Spaced out TD

Fixed broken image links, can't fix Microsoft not making up their mind

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:42:18 GMT

Finally took a few seconds and fixed the pictures that were broken thanks to MSN Spaces changing locations for the forth time since December 2004.

1. originally
spaces.msn.com/members/ACCOUNT

2. then
spaces.msn.com/ACCOUNT

3. then
ACCOUNT.spaces.msn.com

4. now:
ACCOUNT.spaces.live.com

Let's hope this is the end of changing where my space is located. That is until I can move it to my own domain (something I've been asking for nearly two years now). Make up your mind, Microsoft, please.

Blogging to MSN Spaces from Word 2007 Beta

Wed, 24 May 2006 14:34:39 GMT

After reading about the features one of the first things I wanted to try with Word 2007 was blogging. In the upper left hand corner of Word click on the Microsoft Windows icon and then choose PUBLISH -> BLOG. From there, the first time you can enter in your MSN Spaces name and secret word which can be found at:

https://secure.spaces.msn.com/YOUR_MSN_SPACES_NAME/MobileSettings.aspx

Then type your title and post body. You can drag and drop pictures into the post body. You can choose and FTP or HTTP to post pictures to.

FTP Format:FTP://USERNAME@ftphost:21/directory/path/to/images

Testing with the following image which I dragged and dropped into Word 2007 beta:

All done typing your post and adding your image(s)? Then click on “Publish” to create the post in MSN. My first test result didn’t work. Seems like maybe FTP not working? Or is my format wrong? The help docs don’t give much helpful info on this one, so still working away at it.

Using MSN Spaces MetaWeblog API

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 01:45:21 GMT

How to post using MetaWeblog API in MSN Spaces (from FAQ):

Account name
A descriptive name, such as My MSN Space.

Username

The name of your space. For example, if your space's URL is http://spaces.msn.com/example, use example.
Password
The secret keyword you entered on your space's E-mail Publishing tab.

Host address

Page (or path)
Use storage.msn.com

13 FREE Microsoft Software Download areas

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:54:52 GMT

Here is a handy list of FREE Microsoft Software, better organized than Microsoft's own site.

Quote

FREE Microsoft Software for Download

eBooks Reader
Exchange Server Tools
Internet Explorer Add-ins
Live Meeting 2005: Software & Support Documents
Macintosh
Microsoft Hardware Drivers
Microsoft Office Suite: Access, Excel, FrontPage, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint & Word
Mobile Devices & PocketPCs
PC Games & Demos
Research Department: Prototypes & Toys
Tablet PC
Troubleshooting / Diagnostics: Utilities & Help
Windows XP: MediaPlayer, Multimedia Themes & Goodies

Collection of Windows Vista Channel 9 videos

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:59:46 GMT

Here's a good collection of videos on what's new in Windows Vista. I've seen a brief demo of it at one beta tester's house.

Quote

Why do I need Windows Vista?
Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when I post new Vista (and also Expression/Sparkle) stuff.

Book list Amazon affiliate gotcha in MSN Spaces

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:52:58 GMT

I just went through creating a book list and adding to my MSN Space. I added one book before adding our Amazon Associate ID and noticed when that the code was only added to the other books and the original affiliate code stayed "msnspaces" so I just deleted that book and readded it. You can tell what code is used by hovering over the book link.

MSN Spaces changes

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 15:11:12 GMT

Been a little while since updating this blog and it is nice to see several changes afoot at MSN Spaces including:

- comments on pictures
- 100 templates

- 500 pictures a month limit, no more max space limit
- make money using Amazon (see quote below)

- xbox recent games played integration option
- updated profile photo
- removal of "members" from URL
- permissions changes as well

Quote

Change is good!

Great news for those of you living in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France or Japan. You can now make money with MSN Spaces. You heard me. Make Money! With Amazon.com if you sign up for an associates ID, whenever anyone buys a book from Amazon.com by linking through from your space, you get a portion of that. So make sure to put up all of your favorite and maybe not so favorite books online.

In the same vain if you live in the US or Canada, you can earn money by allowing Kanoodle ads to run in your space.

I particularly liked the shorter URL with getting rid of the whole "member" thing. Hopefully clean redirects are in place so prior links weren't broken.

While trying to publish this post I received a "this space is temporarily unavailable" message.

Been having fun with daily ink blog

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:41:08 GMT

Fellow Tablet PC users, get on over to Tablet PC Blogs and scoop up your own ink blog so you can ink your travels. I've been using my blog as a daily comic. Yeah, mine is all poorly drawn completely amateurish stuff, but I won't get any better without practice. Watch me improve ... or not.

This might just be the start of a new type of trend: blogging, podcasting, vlogging, inkcasting?

Ray Ozzie blogging on MSN Spaces

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 19:43:06 GMT

Ray Ozzie, CTO at Microsoft, is now blogging at MSN Spaces in what he calls his version 3 attempt at blogging. Something interesting to note is his MSN Space doesn't have any ads. Subscribed.

30 million MSN Spaces blogs and counting

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 09:27:06 GMT

This weekend at Seattle Mind Camp I learned that there was now over 30 million MSN Spaces blogs. Wow! I wonder how many of these blogs are updated and how often? When you stop and think about it, MSN probably has more blogs than any other blogging platform and they've done it on software which is friendly for the common person who maybe only wants to blog for his friends and family, share their pictures and playlists, etc. MSN Spaces hasn't targeted hardcore bloggers, just the common man/woman and they are clearly have been the most successful in capturing this niche. Kudos to the team!

I'm still holding out on being able to use my own domain someday (and thus my own scripts) which I've been assured several times is a planned future feature. It's coming, it's coming.

I'm starting to get psyched for the upcoming Xbox 360 launch in a mere two weeks. I noticed that some games will be available next Tuesday and I'm thinking about buying a few ahead of time. Don't think I've ever bought games before owning the system ... and since I didn't preorder I may not even be able to buy the system on launch day. I don't preorder systems though and rarely have done so with games. Something about going out on launch day and buying these things that is part of the whole fun.

This Spaces blog inside Opera

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 10:50:16 GMT

Every time I check this blog out in Opera I want to go in and edit it so it looks better ... but can't, unfortunately. I actually noticed this last month but viewing in the now free Opera browser sure gives this a different look. The logo I made is cut off in IE, but in Opera it is shown full size and pushes the containers out so they aren't aligned properly.

Clipster alert!

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 15:48:21 GMT

Clipster was released on Oct 12 in the Channel 9 MSDN playground area officially described as:

Clipster is our PVR for Channel 9 that we’ve integrated into our embedded media player

There is also a Clipster video. Another cool thing I noticed was that when logged in and recording clips it keeps track of them in your Niner profile and even supplies its own RSS feed (here's my Clipster video clips RSS feed)

Looking for a windows application that times running applications

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:08:45 GMT

On the Mac there is this cool program I learned about that keeps track of time spent in each active application called Active Timer. Writing a Windows appication to watch the application focus and stop and start multiple timers would be fairly straightforward to do so somebody else out there must have already done this .. yes/no? Bueller?

Anybody know where an app for this in the Windows space exists? Freeware, shareware or commercial? Feel free to put your referral link in the comments if you can point me to a lead on this one. If I like the program I'll buy it through the first person's code posted. This would make a great Microsoft Gadget, Konfabulator widget, etc, come to think of it.

Thanks in advance.

Talking about Carnage4Life's Space: Dates and Times in the MetaWeblog API and XML-RPC

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 03:43:06 GMT

On my birthday last month, I saw Dare talking about public beta testing of the MetaWeblog API and XML-RPC for MSN Spaces:

Quote

Carnage4Life's Space: Dates and Times in the MetaWeblog API and XML-RPC

We're almost ready to begin public beta testing of our implementation of the MetaWeblog API for MSN Spaces. As with most technology specifications, the devil has been in the details of figuring out how common practice differs from what is in the spec.

Wonder when this will be implemented? Did I miss the beta launch news?

Yahoo and MSN interoperability

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 03:24:04 GMT

Today Yahoo announced that MSN Messenger and Yahoo will be allowing users to send and receive messages at some point in 2006. My detailed thoughts are at Hmm, but in general I like this move. Admittedly, the only place I use MSN Messenger is on the tablet. I don't think I've ever used Yahoo Messenger except for testing/demoing it for a few days.

Microsoft PDC approaches 9/13 - 9/16

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 02:53:40 GMT

I'll be watching Bill Gate's keynote live:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/

More Bill Gates webcasts:
http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx

Curious to see/hear what comes out of this. The buzz is there are going to be some cool announcements for developers.

MSN Spaces Tweak UI Powertoy

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:15:57 GMT

While the Tweak UI Powertoy doesn't allow full template customization, it does give some new design options that make it easier for Spaces users to customize their respective blogs. I've used it here to customize the look of this blog. I wish links would be underlined without having to add the underline every time. Any ideas on that front for workarounds?

The Tweak UI Power Toy is designed to allow you to customize the look of your Space. Once you add the Tweak UI Power Toy to your Space you can use it to control colors, module borders and transparency, and the background image’s placement and presence. Granular control combined with existing Spaces layout and module configuration allows for almost endless customizability and personalization.

"Almost" is sort of a misstatement above. C'mon Microsoft, just give users full template customization (it's not that hard to block malicious javascript). I still have my Spaces domain that redirects here. One of these days I'm going to get an hour or two and bring the content from this blog in and do some full scale customization.

MSN Spaces and screensaver integration

Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:14:46 GMT

MSN now has a beta screensaver where you can integrate your MSN Spaces blog and images. It works similarly to the Mac RSS screensaver in that you can display any RSS feed, although it has more features than the Tiger screensaver.

Also this weekend you can catch up with the new MSN Virtual Earth. I did a side-by-side comparison between Virtual Earth and Google Maps at MakeYouGoHmm.

15 million MSN Spaces blogs

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 03:20:55 GMT

Wow, Microsoft can push some massive traffice. That's quite a number. 15 million blogs at MSN Spaces alone in a little over 6 months according to Scoble. Congratulations to the MSN Spaces team.

Hypocritical summer computer rides

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:51:08 GMT

Now that summer is officially here, my wife and I are trying to convince our kids that they should not be inside on the computer or playing Xbox live (as much) and be outside enjoying skateboarding, bike riding, walking, baseball, etc. Unfortunately, since we both work on the computer, we set 'bad' examples in this regard. It's one of those "do as we say, not as we do" things. I always hated that type of hypocrisy as a kid, but I understand it better now as a adult.

I guess this is one of the downsides of living the technology lifestyle?

My son was really proud of the car he made in Midnight Club, and I promised to post it to the blog, so I'm putting it here. We also recently re-activated our station accounts (yes, plural) at Sony, which means we can access the MMORPG Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and maybe try out the newer Everquest II.

Yikes, even this blog entry is hypocritical ... why did we activate these accounts during the summer if we didn't want the kids playing on the computers as much? Suppose we wouldn't mind as much if they used the computers for something productive. Xbox Live, though certainly entertaining, doesn't really count as productive. Maybe we can get them to do something creative with the computers: creative writing, art, etc.

Photo Album: XBox

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:24:37 GMT

XBox

xbox-sons1

xbox-sons2

xbox-starwars

xbox-wireless

xbox-midnightclub3

Photo Album: Tablet PC

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:56:43 GMT

Tablet PC

M1400 tracking as it arrives!

M1400 unpacked, except for Tablet and AC power supply

Spaced Out TD inked

Taking pictures of Tablet PC with flash on not advised

aiptekdv3100

pirillo-tabletpc-artrage

tablet-day78extCDRW

tabletpc-lora

tdartavatar

tdferrywifi-1

Photo Album: Media Center

Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:09:51 GMT

Media Center

mediacenter1

mediacenter2

mediacenter3

mediacenter4

mediacenter5

mediacenter6

Photo Album: Pocket PC

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 06:59:30 GMT

Pocket PC

Me and my iPAQ Pocket PC

Pocket PC surfing Spaced out TD MSN Spaces

Blog list: Blog list

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 23:54:07 GMT

Things that ... Make You Go Hmm
VTOR - Virtual TO Reality
Virtual worlds

Book List: Book List

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:47:50 GMT

Music List: TDmix_050804

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 01:36:19 GMT

TDmix_050804

W.A.S.P.: Black Bone TorsoDying for the World
L.A. Guns: Crystal EyesHollywood Vampires
Metallica: Fade To Black24-5-86 A.C. Brase Arena
Thin Lizzy: Fight or FallJailbreak
Kingdom Come: Gotta Go (Can't Wage A War)/Album Version20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of KingdomCome
Wyclef Jean: GunpowderThe Carnival
Blackfoot: Highway Song / BlackfootBlackfoot Live
Giant: Hold Back the NightLast of the Runaways
Giant: I Can't Get Close EnoughLast of the Runaways
Fastway: If You Could SeeTrick or Treat
Giant: I'm a BelieverLast of the Runaways
UFO: I'm a LoserStrangers in the Night
Giant: Innocent DaysLast of the Runaways
Krokus: Let This Love BeginChange of Address
Krokus: Long Way From HomeChange of Address
UFO: Love to LoveStrangers in the Night
UFO: Love to LoveLights Out [Bonus Track]
Kelly Osbourne: More Than Life ItselfShut Up
Giant: No Way OutLast of the Runaways
Various Artists: Pete Yorn / UndercoverSpider-Man (OST)
Iron Maiden: Prodigal SonKillers
Def Leppard: Rock BrigadeOn Through the Night
Giant: Shake Me UpLast of the Runaways
Halford: Silent ScreamsResurrection
Badlands: Silver HorsesVoodoo Highway
Def Leppard: Sorrow Is a WomanOn Through the Night
Rainbow: Stone ColdThe Best Of Rainbow
Giant: Stranger to MeLast of the Runaways
Zombies: Tell Her NoBest Of The 60Â´s
Giant: The Big PitchLast of the Runaways
W.A.S.P.: Why Am I HereThe Neon God - Part 1 - The Rise
Krokus: World On FireChange of Address

Blog list: Tablet PC Related

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:12:49 GMT

Tablet PC Related

Blog list: Spaces bloggers

Thu, 16 Dec 2004 17:01:44 GMT

Spaces bloggers

Todd Bishop (SeattlePI)
picture blog only
Mike Torres (MSN Spaces)
Scott Isaacs (MSN Spaces)
Web experience architect
Dare Obasanjo (MSN Spaces)
Program Manager on backend
Michael Connelly (MSN Spaces)
Group Program Manager on web experience
Forser
Ryan (MSN Spaces)
Development lead
Astar38
Jay Fluegal (MSN Spaces)
Lead PM