Live.com subtle change

webDotWiz just noticed a couple of subtle changes to the interface of his live.com page – slightly different shade of green on one of his live.com pages, and lines instead of shaded background heading areas on another. Much neater, he thinks. As well, the search box has moved closer to the top of the page. The Live.com team blog hasn’t posted about these changes yet but will and probably give us some details about changes they may have made in the background.

Update to Windows Live Messenger due

Leah, over at Inside Windows Live Messenger, has plenty of detail about the changes to the next trial version. In fact, we all should get notified of the update starting today or tomorrow. Plenty of screenshots, too, and lots of comments about the change to the interface.

Windows Defender (formerly Microsoft Antispyware)

webDotWiz has been recommending Microsoft Antispyware to users from the time it became freely available. Although defined as a beta, that is, a trial version of software, it’s been extremely good at finding any spyware and the automatic updating and daily checking are of the "set it and forget it" – it does the job without worries so users aren’t left unprotected.

 

Just the other day Microsoft Antispyware became Windows Defender (as it will be called in Windows Vista) and it’s now running happily on webDotWiz’s home computer and all the Rushworth Community House computers too. So go and update if you’ve been running MS Antispyware or download and start using Windows Defender to guard against malware and spyware. Users of MS Antispyware will note a change to the user interface, there are no more Allow/Block messages and it seems that Defender runs first thing if the scheduled time for checking hasn’t been carried out (that’s the good thing about AVG anti-virus too – they work well together). Go to the Windows Defender download page now.

Microsoft Origami Project

Blame Robert Scoble for starting this story when somebody asked him what it’s all about and, because of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), he could only reply that it was device. Take a guess yourself by visiting http://www.origamiproject.com/1/ – note that all will be revealed on Mar 2. Engadget thinks it knows what it’s all about by the way.

 

Update 2223: Mike Torres is speculating about the Origami project – well, more like hinting as to what it is. However Bink has a post Origami revealed! with a link to a company that apparently was/is (the link may be down by the time you read this) doing some promotion for this new device from Microsoft. Of course, you could leave all the speculation aside and just wait for the day all will be revealed as given at the Origami Project site.

Paint.NET version 2.6 available

The free graphics program, Paint.NET, has been updated to version 2.6 and it’s now available for download. You should only have to download the program itself (3.41Mb) but be prepared to download the full install of Paint.NET along with the .NET framework (which makes the download about 50Mb).

Windows Live Messenger makeover

Having received plenty of feedback from testers of the new Windows Live Messenger, the development team have announced lots of changes to the interface (e.g., gone is the dizzying effect when we hovered the mouse over a contact in our contacts list).

 

The best place to go to view all these changes is the Inside Windows Live Messenger space and let the developers themselves show us the changes that we’ll soon see.

Liveside.net for Windows Live news

Subscribe to www.liveside.net to keep up to date with news on upgrades and new features in various Windows Live services. LiveSide is a perfect example of a site whose feed you should be subscribing to on your Windows Live page.

Windows Live Mail support space

There’s now a support site with answers to frequently asked questions about Windows Live Mail. Many are now using Live Mail so visit http://spaces.msn.com/mail-support/ for hints and tips.

Office Live is up and running

Microsoft Office Live, www.officelive.com, was launched the other day. There are three services:

• Basic (free) whereby small businesses can obtain a domain name, create their own web site and provide their staff with email.
• Collaboration (subscription)
• Essentials (subscription).

Please note that Office Live is nothing to with Microsoft providing web online versions of Office Word, Excel, etc. Office Live is a service for small businesses to make use so these businesses can effectively create their own web presence and use various tools to help organise their business.

For more details, see Dares space and view some screenshots he has of how went about creating his own Office Live site, www.daresofficelivesite.com.

webDotWiz column for 16-Feb-2006 online

The February 16 webDotWiz column is now online at www.webdotwiz.com. This week’s column offers some tips for making best use of the recent updates to MSN Spaces.