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Jul

30

Planning a trip using Groups, OneNote, and SkyDrive

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

The last time I planned a summer trip with a group of friends, it was a long process that involved picking the right dates, finding hotels, and looking for activities to do once we got there. It was all pretty disorganized, with long email threads and multiple copies of documents that people had been sending back and forth in email.

It would have been a lot easier if we’d been using Windows Live Groups to plan that trip. It would have helped us organize all the planning and trip information in one place, making it so much easier for everyone going on the trip to be a part of the planning process.

For each group you create on Windows Live, you get a unique URL and email address. Group members can access all group information from the group’s site. Once you invite someone to be a member of your group, they start receiving group email (even if they don’t sign up), and they can view group photos and documents.

Windows Live Groups

Collaborate on documents like never before

Each group has its own 25GB of online storage on Windows Live SkyDrive, which gives you a central place to store and collaborate on documents. In this release, we’ve added the ability to share documents and photo albums that you’ve stored in your personal SkyDrive with the group.

Documents on Group SkyDrive

Now that Office Web Apps are integrated with SkyDrive, group members can view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents right in the browser – even if they don’t have Office installed on their PC.

Group owners can "pin" documents and folders to the group profile page to make it easy for anyone in the group to find an important document.

Pinned documents

Your secret weapon – OneNote

Every group also gets its own OneNote notebook on SkyDrive, with different sections and pages just like a regular notebook. Your group’s online notebook is useful for collecting information from members and for storing centralized resources. You can copy in links, images, maps, and random notes, and rearrange them on the page as you get things organized. It’s great for brainstorming with others as you plan your trip, because you can each add your own notes and ideas to the notebook in real time, without fear of overwriting anyone else’s notes In other words, it’s a great companion to trip planning.

Group OneNote notebook

Messenger integration

Groups is also integrated into the new Messenger. In one click you can start an IM conversation with the entire group (for groups with less than 40 members).

Groups integraton with Messenger

Group activity is also really easy to keep track of. Each group has its own Messenger social feed on the group’s main page.

Group Messenger Social feed

Sharing photos with the group

After your trip, everyone in the group can upload photos to the group’s SkyDrive or share albums from their personal SkyDrive folders with the group.

Here we’re uploading photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery directly to the group:

Uploading group photos

And here’s what it looks like when you’re viewing those photos in a cool Silverlight slide show on the group’s SkyDrive:

group photo slide show

A powerful tool for group planning

Windows Live Groups is a simple and powerful tool to plan a trip or event or stay connected with your family, your team, or your social club. In our latest release, we’ve added deeper integration with SkyDrive, which makes collaborating on docs or sharing photos easier than ever. Give the updated Windows Live Groups a spin at groups.live.com, and let us know what you think.

Omar Shahine
Principal Lead Program Manager, Windows Live

Jul

30

Enjoying the scenery with the HP G62

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

I’m sitting here in on my in-laws’ deck overlooking beautiful Lake Chelan. Evan sleeping by my side, Audrey is down for a nap and the house is otherwise empty, so I thought I’d take my mother-in-law’s HP G62 out for a test drive. Yes, this is the same one I was conscripted to configure just a few weeks ago, but last time I was giving it the quickie setup (i.e., installing Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Live Essentials Beta, and Office 2010), so didn’t have the chance to fully put it through its paces.

IMG_5101

The HP G62 is part of HP’s line of everyday computers, meaning it’s optimized for light internet work, basic productivity tasks like writing Word docs, and playing music and movies. It’s a value priced machine – MSRP starts at $499.99, and my mother-in-law got her model for a little over $500 at a major retailer. For that price, you get a lot of machine. The G62 comes with a brand-new Intel Core i3 processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 320GB 7200 rpm HDD. Graphics are Intel Integrated HD which put out respectable Windows Experience Index score of 4.2 for desktop graphics and 4.8 for gaming graphics. That’s not top-shelf power, but if you’re just watching DVDs, playing casual games or streaming some web video it’s more than enough to give you a great experience.

As with all HPs, the 15”, 1366 x 768 display is gorgeous. It’s very bright but not too glossy; out here on the deck in bright sunlight the screen is still easy to read. Sound is powered by Altec Lansing speakers which produce solid, deep sound that’s better than most laptops I’ve tried in this price range – you don’t get the tinny, hollow reverberation that you find on cheaper speakers. As someone who’s permanently tethered to his Zune collection (or Pandora), that’s a big plus.

IMG_5097

Even though this is part of HP’s value line, they didn’t skimp on design. The chassis is imprinted polycarbonate with a light polygon texture and the default out-of-the-box wallpaper matches the case design, which is kind of cool and a nice touch that brings the PC together inside and out. My favorite bit about the G62’s design is the touchpad – or should I say “lack of touchpad”. Unlike most laptops that have a dedicated, defined touchpad that looks like at touchpad, the G62 doesn’t. Its touchpad is seamless with the rest of the palm rest, so the chin of the laptop is completely unbroken (aside from the right and left mouse buttons). That’s an unusual design choice, but I like it and it’s something I wish more PC manufacturers would do. I’m a minimalist by nature, so anything that cleans up the façade of my PC makes me feel all Zen inside.

IMG_5099

I’ve only had a chance to work with the G62 for a few hours, but I like what I see so far. Performance while working on this doc in Word 2010 was snappy and Internet Explorer running Twitter, Facebook, and multiple other tabs like CNN.com, Weather.com, The Consumerist, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Windows Experience Blog, and my favorite non-tech blog, The Sartorialist, was smooth and hang-free even when playing video on both Giz and Engadget simultaneously.

If you’re in the market for a solid 15” laptop and you’re working off of a modest budget, put the HP G62 on your list. For around $500, it’s a tough box to beat.

 

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column!

Jul

29

Have you tried the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 Beta yet?

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

Have you downloaded the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP Beta yet?

The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta helps keep your PCs and servers on the latest support level, provides ongoing improvements to the Windows Operating System (OS), by including previous updates delivered over Windows Update as well as continuing incremental updates to the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms based on customer feedback, and is easy for organizations to deploy a single set of updates.

The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta will help you:

The public beta is best suited for IT pros, tech enthusiasts and developers who need to test the service pack in their organization or with the software they are developing.

In order to download and install the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta you must currently have a Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 already installed. The Beta is available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

To learn more about piloting, deploying and managing Windows 7, visit the Springboard Series on TechNet.

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