webDotWiz Online has a Space: Spaces tips

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

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:57:54 GMT

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).

Technorati tags: Blogging tips, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Toolbar

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

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 05:11:55 GMT

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

Technorati tags: Windows Live Writer, tips, tricks, Blog It, Internet Explorer 7

Live Spaces updates and Live Events

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:11:09 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces homepage, Windows Live Spaces, photo album tips, Live Spaces updates, Windows Live Events

Tip - use Live Spaces album photos in hi-res for web site

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 06:42:49 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Window Live Spaces, photo album tips, web masters, embed photos

Talking about Read webDotWiz (demo Event)

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:32:05 GMT

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

Rushworth High St photo (demo of new album features)

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 01:29:33 GMT

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

Live Spaces photo albums - download photos, yes, but now download an album

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:34:07 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Live Spaces photos, photo download, album download, Windows Live Spaces

Share and socialise with Messenger and Spaces

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 07:20:02 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, social networking, Windows Live Messenger, keeping in touch, sharing

Updates to Windows Live Spaces

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 06:44:40 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, Spaces, social networking, photos, Windows Live

Live Space button on Messenger takes you to your Space homepage

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 10:31:44 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces homepage, contacts, Windows Live Messenger

How to add your own background image to your Live Space

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 07:26:27 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, use own background image

A Popfly gadget on Waranga Basin

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 06:40:25 GMT

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.

Technorati tags: Microsoft Popfly, Popfly gadgets, Popfly web site

Layout change

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:10:56 GMT

Because Windows Live Writer now respects placement of images, webDotWiz has changed the layout of webDotWiz Online Has the Space to the third option in Layouts under Customize (sic) (he had the 6th option which is best for most people to show off photos and videos).

As well, this layout makes better use of the available space (pun intended) to show off screenshots along with the (rambling) writing that goes with them.

Customise your Space to your heart's content - some things to do

Thu, 17 May 2007 10:48:28 GMT

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).

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, customise, themes, modules

New Live Spaces features - RSS feeds

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 10:15:10 GMT

The webDotWizards are sick and tired of webDotWiz always cajoling them into adding a brief blog on their Space to announce when they've added a new photo album or more photos to a current album. Until now the only way for others to know when a person's Space has new photos is to write a bit so that bit of news will come up in whatever RSS reader they're using or on their personal Live.com page.

<begin:exception-rave>

Windows Live Mail desktop (WLMd) has always shown new photos or albums on a friend's Space in its RSS reader page - very handy and webDotWiz has more than once surprised webDotWizards by mentioning their new photos.

Footnote: anybody on Windows XP still using the outdated and outmoded Outlook Express should immediately install Windows Live Mail desktop - do yourself a favour . Mike Torres has a good writeup of WLMd with strong reasons for using it.

</end:exception-rave>

One of many new RSS feeds you can subscribe to from a friend's Space is their photo albums. If you're using IE 7 or Firefox, you'll notice the orange RSS feed button on the toolbar light up - just click it and you're subscribed.

For example, the photo album feed from The House Gallery is:

http://rushworthrtc.spaces.live.com/photos/feed.rss

Via Rob Dolin and Spaces Devloper Platform, here's a list of the top-level RSS feeds now available from your friend's Live Spaces (assuming they've turned on syndication under Options):

Top Level Feed – <youralias>.spaces.live.com/feed.rss
Minimal Feed – <youralias>.spaces.live.com/minimal/feed.rss
Blog – <youralias>.spaces.live.com/blog/feed.rss (all blog categories contain sub feeds now)
Photo Albums – <youralias>.spaces.live.com/photos/feed.rss (each album has a sub feed with photos)
Profile – <youralias>.spaces.live.com/profile/feed.rss
Friends – <youralias>.spaces.live.com/friends/feed.rss

In each of the above, replace <youralias> with your Live ID username.

New Live Spaces features - photo albums and photos

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 07:08:35 GMT

Albums and photo viewing have had a major change - it's all much neater and convenient.

There's a new page to view photos and a page where we can view all our albums at once.

On the Photos module you'll notice straightway that there's no big toolbar to play a photo show - hover your mouse over the Photo module and you'll see a more compact version:

To get to a full page view of photos in one of your albums (or on another Live Space), look for the little blue button next to the album name:

Click this and you'll be taken to a redesigned page to view each photo in the album. Note that you don't have to scroll the page to see the thumbnails at the bottom and the Add a comment link is to the right.

In the left-hand menu you'll see an addition:

On the View all albums page you can re-arrange them, choose the one that visitors see when they visit your Space, easily choose the album you want to do some work with, or delete an album.

Via Microsoft Photography Blog.

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, new features, photos, photo album

New Live Spaces features - send a message

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 06:40:49 GMT

There are a number of different ways you can use the new Send a message function. Note in all the situations below that you have to be signed in to your Windows Live ID.

1. You're viewing one of your friend's Live Spaces. Find Send a message, click it, wait for the message page to come up and enter your message (using the text formatting tools if you want; you can even include a link to another site). webDotWiz is going to send his other self at Living on Waranga Basin a mess that he should move the module with Send a message to a more visible part of the page:

The left-hand side of the page above isn't shown - it's got two menu items: Inbox and Sent.

webDotWiz clicked Send at the top of the screenshot above and was returned to Living on Waranga Basin.

To read the message, webDotWiz will sign in under his other Live ID, load up his Waranga Basin space and click Home at the top right of the page. Or, he could go directly to his Waranga Basin space's home page via a link like this:

http://your_alias.home.services.spaces.live.com/whatsnew/?_c02_owner=1
where your_alias is your Live ID username.

2. You're on your own Space and want to send a message to one of your friends: Go to your Friends List, hover over their profile pic and wait for the popup to appear. From the list of choices, choose Send a message. Sorry, it's a bit hard to get a screenshot in OneNote's Screen Clipper but then the steps are the same as above.

3. Send yourself a reminder: There may be occasions when you want to send a message as a reminder which you can read when you're signed in on another computer (e.g., you're at home and want to ask webDotWiz a question when you come into a webDotWizards session at the Rushworth Community House). Yes, webDotWiz knows there's another way but everybody doesn't have more than one Live ID to use offline messaging with Live Messenger.

Messaging in Live Spaces is going to be a real time-saver and is much, much, much easier and faster than emailing.

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, new features, send a message

More new Live Spaces features - title across top of page, Home, RSS feeds

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:23:01 GMT

Across the top of your Spaces page (assuming you've signed in) you'll see a box (outlined with a white dashed line) into which you can drag any module or gadget. For example, you could put your title across the top of your page (which is the usual thing for a web page).

So webDotWiz has put his title and tag to fit right across the page. After moving the Title to the top "box" and Saving, he used Edit to change the text size to Largest.

Notice over at the top right, there's a link to our Home page.

We've always been able to subscribe to other people's Space as a whole (to save having to visit all our friend's Spaces to keep up to date with new blog entries and photos). Now we can subscribe to selected categories on other people's spaces - all webDotWiz's categories have the RSS subscribe button next to them - for example:

That's a brief rundown on some more of the new Live Spaces features.

webDotWiz wants to play around a bit with the Send a message function and explore the new functions for photo albums and photo viewing.

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, new features, rss, home page

New features you'll see on your Live Space

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:44:22 GMT

webDotWiz has just called up his Space (he's been writing these posts in Live Writer - of course - so he's just clicked Publish and his Space has loaded).

Firstly he noticed this:

Spaces Central is the better-named home page for Spaces (spaces.live.com) from where we started when we signed up. Now, though, it leads each of us - as long as we're signed in - to our own home page which gives plenty of info - which of our friends have updated their space under What's New, update our profile, and see any new comments others have put on our space. Here's what the What's New section looks like:

On the left, there are some statistics, pending requests to attend to (perhaps) and links to the main jobs we do on our Space (add a new blog, a new album or add new photos, and so on):

webDotWiz will do another post of a couple more things he noticed.

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, home page, Spaces Central, update

New Live Spaces features from The Space Craft team

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:03:42 GMT

The Space Craft (the Live Spaces team Space) have now posted details of the new features we'll see.

It's a long post - there are many, many new features which can be divided under the headings:

communication
customisation (or customization)
photos - lots of good stuff here
modules and gadgets
mobile phone interaction
profile
lists

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, new features

New Live Spaces features being rolled out

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 07:43:47 GMT

Via Liveside, lots of new features are being put into place. In short:

a new homepage
a guestbook
more customisation choices (themes and colours, your own background image)
messaging, so you can mess your friends directly from your Space - see Liveside's demo here
improvements to handling photos, including a new page for viewing and editing albums and a new page for viewing individual photos
more than one copy of the same module
modules, such as the Title module, can span the complete page, top and bottom, for a more professional look to your Space
improvements to how gadgets and modules are displayed (e.g., remove borders, change the title name)
individual RSS feeds for photo albums, profile, blog categories

More anon, especially once webDotWiz sees the changes come through and has had play.

Technorati tags: Live Spaces, new features

Muse can help you blog to your Space

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:49:31 GMT

Add Muse to your Messenger contacts, have a yarn and get some ideas for topics for your Space.

In Messenger go to Add contacts and enter musebot@live.com.

Before your blog entry can be added to your Space when you're having a chat with Muse, you'll need to have email publishing enabled.

To set up your Space so you can add entries via email, go to Options. Then choose E-mail publishing from the choices on the left pane.

tick the box alongside Turn on e-mail publishing
enter a secret word - it gets added to an email address which you use to send new entries to your Space
enter as many as 3 email addresses from which you'll be able to post entries and/or photos to your Space
choose a unique keyword for the photo album you're going to post new photos to (note the help text in red - it'll remain until you've entered the correct info on this line)
all the various email addresses are set up for you and you can copy them from the bottom of the page
click Save

Now you're ready to let Muse help with adding a new entry to your Space when you think there's nothing to say.

Scroll down in the Muse pane to get the Save as draft or Save to Space options.

Have fun

Via Liveside.

Technorati tags: Muse, Live Messenger bot, Live Spaces, email to your Space, post photos to your Space

Windows Live and Windows Mobile 6

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:06:27 GMT

Just the other day Microsoft announced its latest operating system for mobile phones, Windows Mobile 6.

Windows Live services are part of Mobile 6: Live Messenger, Live Mail, Live Search and, yes, Live Spaces - see Windows Live for Windows Mobile.

There are a couple of interesting things you can do from your mobile with Mobile 6, such as sending photos directly from your phone to one of your Spaces photo albums.

This post from Mike's Lounge explains how to do the above before Mobile 6 was announced - as long as your mobile has got email you'll be ok.

Via Mike Torres (who is using one of Live Spaces' new themes).

Technorati tags: Windows Live, Windows Mobile 6

New themes for Live Spaces

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:36:22 GMT

The Live Spaces team have announced that there are twelve new themes now available for Live Spaces.

Make sure you're signed in and in edit mode then click Customize to check them out.

Here's the list (via The Space Craft):

Art:
· Street Graffiti
Music and entertainment:
· Music Machine
Nature:
· Cat Tails
· Garden Lawn
· Moon set
Objects:
· Ropes
Patterns:
· Light Stream
· Tiles
· Wallpaper Stripes
Sports:
· LeBron Book
· LeBron Graffiti
· LeBron Hoops
· King James
· Slick LeBron

and a screenshot of what they look like:

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, themes

Sign up for alerts

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 08:47:05 GMT

You already know you can find out when friends on your Live Messenger contact list have updated their Space - the little gleam to the left of the name will, well, gleam.

Or, you might be using Windows Live Mail desktop and new entries and photo albums will automatically be picked up by the Feeds aggregator and you'll see the new info in the Unread feeds section.

But what about Spaces that don't belong to your family and friends in your Live Messenger contact list? You've probably found Spaces on which people talk about things that interest you. How do you find out when new content has been added? You could subscribe to a feed from their Space and add this feed to those you've already got on your Live.com page but now there's another way.

With the latest updates to Spaces (scroll down the page past the announcement about embedding videos), you'll find there's now a Sign up for alerts in the Visitors module:

When you go the steps to sign up for alerts, you can choose to receive your alerts to Live Messenger (use the bell icon tab to view them) or via email.

Now the important point about receiving alerts, especially via Live Messenger, is that they happen in real time. You've already experienced alerts popping up at the bottom right corner of your screen as soon as a friend signs into Live Messenger or when you get new email. Similarly for alerts from Spaces that are updated.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Messenger, alerts

Embed a video demo

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:51:45 GMT

Here's a demo of embedding a video into a post on your Space.

At the moment you have to use the Add a blog from Spaces itself - a gadget will be available soon to use in Live Writer.

The video below is from Soapboax (soapbox.msn.com) as you can see. You should take out the extra bit of HTML coding at the end of the code you copy from the right-hand Share pane in Soapboax although it doesn't seem to matter (if you leave it, you'll et a link to the video as well in your post).

Embed a video in your Live Spaces entries

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:07:49 GMT

The Windows Live Spaces team have announced they've just completed some updates to Live Spaces, the most significant being able to embed a video in an entry.

You'll need an embed link to do this - wherever your video is stored online should provide this link. Secondly, the video must be in Flash format.

More later when webDotWiz has the time to try out this new feature.

By the way, the Customize-Modules section now provides the option to add the Soapbox gadget and a Universal Video Player gadget directly.

For some good screenshots of how the new feature works, see The Space Craft (Windows Live Spaces team space).

Note: The Insert Video gadget for Live Writer will be updated after its author chats with the Live Spaces and Live Writer teams.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, embed video

Soapbox Video Player is the easiest

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 09:28:50 GMT

Once you've asked for and been accepted to try out Soapbox on MSN Video, you can add the Soapbox Video Player to your Space so visitors can view your own videos.

The Soapbox Video Player is the easiest of the player gadgets to deal with - there are no complicated embed codes to copy and paste to get things to work.

To add the Soapbox Video Player to your own Space, simply click the + on the top right of the player on webDotWiz's Space. A drop down lets you choose to add the gadget to your own Space and from there all you need do after your own Space opens is to move the player to where you want it on your own page and click Save in the yellow reminder bar that pops up. Then click the Install button. Click on the top right (not very well seen because of the yellow colour on the black background) of the player to choose which videos you want played. Normally you'll want to choose My Videos. Otherwise, until you create some of your own videos (e.g., from photos using Photo Story), watch some videos at Soapbox and mark ones you like - they'll automatically go into your favorites - so choose My Favorites.

If you've got videos on another service such as YouTube you'll need the universal player named Video Player for Soapbox. You can get this one from the Soapbox team's space.

Technorati tags: Soapbox on MSN Video, Soapbox players, Live Spaces

A video plugin for Windows Live Writer

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:00:06 GMT

Scott has written a video plugin for WLW.

Now, as you know, presently WLW nor the current version of Live Spaces enable us to directly insert and play a video from a post/entry. So what Scott's plugin does is convert a link to a video on Soapbox into a graphic of a player with a screenshot of the particular video.

You can download Scott's player from here (this link begins the download of the zip file containing the Insert Video DLL file). Note you'll need to unzip the player DLL and manually copy it into the Plugins sub-folder under Live Writer's main folder.

To see how things will look in WLW, take a look at this post on the Soapbox team's space. Sadly it seems webDotWiz's ISDN connection doesn't give enough bandwidth for the Insert Video plugin to work successfully .

Technorati tags: Insert video plugin, Windows Live Writer, Soapbox on MSN Video

Get the Embedded Video gadget

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:06:01 GMT

The easy part - just click the + at the top right corner of the Embed Video Gadget module over there at the top right of the opening page of webDotWiz's Space.
Click on the Install button.
Now the usual yellow info bar highligher comes up so click Save to save your page with this new module.
In the textbox in the module is where you insert the necessary code to embed a video from Soapbox, Google Video, Youtube, Vidilife or MySpaceVideoCode.com. Because you've added this module from here, it'll have the code to show webDotWiz's video (the only one at the moment) so get the code for a video from one of the sites just mentioned and copy and paste the necessary code. For example, choose a video at Soapbox and copy and paste the embed player code that's below the video player on the right-hand side of the screen.

All done

Thanks very, very muchly to Dare. You can also get Dare's gadget from this page on Windows Live Gallery.

Technorati tags: Embedded video gadget, Windows Live Gadgets, Soapbox on MSN Video

Embedding a Soapbox video into a Live Spaces entry

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 10:00:10 GMT

Well, firstly the steps below won't actually embed a video into an entry to your space via Windows Live Writer - the end result will be an image and link to a Soapbox video.

start up Live Writer, put in your title, and do some text (e.g., describe the video)
sign into Soapbox if you've been accepted to try out the service (at the time of writing you need to ask for an invite since Soapbox is still being tested)
choose a video, either your own that you've uploaded or one from the library
click to start it playing (it'll play in its own window on the right-hand side of the screen)
in the bottom third or so of the screen on the right, you'll notice three different types of links in white text - link:, link with image;, embed player:
we want to use the link with image: item and when you hover your mouse over this link, a tooltip will pop up to tell you to right-click and copy - ok, do it
come back to Live Writer, choose View / HTML Code and paste the link where you want the image and link to the video to be positioned
choose View again and return to the Web Layout view - now you'll see the image representing the video which your users click to link to the video at Soapbox (you can use Writer's image tools to size the image as you please).

Both the Soapbox and The Space Craft teams have promised that it won't be long until we can directly embed a Soapbox player into our Spaces posts.

Here's a video demo of Microsoft Photosynth:

Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth screencast

Technorati tags: Soapbox on MSN Video, Microsoft Photosynth

New features in Live Spaces

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:18:01 GMT

From The Space Craft, team blog for the Live Spaces team:

keep up to date with what your friends are doing on their Space - up at the top right, there's a link entitled What's new
pick the colours you want for text and background - click on Customize and there's an extra tab called Colors
on the Modules tab you'll find you can now add a Windows Media Player module (it's under the Other section in Modules)
improved gadgets from the Live Gallery
a four column layout
title and its tagline can be customised with a different font and you can use different text colours to brighten up your title

webDotWiz is off to play with a few of the above, especially the Media Player module. Apparently he'll have to wait a bit before he can show you any movies from Soapbox.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, updates, Windows Media Player, customise

Tips for your Space Photo Albums

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00:32:22 GMT

The Space Craft (Live Spaces team space/blog) has a few good pointers on using your photo albums on your space.

re-order albums, using the double-headed arrows that appear when you hover the mouse over a title album
setting the photo album that we see when we visit your space
changing the order of photos in a photo album using drag'n'drop
editing the captions for your album photos (i.e., if you've got photos from your camera and they're named like img0001.jpg, img0002.jpg, you can give us meaningful names to describe your photos).

The post on The Space Craft has screenshots that accompany each of the above so get over there and try out these tips to improve your space's albums.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, photo album tips