I started this podcast series mostly around Windows Live topics, and now it seems I’ve come full circle.  But this time, I’m looking at Windows Live from the perspective of how it relates and complements Windows 7.  Joining me in the discussion is Mark Croft, a Director on the Windows Product Management team.

Mark and I spent some time talking about how Windows Live and Windows 7 fit together and why certain features and functions are in one product versus the other.  We also discussed how customers can get Windows Live and what the future might hold for the two products.

You can download this specific podcast in the format you prefer using the links below:

• Windows 7 and Windows Live (WMA format)
• Windows 7 and Windows Live (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to the whole podcast series using these RSS links:

• Windows Community Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Community Podcast Series (MP3 format)

It was great to have the chance to talk with Mark and get his perspective.  What are your thoughts about Windows 7 + Windows Live?  What do they add up to for you?  Please let me know by leaving a comment below.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

There are some really cool media features and scenarios being enabled by Windows 7.  One of the best parts of my job is that I get to talk to some of the Microsoft employees that make these things possible.  Adam Anderson is just such a person, truly passionate about media and what’s coming up in Windows 7.

You can download this specific podcast in the format you prefer using the links below:

• Windows 7 Media Overview (WMA format)
• Windows 7 Media Overview (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to the whole podcast series using these RSS links:

• Windows Community Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Community Podcast Series (MP3 format)

I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I enjoyed recording it with Adam.  What would you like to see in future podcasts?  Please just let me know by leaving a comment below.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

Today, we released the next milestone on the Windows 7 release journey, something we call a Release Candidate or “RC”.  The release today is available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers and the release to the general public is on track for May 5 from the main Microsoft downloads website. 

Here are a few more links to places you can find out more about the RC:

• For Everyone (even though it’s mostly for people in the press): http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windows7/
• For IT Professionals: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd361745.aspx

I know a lot of you have been testing the Windows 7 Beta release and I hope you’ll consider testing the Windows 7 RC release too.  It’s great to hear everyone’s feedback on what they like and don’t like, and really fun to hear about the new things you discover in the product.

For those of you that are members of our Windows community, I’ll look forward to reading some of your blog posts you share through the Clubhouse.  Your expertise and willingness to share your how-to tips and stories about using Windows 7 really makes the product come alive for millions of other Windows customers when they see your posts.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

As you’ve hopefully already heard by the time you read this, the Windows Live team made some very exciting announcements today, including partnerships with Digg, Facebook, and MySpace.  Here are a couple links with more details:

• Windows Live Team Blog Post
• Q&A with Brian Hall, General Manager of Windows Live

These announcements represent one of the things I like best about Microsoft.  We’re a partnering company.  We like to make sure our stuff works with other people’s stuff.  Whether it’s partnerships like today’s announcements or making sure your applications and hardware devices work with the next version of Windows, it’s core to our DNA as a company to want to partner with others in our industry.

Why do partnerships?  In the end, it’s about simplifying things for our customers.  That’s consumers like you and me.  And that’s businesses and organizations from the largest multi-national corporation all the way to that small gift shop around the corner.  When we do the work to partner with other companies, we make make our customer’s lives easier.

I hope you’re as jazzed about today’s announcements as I am.  What do you think?  Please let me know by commenting below.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

Our friends on the SkyDrive team just announced some updates, including a top requested feature for rearrange photos within albums.  If you have Silverlight installed, the changing the order of your pictures is is as simple as dragging and dropping:

Check out more on their blog entry here. 

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

I’m jazzed for the upcoming release of Windows 7.  I’ve been running it for a few months now, and it’s really been smooth sailing.  Without a doubt, I can safely say it’s the best beta operating system I’ve ever tested.

To get a better understanding of Windows 7, I recently sat down with Parri Munsell, a Director in the Windows Product Management team.  Parri and I talked about what’s new in the release, some of his personal favorite features, as well as what he’s hearing from our customers and partners.  We also talked about what he think might be the “sleeper” feature of Windows 7.  You’ll have to take a listen to find out what it is.

You can download this specific podcast in the format you prefer using the links below:

• Windows 7 Overview (WMA format)
• Windows 7 Overview (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to the whole podcast series using these RSS links:

• Windows Community Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Community Podcast Series (MP3 format)

In the weeks and months ahead, I’ll be taking my digital recorder around to talk with other Microsoft employees involved in Windows 7 to dig in deeper on selected topics.  What would you like to see in future podcasts?  Please just let me know by leaving a comment.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

I’m very happy to say there are several Microsoft products nominated for this year’s Webware 100 Awards, including many of my favorite Windows Live products and services (details here).  Please take a look at all the categories and nominees and cast your votes.

Thanks,

Marcus, Windows Community Manager

As I blogged about last week, I recently attended an event called the  Online Community Business Forum.  It’s where other community manager folks like me get together and learn from each other.  So in a way, it’s kind of like a “community of community managers”. 

All-in-all it was a great event, with a wide variety of attendees from companies like Autodesk, Digg, Cisco, VMware, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, and more.  I took a bunch of notes, and wanted to share my top-level thoughts with all of you on what I learned.

First, building and being a part of a community has never been more important for businesses of all sizes.  The best communities focus broadly on how we work together across everything from sharing tips and stories (like we do with the Clubhouse today), to also helping with support and providing a place to gather feedback.  Adding more support and feedback capabilities to the community is something I’m committed to doing in the months ahead.

Second, the more conversations we have, the better off we’ll all be.  Communities talk to each other, and we have a start on this today with sharing blogs and comments.  It’s wonderful to see Windows Live Groups being started around things like Windows Live and Windows 7 to enable even more conversations.  I’m looking for ways to enable more ways for all of us to communicate, and would welcome your thoughts.  More on-line meetings?  How about in-person gatherings?  Or maybe a community-specific discussion board?

Third, we have a challenge to build a worldwide community around Windows, but that challenge is a huge opportunity.  We can’t create a one-size-fits-all community, but instead need to tap into local experts and learn what works best in any given country.  I’m going to begin that learning process now by asking all of you to let me know what communities you’ve seen in your local geography that you think are especially good.  And please tell me why you feel the way you do.  I’ll be talking to other folks at Microsoft too and plan to have more to report on worldwide community opportunities in the future.

I really enjoyed the conference.  I’m thankful to my employer for enabling me to attend, to the presenters at the conference for keen insights, and to the fine folks at Forum One Networks for putting the event together.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

Recently, we started asking the Windows Community how they are saving time and money.  I thought I’d add my own perspective to this by calling attention to one of the best ways you can use your Windows PC:  personal finance software.

By personal finance software, I’m really talking about two main categories of applications.  The first is the financial management application popularized by the likes of Microsoft Money and Quicken by Intuit.  Spending a little bit of money on these applications can help you get your financial affairs in order, track where money is being spent, set up a budget to help you start saving, and manage your overall financial portfolio.  I’m partial to Microsoft Money, but that’s because I work here and have used the application for years.

The second piece of financial software you should consider installing on your Windows PC is an application to help you with your taxes.  The two most popular here are H&R Block’s TaxCut and TurboTax by Intuit.  These applications help you sort through the arcane tax rules and regulations, both federal and state, and can really help you minimize your tax bill and hopefully maximize your refund.

I know there are on-line equivalents of all these applications, but I’m partial to installing the software right on my own PC and running it locally.  Even our friends at cnet acknowledge the benefits of desktop tax prep for instance. 

From my perspective, investing a little in these applications will help you save more money and actually will save more time too.  I can’t imagine spending all that time dealing with a paper checkbook and tax forms.

What do you think? What applications do you use to save time and money?  Leave me a comment below, or join our Windows Community at http://clubhouse.microsoft.com/join and share your tips and stories.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

If you or someone you know is a mom that uses Windows Live and lives in Washington, DC, we’d like to chat about a webcast opportunity.  Please just send me a private message on Windows Live and I’ll follow up with details. 

Thanks,

Marcus, Windows Community Manager

I’m fortunate to be able to attend a great community conference this week called the Online Community Business Forum.  It has been developed by the folks at Forum One Networks and promises to be a very rewarding two days.  I’m looking forward to coming back with a lot of new ideas that we can implement in our own Windows Community.  As members of the community, is there anything you want me to specifically find out for us?  Any questions you want me to ask any of the great presenters or panelists?  Please leave a comment here and I’ll check back often to find out what’s on your mind.

I’ll post again next week with some of my key takeaways from the forum.  It’s a fun and exciting opportunity for all of us to build a great Windows Community and I’m looking forward to learning more ways to help us do just that.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

By now, I hope most of you have seen our I’M A PC ads.  I love the fact there are so many PC people out there, but it got me thinking:  Why do you use a Windows PC?  Why not a Mac?  What about a PC running Windows makes it “the thing” for you?

I’ve heard different people give different reasons.  Is it the choice of applications and hardware?  Or is it the “bang for the buck” you get?  Or how about that it works in a familiar way?  I’d really like to hear your reason.  Please leave a comment below or do a blog post about it and comment with a link to your post.

I can’t wait to hear from everyone!

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

UPDATED with twessenger compatibility info per http://kunal.kundaje.net/2008/10/twessenger-status-update/.  Sorry for any confusion.

Are you into microblogging?  Perhaps the most popular forms of microblogging are Twitter and Facebook status updates.  But if you’re using Windows Live Messenger, you’re microblogging every time you update your personal status message, like I’ve done highlighted below:

If you want your microblog entries to go even further, check out these two cool options that integrate with Windows Live Messenger.

First, you can add the Windows Live Messenger application to your Facebook profile, starting at http://apps.facebook.com/windowslivemessenger.  Then click on the Settings link at the top of the Window and check the second box:

and this will appear on your profile:

Second, if you’re more into Twitter, you can wire pre-2009 versions of Windows Live Messenger status updates to change based on your latest tweets using twessenger.  Thanks to @sthersh for pointing this out to me.

And if you want to complete the loop, you can even connect your Twitter account to Facebook using http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/. 

I hope you’ll find some of these to be fun additions to your microblogging toolbox.  Now no matter how you’re connected to your friends and family, they will all know what you’re doing all the time. 

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

From time-to-time, I have the pleasure of podcasting with community members to learn more about them, how they use technology in their lives, as well as what other hobbies or interests they might have.   For this latest installment in our podcast series, the guest star is Greg.  If you’re a member of our Windows community, you know Greg.  He’s contributed a lot of great posts to the Clubhouse and he also participates in a number of Windows Live Groups such as All Things Live and LiveSoapbox.

As you’ll hear in our podcast, Greg has been working in around technology for a quite a while and uses it extensively in his personal life too.  He lives in Tennessee and has a great family and a number of pets.  And last but not least, his answer to my “most embarrassing online moment” question is one of the best I’ve heard.

You can download this specific podcast in the format you prefer using the links below:

• Conversation with Greg (WMA format)
• Conversation with Greg (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to the whole podcast series using these RSS links:

• Windows Community Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Community Podcast Series (MP3 format)

Thanks for joining me on this podcast, Greg.  The next time any of you see Greg around the Clubhouse or elsewhere on Windows Live, be sure and say hello and thank him for making our community a great place to be.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

One of my favorite things in Windows Vista is the DVD Maker application.  It’s available in either the Home Premium or Ultimate editions of the operating system.  Unfortunately, I don’t think many people take the time to explore this application as a great way to share pictures and videos through the now ubiquitous DVD player that seems to be in everyone’s home, car, and PC.  Here are the few quick and easy steps you can follow to use DVD Maker to create your own masterpieces.

Begin by locating Windows DVD Maker in the Windows start menu.  You can use the built-in search box on the start menu and just type DVD and you should see the application quickly appear in the list above the search box.  Start the application and after the initial welcome window, you’ll see the main part of the application:

The user interface here is very straightforward.  Just start by clicking Add items to bring in your pictures or videos.  Here is how the application looks after adding a few pictures and videos:

You’ll see it groups your pictures into a slide show and puts your videos one-by-one on the list.  You can reorder the items using the arrow buttons on the toolbar, and open up the slide show folder and reorder items there too.  Don’t forget to give the disc a title (at the bottom of the window) and if you want to adjust the display and burner options you can do that by clicking on the Options… link on the bottom of the window.

Click Next and now it’s it’s time to customize the DVD menu and add some music for your slide show.  You can choose from a variety of styles of menus on the right side of the application, and customize them menu text, and how the menu looks using the buttons on the toolbar.  Here, I’ve selected the Layers menu style:

After you get the menu the way you want it, click Slide show on the toolbar to add some music for your picture slide show.  You can change the picture length, transitions, and effects here too:

Click the Change Slide Show button when you’re done.  Then try clicking the Preview button on the toolbar to see what your DVD will look like when it’s played:

Try clicking on the buttons in the preview windows just like you would the buttons on your DVD remote to see how everything will look.  Click OK, and then if you’re satisfied with everything, click the Burn button on the main application screen.  After some time (how long will depend on how many pictures, videos, and music you’re burning), you’ll have a DVD ready to play in any player.

I hope you have as much fun with this as I do!

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

One of the things I really like about Twitter is how fast you can learn about cool new things people are doing.  That’s exactly how I found out about Kelly Poe (pictured here) and his campaign to Release Windows 7.  Kelly’s tweet was picked up by Todd Bishop and others and it started spreading like wildfire. 

I recently had a chance to chat with Kelly about how he got started with Release Windows 7, his plans for a new YouTube channel, and the ideas he has next for the community he’s created.   I encourage you to take a listen, then visit Kelly’s website, check out his YouTube channel, and upload a video with your favorite Windows 7 features and why you’re ready to see the product released.

You can download this specific podcast in the format you prefer using the links below:

• Conversation with Kelly Poe (WMA format)
• Conversation with Kelly Poe (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to the whole podcast series using these RSS links:

• Windows Community Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Community Podcast Series (MP3 format)

I look forward to seeing some of your videos on the Release Windows 7 YouTube channel and getting more feedback from Kelly and the community on this new version of Windows.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

We’ve just added another way to get some of the best contributions from the Windows Community into your favorite RSS reader (like Windows Live Mail for instance) or into an RSS component on your favorite website.  Now, you can get all the posts from a specific person using an RSS feed like this:

http://www.windowslive.com/feed/member/[profileid].rss

Where you see [profileid] you need to replace that with the a string of characters that represents the person’s profile on http://www.windowslive.com/explore.  For example, here is my profile on that site:

My profile ID is at the end of that URL, highlighted above, between the profile/ and the #1.  So the RSS feed for my posts would be:

http://www.windowslive.com/feed/member/9e61cc84-9091-416a-9387-85c364956946.rss

So as you find fun and interesting people in our community, why not subscribe to their RSS feed so you are always up-to-date on everything they’re posting?

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

How many times do you send a link to a map, a movie, or a restaurant in e-mail?  Wouldn’t it be great if you could send something more than just a URL?  Thanks to a new feature rolling out now to all Hotmail customers, the “only lonely link” problem might finally be solved.  That new feature is called QuickAdd and many of you might already have it as part of your Hotmail account.  It’s part of a whole bunch of new Hotmail capabilities rolling out now.

To learn more about QuickAdd, I sat down with Chad Estes, a Senior Program Manager on the Windows Live team.  Take a listen to our podcast and you’ll hear more about how the idea for QuickAdd came about as well as some of the ways customers are using it.

You can download this specific podcast in the format you prefer using the links below:

• Windows Live Hotmail QuickAdd (WMA format)
• Windows Live Hotmail QuickAdd (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to the whole podcast series using these RSS links:

• Windows Community Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Community Podcast Series (MP3 format)

Has your Hotmail account been upgraded with QuickAdd?  Please let me know if you’ve tried it and what you think.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

Have you seen the latest Windows television commercial?  Kylie is an amazing girl and shows off just how easy it is to share digital photos using Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Mail. 

Watch Kylie:

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager

Note: this was originally published on the Windows Live Wordsmiths Space, which no longer exists.  It’s so well done, however, that I wanted to repost it with some minor updates for the latest release of Windows Live.

Do you want to throw a house-warming party or invite your friends over for a casual dinner? Or maybe you're ready to tie the knot but you're stressed out about planning and organizing your wedding reception. Well, Windows Live Events can help. With Windows Live Events, you can plan your party, send and keep track of invitations, and then, all you have to do is, sit back and enjoy! After the party is over, your guests can even discuss the party, and post pictures.

Create your own event page

Windows Live helps you pull together your party in a snap. But first, you need to set up your personal event page. Here's how:

1. Go to your Windows Live Home page.

2. On top of this page (or any Windows Live web page), click More, then click Events.

3. Click Create an event at the top of the next page.

4. On the Create a social event page, type a title for your event.

While the title is the only item required on this page, it is a lot more helpful to your guests if you enter all the other details here, including:

• The name of the host.
• A contact number in case guests have any questions (or get lost).
• A template. Each template includes a different theme that customizes the look of your page with colors and background images.
• The date and time of the party.
• The location and address of the party.
• A map—you can automatically generate the map based on the address. In the Location name or Address box, just enter the name of the location (such as a museum or park) or the address of the party, and then click Add map.
• A brief description of the party, so that guests know what to expect.
• Permissions for who can see your event page. If your party isn't open to the public, set the permissions to Only people who are invited, so that only people who are invited can see it.
• A personalized web address, sometimes called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). If you want to customize your web address, click Personalize the address, and then enter your web address. Click Check availability to see if the web address that you selected is available.

5. When you are finished entering all of the information about your party, click Create.

That's it! You have created your very own event page which includes the details of your event, a guest list, a photo album, and a discussion board. Now it's time to invite the guests.

Invite guests

You can't have a party without guests, so the next step is to fill out your guest list. Inviting guests is easy, here's how to do it:

1. On the event page that you just created, click Invite guests.

2. In the To box, type the e-mail addresses of the people you want to invite. Separate e-mail addresses with a comma (,) or a semicolon (;).

To invite people who are already in your contact list, click Add people from your contact list, select the contacts who you want to invite, and then click Apply.

3. In the Message box, type a message for your invitees, and then click Send.

Guests get your invitation and a link to your page, where they can let you know whether they can come to the party. They can also have conversations on the discussion board—for example, guests might want to set up carpools or coordinate other plans before the event. Plus, the fun doesn't have to stop just because the party is over. Your event page lives on, so that you can post photos and share memories.

- Marcus, Windows Community Manager