My last post 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live was quite well received so I thought I would write another one. Here are 10 more time-and-money-saving tips from Windows Live.
| If you're like me then you've spent a lot of time over the last few years having instant messenger conversations with people and that means a lot of typing. Why not give your fingers a rest and communicate as god intended - by talking. If you're computer is equipped with a microphone and a speaker then simply hit the 'Call a contact' button in your conversation window and talk talk talk away. Its cheaper than a phone call. | ||||||||
| At the top of this blog post I linked to my previous blog post 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. Ordinarily that would involve going out to the internet to find the URL but with Windows Live Writer there's no need to do that. All you need to do is simply select the text that you want turn into a link, hit the hyperlink button | ||||||||
| Hotmail has got a very good and very simple search feature. Simply type your search term into the search box in the Windows Live header bar and hit enter [or click the green 'Mail' button]. Any emails containing the search term will be returned for you. Simple as that! | ||||||||
| Received an interesting email that you want to talk about on your Windows Live Space? Hit the 'Blog' button in Windows Live Mail and have the blog entry pre-prepared for you right inside your Space. | ||||||||
| Even with the proliferation of photo sharing services such as Flickr, Smugmug, Photobucket and Windows Live Spaces still the most popular way of showing someone else your photos is to email them. This invariably makes emails rather hefty but Windows Live Mail is here to help. By sending a photo email the photos will be uploaded to your Live Space and the email will contain a thumbnail and a link to the photo on your Space. You can even put frames around your photos or make one of many other assorted amendments. Jazz them up a bit! | ||||||||
| You can configure Windows Live Mail to automatically log you on to Windows Live Messenger when you open it up. Just go to Tools-->Options and you'll find the option on the 'General' tab. No point in emailing someone when you can just send them an instant message instead, right? | ||||||||
| Wouldn't it be cool if people could send you instant messages even if they weren't Live Messenger users? Well now they can using the Messenger IM control. Using the wizard you can generate a small piece of code that can be embedded into any web page that then allows any visitor to that website to IM you. All from a web browser. You can see in the picture on the right that I've embedded the IM control into my work blog. This one is seriously cool. Go check it out. | ||||||||
| Did you know that your Windows Live ID can log you in to many more web sites and services than just Microsoft ones. All of the sites shown on the right allow you to login using your Windows Live ID. Click on any of the logos to go to the site and login. | | |||||||
| If you don't like switching windows to do different things then you'll be glad to know that many Windows Live products can be controlled from within Windows Live Mail. Did you know for instance that you can set your Messenger status from within Windows Live Mail? | ||||||||
| Do you ever wish you could have the same list of Favorites on any computer? Well now you can, just install Windows Live Toolbar and use the 'Sync Favorites' function to sync your list of favorites between all your devices and to http://favorites.live.com as well. |
As before let me know in the comments how many of those you knew about. Or if you don't want to tell me, leave a comment anyway - my blog can never have enough comments. And if you have 10 Windows Live secrets of your own, blog about them and tag it 10 secrets.
-Jamie
Update: I’ve since posted another 10 secrets called Another 10 secrets about Windows Live. 
