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Windows Live Messenger replaces MSN Messenger as Microsoft’s mainstream instant messaging (IM) application. In truth, the term instant messaging doesn’t really do this application a lot of justice. Although it can indeed be used to hold text-, audio-, and video-based chats online with your friends, coworkers, and other contacts, Windows Live Messenger is blurring the line with telephone-like functionality thanks to its integration of Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies. That means you can make long-distance and international phone calls via Windows Live Messenger for a small fraction of what you’re probably being charged by the phone company. It might be time to invest in a PC headset. Windows Live Messenger is shown in article 19-5. Windows Live Messenger can also be used to communicate with friends using Yahoo! Messenger, a competing instant messaging application.
Other Offers from Microsoft In addition to the Windows Live services mentioned previously, the Windows Vista Welcome Center also offers two other offers from Microsoft, “Go online to Windows Marketplace” and “Sign up online for technical support.” Windows Marketplace is Microsoft’s shopping and download site, from which you can purchase hardware and software for your Windows Vista–based PC. It has developed into an interesting destination, especially because much of the software it offers can actually be downloaded, for instant gratification. Windows Marketplace is shown in article 19-6. The second option opens Internet Explorer 7 and navigates to the Microsoft Support Web site (http://support.microsoft.com/). From here, you can get guided help, visit the product solution center for Windows Vista, or submit support requests. It’s a good place to visit if more traditional support options - such as the Vista help files, this article, or the teenaged geek down the street - aren’t able to answer your questions. There are other support options available to you as well, of course. For example, you might use Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail Desktop to visit Microsoft’s product support newsgroups. There, you can get peer-to-peer support (from other Windows users) or even responses from the Microsoft engineers that frequent the groups. To access these newsgroups in Windows Live Mail Desktop, simply click the News shortcut and then Microsoft Communities.
A Few Other Windows Live Services In addition to the several Windows Live products and services that Microsoft promotes from within Windows Vista, the company offers a wide range of other Windows Live services, which you can examine and download at your leisure online. Here are a few of the more valuable Windows Live services you may want to check out.
Live.com Microsoft’s newest Web portal, Live.com (www.live.com/), looks like a simple search page, but it’s highly customizable. You can add a number of dynamic content panes containing news, sports, or entertainment headlines, weather, stock quotes, and even your Windows Live Mail e-mail. Live.com is shown in article 19-7. Although Google has become so popular that the term Google is now used both as the company’s name and as a verb to describe searching the Web (as in, “I need to Google Windows Vista to find out more about it”), it’s not the only game in town. Live.com with its Windows Live Search is now the default homepage in Windows Vista’s version of Internet Explorer 7, and the company hopes that this exposure will help it convince users to give the service a chance. Give it a shot. The customization options are quite interesting. Like the Windows Sidebar (Article 6), Live.com can be customized with gadgets, small software programs that provide much more interactivity than is commonly associated with web pages. Live.com gadgets are created similarly to Windows Sidebar gadgets, so many developers will create gadgets that work in both places. To discover gadgets for Live.com (or the Sidebar), visit Windows Live Gallery (http://gallery.live.com).
Windows Live OneCare Family Safety Although Microsoft does offer a Windows Live OneCare subscription product (mentioned earlier in this article), the company’s customers told it that it would need to protect nonsubscribers online if it expected them to access its various Windows Live services. So Microsoft extended the OneCare brand into a variety of other free services, including an online virus scanner (the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner at
http://safety.live.com) and the Windows Live OneCare Family Safety service (http://fss.live.com), which provides web filtering and contacts management for parents wishing to keep their children safe online. Windows Live OneCare Family Safety requires a small download - it also requires that you and your children all have Windows Live IDs (formerly called Passport accounts). But the effort of doing so is worth it. With this web-based service, you can monitor your children’s activities online, and protect them from undesirable content and online predators. And what the heck, it’s absolutely free.
Windows Live Spaces Windows Live Spaces is Microsoft’s blogging solution, software that enables anyone to publish a web site, complete with photos and interactive content, easily and without any technical knowledge. Spaces has proven quite popular - by some metrics it’s the most popular blogging software in the world - and it certain does provide a friendly and welcome environment with professional looking page design and nice integration with other Windows Live services. You can find out more at the Spaces web site (http://spaces.live.com/). A typical Windows Live Spaces blog is shown in article 19-8. A related Windows Live product, Windows Live Writer, allows you to publish content to your Windows Live Spaces blog (or numerous other blog types, including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and many others) using a standard Windows-based application. Windows Live Writer, shown in article 19-9, is nice because it works offline, letting you cache blog posts until you can get online, and it provides true What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWIG) editing. Find out more on the Windows Live Writer web site (http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/).
Summary In this article, we’ve examined Microsoft’s Windows Live products and services, which augment Windows Vista with a number of useful web-based capabilities, including instant messaging, PC safety and security, e-mail, and much more. With Windows Live services, you can communicate with friends, coworkers, and loved ones, publish your thoughts and photos to web sites, and keep your PC running securely and smoothly. And unlike previous Microsoft online services, the Windows Live services integrate with Windows only when you choose to install them: They aren’t simply provided for you whether you need or want them or not.
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