Russell's Professional Life

Starting next week I will no longer be involved as a developer for the Windows Live Spaces product.  I will start to work instead on the next iteration of Windows Live Groups.

This is a bittersweet time for me.  Working on Spaces was my first job out of college, so it will always be somewhat special for that reason alone.  I’ve enjoyed learning to use Spaces myself and seeing how it can help me stay in touch with family and friends. 

Recently I’ve also enjoyed interacting with active members of the Spaces community.  I’ve gotten to know many active Spaces users through our team blog, the Spacecraft.  I’ve placed real effort into making sure that our customers are taken care of and get any assistance that they need while using Spaces.  I’m sad to see those days end.  I will probably still read comments on the Spacecraft, but I will no longer take an active role in ensuring that customers received answers to help requests.  It’s sad for me because I really enjoyed the help that I’ve been able to give over these past months.

At the same time this change, like all changes, is exciting.  Windows Live Groups is a new product in the latest release of Windows Live, and I’m really excited about it.  I’ve always believed that the Internet can make our lives more productive and fun.  Windows Live Groups is no exception – it provides groups of friends and family that want an easy way to stay in touch and coordinate combined activities.

I don’t plan to leave this blog entirely – I will probably still post interesting things from time to time as I find ways to use Windows Live Groups to better stay in touch with the people I care about.

My wife came to me with an interesting request – a family profile on Facebook.  Seems there are a lot of people that we know of Facebook that we don’t know individually but as a family.  A family-to-individual connection best describes our relationship with them rather than the individual-to-individual relationships that are more common.  A family profile would allow us to present the activities and thoughts of our family in a unified way to the outside world.  We have such a profile on Windows Live, and it’s been a great way for others to see the whole activity of our family at a glance.

I was excited by the idea.  I had never heard of such a concept before, but it made sense.  Working on a social networking product myself, I was intrigued to see how the proposal would play out.  I attempted to create a family account on Facebook, but I was thwarted at every turn as the signup system continually rejected the names that I chose.  “The Rutledges”, “The Rutledge Family”, '”Rutledge Family” – all of them didn’t meet Facebook’s bar for names.  I finally sent e-mail to Facebook support, and I was informed that families are not allowed to create profiles on Facebook – only individuals.  Here’s a snippet of the e-mail that I received:

> Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Groups, families, businesses and other types of organizations are not permitted to maintain an account. We apologize for the inconvenience.
>
> If you would like to use Facebook to represent your group, we offer a Groups application. Facebook Groups allow users with common interests to come together to express objectives, discuss issues, post photos, etc. If you have a personal Facebook account, you can create a group from the top of the Groups page.

Drat!  I don’t want to create a Facebook Group.  Groups seem to be meant for group members to communicate amongst themselves.  This is different - I want to be able to project our family image, activity, and interaction in a unified way to the outside world.  I gave up for a few days, but I finally got the process to work by choosing “Rutledge Fam” as the name.  Suboptimal, but I’ll try to see if I can change the last name back to “Family” after I get the confirmation mail and finish the signup process.

I’m looking forward to taking our real-life family identity to the web and seeing how it can help to us to connect and share with the people we care about.

[This entry is the fourth in my series covering Windows Live products and services]

Windows Live Spaces helps you to stay in touch with the people you care about

In this busy world, you need all of the time you can get.  Time quickly fills up just taking care of day-to-day needs, not to mention trying to find time for longer-term needs and goals.  With so much on the plate, it's difficult to put forth the effort to maintain meaningful relationships with people that you don't see often.  Unfortunately, this category of people often includes family members - parents, children, siblings, cousins, etc. - living around the country and the world.

Such things ought not to be!  Some relationships are worth maintaining even though you don't see each other often.  Windows Live can help you to stay in touch with the people you care about.  For me, the Windows Live Spaces web site is a key ingredient that helps me to stay in touch with extended family members throughout the country.

Windows Live Spaces is a free service by Microsoft that allows you to publish content on the Internet where the people you care about can see it.  You start by visiting http://spaces.live.com/.  After signing up, you'll see your "space", or a virtual canvas where you can place and arrange blocks of content.  You can add or remove these content blocks by clicking "Add modules" from the "Customize" menu near the upper-right.  Your space has a unique URL, or web address, that your friends can type into a web browser in order to see what content you've placed.

Two of the most useful modules are "Blog" and "Photos".

Blogs on Windows Live Spaces

Adding the Blog module to your space gives you a place to type blog entries.  A blog entry is any text that you want - usually a short story or your thoughts on some subject.  In fact, you're reading one of my blog entries right now!  Blogging online is an easy and fun way for you to record your thoughts and experiences in a way so that the people you care about can see it and stay in touch with you.  I've spoken a bit more about blogging in (where else?) a previous blog entry.

Photos on Windows Live Spaces

The "Photos" module gives you a place on your space to show photos.  Adding photos to your spaces is a snap with Windows Live Photo Gallery.  Photo Gallery is a desktop program that allows you to add photos to your space with a single click.  No firing up a web browser, no selecting photos one by one, just a click and Photo Gallery will put them on your space where your friends can see them.  I talk a bit more about Windows Live Photo Gallery in a previous blog entry.

Windows Live Alerts help people to stay in touch with your space

After you set up your space with a blog and photos, you should give the URL, or web address, of your space to the people you care about.  Now everyone has a single place to which they can go to keep up with you!  You just need to share stories and pictures once, and everyone can see them.

Over time, it can be difficult for people to remember to check your space for new content.  It is better for them to just receive a notification when you place new content on your space.  Windows Live offers such notifications through the Windows Live Alerts service.  With Windows Live Alerts, people can sign up to receive an automatic e-mail notification every time you post a new blog entry or photo to your space.  I've written a detailed blog entry on how to sign up for Windows Live Alerts for a particular space.  I have used the service personally, and it's been an astoundingly easy way for relatives to use their existing habit of e-mail to stay in touch with what are family is doing as we share it on our space.

Use Windows Live Spaces to stay in touch

In such busy times, Windows Live Spaces is a wonderful tool to help us all stay in touch.  You share about your life once, and then everyone that you care about can see it.  Sign up for Windows Live Spaces, publish blog entries and photos, and let your family and friends keep up with your updates through Windows Live Alerts.

[This entry is the third in my series covering Windows Live products and services]

Windows Live Photo Gallery is the program that you should use to manage your photos on a Windows PC.  You can download it from http://get.live.com/WL/config_all.  Once you install it on your PC, it automatically finds and organizes all of the pictures on your computer.  No more clicking though folder hierarchies in order to browse the pictures on your computer!  It organizes the photos by the date they were taken.  Just a click of a button brings all of the photos taken on that date into view.  I've found it to be a fast and easy way to navigate through years of pictures that I've accumulated.

But what good are pictures if they stay on your computer?  Photos are meant to be shared, and Windows Live Photo Gallery makes it easy and fun with one-click sharing.  With a picture (or group of pictures) selected, click on the "Publish" menu and you'll see an option to publish the photo(s) to Windows Live Spaces or Flickr.  With a single click you can share your pictures online where people you care about can see and share them.

Use Windows Live Photo Gallery to manage photos on your computer and publish them to places where the people you care about can see them.

I've been waiting for this time for a long while - Windows Live Wave 3 is public!  An announcement on the official Windows Live blog kicked off the disclosure, and there have been plenty of reviews all over the Internet..  What all of this means for me is that I can finally start talking about what I've been working on for the past year.

I am way excited about Windows Live.  Quite simply, Windows Live is a set of desktop programs and web sites that make it easy to connect and share with the people you care about.  I love Windows Live, and I'm doing my best on to blog about how Windows Live helps me in my life.

This upcoming release of Windows Live is particularly exciting for me because it will be the first time that my contributions will ship to the public.  Specifically, I worked on the Windows Live Profile page, which shows everything about you - your friends, your interests, and what you've been up to online.  You're in control of who can see what parts of your profile, of course.

For now, here's a screenshot of the new Windows Live Profile.  I'll give more details as to what I actually worked on when the site goes live.