Today, Microsoft Live Labs has announced the worldwide availability of Photosynth where users can create their own Photosynth collections - or "Synths" - for free. Previously, Photosynth was only available as a Technology Preview without the ability to create your own Synths.

To start using Photosynth yourself, just head on over to the new Photosynth website and login with your Windows Live ID and create a Photosynth ID. This Photosynth ID will be tied to whatever Synths you create.  Depending on the number of photos in your Synth, it could take anywhere between 2 to 30 or more minutes to create and upload. When you create a Synth, you can give your Synth a name, description and even assign it some tags. Everyone is given a quote of 20GB for their Synths.

To view and create Synths, a 7MB plug-in must be installed first from either Internet Explorer (6 or 7) or Mozilla Firefox (2 or 3).

The Photosynth plug-in does all of the processing - or "synthing" - of your photos prior to uploading the results to the Photosynth website.  

The installation of this plug-in also puts a

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Last Monday, HP invited me to visit the Innoventions Dream Home in Disneyland down in Anaheim, California - which opened this summer.

The Innoventions Dream Home sits inside Disneyland's Tomorrowland and uses Windows Media Center in Windows Vista - along with hardware from HP and others - to combine technology available today with technology we might see in our future.  Other partners such as Life|ware (more about Life|ware below), Honda, Siemens, St. Joseph Hospital, and Taylor Morrison also showcase technology at the Innoventions Dream Home providing a very rich experience to Disneyland visitors. 

When I arrived to the Innoventions Dream Home, I discovered that the building was actually rotating. Yes - rotating. Ok so

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Whether you are planning to deploy Windows Vista or already did, it is important that you keep security high on your list and make sure that all of your desktops are secured.  So, how do you know if your desktops have Windows Firewall settings turned off?  What if some desktops do not have Anti-Virus or Anti-Spyware software installed?

To quickly get an answer, please check out the new Security Center assessment feature that we have added to the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 released in June.  It auto-generates a security assessment report on your existing desktops as part of the "Windows Vista hardware assessment" migration report.

 

What's Next?

Start identifying these security vulnerabilities today with a free download of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit.  You may also view the new MAP Toolkit demo video and learn how to get the Security Center assessment report as well as the hardware compatibility assessment report for Windows Vista migration.

Cheers,

Baldwin Ng

Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team

 

 

 

Donavon West, Sidebar Gadget-maestro, is at it again! He just released a brand new Windows Sidebar gadget designed to let users keep track of Olympic Medal wins from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Download: 2008 Beijing Olympics Medal Count Gadget

This is a great gadget for people who aren't following the Olympics very closely but want to keep tabs on Olympic Medal wins. I'm not following the Olympics as closely as I'd like due to several things I'm working on so this Gadget is very helpful in at least keeping me "in the loop".

You can also watch encore videos of the Olympics at NBCOlympics.com thanks to a partnership with MSN Video and are presented in Silverlight. Also: don't forget you can also watch Olympic content directly within Windows Media Center on PCs running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate. I posted about NBC Olympics On The Go a few weeks ago here. I hear TVTonic has released a 64-bit version of NBC Olympics On The Go as well.

Today, Esther is going to show off the Previous Versions. This feature is part of the Shadow Copy feature in Windows Vista. This is a really helpful feature that has saved me numerous times!   It essentially makes incremental back-ups of your work - so if you accidentally delete content, you can find it again and recover it with a single click.  Anyone who has modified a document and clicked "save" instead of "save as" will appreciate Previous Versions!

Video: Windows Vista Demo: Previous Versions

Let me know what you think of this and the other features we've discussed this week (Search and Live Icons) - we'd love your feedback!

Today, the brand new WindowsLive.com website has launched sporting an all-new look and feel and lots of great content such as neat tips and tricks and show-and-tell stories on how people are using Windows Live in their lives. The goal for WindowsLive.com is simple: give people a place to discover the benefits of Windows Live. What better than to use content from excited Windows Live users to highlight those benefits?

The content on WindowsLive.com is driven from the community of passionate Windows Live users through the Windows Live Clubhouse. The Windows Live Clubhouse is a special Windows Live Space that brings other Windows Live users together in talking about Windows Live on their own Windows Live Space. Using Windows Live Writer and using special tags designed for the Windows Live Clubhouse, users can have content written on their Windows Live Space aggregated to WindowsLive.com and shared with the world!

Windows Live Clubhouse: Click here to request access and take part in providing awesome Windows Live Content for WindowsLive.com!

The community decides what content goes up on WindowsLive.com based on how pieces of content (posts) are rated. In someone writes about something

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