial version of Windows Live Writer.

The link to the full article is below.

Here’s a really good question: what kinds of posts should I write to get more links and traffic?

It’s a question every blogger asks themselves. I want to answer it here by outlining 7 content methods that seem to work wonders on social media while also generating a lot of grassroots in-bound links.

Can you bring these powerful post types to your own blog?

7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic

This post was created by:

• highlighting part of the full text of the article
• clicking on the Blog It button on the toolbar in Internet Explorer, and then
• waiting for Windows Live Writer to start up with Title filled in and the selected text laid out; as well, a link to the original article was inserted. In other words, webDotWiz only needed to add a couple of lines (e.g., these lines setting how he did it).

Just came across this post from Steve Clayton on an easy way to get some text off a web page into a post which is all set up in Live Writer without doing a thing except follow the steps below (which webDotWiz highlighted in Steve's original post).

webDotWiz needs to have a look thru Live Writer's help to catch up on other (little) tricks are up the sleeve of Live Writer .

Steve Clayton: Geek In Disguise : A new Windows Live Writer feature for me 

Highlight a string of text on the web page you are about to blog from

Click the Blog It button in IE

Your new blog post has a link and title pre-written for you but also the highlighted text is inserted

Steve Clayton: Geek In Disguise : A new Windows Live Writer feature for me

Did you hear that long collective sigh from all the webDotWizards? Yes, they're all pleased because webDotWiz can't get grumpy when they've made a new photo album on their Live Spaces website and haven't the time to add a blog entry.

In fact, as a result of the latest updates to Live Spaces, there's no need to make a special blog entry to announce a new album on your Live Space. Now when your friends sign in to their Space, their What's New page will not only show any blog entries you've made but they'll see the latest photos you've uploaded (as recently as five minutes ago).

Apart from seeing the latest photos uploaded by your friends, we can now lots more with our own photos. When you open one of your albums, there are several new options (shaded in the screenshot below):

We'll return to a bit later to show you how some of these options work but for now webDotWiz will show you how you can set permissions on who can view your photos. So click on Edit album and you'll see where to set the level of permission:

If you choose to Change permissions for an album, the window below opens from which you can decide who is to view the album:

Returning to one of your albums, let's look more closely at the new options: Send a link, Order prints, Download, Embed, Blog It, Share on Facebook, Full view.

Choosing Order prints prints will send off your photos to the Snapfish service for printing (19c per print). Download enables your friends to either download individual photos or a complete album. Embed gives you some code to copy and paste into your own web site (webDotWizard WebMasters, please note) either to display an individual photo or a slide show of an album. This is a real boon for the webDotWizard webMasters because now photos only need be uploaded to photo albums on Live Spaces instead of requiring two uploads as has been the case in the past.

Blog It adds a photo to a new blog entry on your own Live Space (you could use the Embed code and Windows Live Writer to accomplish the same end):

As an aside, webDotWiz was able to click on the photo and resize it by carefully dragging a handle on one of the corners so he kept the photo in proportion.

If you want to obtain the codes to copy and paste either a single photo or a slideshow on your own site (or into Live Writer), click on Embed and they'll be displayed below the photo:

Aside from being able to get much more from your photos and photo albums, you'll notice some cosmetic changes to the navigation buttons at the top of each page on your Space - those big buttons to What's New and Your Space have disappeared and been replaced by more sensible options. As well, you'll see a new button named Events:

What happens if you click on that Events button? Well, that'll take another post.

Posted using Windows Live Writer.

We know that when we upload photos to our Live Spaces photo albums that the photos are reduced in quality and size except when we tick the Optimize photos for printing option.

Clarification: webDotWiz was using screenshots which he resizes down to no more than 600 pixels wide so he can use them in his posts to his Space (e.g., like the ones below). When he uploaded these screenshots to a Spaces photo album, they were downsized (i.e., widths were reduced further below 600 pixels) and didn't look as clear as he would like at his webDotWiz Online site (www.webdotwiz.com).

However if you're going to use photos from your Spaces photo albums on your own website (or blog other than Live Spaces) you'll probably be ok to use them. If you load camera photos in hi-res (i.e., tick the Optimize for printing), you'll have photos sized to a maximum of 1600 x 1200 pixels - naturally, these photos will be too wide for a web page (most web pages are designed these days for a maximum width of 1024 pixels and some are still at 800 pixels).

So you may have to do some testing to see how your photos are going to show on your website. If you're using screenshots like webDotWiz often does, then try his method below. Clarification end.

Well, webDotWiz discovered that if you want better quality photos on your own site then it's best to upload an album of photos in hi-res, i.e. tick the Optimize photos for printing box:

As well, name the album the same as that for ordinary photos but add a bit at the end such as for website so you know which album to use later on.

A reminder that it's a simple job of copying and pasting the Embed code from your Live Spaces album page (stop the player, by the way - it helps to get the right photo ):

This post is as much a reminder for webDotWiz as it is a tip for the webDotWiz webMasters.

This post added using Windows Live Writer.

webDotWiz has created an Event, Read webDotWiz. Cick link below.

Quote

Read webDotWiz

Hosted by: webDotWiz Date and time: Thursday, 18 October 2007 at 12:45 PM View this event on Windows Live

Here's the result of clicking on Blog It when in the photo album of shots of High Street Rushworth.

As well, webDotWiz clicked on the photo and dragged one corner to resize the photo below (not a good way to resize; it would be much better to click on HTML and change the values for WIDTH and HEIGHT in the IMG tag).

Quote

http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1p5z6SJ5uwpA8LNe1ycs8oaoG3X1VOQH7oPkLLhoPQLjk7Fub6d2Px34_A_7C9-wo7E1ufv3Ah5N0

Have you noticed that your visitors can now not only download one of your creative, artistic, expertly shot photos but also a complete album of your photos?

By the way, a good reason to not place too many photos in each album (say a maximum of 15) - family and friends want your photos but don't want the download of an album to take a month of Sundays.

A second by the way: if you're uploading photos with the Option to print turned on (i.e., your photos will be stored at a much higher resolution that the ordinary upload process), it's a good idea to include Hi-res in your album title so we know.

Posted using Live Writer.

In the last column webDotWiz took you through some major changes that had been made to Live Spaces. In particular he showed off the new layout on each person's Spaces homepage where we can see what our Spaces friends have updated on their space, whether it be some writing, a new photo album or new list.

Ok, so let's work out a simple way to make use of this information. Note these updates come to us so we don't need to spend hours visiting lots of web sites. It's just a matter of getting into the habit of doing a couple of things once we go online.

webDotWiz is now urging everyone to sign in to Live Messenger as usual - perhaps scan through your contact list to see who's online and who's updated their Space by looking for a gleam alongside their nickname. The next step is to click the icon at the top of Messenger to open up your Space's homepage where you can check the What's new section to see your Messenger contacts who have updated their Space lately.

At this stage all you need do is hover your mouse over each contact's profile picture and wait a few seconds for their contact card to appear. The contact card will give you the title of their last blog entry and display the latest photos they've added to their Space. Hint: choose those people who have a gleam alongside their profile.

Nothing new? Then hover your mouse over the next profile picture.

An important point to make at this stage is to ensure you type a short but informative title for each blog entry you make on your Space. For example, it took webDotWiz a few days to realise that his titles for his Sites for the day (e.g., Sites for 27-Jul-2007) didn't mean much unless he added a couple of keywords to describe some of the sites he was listing. So US trip movie provides more information to your family and friends than Overseas trip.

Were you expecting to see some new photos on a relative's or friend's Space but there's nothing new? Now is your chance to use the Send a message link on their contact card to remind them. Or you've looked at their photos or they've put their latest Photo Story movie on their Space and you want to congratulate them or ask a question - use the Send a message link. Or you want to check the date when that family reunion is to be held and ask who will be taking photos - another use for Send a message.

But, you say, all I wanted to do was do a search for some information, and you've made me go through all those steps. Ok, have a look at the top of your Space's homepage and you'll see where you can either search all Live Spaces or the Web.

In summary, get the gleam glowing alongside your name and profile picture on your family's and friend's Messenger and Live Spaces and send a message to say thanks when family and friends gleam in return.

There have been a large number of updates made to Windows Live Spaces over the past couple of days.

Changes have been made to the homepage - now called the What's new page - and the main page on your Live Space especially in how the links are organised to make it easier to navigate and customise. As well, it's now easier for visitors to your Space to view your photos and download any photo they want.

If you go to your Live Space from the button on Live Messenger, you'll immediately see the changes (all screenshots are taken from webDotWiz's Waranga Basin Live Space):

In the above screenshot we're on our Spaces homepage (as indicated by the What's new button being highlighted) and there's a list of contacts which shows who has updated their Space recently. Notice that the Windows Live banner is thinner to give more screen realestate.

Over on the right-hand side of the page, there are links to the usual sorts of jobs you want to do on your Space, as well as a tip for enhancing your Space and a search box to find people with interests similar to your own:

If you load your Live Space from the Windows Live Toolbar or enter your Space's web address by hand into your browser, you're taken immediately to your Space's main page.

Note that the Windows Live orb at the top left is "live" and a click gives you links to other Windows Live services (this works on any Windows Live site):

The navigation at the top left of the main page has been made more meaningful by providing a link back to your Space's homepage, the Your space button is indented to indicate you're at your main page and the name of your Space is alongside. As well, there's a More button which provides another way to easily get to different sections of your Space. If you're the owner of the Space, you get a list of some modules you can add:

Over on the right-hand side, there's no longer a link that switches between being in or out of edit mode - the Customize button handles any type of editing you want to do on your Space. Note a new item, Apply a template - more about that one later:

Choosing one of the customise options brings up the choices again, this time listed against the familiar warning background with the Save and Cancel buttons:

The Templates customise option does the job of Themes, Layout and Modules in one step and there are plenty of choices to suit your needs:

After choosing a template, you see that you can get back to Customize to make other changes.

There are a couple of handy features to make it easier for visitors to see our photos and download them. We're already used to the seeing the button alongside the photo album on the front page that gives a full page view of the photos in that particular album:

Once in the album full page view, visitors now get two more options: to view your photos full screen and there's a link to enable them to download any of your photos:

Conclusion

Well, that's the list of main features webDotWiz has explored thus far.

One smaller feature is that visitors can click on a title of a blog entry to open it in a page of its own (and thus get the web address, for example, rather than clicking on Permalink at the end of the post).

Via The Space Craft and Livside.

When you now click the button on Windows Live Messenger to Go to your Space,

so as to keep in touch with your friends, you're taken to your Space's homepage to see when your friends have updated their Space, if you have any messages and check for any comments left by visitors to your Space.

On the Customize pane there's an Advanced tab where you can change colours on your Space to your heart's content (but be careful because you might end up with colour combinations that render your text unreadable ) and one to change the Background image to your one of your own choice. The only restriction to using your own image as a background is that the maximum size of the image is 800 pixels by 600 pixels. By the way, even if you've set your theme as one of the simple ones, you can still add your own background image.

So click on Customize to see the following (webDotWiz has already clicked the Advanced tab):

Now click the arrow alongside Background image:

Make sure you choose Use custom image:

Now you can Browse your My Pictures folder for your own image you want to use:

When you've chosen the photo, picture or graphic you want to use, click Upload:

You'll see there are options to repeat the image in the background so it fills the screen and you can set the alighments. Module transparency is a good one to use so your image shows through the modules on your space. You may have to experiment to get the desired effect as it will depend on your colours:

Click Close and the job is done .

You can see in the background here how the wizard image has been repeated. At the Rushworth Community House space, the image has been centred. Another example is the webDotTrainSim space where the background image was only a 400 pixel by 300 pixel size image and it's been tiled in the background.

As one of his other personas (i.e., using another of his Windows Live IDs) asked for an invitation into the early trial of Microsoft Popfly and got it the other day.

He's only had a little while to play but after finding his way around, he put together a simple gadget that takes some photos (screenshots as it turns out) from his blog album on here (i.e., webDotWiz Online has the Space) and presents them in a carousel on his Waranga Basin space. Time taken - about 4 minutes. Effort required - minimal; just drag'n'drop a couple of blocks; and, finally, a click to Add to Windows Live Space.

You'll see in the screenshot to the left that once webDotWiz had joined the Live Spaces block (it's got the code that accesses the blog photo album from here) with the Carousel block (it's the one that's got the code to the display the photos - oops, screenshots in this example), the background of the working pane began showing the gadget doing its job.

Go and have a look to see webDotWiz's first Popfly gadget in action. He's going to do more exploring with Popfly this weekend and see what he can create. One thing he'll do is create is free web site with Popfly.

Note webDotWiz had a play with using Text wrapping with the screenshots above.

The Live Spaces team have put together a good list of changes that can be made on our Spaces with a few simple steps.

It's best if your read through The Space Craft entry where they cover how to change:

• Themes
• Add your own background image (and adjust the transparency of the modules on your Space so it shows through)
• Moving your modules around on the page to your own liking
• Removing the titles from modules and/or renaming your modules (except Friends) by clicking the little down-arrow at the top right of each module and then choosing Preferences.
• Customising colours of text, headings, modules, and more. A word of caution, though - some colour combinations might result in un-readable text so take your time and make one change at a time to see its effect (when you make a change, you'll see it immediately take effect behind the Customization panel).