5 Windows Live Hidden Gems

Microsoft's Web services are so often overlooked that they're just about the software giant's best kept secret. But Microsoft is no Web-service slouch. In recent months the company has beefed up its Internet-based offerings with Office Web Apps, cool mapping tools, and desktop productivity software for making your data and core applications available anywhere on multiple devices, such as netbooks, smartphones, or PCs at an Internet café.

Get Office Web Apps Right Now
(Editor's Note: This hidden gem is no longer so hidden. Microsoft has now officially launched its Office Web Apps for general availability. You can try out the Web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote by going to office.live.com and signing in with your Windows Live ID. - updated 6/8/10)


Office Web Apps, currently in beta, are scheduled to go live June 15 when Microsoft Office 2010 hits store shelves. They're free, online versions of Microsoft's popular Office programs--namely, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote--that you can access from a Web browser. But you don't need to wait until then: You can start using Office Web Apps right now. All you need to get started is your Windows Live ID and a document to upload to Windows Live SkyDrive.

Streetside in Bing Maps
The latest version of Bing Maps has an interesting new feature called Streetside (similar to Google Maps Street View) that allows you to explore street-level views of select U.S. cities. Microsoft has a long way to go if it wants to match the thousands of miles that Google offers in its Street View mapping service.

When you first start up Streetside, Bing Maps' Silverlight interface uses a cool 3D effect to drop you into the map. Bing also uses a 3D effect when you zoom in on a building or location within Streetside. Though this feature doesn't really add to the functionality of Bing Maps, it is a nice visual enhancement.

You can easily navigate Streetside either by using the compass at the bottom of the screen or by dropping the Streetside icon (the little blue man) onto the map. I found that, compared with Google Street View, Streetside makes zooming in on specific locations much easier; exploring and navigating Streetside's immersive images is effortless, too.

Bing Maps also keeps a search history in the left navigation panel under 'My Legend', so you can quickly move between previously searched locations on Bing Maps.

With this iteration of Bing Maps, you can add Foursquare, National Geographic, Twitter, and other applications that contribute more data to what you're seeing in Streetside. The Foursquare application brings up a list of recent check-ins and tips about restaurants and venues near the location you're viewing on Streetside. Bing's Twitter app adds location-based tweets to your Streetside map, and assorted other applications can help you find gas stations, rental properties, street art, and more. To add applications to your map, select Map Apps in the left pane in Bing Maps.

Social Media Aggregation and Hotmail
A great alternative is to bring all your social-media activities into your Windows Live profile page, including your Facebook wall posts, Twitter updates, and Flickr photo streams. Then, when you update any one of your social networking services, your Hotmail friends get an update.

Once the new Hotmail goes live, you'll also be able to pull your friends' social networking updates into the new Windows Live landing page, creating a central hub for all your online activity.

Map a SkyDrive Folder to Your Windows 7 Desktop
One of the best features of Windows Live is its 25GB of free storage through SkyDrive. In contrast, Google Docs offers you only 1GB of free storage, and SkyDrive uses the typical folder structure you're used to in Windows.

You can map SkyDrive to your desktop in any of several ways, but the easiest method for Windows 7 users is to download the free SkyDrive Simple Viewer utility. First, though, you need to link your Windows Live ID to your Windows 7 user account by clicking Start, Control Panel, User Accounts. (Make sure you're using the 'Large icons' view in Control Panel.)

If you're a Windows Vista or XP user, try the free SDExplorer utility to get simplified desktop access to Windows Live SkyDrive.

Windows Live Mesh Beta
Note: Though Mesh is currently available, Microsoft will rebrand this service as Windows Live Sync later this summer. When that happens, some of the features described below may change, but the basic functionality of syncing documents across multiple desktops and the Web will remain the same.

Live Mesh Beta is a free tool that lets you synchronize files and folders across multiple desktops and the Internet. This setup allows you to have the latest versions of your documents available on any Internet-connected PC or Mac system. Microsoft says that a mobile version of Mesh is in development, too, but the company has not released it yet.

You can use Mesh not only to sync but also to share documents with coworkers, clients, or anyone else who needs remote access to a folder. Mesh has a "News Bar" that issues a notification whenever you or anyone else who can access your Mesh folders has modified a document or added to it; in addition, you can use the News Bar to leave notes for other users who have access to a shared folder.

Mesh offers desktop software for both Mac and Windows, but in my tests the Mac software was a little unstable. One day I was unable to install the Mac software on a MacBook running OS X 10.6, even after several tries--a week later, however, I installed the Mac software without a problem. Expect some bugs when using the Mac version. No desktop version of Mesh exists for Linux users, but you can still access your Mesh through the Live Desktop interface.

via PCWorld.