Howdy, I’m Ian Tien, part of the Windows Live product management team here in sunny Redmond, Washington, USA.
Ever wanted to share a picture straight from your mobile phone? Without having to enter a bunch of e-mail address and without needing any cables or even a PC?
I have.
I take pictures from my phone all the time, and I LOVE getting them on the web in a snap.
One time, the fire alarm went off in the Microsoft building where I work and we stopped all the very important things we were doing—like blogging about our mother-in-laws and flexing atop mountains—and went outside to watch half a dozen fire trucks come to save us.
Fire trucks at my building—thank you City of Redmond! Turned out a ventilation fan overheated and set off the alarms.
Another time, I went over to the cafeteria of the Microsoft Surface team to demo Windows Live as part of Windows 7 and I made a totally awesome poster:
Picture of my poster for my demo in the Microsoft Surface cafeteria.
Then there was the time my buddy Lonn organized a curling trip for the whole Windows Live product management team at the Granite Curling Club in Seattle. Fun times :)
Windows Live product managers curling in Seattle. Despite some close calls, no one was seriously injured.
And then there are days like today, where it’s just a wonderful afternoon and I want to take a picture from the window outside my office:
View from window outside my office. In the distance are the Cascade mountains.
After taking each of these pictures with my mobile phone, it’s just a couple of clicks to send them to Windows Live where they are easily displayed, shared, downloaded, and even printed as I choose.
Ready to try it out?
Here’s how:
- Sign in to Windows Live (or get an account if you don’t have one).
- Go to home.live.com.
- Click Options, click More Options, and then click E-mail Publishing.
- Follow the instructions to set up e-mail publishing.
From then on, publishing your photos and comments online is as easy as sending mail. Many phones can be set up to do this in just a couple of clicks, so check out the menus on your mobile phone for more info.
All this works with my trusty T-Mobile Shadow phone running Windows Mobile. But it also works from BlackBerry devices, MacBooks, and iPhones—or any device that can e-mail photos!
The album (on photos.live.com) where I send my mobile photos by default.
Snazzy slide show of my mobile photos with a frame color that automatically complements each photo.
My friends and I can download all my mobile photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery to organize, edit, and manage them.
Windows Live Writer, the program I use to create blog posts (like this one!) incorporating mobile photos I’ve previously shared. Writer is great because it lets you easily play with photo borders.
By sharing my mobile photos on Windows Live, my friends see what I’m up to, I tell stories with pictures, plus if—heaven forbid—something happens to my phone, I have copies of all my “digital memories” on Windows Live.
Okay, now the big question: How many photos can I share?
Well… Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25 GB of photos and my phone takes pictures that are about 0.5 MB in size. So that’s about 50,000 photos. If I share one mobile photo a day—every single day—that’s…
enough space for 137 years worth of daily photos.
That’s a lot of FREE space for your stuff!
Get it free on the one and only WINDOWS LIVE!
…best enjoyed responsibly,
- Ian Tien
Windows Live Product Management Team
