Running Commentary

I came across this very nifty utility in Windows Vista today (darn, I own this system since past 1 year!) called 'Snipping Tool' which very nearly renders Print Screen key useless! What do you do when you have to take a snapshot of any thing on your screen? Do 'Print Screen' and paste the image in the file (like Word or Powerpoint) or in Paint/Photoshop to save the image after doing some editing (mostly cropping) or adding some text. When you run Snipping Tool, you are asked to select the area on screen whose snapshot you want to take. This takes care of your cropping needs and as soon as you make selection, you can do the basic operations like adding text or highlighting on the saved selection. You can now save/email the image. Done! It's so convenient, I can't believe I didn't use it till now. This snapshot was taken by Print Screen. The Snipping Tool was used to select the area enclosed by red border from HP website.

Now how do these guys manage to these kinds of things. I am genuinely surprised. I am one of the (few?) fans of Microsoft's Live.com. I find much better than Google Reader and though I would like others to add my blogs' feeds to Reader, I manage my subscriptions through Live.com. But today what I saw was just unbelievably hilarious! Just look at this one. Have you ever seen a site's name getting disappeared from its banner? Well here is the magic for you! Not only the name, even the menu options get disappeared. This is Microsoft, and anything is possible!

Microsoft has created an offline blogging tool: Windows Live Writer. Connect to internet (even to install it!), register your blog account, it will download the template settings of your blog and done! You can compose your post, save it as draft if you don't want to publish it right away and publish it when you want/have connectivity. Simple! Yesterday in IndiBlogger meet they gave demo of this software and here I am; trying my hands on it. And I believe at least 50 of the 70 odd bloggers shall try it out. Cost involved: 70 odd pizzas! You can add your blogs from Blogger.com , Wordpress.com , LiveJournal.com , LiveSpaces.com (obviously!) and some others. I could not find any documentation about what all it supports. They say you can insert maps. You surely can, but only US maps! So I will insert one of Texas where the all important 4th March primaries have to be held! It said 'Update Weblog Style'. I tried doing that and nothing has happened so I guess that w...

Microsoft has been sprucing its Live.com services lately, though things are yet a little patchy and at times they simply won't work! I saw a nice feature in Live Mail today. If you get a .mp3/.wma file as an attachment, you can directly play the file from your inbox. Live Mail shows a play-pause-volume toolbar in the message. I don't know if it works for other media formats as well. I just wish they could make the actions a bit faster. Switching views (like moving from Inbox to Sent to Folders) is much slower than GMail or Yahoo! Mail.And why was it showing a mail from IRCTC.co.in as phishing attempt? That message didn't even ask me to login anywhere! If you are using Live.com, then you can select many more gadgets which are available in Live Gallery. Microsoft seems to be positioning Live as a one stop shop for all the users of MSN Space, Live.com and Vista users who have got Sidebar on their desktops. However the number of gadgets is still much lesser as compared to Googl...

Microsoft is spending billions to spruce up its web based service operations and all the web services are being now brought under the banner of 'Live'. And to counter the Google's onslaught that started with mail (GMail) and is now directly challenging MS Office applications with Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheets and Writely (online word processor), Microsoft is going to push Live brand with great aggression. So our good ol' Hotmail is now being converted to Windows Live Mail with a whopping 2GB mail box and 10 MB attachment size. And thankfully size is not the only thing that make it a much improved version of Hotmail. The mail box looks more like Outlook now, as the mail can be read with a single click in a third pane which can be put below the mail list or right to it or just turned of. This feature would be familiar to users of new Rediffmail in which mail can be previewed below the mail list contents. But flexibility in positioning the pane makes it better. The ...

I was waiting something of this sort from Microsoft Mandarins from quite some time now! The battle-field of personal and customizable web-sites, which give the users facility to put up all their favorite online-content at one place, should now get a bit hotter with entry of Windows Live (still in beta, available at http://live.com ). Windows Live is pitching against Yahoo! 360 and Google Personalized Homepages . And apart from the tough competition on hand, the initial reactions from users should be a cause of worry for MS. Live gives us first glimpse of the new web-search that will be integrated with Windows Vista, and will replace MSN search gradually in coming months. Apart from a new search algorithm (perhaps, because the search results differ for MSN search and Live search), Live team has tried to float a new and innovative interface as well. However it remains to be seen that how much it is appreciated (or rejected) by our Google-fed generation. The search results are presented ...