It was my birthday last weekend. Logically I got a lot of comments on my Facebook wall and every comment was sent to me in an email. I like having Facebook email me when something interesting happens to me. But sometimes replies to replies and so on will clutter my inbox.
The real messages will sink to the bottom. This sometimes happens to my “I got this email yesterday, why can’t I find it?”. Luckily I setup and automatic Sweep of my email account. ‘Sweep’ (opruimen) is a new feature in hotmail. It automatically put all the Facebook and Netlog mails into a separate folder.
These Folders sync to Windows Live Mail and any other mail client. It’s like a ‘social inbox’ , good when you have time to check your social stuff. Good when you don’t want to be distracted when working and locating important email message.
To set it up select ‘sweep’ (opruimen) from the menu on the based Hotmail. But first select one message you want to sweep. Select to move email to a folder. And don’t forget to check the do this for future emails checkbox. This will makes sure every email send to you from Facebook or other providers will automatically land into a separate folder.
Bing has some great picture. Every day they use a new picture at there homepage www.bing.com and tell you something about it.
They also release Windows 7 themes that included “Bing’s Best” picture 3 times. Each pack included some pictures and if you wanted to have a new set of pictures you had to download another theme.
Now they released a dynamic theme. This theme automatically downloads new wallpapers to your machine. This way always have new pictures right in front of you without any intervention.
It’s definitely worth a look, and it will spice up your desktop and surprise you now an then. Great pictures brought to you every day. Hit the link above to download and install the theme! Enjoy !
People who know me, know I follow Microsoft releases pretty closely and I take it upon myself to learn now features and test them out. I most of the time like new features and try to promote them to my friend. Sometimes however I get frustrated about the fact that particular feature is not available in my country (Belgium).
In fact most of the features that are not available in my country are not available anywhere in Europe (except maybe the UK) or anywhere else on this planet. Microsoft website’s promote stuff like ‘Zune Subscription Pass’ , ‘Internet TV’ or ‘Netflix Instant Watch’ but non of these are available outside the US.
For some stuff like Netflix one could understand because Netflix itself is not available outside the US, one can only hope that ones Netflix get’s the licenses to offer there content abroad, Microsoft will be quick to jump the boat and release this stuff to there European costumers. This would be the same for Hulu.
Media Center
For other features it is not so obvious. Like the Internet Tv option in Windows Media Center or the Integrated Guide for that matter. Internet TV is an option to stream videos content provider and TV stations offer on there site to your TV and giving you an easy to navigate interface from your couch. Again some of them are restricted to only be able to be watched in the US. But other Video’s like News , Sports , TED-video’s , YouTube or Vimeo. Internet TV also gives access Zune video library witch IS available in Europe, but not via Media Center. The below video gives you a glimpse of what is possible with Internet TV in the US.
The main problem might be Microsoft does not have a “European Developer Centre” , meaning a building in Europe where people are developing shipping products. They have there research centre in Cambridge UK and every country has a sales manager and a business manager making sure products sell and get promoted via Events , Student Deals , Marketing. But in non of those countries there is somebody writing code and making deals to integrate a local service with Microsoft products. I know it’s a lot of investment but I think it is worth it.
They also made big deal about the new colour coded TV guide, the channel logo’s and movie library in Windows Media Center. Engadget recently reviewed Media Center and I encourage you to take a look at there experience.
It’s nothing like we have here in Belgium. To compare:
The TV Guide does not show channel logo’s
The TV Guide is not colour coded to indicate program genre
No HD indications on channels/programs
Movies from the guide are not show in the ‘Movies’ section of Media Center
Besides making content available that should be available there is so much more that can be done. Belgium’s public broadcasting agency makes a lot of content available freely on the web or via the local digital cable company. Why not make that available? Commercial broadcasters also provide a lot of added content online. Talk to them and hear if they are interested. I’m sure they will be if you tell them how many people own an Xbox and they would all get it, and you show them the success of Sky in the UK.
Other Services
Enough about Media Center, there are other products that suffer the same fait. Like the Zune service. The desktop Zune software is available for free download but is crippled by design. I use it to subscribe to podcasts and if you click the Engadget podcast subscribe link you will be presented with the following screen allowing you to subscribe to the podcast. All good right ?
Why would podcasts not be available worldwide to listen to? I really hope with the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 and integrated Zune support all of there restriction will be lifted and Zune will be fully available internationally.
Wrap-Up
Microsoft needs better integration with local European , Australian services and not only focus on the American market. I suggest setting up a developer campus in Europe with people from these countries to make sure the experience is what they would like at home. There is so much room for innovation and so much potential it seems like a shame not to use it.
Working with 3D models in XNA Game studio 3.2 and 4.0 beta for the first time, I found some strange stuff nobody ever told me about. It too me a while to find the solution and I did not really find any decent explanation on the internet. So here I am putting an explanation to fix the following exception:
File contains Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.Graphics.NodeContent but trying to load as Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Model
It’s a runtime exception making it so much harder to debug. The solution is quite simple. Select your model in the solution explorer and go to the properties window. There you need to set the Content Processor to ‘Model-XNA Framework’. This was tested in XNA 3.2 and 4.0.
The problem I had at first was Visual Studio 2008 crashed when I stride to open that drop down box. It crashed on me every single time.
It might have to do with the fact I was running the XNA Game Studio 4.0 preview and uninstalled it incorrectly (without installing the Beta yet). So after installing the Beta of Game Studio 4.0 this bug was fixed and Visual Studio no longer crashed!
Two weeks into summer holiday and my first project on the epic summer ‘to-do’ list is finished. A new website for the bike shop my parents run. The old one was getting outdated fast and did not reflect the shop style very well anymore.
So visit www.callemin.be and give any comments you like! It’s a very basic website, based on a free design template. The new site gives the store the finish it disserves. A nice tight online calling card.
Coming up are my next projects: portal websites for KSJ-KSA-VKSJ magazines , an all new interactive way to subscribe to KSJ-KSA-VKSJ events and a Bing Map App entered in the ‘King Of Bing Maps’ contest. Don’t know witch will be finished first but I have a summer to code them all up.
The new Windows Live is coming sooner then you think. Many of you use it so I found it appropriate to give you my (current) opinion about the good and the bad. The new Essentials contain the following desktop applications:
You might notice a new icon for Windows Live Sync indicating the Windows Live Sync tool has been completely rebuild from the ground up. The web services are also being updates http://www.live.comhas already received it’s update and so has your profilehttp://profile.live.com. Hotmail (http://mail.live.com , www.hotmail.com ) will also receive a giant update making it leap ahead of Gmail in my opinion. To get more detailed information about Windows Live I suggest you check the above links. This is a summary of the good and bad things about the new Windows Live Update. (keep in mind I might be missing some stuff)
GOOD: # New optional Social Panel containing Facebook , MySpace, YouTube, Windows Live,… feeds # Integrated Facebook chat (even if your browser it not open) # New layout for the contacts to show more on smaller space (grid) # “Appear Offline” to a complete group of contacts possible # HD webcam support # Better layout to share pictures (no more not being able to read messages while viewing picture) # Better screen space use when using webcam and picture sharing # Share video’s from YouTube, watch them together in conversation window # Nicer themes linked with Windows 7 and Web header team # New emoticons (all emoticons have been renewed) # Top navigation bar in conversation window is dropped and build into typing area # Tabbed conversations # Video chat with friends on Xbox Live trough Kinect
BAD: # When you use the Social Panel view the add at the bottom becomes full size square web app # You can no longer send out your webcam to multiple people at the same time! Not even if you don’t use audio. The is only ‘Video Chat’ and you can disable micro , speakers afterwards. The other webcam windows is greyed out if your chat partner does not have a webcam.
There might only be a few negative things but they are pretty huge in general perception. The flash ads in desktop applications are just really really bloated and break the UI flow of messenger. They also are very irritating if the ‘hover pan out’ is activated even when the window is not active (and then it come over other windows because somehow flash is ‘always on top’). Second, when you are use to chat to contacts by typing but still like to see your contact actually react to what you say it’s great to set up webcams and just watch each other while typing. This can still be done, but not with multiple people at the same time anymore. Very irritating if you are used to it being there.
GOOD: # Ribbon interface returns lost Icons to menu from Wave 3 # Better Inbox organisation # Conversation view (mails in reply to mails are displayed together) # Folder sync with Gmail & Hotmail # Flagged emails synced with Hotmail # Starred emails synced with Gmail # Large photo emails with beautiful album preview # Contact management in same window
BAD: # No new about feed sync or syncing read/unread across multiple machine
The mail update is pretty solid and I don’t have much complaints right now. Some might say the ribbon takes a up a lot of screen space but I think this is a no brainer considering icons have come back and anybody knows how ‘reply’ ‘reply all’ ‘forward’ icons look like. Making it easier to choose the right command.
GOOD: # Ribbon interface gives a more ‘clean look’ # Still the best blogging tool out there
BAD: # Ribbon might have made things to clean making it hard to access Concepts or Recent posts # Not a lot of new functionality # Plug-ins are on a different tab (more clicks away) # The developer story is not clear, nothing seams to be changed about the plug-in API making it still a very narrow platform.
This needs a longer explanation. Anybody using more then one computer on a regular basis will find the updated Sync tool the best ever (except if you are a real nerd and have been using dropbox for some time). The new Windows Live Sync is build upon the technology that has been driving Live Mesh for 2 years now. I’ve blogged about live mesh before on more then one occasion and now the time has finnaly come to bring Mesh to the masses via Windows Live.
GOOD: # Remote desktop to any computer running Windows Live Sync # Almost unlimited syncing between 2 computers ( 200 folders containing 100 000 files each , with a max file size of 40 GB) # Sync Internet Explorer Settings (favourites , history , safe website’s , …) # Sync Office 2010 Settings ( dictionary words , ribbon customisations , …) # Uses peer-to-peer sync if possible (won’t upload files first and then download them if the 2 computers are in the same network, eg: at home) # MAC and Windows support # Easy sharing of synced documents via Skydrive
BAD: # Only 2GB of online storage (Skydrive) to store the most important files for easy all access. # The Sync storage and Skydrive storage are separated and it is not easy to move files from one to an other. # Sync Storage does not have Office Web Apps integration. # No developer story (Live Mesh had an api to use the underplaying platform to sync your own applications settings and data) # You can no longer browse all folders of an online computer in a webpage (you need to use remote desktop) # No mobile support (witch Live Mesh could do) # No default messenger settings sync (Emoticons , Chat history,…) # No shell integration like Live Mesh had
Sync has awesome potential and for now is really good for syncing documents between computers. But the real potential is being slowed down by not having a developer API and not all the Windows Live products using Sync itself to sync there settings to other computers. If you compare it to Live Mesh it seems like a step backwards, if you compare it to any other sync tool (previous version or even FolderShare) it is a step in the right direction.
GOOD: # Ribbon UI # Facial recognition allowing to auto-tag friends # Filter your entire picture collection with ease # Better photo editing tools to resize # Photo Fuse allows creating one perfect picture of multiple pictures # Auto movie creation via Windows Live Movie Maker # Easily share pictures via Facebook (including people tags ! )
BAD: # Nothing, did not notice anything bad about this product yet!
This will be a great replacement of the current Photo Gallery witch does seem a bit outdated to the newest Picasa or iPhoto.
Wrap-up
The new Windows Live Essentials are shaping up to be a very good feature based release. I did not talk about Movie Maker or Family Safety because I don’t use them and you can find all the info about them on the website. Since I don’t use them I can’t say what I think is bad about them.
Only Messenger is really disappointing in some areas and might give the new Windows Live Wave 4 negative feedback from users. My guess is this feedback will start at day one. People will not like the UI changes and will turn of the Social Pane because of the massive ad. Thus not exploring the enormous potential of the aggregated social feed leaving Wave 4 at the same place Wave 3 is now. Known by geek who try to figure out all the functions in Windows Live. But the default user will never notice the good things about the change.
The negative stuff about sync is almost all because I have used Live Mesh for some time and know what the potential vision and future is this product holds. And it saddens me it took 2 years to release this version of sync with fewer features then Live Mesh Beta had. Mail en Photo Gallery will be a great and welcome update.
My real concern is not being able to only upgrade Mail and Photo Gallery and staying with the old messenger client. The bad stuff in messenger will really make me hate it, i still want to be able to video chat with multiple people at the same time! This will be hell until they fixed that.
Note: A recent update to Windows Live Essentials Wave 3 is the final update for Windows Xp users and only that version will be supported in the long run. That version does already no longer support ‘start webcam’ and does only support ‘Video Chat’.
Since I knew this I have not been updating my windows live essentials Wave 3 anymore. There have been updates for Live Writer Wave 3 but if I want to update Writer it will also update Messenger. Since I don’t want messenger to loose that important function, upgrading has stopped.
There is a new XBox 360 in town. It’s not twice as fast or double the capacity of the old model, but it does have some key advantages. It includes an internal (but removable) 250 GB hard drive and includes a Wireless-n network adapter. The fastest wireless network protocol available.
It has whisper quite fans so it should not be making al to much noise in your living room. It also has a completely new design and has touch sensitive buttons to power up or open up the disc bay.
Foremost it is ready for Kinect for XBox 360 with a new port on the back of the console. It is a newly designed port to both receive data from the Kinect sensor as provide power to the sensor. Kinect will also work on all other XBox 360 sold, but you will need to use one USB port and a power adapter to set the sensor up. (or maybe 2 USB ports, not really known yet).
Kinect
Kinect is the official name for Project Natal that was introduced last year at E3 2009. It’s controller free gaming. That might sound like it’s not really gaming or it’s something like the Wii but it is not. Let me explain…
The Wii you still need a controller to control the game. The controller contains sensors so the Wii console is able to guess what movement you are making. The famous B button on the back of the WiiMote is used in every game. WiiFit comes closer to controller free, but you need the balance board. The balance board again does not know who you are and what shape you have. It knows your weight and measures how you distribute it across the board.
Kinect is different. The Kinect sensor is below your TV (just like the Wii infrared receiver) but that is all. The Sensor can see you and even recognise your face. It tracks all the movement in your bones, it know when you are waving at the sensor even if you don’t move your feet. As an example of this I would like to compare it to any other dance game on the market. Most of them use a dance mat and you have to move your feet to some fixed position. It’s dancing only with your feet. Okay they tell you to wave your arms but there is no way they check if you are doing so. There is no way any dance game can check if you are doing the famous “Micheal Jackson Thriller Dance” correctly. Holding your hands in the right angle and moving by taking the correct steps. Kinect can do this!
It’s not only games, the game menu and interface can also be controlled with you hands. Wave your hands in the air to navigate and press forward to select an item. Bring up the menu with voice commands and rewind or fast-forward a movie by moving your hand. To play music just say ‘Xbox play music’ and it will start. The sensor is also a webcam and you can video chat on the big screen with friends on Xbox Live or Windows Live Messenger.
Although I must admit most games so far look like Wii games graphically it is only a matter of time before huge blockbusters like Forza MotorSport come out for Kinect. You have to know HD graphic games or created over a time span of multiple years and Kinect has just arrive in a final form now. The new Xbox will be available in Europe on 15th of July and Kinect will go on sale November 2010.
Be sure to check out the video’s below to really get an idea what al the above text is blabbering about!
my Facebook wall and every comment was sent to me in an email. I like having Facebook email me when something interesting happens to me. But sometimes replies to replies and so on will clutter my inbox. 
It’s like a ‘social inbox’ , good when you have time to check your social stuff. Good when you don’t want to be distracted when working and locating important email message.
This will makes sure every email send to you from Facebook or other providers will automatically land into a separate folder.
This needs a longer explanation. Anybody using more then one computer on a regular basis will find the updated Sync tool the best ever (except if you are a real nerd and have been using dropbox for some time). The new Windows Live Sync is build upon the technology that has been driving Live Mesh for 2 years now. I’ve blogged about live mesh 
@C_Kurt
