So, we've just realized our latest set of features and updates. I hope you enjoy playing with the site. Please let me know your space, so I can visit and sign your guestbook :)

The areas I've been working on in this release are related to the brand new developer platform. This platform will appeal to different types of developers. I'm going to be posting in detail about this shortly, but here is a preview of what our platform will be offering:

1) Brand new RSS feeds.

2) A suite of HTTP url-based intentional APIs.

3) Gadget improvements.

4) Metaweblog API

We're taking a very serious look at making Spaces extremely developer-friendly and accessible to a variety of programming applications. Please bookmark our Spaces and http://dev.live.com/Spaces. We'll be adding plenty of documentation and discussion as we get the platform working for you.

Thomas

Quote

When you speak, we listen. New features launched today!

Thanks to everyone who has sent us feedback over the last few months. We’ve heard what you’ve been asking for with Spaces, and we’ve been working hard to create new features, which we hope you enjoy.

There are a lot of features here, so sit back, take a read, and then go try them out.  Next week we’ll be posting more about each feature – one per day – so stay tuned for more. Sign up to get alerts when there’s a new Space Craft post.

Also, please keep the feedback coming— both in the comments on the Space Craft as well as through the Spaces Feedback form.  We care about what you want, and we’re listening!

— Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces

 

New in Spaces:

Communication
There are brand new ways to communicate with your friends, as well as with new people that you’d like to meet.

Your new Spaces home page
Now when you log in, you’ll see a new page dedicated to keeping you up-to-date on changes to your space and what’s new with your Windows Live Messenger contacts.  In one glance you’ll see who has updated their space and who has added comments to your space.  Roll over their picture to see who’s updated their photos, who’s posted a blog entry, and who’s added new lists.

 

Messaging
Keep in touch with your Spaces friends and meet other people on Spaces by sending them messages. Just put your cursor over their profile picture and you’ll see a “Send a message” link.   You can also use the link in the Visitor tools module on a person’s space.

  

 

 

 

 

 

Guestbook
Add the guestbook module and people visiting your space can leave comments with rich formatting, including images and video. Add the guestbook to your space by clicking here.

Customization
There are many new customization options for Spaces, so you can better control how your space looks.

Custom background image
Now you can upload whatever picture you want from your computer and use it as the background of your space. Upload your image in the Customize menu under the Advanced tab.

Additional colors and themes
There are now more themes to choose from and an easy-to-use color picker. You can also change the fonts!

 

Gadgets and Modules
With the changes we’ve made to gadgets and modules, now you can customize them to create the layout and design you want for your space.

Size and style
Most gadgets and modules can span the full width of a column, and you can now remove their borders or change their titles to whatever you want by clicking on the arrow in the right hand corner of the gadget or module when you are in Edit mode.

Other cool stuff
You can have multiple modules at the top or bottom of your space that span all of the columns – perfect for your space title and tagline. You can also have more than one version of the same gadget on your space. And if you’re on someone else’s space and see a module you like, you can add it to your space by clicking the “+” sign in the upper-right corner of the module.

Check out and install some spaces gadgets today from the Windows Live Gallery.

 

Photos
With over 18 million photos uploaded by Spaces users every day, we know that improving the experience of managing photos is important to you, so we added a few new features. 

Managing your photos
There’s a brand new page for viewing and editing albums on your space.

Viewing photos
There’s a new layout for the individual photo pages so it’s faster and easier to view your photos and see all of your comments at a glance.

 

Mobile
There’s been a dramatic increase in Spaces mobile usage over the past few months, and we wanted to provide great mobile interaction with Spaces. Here’s what’s new:

• See at a glance the recent updates and comments on your space
• Add, delete, view, and browse your friends
• View profile information

Interested in learning more about mobile features for Spaces? Read this Space Craft blog entry

 

Lists
Lists are now easier to use – and they look even better.

Music lists
Now you can show specific music lists on your spaces home page as well as see multiple results when searching for music on Amazon to create your list.

Book lists
Same as with music! Search for the book and add the information and picture from Amazon.com to your list.

Looks better in narrow view
We’ve make some improvements to make your lists look better when in narrow columns on your space.

 

APIs and Feeds
We wanted to give you the ability to access your Spaces information from a variety of locations and services, so we added new RSS feeds and opened up our APIs to allow you more freedom. Go crazy with your Spaces data!   Visit: http://dev.live.com/spaces over the next few days for more information. Note: Only spaces with permissions set to “public” can use RSS feeds and APIs.

 

Profile Updates
There are some new, cool additions to profiles.

Enhanced contact updates preview
When you see a profile picture on Spaces, just put your cursor over the picture and you can see a lot more information about the person than ever before.

Have fun using the new features! We’re looking forward to seeing what you do with your space.   And if you got this far, leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

 

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, Spaces, Microsoft, Social Networking, New Release

Hi everyone,

I apologize for being gone for months; It's been a very busy year, and I've been distracted by other activities. I'm on vacation and will return in January. In the meantime, I'll try to answer any urgent questions you might have in the blog.

Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!

Thomas

Hangman (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=6d02ccea-65e8-4d0d-b0f9-60ee289b4100&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=5)

Well, I don't really have to explain this one, do I?

Mortgage rates watch (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=c6c50609-e4d2-4c07-9051-75d581c50eac&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=6)

This one looks interesting, if you're investing or just interested in real-estate.

Rock Paper & Scissors (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=0a004918-6784-4f12-b89d-950b0ab9d3ea&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=7)

If you never had a chance to learn this when your age was still in single digits, here's good opportunity for catch-up.

Pong (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=f20b08a0-6e6f-415e-9e56-43bb1cd1fe63&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=8)

This is one of the more promising ones, but it kinda cheats, because it's loading a Flash player :) Nonetheless, it's fun. I wasn't sure if there was a resizing problem when using this gagdet; if you see problems, provide feedback on the gadget's home page in the Live Gallery.

Live Noid (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=82beff12-f479-463b-a6c6-b79e6472bb72&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=10)

This looks really promising. I haven't tried it yet.

TrackWord (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=6d41b226-be71-4bf1-95cf-1181c73b7d56&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=10)

A letter game. Reminds me of Boggle.

GMT Clock (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=8af7eb96-971f-4d14-90bc-2fed6ce92a45&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=10)

The clock; the lifeblood of almost every desktop I've seen. Here's a chance to stick one on your Space.

Gas Prices (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=6f77c7b3-3d88-4f69-9207-8699d6673509&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=12)

Needless to say, I LOVE this one!

Technorati Search Gadget (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=f9c0d676-c537-4a06-9463-99bca82ae434&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=14)

The ubiquitous Technorati Search engine at your Space.

Apartment, Condo Finder (http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=353f1696-368e-47c0-9be7-e91cb6b3f8fb&l=1&subtype_filter=0&date_filter=0&sort_by_filter=1&c=0&view_style=full&page=16)

If you use your Space as a flyer portal, here's your dynamic Apartment bulletin. Very handy for freshmen, new hires in companies, etc.

I suspect most of you already know about this, but in case you don't - there's a pretty awesome tool that lets you post to your blog and do other creative things with your Space without visiting the browser - it's Windows Live Writer. Click on the link referenced below and enjoy.

Quote

Introducing Windows Live Writer

Welcome to the Windows Live Writer team blog! We are excited to announce that the Beta version of Windows Live Writer is available for download today.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service. 

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.

Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience. Some of the ones we are most excited about include:

WYSIWYG Authoring

The first thing to notice about Writer is that it enables true WYSIWYG blog authoring. You can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it. Writer knows the styles of your blog such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles. 

Writer also includes other views including HTML source-code editing and web preview mode.

Now you don’t have to waste time going through the process of publishing, refreshing, previewing, and tweaking your post to get it looking the way you want. It’s all right there in Writer as you create your post.

Photo Publishing

Writer makes inserting, customizing, and uploading photos to your blog a snap. You can insert a photo into your post by browsing image thumbnails through the “Insert Picture” dialog or by copying and pasting from a web page.

Once you’ve inserted the picture, Writer provides contextual editing tools to modify size, text wrapping, borders, and apply graphic effects. Writer also allows you specify a smaller thumbnail to that will link to a larger image for detailed viewing.

Photos can be either uploaded directly to your weblog provider (if they support the newMediaObject API) or to an FTP server.

Map Publishing

Whether you are blogging about a vacation or a political conflict, maps are a great help in engaging the imagination of your readers. You can do this using Writer's ability to insert a Windows Live Local map directly into a post.

Even better is that the map can be customized directly within Writer - including changing the view to show road, aerial or bird's eye detail and by adding pushpins (including custom links and/or photos for each pushpin).

When readers click on the map they get a larger view on the Windows Live Local site.

Writer SDK

Already thinking of other cool stuff you want to insert into your blog? Good!

The Windows Live Writer SDK allows developers to extend the capabilities of Writer to publish additional content types. Examples of content types that can be added include:

1. Images from online photo publishing sites
2. Embedded video or audio players
3. Product thumbnails and/or links from e-commerce sites
4. Tags from tagging services

We can't wait to see all the things people cook up with the SDK!  

Compatibility

Writer is a great client for Windows Live Spaces but also works with other weblogs including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress (and many others).

Writer supports RSD (Really Simple Discoverability), the Metaweblog API, and the Movable Type API.

We want Writer to work well with every blogging service out there. If you can’t get Writer to work with your blog, we want to know.

Stay Tuned

We will continue to post updates and other information on the product to this Space in the coming weeks. Please subscribe to our RSS feed or visit again soon to get the most current information on Windows Live Writer.

J.J. Allaire,
Windows Live Writer

[Digg this!]

 How is connectivity now? Does anyone have trouble hitting our site?

Quote

Talking about Empty page

Thank you very much for your comments. The information has been very important and helpful to me.

We have presently made some changes to the system, and I'd like you guys to do the following exercise, the next time you see a problem. Please let me know what you see. Your reporting so far has been exact and precise, so keep it in the same format, please.

Next time you see a problem (page not found), do the following.

Let's say that the space you had a problem with is called "mike."

Do the following.

1) Try http://mike.mobile.spaces.live.com/. This is the cell-phone version of the space. LEt me know if you see the same error.

2) Try http://spaces.live.com/. Let me know if you see this page show up. This is the homepage of our site, of course.

3)  Try http://sc.services.spaces.live.com. Here, you should see the warning: "You are not authorized blah blah". You should NOT see "Page not found."

4) Try the original space url again. http://mike.spaces.live.com/. I want to know if the error you see keeps happening.

Also, please be sure to record the time you encountered this, and when the problem went away.

I look forward to fixing this matter with your helpful information.

 

Quote

Empty page

I've heard of folks complaining about not seeing people's spaces. Has any of you seen an empty page when trying to access someone's space? I'm not talking about "Access denied" here. I'm talking about a completely blank page that says "Page cannot be found," or something similar. If so, can you please tell me more about it? I want to fix this problem for you, and need to know some additional information. Specifically:

 

1) What time did you see this exactly?

 

2) When you next see this, can you try going to http://spaces.live.com? Can you please tell me if you see this URL successfully?

 

3) How long did you see this before the problem went away?

 

Thanks very much! I'm determined to get this addressed, and your input will be essential, as it always is.

Thank you very much for your comments. The information has been very important and helpful to me.

We have presently made some changes to the system, and I'd like you guys to do the following exercise, the next time you see a problem. Please let me know what you see. Your reporting so far has been exact and precise, so keep it in the same format, please.

Next time you see a problem (page not found), do the following.

Let's say that the space you had a problem with is called "mike."

Do the following.

1) Try http://mike.mobile.spaces.live.com/. This is the cell-phone version of the space. LEt me know if you see the same error.

2) Try http://spaces.live.com/. Let me know if you see this page show up. This is the homepage of our site, of course.

3)  Try http://sc.services.spaces.live.com. Here, you should see the warning: "You are not authorized blah blah". You should NOT see "Page not found."

4) Try the original space url again. http://mike.spaces.live.com/. I want to know if the error you see keeps happening.

Also, please be sure to record the time you encountered this, and when the problem went away.

I look forward to fixing this matter with your helpful information.

Quote

Empty page

I've heard of folks complaining about not seeing people's spaces. Has any of you seen an empty page when trying to access someone's space? I'm not talking about "Access denied" here. I'm talking about a completely blank page that says "Page cannot be found," or something similar. If so, can you please tell me more about it? I want to fix this problem for you, and need to know some additional information. Specifically:

 

1) What time did you see this exactly?

 

2) When you next see this, can you try going to http://spaces.live.com? Can you please tell me if you see this URL successfully?

 

3) How long did you see this before the problem went away?

 

Thanks very much! I'm determined to get this addressed, and your input will be essential, as it always is.

Audience: Gin aficionados :-)

Ok, I admit that I'm breaking the rules. This is supposed to be about work, but I thought I'd sneak this in.

I am one of the folks who don't appreciate a good Gin & Tonic as an acquired taste. It's friggin love at first sight! Acquired taste is what someone gets after being force-fed animal fertilizer for a year. Or, worse, pasta from my work cafeteria.

A great gin & tonic, on the other hand, is a magical experience. The author of the article below agrees, too. It has the qualities that are HUGE to me - a product that shines because of its simplicity and elegance, yet trips people who make the foolish mistake of mistaking simplicity for easy. G&T is so easy to make right, but even easier to make wrong. The use of a beverage gun explains why most bars I've visited made such deflated G&Ts. I'm going to try the recipe in the article and see how much better my drink is.

My favorite gin is Tanqueray Ten. TT&T is what life in the big city is all about. Hell Yeah!

Quote

Secrets to a perfect gin and tonic - The Perfect ... - MSNBC.com

Basics

A gadget is a mini-application that essentially consists of three important pieces. These are the manifest, the style and the code. For those who prefer a more nerdy definition, they are the XML, the CSS and the JS files respectively.

Manifest. Confession: What the hell is a manifest? This is one of the many words I did not even know existed, until I started working in the computer industry. It's kinda like "ping" and "online" and "Dodgeball." I personally hate this word, because it's a difficult word that doesn't really mean anything. No wonder it's hardly used in a book. Have you ever read that word in a Toni Morrison novel? What about Tom Clancy? In the gadget world, think of it as the Gadget's business card. Every gadget needs to identify itself to the rest of the world. When you share a business card, you share key pieces of information essential to others about you. A gadget is an important application whose sole purpose in life is to be of value to someone else. Everything that is important about that gadget to that someone else is described in the gadget manifest.

Summary: The manifest is a file that serves as the gadget's business card.

My name, my code, my style. Just business.

So what's in this manifest? Is it a bunch of 1's and 0's? You're gonna be shocked. The stuff in there is actually readable. Maybe not quite on par with Harry Potter, but it's straightforward. It contains a bunch of information essential to a gadget. What's essential? Its name, of course. Sure enough, you'll see it there. What else? Its code, right? Well, the manifest has a URL to the gadget's code, too. Because most gadgets are visual - a gadget also has attributes that define its user-interface, or style. The location of its style description is also found in the gadget. That's three main things. There are more, but these are the most important.

Summary: A gadget manifest is like its business card. It is a human-readable file that contains its name and URLs to its key parts. Some of its key parts are its code and its style.

Here's an example of an actual manifest. The title is in purple, the code URL is in green, and the style URL is in blue.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:binding="http://www.live.com">
  <channel>
    <!-- Specifies the name of your Gadget -->
    <title>Hello World</title>
    <link>http://www.microsoft.com</link>
    <!-- Gives a short description of your Gadget -->
    <description>A sample hello world binding.</description>
    <!-- Specifies the default locale for your Gadget -->
    <language>en-us</language>
    <!-- Specifies the JavaScript class that defines your Gadget (this object must be defined in the JavaScript linked to below) -->
    <binding:type>Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget</binding:type>
    <item>
      <!-- Specifies the JavaScript file that contains the code for your Gadget -->
      <link>http://localhost/Gadgets/Hello/HelloWorldGadget.js</link>
    </item>
    <item>
      <!-- Specifies the css file that contains the styles for your Gadget -->
      <link binding:type="css">http://localhost/Gadgets/Hello/HelloWorldGadget.css</link>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Code. The gadget manifest contains, among other things, a URL to its code. What exactly is in the code? I'll go into more details later, but will give you a "Sales VP summary." The code in a gadget is some text written in a language that is executed by another program that runs in Spaces. This program is called the Framework. When the framework looks at the code, it knows exactly what to do to create the gadget and make it useful to its audience. How? The code in the gadget, written in Javascript, describes the gadget as a Javascript class. This class has a name and contains code. You can actually put many classes in the same code file, so the name is how the Framework knows to find the correct code for the gadget. How does the framework find the right name? You guessed it - from the business card - the gadget manifest. When the framework creates a gadget, it inspects its business card, looking for its code URL and style. It also looks for the class name. After it has fetched the code, it looks for the class mentioned in the manifest and creates that class. Here's an example of a code file that contains a gadget class. The gadget class is actually the one mentioned in the manifest example above. The class name is Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2006.  All Rights Reserved.
//
// Project: Web Gadget SDK Sample
//
// File:  HelloWorldGadget.js
//
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------

// register your Gadget's namespace
registerNamespace("Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK");

// define the constructor for your Gadget (this must match the name in the manifest XML)
Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget = function(p_elSource, p_args, p_namespace)
{
    // always call initializeBase before anything else!
 Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.initializeBase(this, arguments);
 
 // Private method to output "Hello World"
 this.Output = function()
 {
  p_elSource.innerText = "Hello, world!";
 }
 Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.registerBaseMethod(this, "Output");
  
   
 this.initialize = function(p_objScope)
 {
     // Call base class's initialize method
  Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.getBaseMethod(this, "initialize", "Web.Bindings.Base").call(this, p_objScope);
  this.Output();
 }
 Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.registerBaseMethod(this, "initialize");
 
 this.dispose = function(p_blnUnload)
 {
     // Usually, you would add your dipose code here, but we have nothing to dispose for this Gadget
    
    
    
     // always call the base object's dispose last!
     Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.getBaseMethod(this, "dispose", "Web.Bindings.Base").call(this, p_blnUnload);
 }
 Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.registerBaseMethod(this, "dispose");
}
Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget.registerClass("Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget", "Web.Bindings.Base");

I will go into details later. For now, if this looks a bit strange, don't worry. The important thing to note here is that all gadget classes will have the same basic structure as the class I've pasted above. This basic structure defines the gadget and it's exactly what you need to have in your own gadget's class in its code file. More details about the basic structure later.

Style (in a CSS file). All the things that make the gadget become visible to your eyes define its style. These are stuff like its colors, the pretty fonts, the ugly lines, whatever. All of them go here. The style is stored in a file called the gadget CSS file. As you imagined, you define all your styles in the CSS language, and put them in this file. Put the location of this file in the manifest (see above). Here's an example of the CSS file that contains the styles for the example above.

.Microsoft_Live_GadgetSDK_HelloWorldGadget
{
 color: navy;
 letter-spacing:2px;
 font-weight:bold;
}

It was a pretty brief file, wasn't it? That's because this gadget doesn't really do much except have a blue color with bold text. You can add much much more. Notice that class name above the style attributes. This is not accidental. What this is saying is that the styles in this CSS apply only to the gadget whose class is Microsoft.Live.GadgetSDK.HelloWorldGadget. If you have many gadgets and want to store the styles in one file, you can put them all there, and won't have to worry about mixing them up, thanks to the class name.

Summary

A gadget fundamentally consists of three things: Its business card, or manifest, held in a manifest XML file, its code, held in a Javascript file and its style, held in a CSS file.

I'll plunge into the devil's details in a future post. For now, explore a few gadget files from the Samples Website and see how they're similar to each other.

Phew - we're done - and present to you our new and shiny Windows Live Spaces! Thanks for your patient wait. For those of you who want to know about this release, check out the Spacecraft post below. We have a social network, a gadget framework, a brand spanking new UI, many bug fixes, performance improvements at both the client and server, and much more. Everyone in Spaces is excited about helping you take full advantage of the new powerful tools in this release. Enjoy! And keep your feedback coming, either via the feedback link below, or via blog comments. The usual. You know the drill.

We just released, so bear with us a bit, as the site tries to settle down and the performance quirks are ironed out. I'll be talking more about the features later - for now, explore and enjoy.

Quote

Windows Live Spaces - It’s Here!

Hey Spaces Fans!

We’re thrilled to announce that Windows Live Spaces has just released and we hope you’re loving it!   We’ve talked about some of the cool new features of Windows Live Spaces, but if you’re not sure where to start, here are a couple of tips:

1. Set-up your friends list.  Simply add the new Friends Module to your space, or click here to automatically add it to your space, and start inviting your friends.  Once your friends accept your invitation, they will appear to visitors of your space. You can also explore your contacts’ friends (and their friends too) directly from Windows Live Messenger.  Simply click on your contact’s Messenger icon to view their contact card, and then click on the “View this contact’s Friends list” icon on the bottom right hand corner of the contact card.  This will launch the cool new Friends Explorer feature that will allow you to easily navigate through lists of friends. 

2. Add gadgets.  Jazz up your space by adding cool new gadgets.  All you need to do is click on the “Customize” link in your Space when you are in the editor mode, and then click on the link titled “Add gadgets from Windows Live Gallery” to be taken to the Windows Live Gallery where you can select gadgets you want to add to your space. Check out the “Updated Spaces” gadget we just added to The Spacecraft!  You can add this gadget automatically to your space too by simply clicking here.

You will also notice that we heard your feedback on photo navigation features and have brought back the filmstrip as a result!

To find out more of the cool new features of Windows Live Spaces, check out http://discoverspaces.live.com/.  You can also check out spaces guru Mike Torres’ video, where he demos how easy it is to use the new Windows Live Spaces here. 

Have fun and let us know what you think of the new Windows Live Spaces!

The Spaces Team