Living the Microsoft Life: It’s a free life (part 2)

This series of posts, Living the Microsoft Life, are designed to show off some of the cool stuff from Microsoft that you can use in day-to-day life free, so that you can live a “Microsoft Life”. This was originally posted (by me) over on the Deakin MSP blog.

The list was so large and wordy I needed to split it into two parts! Part 1 was all about free software, this part (part 2) is about the free services and learning from Microsoft. This list doesn’t include every single one of Microsoft’s free services, but it is a fairly substantial list.

Then there are the free services…

Windows Live branded services

• Windows Live Home
  Windows Live Home is a portal for your Live services, and a social network of sorts. Perhaps ’social network aggregator’ would be more accurate, as you’re able to add  your ‘Web Activities’ such as any RSS feed, blogs, Flickr, Twitter, Daum, Flixtser, iLike, Pandora, Photobucket, StumbleUpon, TripIt, Wordpress and Yelp.

  
  In turn you’ll be able to see a “stream of activities” (much like what Facebook or Twitter already do) for all your contacts as they add their “Web Activities”. This “What’s new with your network” stream also appears down the bottom of Windows Live Messenger.

  

• Windows Live Sync (formerly FolderShare)
  Synchronise files between two or more computers (with Live Sync installed) over a network, or the internet easily. If you don’t want Live Mesh limitations (of 5gb) or don’t want to store it in the cloud, LiveSync could be for you.There are Windows and Mac OS X clients, and it integrates into Windows Live Photo Gallery to sync albums between computers.
• Windows Live SkyDrive (formerly Windows Live Folders)
  25gb online storage, each file gets a unique url which you can share with anybody, or if you prefer, have it secured and private.Photos uploaded with Skydrive can be turned into galleries at Live Home
• Windows Live Hotmail
  5 GB of mail storage that grows when you need it. Email address can end with @hotmail.com (or localised versions such as @hotmail.co.uk, @hotmail.fr) or @live.com (again it can be localised to domains such as @live.ca, @live.co.uk, @live.fr or @live.com.au)POP3 access is slowly being turned on around the world, as of February (2009), United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherland had access to it.

  Personally, I’m loving the new(ish) interface on Live Hotmail and prefer it over Gmail. That being said, for my uses I prefer the IMAP access which Gmail gives me, so I use that service.

• Windows Live Spaces
  Live Spaces is a combination of blogging platform and social network. If you want to start blogging, and want a non-technical setup, and don’t have to worry aboutLive Spaces includes blogging, photos, lists, friends, and guestbook functionality.

  If you do setup Live Spaces, don’t forget to use Windows Live Writer!

• Live Mesh
  Live Mesh is currently in beta, but with clients on the Web, Windows, OS X and Windows Mobile, Live Mesh is the easiest way to sync files between multiple devices, and without having to interact with the syncing process at all.5gb online storage for free, that’s can be synced between all your machines and devices without you having to lift a finger? Doesn’t get much better than that.
• Windows Live Calendar
  It’s a web-calendar – supports iCalendar, intergrates with Live Hotmail (and the desktop client, Windows Live Mail). Features daily, weekly, monthly, and agenda modes.It integrates with Windows Live Alerts too, allowing you to get calendar information (such as an upcoming event) pushed over email, SMS, or Live Messenger alerts.
• Windows Live Admin Center
  Want to use Live Hotmail, but instead of a “@live.com” or “@hotmail.com”, you’d prefer your own custom domain? Live Admin Center lets you create up to 500 email addresses (more if you meet certain requirements), free, with all the benefits of Live Hotmail (ie, growing mailbox, integrated calendar) on whatever domain you have.Setting it up isn’t overly complex…if you know how to change DNS/MX records (one MX record, and one DNS setting is all you need to get going)

Other services

• PhotoSynth
  PhotoSynth is a way to take together photos taken of a similar location (or object), then stitch them together in 3D, and navigate around.

  It was also featured on an episode of CSI.

• Office Live Workspace EDIT:See the comments, Jeff from MSFT Office Live team points out
  

  “… the web-app versions of Office have not been launched yet. ….you can save more files than just MSFT Office file formats- most file formats are accepted in your Workspace, except for file formats like .exe that can cause harm to your computer”

  Office Live Workspace gives you 5gb online to store Office documents. There are plugins for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook to save/load directly from “the cloud” as well.
  
  Office Live Workspace allows you to collaborate with others, see what they’re uploading, what they edited, etc. Or you can keep it all private.As part of Office Live Workspace, Office Web Applications are included, which are lightweight/cut down versions of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Onenote.

  
  
  (these screenshots are all “edit mode” screenshots, click for the larger screenshots)

• Worldwide Telescope
  WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky.This is part software and part service (no way is the client going to come with all those star maps, it’d be huge!), but entirely free.
• Silverlight Streaming
  If you have a large hi-def video you want to stream through Silverlight, chances are you’ll kill your web-hosts bandwidth allowance very quickly.The Silverlight Streaming service is in beta, but it gives you up to 10 GB of storage, and streaming is free up to 5 TB of aggregated bandwidth per user account per month.

…And then there is free learning!

• TechNet and MSDN Virtual Labs
  MSDN for the coding labs, TechNet for the administrative (as in, Windows Server administration and the like) side of Microsoft products.

  Each lab is aimed to take 90minutes or less, and also comes with a (downloadable) Lab Manual.

• E-Learning Special Offers
  Okay, maybe not free learning, but this site has promotional codes to get cheaper learning.
• Office Self-Paced Training
  Office 2003 and Office 2007 training courses with audio and text.

Living the Microsoft Life: It’s a free life

This series of posts, Living the Microsoft Life, are designed to show off some of the cool stuff from Microsoft that you can use in day-to-day life free, so that you can live a “Microsoft Life”. This was originally posted (by me) over on the Deakin MSP blog.

As you all know students (or should by now!) can get some of Microsoft’s software for free via Dreamspark, and there is some more available cheaply through the Its Not Cheating/Its Not Piracy program. Is that all Microsoft can give away for free? No!

I’ve compiled a largish list of some of the more useful (in my opinion) free programs and services from Microsoft, however this list still isn’t everything Microsoft gives away for free.

First there are the free programs…

• Windows Live

  It would be impossible to go through this list without possibly the most prominent suite of programs given away by Microsoft.

  The Windows Live Essentials pack is made up of

  • Windows Live Writer (I’m using it right now to write this post!)

    This is without a doubt the best tool for blogging out there. Browser editors aren’t bad these days, but nothing compares to having a rich desktop client to create blog posts in.

   

  • Windows Live Messenger

    Windows Live Messenger is one of the oldest and most used instant messaging network/programs.

    Version "2009" has done a great deal to reduce some of the bloat, while adding a new, cleaner interface, along with a few new features, such as more personalisation of conversation windows, animated avatars (which can react with your "mood" of messages you’re sending), photo sharing, and integration with other Windows Live services, so you can see when your contacts are using Spaces, or Photos.

  • Windows Live Photo Gallery

    Windows Live Photo Gallery replaces Windows Photo Gallery (found in Vista).

    With the option to use folder, date, tag or "people" to browse, it’s easy to find the photo you’re after.

    The latest version has facial recognition so you can tag a person in a similar style to Facebook. The great thing is it attempts to recognise all the faces in the photo, so all you have to do is put a name to them, rather than drawing a rectangle over them. Also featured in the later versions is a SDK which lets you develop plugins.

    Windows Live Photo Gallery also features fantastic panoramic photo generation, select the photos in a series, Make > Create Panoramic Photo, and that is it!

  • Windows Live Mail

    Windows Live Mail replaces Windows Mail (which replaced Outlook Express), and is a reasonably powerful and quick desktop email client.

    It has built in support for Live Hotmail, Gmail, YahooMail, POP3 and IMAP.

    Personally I find the IMAP performance in Windows Live Mail better than Outlook!

  • Live Movie Maker (Beta)

    Free video editor. I wish I could say more about it, but I don’t use this particular application myself. However, last time I looked at Movie Maker, it was a little under featured, but it is in beta and is the most immature application in the package – given time it may be very awesome.

  • Outlook Connector

    Not a fan of Live Mail, but still want to be able to access your Live Hotmail in a desktop client? By using Outlook Connector with Outlook, you’re able to get your Live Hotmail emails, contacts and calendar into Outlook.

• Office Accounting Express 2009

   "It can create estimates, invoices, track customer payments, set product and service pricing and can export and import data using Microsoft Excel formats, and can export to e-mails, Microsoft Word documents, or PDF files, and even sell items on eBay."

  (from http://tim-stanley.com/post/Office-Accounting-Express-2009.aspx)

  It’s a bit full-on for personal use (I think), but a free accounting application is a free accounting application.

• Windows Media Encoder 9

  

  For students, you get access to Expression Encoder 2 via Dreamspark which is much easier to use and has some more up to date options. The downside is that Expression Encoder 2 doesn’t support more than two channels (stereo) audio, but Windows Media Encoder 9 does!

  32bit and 64bit versions are available.

  For the developers who like to encode things, WME9 has an API as well, if you want to build a ‘better’ or more specific GUI on-top of it.

…and then there are the free development tools and utilities…

• Deep Zoom Composer

  Don’t know what Deep Zoom in Silverlight is? The Hard Rock Memorabilia is one of the best examples of Deep Zoom. Deep Zoom Composer allows you to add as many images as you like to a composition, and generates all the levels of zoom (and even resulting Silverlight file to show it off) for you.

• Visual Studio Express (C#, VB.NET, Web)

  If you are a student, don’t click here, go to Dreamspark instead and get the full version of Visual Studio 2008!

  If you aren’t a student, the Visual Studio Express versions are cut down (but free) versions of Visual Studio. Works great with XNA too..

• SQL Server Express

  A cut down version of SQL Server, SQL Server Express still remains a powerful SQL database. There are three versions (all free), Express, Express with Tools and Express with Advanced Services, thankfully the SqlExpress team has a great table showing the differences between them.

• SQL Server Compact Edition

  SQL Server Compact Edition (SQLCE) is a free, tiny, redistributable database. If you want your app to use a database, but don’t want the users to need to install and configure SQL Server Express, SQLCE just requires installing.

  Some of the top features are…

  • Free to use and distribute

  • Supports desktops and mobile devices

  • Small footprint for easy deployment

  • Fully embeddable architecture

  • No administration required

  • Single file, code-free database format

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 integration

  • Supports ADO.NET, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities, and the ADO.NET Entity Framework

• XML Notepad 2007

  If Notepad doesn’t cut it for editing your XML files, XML Notepad might be for you. If you wish to navigate via the XML Tree, or see what is causing a parsing error, its definitely for you!

• Terminals

  This is one that I use, so it had to make the list. Terminals is a more powerful version of the Remote Desktop Client, allowing tabbed connections, history, and enhanced protocol support (RDP, VNC, RAS, Telnet for example)

  Technically not from Microsoft, but from a Microsoft MVP and .NET enthusiasts.

• Virtual PC

  Virtual PC lets you create a virtualised computer, so you can run Windows (or Linux) inside Windows!

Next week, part two of this post will be about the free services and learning from Microsoft.