I thought it might be nice to do a little round-up of what folks are saying about Windows 7 after today’s keynote here at the PDC in Los Angeles. I’d like to share some of the best ones we’ve found so far. We’re not trying to “toot” our own horn here – many of these folks are extremely critical of what we do with Windows so what they say is very important to us.

This is what Ed Bott from ZDNet had to say:

This loaner machine certainly doesn’t feel like it’s running pre-beta code. It’s wicked fast and eerily quiet thanks to a solid state drive. In a very long day’s worth of use it has yet to crash or display any of the flaky behavior you might expect from a beta.

Ed, it was a pleasure seeing you again at PDC!

Peter Bright at ArsTechnica says:

Windows 7 may not change much under the hood, but the extent of these interface changes makes it clear that this is very much a major release.

That was from Peter’s post that has enjoyed the top spot on Techmeme today for most of the day.

Lance Ulanoff from PC Magazine says:

It (MSFT) ignored the advice of dozens of pundits and is now playing out a script that, in the end, could make the company look like a band of geniuses.

Paul Thurrott says:

Well, let me ruin the surprise up front. Windows 7 is Windows Vista done right. If you're already a fan of Windows Vista, you'll love Windows 7 because it's a better rendition of that earlier OS. If you're a Vista hater, take heart: The makers of Windows 7 have reevaluated virtually everything about Vista and made changes small and large across the board. The result is a better Windows, no matter how you slice it.

Today was Paul’s birthday - at least according to his Windows Live profile. Happy birthday Paul! Paul has been doing “exhaustive” reviews of Windows for a while now.

Jason Brooks from eWeek says:

In the day and a half I’ve spent using Windows 7 on a Microsoft-provided Dell XPS M1330 machine preinstalled with Build 6801 of the OS, I’ve found its polish and performance a world away from the first Longhorn build I tried out at PDC 2003. At this point, Windows 7 feels more like a second beta or an early release candidate than a developer conference sneak peek.

Andre Da Costa from ActiveWin says:

It’s safe to say I am overwhelmed, overjoyed and most of all excited about Windows 7. This is the release of Windows everybody has been waiting for, it’s what Vista was meant to be and beyond that. Windows 7 puts the user first… This is an upgrade I am looking forward to and you should too.

Robert McLaws from Windows-Now says:

The Sunday before PDC, I was given the opportunity to join about 200 other journalists for a workshop on Windows 7. Lead by the dynamic (as well as unusually candid and often very self-effacing) duo of Mike Nash and Steven Sinofsky (surprisingly enough, he didn’t try to have me killed… sweet!), we were given a six hour tour of the much anticipated follow-up to Windows Vista. I didn’t know what to expect, and I walked away with the feeling I got after seeing Longhorn for the first time. yes, I believe it was just that good.

Both Windows-Now and ActiveWin are Windows Featured Community members.

Wilson Rothman from Gizmodo says:

…even the early build of Windows 7 feels like a fast, stable environment. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make the OS more usable, one monumental improvement being how video memory is allocated for unseen windows. (Hint: It's not.) The result is a highly responsive machine that gets decent battery life.

Now that folks have the Pre-Beta build of Windows 7 and with WinHEC coming up – we expect to see ever more discussion from folks on putting Windows 7 to the test.

I love Windows Live by itself with all the new Windows Live web services and the application suite. But the Windows 7 + Windows Live connection is looking even more exciting. Here at PDC we’re talking about how Windows 7 + Windows Live will “complete the Windows Experience” together. Because this *is* the Windows Experience Blog – I feel it is important to highlight and emphasize this a bit. Matter a fact, Steven Sinofsky highlighted this during his keynote today as part of Microsoft’s commitment to software + services.

Microsoft has learned that many end-user experiences need to be updated more frequently. Instead of waiting for the next Windows release, we began delivering updated versions of the Windows Live applications to improve those end-user experiences.

While this was a great way to improve the Windows experience for users, many of these updates in Windows Live Wave 2 seemed duplicative of applications already in Windows.

To address this, Microsoft will now only ship these applications (which include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer and now Windows Live Movie Maker) as part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite.

Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Mail

Windows Live Photo Gallery

Windows Live Movie Maker

 
Windows Live Family Safety Filter

The Windows Live Essentials suite has been in public beta since September and available for you to try at download.live.com. You can read my post here on the new Windows Live experiences seen in these betas.

I look forward to talking more about the Windows 7 + Windows Live experience and how it completes the Windows Experience here in the future.

I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Windows 7 pre-beta build and I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are many new features that I personally am excited about that I hope to blog about over time. To kick things off I wanted to discuss the several new features in Windows 7 that make managing and sharing your files on your home network a much easier experience than ever before. Using Windows 7’s Libraries along with its HomeGroup network sharing feature, I was able to share content with other PC users on my home network. I’m going to go into detail on my experience with Libraries and setting up a HomeGroup on my network with Windows 7 to illustrate these new features for you. And believe it or not… it all starts with the relatively minor changes made to the naming of folders within User Profiles in Windows 7.

One of the things you’ll notice first is the User Profile folder structure in Windows 7 has changed a little bit from what was seen in Windows Vista.

In Windows Vista: Documents, Downloads, Photos, Videos, and Music

In Windows 7: Personal Documents, Personal Downloads, Personal Photos, Personal Videos, and Personal Music.

The naming also changed in the Public User Profile: Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Photos, Public Videos, and Public Music.

These folder structure changes were made to accommodate a new Windows Explorer feature in Windows 7 called Libraries. Libraries exist in the Navigation Pane of Windows Explorer which has been updated for Windows 7. In Windows 7, users are given Libraries that consist of multiple “library locations” or folders from both their User Profile and Public User Profile.

For example: the Documents Library in Windows 7 consists of your Personal Documents folder under your profile and the Public Documents folder – or 2 “locations”.

By default, my Libraries consisted of the following folders:

• Documents: Personal Documents and Public Documents
• Downloads: Personal Downloads and Public Downloads
• Music: Personal Music and Public Music
• Photos: Personal Photos and Public Photos
• Videos: Personal Videos and Public Videos

There is a very specific reason why each of these Libraries consists of a Personal folder and Public folder. It ties in with HomeGroup and specific permissions which I will talk about very soon… keep reading ;-)

When I view the Documents Library – it displays all files and folders from any folder I have included in this Library in a single Windows Explorer view.

In the above screen shot, the EXAMPLE folder in the red box is a folder in the Public Documents folder while the rest of the folders are from my Personal Documents folder.

To add locations to a Library, all I needed to do was hit the location button in the top right-hand corner. To create custom Libraries, all I needed to do was right-click on “Libraries” in the Windows Explorer Navigation Pane and choose “New”. I decided to try adding a folder from my Windows Home Server to my Document Library. I had a folder full of documents on my Windows Home Server that would be perfect for my Documents Library. To my excitement I was easily able to add the folder to my Documents Library just fine. So Network locations such as Windows Home Servers are in for “library locations”!

Either way – creating custom Libraries or adding folders to a Library are very easy.

These Libraries can easily be shared with other people on your Home network through a new network sharing feature in Windows 7 called HomeGroup.

In creating a HomeGroup I was also able to choose which Libraries I would like to share out to the HomeGroup.

A few things I discovered about HomeGroup when setting a HomeGroup up:

• In order to setup a HomeGroup, my PC’s Network Location needed to be set as “Home” in Network and Sharing Center. Just like in Windows Vista, a Network Location for networks your PC is connected to can be a Home network, Work network, or Public where Windows automatically applies certain settings to keep your PC safe (for example if you are on a Public network, Windows locks down your PC appropriately so you aren’t sharing important files with the world).
• If a HomeGroup had already been created on PC on this network – instead of asking me to create a HomeGroup, it would have asked me to join a HomeGroup and which Libraries I would like to share.
• There can be only 1 HomeGroup per Home network as far as I can tell and each HomeGroup is password-protected.
• Users on any Windows 7 PC) on my Home network can join the HomeGroup and are required to enter a password for that HomeGroup they are joining. This is great because if you have friends come over to your place – they can’t just jump on to your HomeGroup and access your stuff.
• Once a Windows 7 PC is joined to HomeGroup – any user on that Windows 7 PC can participate in HomeGroup. You can continue to access files from a User on a Windows 7 PC even if a different user is logged in to the PC.

So how does Personal Folders VS Public Folders tie in with HomeGroup?

I discovered that when sharing Libraries into my HomeGroup, the Public folders and Personal folders within the Libraries have different read/write permissions and are completely customizable.

In general, Public folders have read AND write permissions – meaning users in your HomeGroup can add and remove files to the folder.

Personal folders have read-only access. For files in your Personal folders within a Library – users in your HomeGroup can only view them – not edit, delete, etc.

To add a file to a Library being shared out via HomeGroup, all I needed to do was simply drag the file into the specific Library they want to add it to. That’s it. The file appears in that Library to everyone in the HomeGroup. But when I drag files to a Library someone is sharing in HomeGroup, the files are physically added to the “public” folder and not their “personal folder” (because of the permissions setup I mentioned above).

So let me give you a “real-world” example of how it works.

As you saw in the above screenshot, the user “Bruce Wayne” from the PC named MYUMPC was in my HomeGroup. I decide I want to add a photo to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library. I dragged and dropped a photo onto his Photo Library. The photo appeared within that Library as it should. When Bruce Wayne checks out his Photo Library, he will see that photo I just added. However because of the read/write permissions of Personal and Public folders – the photo I *just* added to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library actually sits physically within his Public Photos folder on his PC (the PC named MYUMPC).

Essentially PC users on your HomeGroup can add files to your Libraries but they physically sit in your Public folders on your PC and not your Personal folders. Your personal folders are preserved for only your important data. You don’t want people adding photos to your Personal Photos folder and messing up your photo collection – and the same with your music.

The way that Libraries are set up with the Personal and Public folders allows users to be in control of their personal data. You can choose to let folks in your HomeGroup view your data in your Personal folders within your Libraries or you can completely turn off access to your Personal folders all together giving only access to the Public folders within the Library.

With Windows 7’s new Libraries feature as well as the new HomeGroup feature – I discovered I am more easily in control of my data at the same time am able to easily share things out to people.

Charlie Owen, who works on Windows Media Center and is one of my favorite Microsoft bloggers, has posted a very in-depth blog post on Windows Media Center in the Windows 7 Pre-Beta build PDC attendees will be getting their hands on today. If you’re heavy into Windows Media Center – you NEED to check this post out.

Just a few hours ago, Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President for Windows and Windows Live Engineering, did his keynote here at PDC2008 unveiling Windows 7 to the world for the first time. Steven asked Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Experience, to come up on stage and demo specific Windows 7 features that I think you’ll find very exciting. I’d like to take a moment and share some notes I took live here from PDC from his keynote about those features that they demoed.

It’s important to note that many of these features that were demoed during the Keynote were from more recent Windows 7 build and didn’t make it into the Windows 7 build being handed out to attendees here at PDC – but we wanted to show them off to you anyway.

Ok now on to my notes on the features demoed here from PDC (not in any specific order)! I also hope to try and add a little more context to the features that were demoed.

I’d like to emphasize all of these features that were demoed ultimately showcases that Windows 7 is being designed to make the things you do today faster and easier, and new things possible.

New Windows Taskbar in Windows 7:

The new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 focuses on application “tiles”. These application tiles can be arranged or re-arranged anywhere on the Windows Taskbar simply by grabbing the tiles and moving them where ever you want on the taskbar. Users will be able to “pin” applications they use the most to the new Windows Taskbar via the Start Menu by simply dragging and dropping those apps from the Start Menu to the Windows Taskbar.

Another Windows Taskbar feature that was demoed was Live Previews. This lets users quickly see into the application window to see what’s there within the application window. When a user has multiple tabs opened in IE in Windows 7, when they move their mouse over the IE tile on the Windows Task bar – Live Previews will show all the tabs that are opened in IE (as seen in the above screenshot). You can even close tabs via Live Previews on the Windows Taskbar.

When users mouse-over each of the tabs they can “peak” into the each IE tab as it briefly appears on the maximized on screen. Sometimes the Live Preview via the taskbar isn’t enough of a preview.

The idea here is to offer users easier access to their most used applications and applications they have running.

Jump Lists:

Another feature that is also part of both the new Windows Taskbar and also the Start Menu is Jump lists. When you right-click on an application on the new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 – you get a “Jump List” of options. In the demo, Julie right-clicked on Word and a Jump List appeared showcasing recent documents that have been worked on. If you recall, your recent documents you worked on in Word was usually accessible only inside Word. Jump Lists enable you quick access to options that might be deep within an application.

Here at PDC, we’re talking about how developers can take advantage of API’s that allow them to utilize Jump Lists.

The screenshot above is showcasing a Jump List for Windows Explorer within the Start Menu in Windows 7.

Windows Explorer:

Windows Explorer introduces a new Navigation Pane showcasing easy access to your Libraries and HomegGroup as well as your Desktop and Computer. Libraries allow users to have all their data (documents, music, photos, videos, etc) all in one place. We want network sharing to be much easier in Windows 7. And HomeGroup enable just that. HomeGroup is designed to seamlessly integrate and share computers and devices on your home network. Your HomeGroup is also searchable via Windows Explorer too.

Each Library can have “locations” of folders configured to be included into that Library. Local or network locations can be included in Libraries. In the demo – you could see multiple locations for one “place” or Library. You can add folders from other PCs in your HomeGroup to your Libraries too and they will show up whenever you connect to your HomeGroup.

I have a more in-depth blog post exploring the power of Libraries and HomeGroup in Windows 7 that should be posted shortly – stay tuned.

Searching for files is also easier in Windows 7. Search now includes Filters such as “Type” or “Tags”. When searching for a specific term – matching strings are highlighted. Windows Explorer also enables quick access to enabling the Preview window with an icon in the top right-hand corner of the Windows Explorer toolbar.

There is a consistent Windows Explorer UI across all of Windows 7 including Windows Media Player 12.

Media Streaming:

It just plays. Windows 7 makes it easier to play media on your home network (especially with HomeGroup). No more choices thrown at you when try to play media.

Windows 7 will let you stream any media to computers and devices on your network including Digital Picture Frames.

In Windows Media Player 12, you can play music to a specific device on your home network. When you stream music to a specific device (or “play to” a specific device) – a device player called the Play To player will appear letting you control playing media to that device. All Julie did was right-click on a device in HomeGroup and choose “Play to”. This works for not just songs but also videos and images and also can be utilized in Windows Media Center in Windows 7 too.

Device Stage:

Device Stage is an all-in-one view of a specific device on in your PC’s Printers and Devices Folder – a new folder in Windows 7. 3rd party hardware manufacturers can use Device Stage to give users all the options – or “Tasks” - they need and want to control their device whether it’s a printer or mobile device. The Device Stage experience is also services-enabled feature customizable for 3rd party hardware manufacturers.

In the demo, Julie shows off connected her Motorola phone to Windows 7 and being able to manage that device using Device Stage. Because the Motorola phone is a Plug-and-Play device, the device appears in the taskbar and Device Stage pops up on her screen when she plugged it in to Windows 7. Device Stage is designed to take advantage of mobile devices and offers specific tasks such as syncing media to a device, syncing contacts and calendar events from Outlook to a device, and creating and downloading ring tones. Custom phone makers and carriers can take advantage of Device Stage for their devices.

We’ll have much more to say about Device Stage in Windows 7 next week and WinHEC!

Personalization:

In Windows 7 – your desktop is YOURS. Windows 7 will ship with specific themes users can use for their PCs or customize and create their own. 3^rd parties can create custom themes for Windows 7 and let you download them. We’re looking to offer theme downloads straight off of windows.com for users to enjoy.

Julie also demoed the improved abilities to change the color of glass in Windows 7.

Gadgets are now built in to the desktop instead of being confined to a sidebar. You can place them anywhere you want on the desktop or “snap” them to the side like you did previously with Windows Vista’s Windows Sidebar. To add gadgets, people will simply be able to right-click on their desktop to do so.

System Tray Enhancements:

The Windows Taskbar also comes with System Tray enhancements that automatically hide all but a default set of notification icons. Hidden notification icons are put into an “overflow” menu which can be expanded out to view. For notification icons you want on your system tray, Julie shows that you can drag icons from the “overflow” menu to the system tray. If there is a notification icon you don’t want on the System Tray, simply drag it to the desktop and it disappears. Users can also change the order by dragging the notification icons in the order you desire.

The overflow menu has a Notification Icon Control Panel that lets you also manage which notification icons are visible and how they alert you etc.

Wireless Networking:

Directly from the System Tray, Windows 7 introduces a better way of quickly accessing and connecting to wireless networks. Find and discovering available wireless networks is much easier. When new wireless networks are available in Windows 7, the network icon in the System Tray gets a neat little yellow star icon. Users can click the network icon and expand the available networks and choose which one they want to connect too.

Action Center:

Action Center is the central spot for users to troubleshoot issues with their Windows 7 PCs, view reported problems (and report them to Microsoft), run maintenance tasks that can make your Windows 7 PC perform better. Windows Defender is also integrated with Action Center to minimize the amount of alerts users see.

You can also use Action Center to access the UAC Control Panel…

UAC:

Enhancements to UAC put users in control of how UAC communicates with them.

Touch Capabilities:

Windows 7 spots huge investments in Touch capabilities. Julie demos quite a few of these features using a new HP TouchSmart PC. You can read two of my posts on HP’s TouchSmart PC line here and here. She first demos access Jump Lists with touch and also rearranging stuff with touch. She also showcases Gestures which make using touch-capable devices with Windows 7 pretty slick.

Touch in Windows 7 will be incredibly useful especially when browsing through your photos as Julie also demonstrates. She “flicks” through photos using her finger.

With touch and the enhanced Paint that comes with Windows 7 with the Ribbon UI introduced in Office 2007, Julie demonstrates choosing a paint brush and using touch to draw in Paint.

After Julie was done were her demos, Steven Sinofsky came back to stage to discuss a few things such as Software + Services with Windows Live and IE8. I’ll be diving deeper into those topics in later blog posts.

There you have it – a pretty sweet preview of what’s coming with Windows 7. In the future, expect us to continue to talk about Windows 7 and of course look to our new Windows 7 Team Blog for announcements related to Windows 7 including information about the Windows 7 Beta (which Mike Nash talks about here). I’ll also be talking about my Windows 7 experiences too.

As you probably have noticed, we just re-launched our blog today as The Windows Blog sporting an all-new look and feel reflecting Windows in a broader sense instead of a single Windows release. We figured it was time to give our blog a good facelift (it’s looked the same since we originally launched in October of 2006) – especially as we start talking about Windows 7, Windows Live, and many other interesting Windows topics. Our old design focused strictly on Windows Vista. Our new design is no longer tied to a specific Windows release allowing us to talk about a wider range of topics.

With the previous site design – we essentially had 2 blogs hosted together on the same site: the Windows Vista Team Blog and Windows Experience Blog. But because of the design – not a lot of people noticed that there were actually 2 distinct blogs on our site.

We wanted to fix that.

In thinking about the design for The Windows Blog, we wanted the site to act like a community of blogs focused on talking about Windows.

Today – our new design reflects that.

As you can see in the left-hand navigation menu – The Windows Blog is currently home to 3 Windows blogs, 2 of which you already know.

Both the Windows Vista Team Blog and Windows Experience Blog are the same blogs with the same content you have been reading – however they are exposed differently with our new design. We are also introducing a 3rd blog today – the Windows 7 Team Blog. All 3 of these blogs sit under what I like to call The Windows Blog “umbrella”.

All 3 of these blogs also have distinct purposes. As you can expect – the Windows Vista Team Blog will continue to talk about all-things Windows Vista and the Windows 7 Team Blog will talk about all-things Windows 7 as we move forward. The Windows Experience Blog, which is written by me, will continue to talk about anything related to the cool and interesting Windows experiences people can have with Windows. The focus of the 2 “Team” blogs is to deliver important news and announcements we think are important to you as a consumer and as a Windows enthusiast in a more personable way. Real people (like me and Mike Nash) write these blog posts.

Each blog has its own RSS feed and unique banner. You can subscribe to the individual blogs you are interested in reading content from in your favorite RSS feed reader or simply subscribe to the main RSS feed from The Windows Blog front page as ALL blog content is aggregated to the front page and main RSS feed of The Windows Blog.

· Windows Vista Team Blog | RSS Feed

· Windows 7 Team Blog | RSS Feed

· Windows Experience Blog | RSS Feed

· Front Page | Main RSS Feed

As we move forward – you can expect new blogs to be added to this community of Windows blogs here which I think is exciting. We are committed to building this community of Windows blogs – this is just the beginning.

We’ve got a lot more changes to talk about too.

Our Media Gallery is much better – allowing for Tag navigation. Each Tag comes with its own RSS feed too. When viewing the Media Gallery, readers are now able to sort our photos and screenshots Name, Most Recent, Most Downloads, Most Popular, and Most Comments. We also have specific Galleries of images as well you can navigate through under “Browse Media”.

We are now running on Telligent’s latest Community Server release. Because of this, we are able to take advantage of Telligent’s social networking investments within Community Server such as enhanced user profiles. Users who sign up to be members of The Windows Blog can now enjoy much more customizable user profiles. Members can add announcements to their profiles, add custom RSS feeds (such as the RSS feed to their Twitter account for all their tweets), and add other members as friends. Users can also leave comments on user’s profiles as well. The Windows Blog has a mini social network!

Click here to see my profile.

The new enhanced user profiles also have an activity stream called “My Activity”. If you are an active commenter, your comments will appear here as activities. The activity stream has its own RSS feed allowing you to take advantage of tapping in to other social networks such as Facebook and FriendFeed. Members can add their activity RSS feeds as Notes on their Facebook profile or add the feed to FriendFeed.

Also: when you see a little green dot on people’s avatar that means they are “online” – signed in to the blog and browsing the site.

And don’t be surprised if you see members of our Windows Featured Community Program or Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals leaving comments on the blog either!

Along with the new site name and design – we’re also using a new URL. You can now find us at www.windowsteamblog.com. The old URL – www.windowsvistablog.com – as well as all RSS feeds should redirect to the new URL.

And with that – I welcome you to The Windows Blog! Stayed tuned for tomorrow as I’m here in Los Angeles at the PDC and will be bringing lots of Windows 7 news your way.

Please pardon our dust, we’re currently deploying a pretty sweet upgrade to the site and ironing out a few issues. Some things may not work correctly at the moment. I’ll be posting more shortly on the changes to the site once we get everything the way we want it. Thank you for your patience!

The Windows SideShow Team has announced that the final version of the Windows Media Center Gadgets for Windows SideShow is now available for download on Windows Live Gallery in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors!

Download: Windows Media Center Gadgets for Windows SideShow (32-bit)
Download: Windows Media Center Gadgets for Windows SideShow (64-bit)

The Windows Media Center Gadgets for Windows SideShow package is made up of the following 4 Gadgets for your Windows SideShow device:

• Now Playing: View what is currently playing in Windows Media Center (includes playback controls)
• Pictures + Video: Browse your Photos and Videos folders
• Music: Browse your Music folder and play any song
• TV: Look at what is on TV via the Windows Media Center Guide, Schedule Recordings, and View Recordings (in a Thumbnail view)

If you are a heavy Windows Media Center user and have a Windows SideShow device – these gadgets are a must-have. My main desktop PC is a Dell XPS 420 which comes with a built-in Windows SideShow display on the top of the system. It is great being able to walk up to the system to check and schedule TV recordings especially if I’m in a hurry and don’t want to sit down at my desk and fire up Windows Media Center. Quick access is awesome.

A few days ago, I needed to edit a blog post that I didn’t publish using Windows Live Writer. I discovered that Windows Live Writer allows you to open any blog post on your blog that has been published – regardless of whether it was written and published with Windows Live Writer or not.

When I clicked “Open” in the Windows Live Writer toolbar, an options window appeared giving me several options to choose from.

I can open a blog post from Drafts, Recently Posted, and of course any of the blogs that I have configured in Windows Live Writer such as the Windows Experience Blog. When I clicked on “The Windows Experience Blog” option – I was given a listing of 5 of the most recent blog posts from the Windows Experience Blog. The default is to list 5 posts however you can choose to view more blog posts via a drop down menu. I was able to choose any blog post that had been published (via Windows Live Writer or not) from the Windows Experience Blog to edit and publish those edits.

The ability to open blog posts from blogs in Windows Live Writer exists today with the current non-Beta version of Windows Live Writer available at get.live.com as well as the current Beta of Windows Live Writer available at download.live.com.

If you haven’t already discovered this, thought it might be of some interest to my fellow bloggers.

Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Developer Division, has announced the final release of Silverlight 2.0. Scott runs the teams responsible for Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), ASP.NET, and IIS 7.0. Silverlight 2.0 is a major release for Microsoft’s Developer Division and allows developers to utilize the benefits of .NET within any browser. Scott also lets us know of several high-profile websites that are jumping onboard in utilizing Silverlight 2.0 such as CBS College Sports Network to broadcast 20,000 hours of live games, AOL with their new AOL Mail, and Blockbuster with their new MovieLink subscription service.

My favorite example of the capability of Silverlight 2.0 is the Hard Rock Memorabilia website using Deep Zoom. This impressive site, designed built by the awesome folks at Vertigo, showcases tons of music memorabilia of historic value such as The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour Bus which is my personal favorite since I got to see it in person several years ago at the Hard Rock in Universal Studios Orlando.

CORRECTION: The Hard Rock Memorabilia website (including the embeddable "widget" that you can share on your website as mentioned below) was actually conceived and designed by the creative geniuses at the San Francisco-based advertising and design firm Duncan/Channon. You can read about the new widget capabilities in the Hard Rock Memorabilia website in this Duncan/Channon blog post. They also have a post up about the Hard Rock Memorabilia website for you to read as well.

They have enabled a super cool widget feature on the Hard Rock Memorabilia website where you can zoom in to a specific object in the collection and choose to share it by embedding it on your blog! As you can see above, I embedded the Magical Mystery Tour Bus Widget for you to see here. Special thanks to OffBeatMammal for the heads up on the sharing functionality in the Hard Rock Memorabilia.

Speaking of Deep Zoom, to go along with the final release of Silverlight 2.0 a new version of Deep Zoom Composer has been released.

Download: Deep Zoom Composer Preview 2 (October 2008)

The Deep Zoom Composer Team tells us that this release is mostly an “under-the-hood” release focusing on reliability. In the near future, expect the Deep Zoom Composer Team to talk more about the changes as they polish the V1 release of Deep Zoom Composer. For those not sure what Deep Zoom Composer is: Deep Zoom Composer is an application that lets users very easily compose their very own Deep Zoom collections, similar (but not as complex) to the Hard Rock Memorabilia website I mentioned above. After composing a Deep Zoom collection in Deep Zoom Composer – you are then given the ability to upload your collection to the Microsoft Live Labs PhotoZoom website. Developers can use this tool to develop their own Deep Zoom collections as well for their own websites. You can check out my Deep Zoom collections on PhotoZoom here. I plan on adding many more collections

Congrats to the Silverlight Team on their Silverlight 2.0 release!

To go with your Life Without Walls Wallpapers for your PC, you can now download the “I’m A PC” Windows Live Messenger Theme Pack that gives you a variety of Display Pictures and Backgrounds for your IM conversation window.

Click above to download the “I’m A PC” Messenger Theme Pack. I’ve got it installed on my PCs and it works just fine with the latest Windows Live Messenger Beta available for download at download.live.com.

Thanks to Paul Thurrott for the heads up!

Several weeks ago I had blogged about HP’s all-in-one PC with amazing touch capabilities – the HP TouchSmart PC. Specifically, I discussed the IQ500 series HP TouchSmart PC models (the IQ504 and IQ506). The IQ500 series HP TouchSmart PCs were considered the 2nd generation HP TouchSmart PCs. The original HP TouchSmart PC made its debut in January of 2007. Just recently, HP has announced the IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PCs – the IQ804 and IQ816.

So what’s new with the IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PCs? The IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PC is 25 ½” versus the IQ500 series models which were 22”. Just like the IQ500 series HP TouchSmart PCs, the IQ800 series sports ambient lighting that shines on your keyboard. This can be very useful in low lighting. However the IQ800 series allows you to change the color of the ambient lighting. The IQ800 series also comes with a pocket media drive bay for user’s portable media (the HP MediaSmart Connect has a pocket media drive bay so you can take media between the two devices). The IQ800 series (both the IQ804 and IQ816) come with built-in TV Tuners for Windows Media Center awesomeness.

The IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PC is also wall-mountable as well!

There are some differences between the IQ804 and IQ816 HP TouchSmart PC models. The IQ816 comes with a Blu-ray drive for HD movies. The IQ804 comes with a 500GB harddrive while the IQ816 comes with a 750GB harddrive. The chipset and graphics for the IQ816 is a bit higher than the IQ804. If you’re looking to maximize your investment in the HP TouchSmart PC – the IQ816 is top-of-the-line.

The IQ800 series makes a worthy addition to the HP TouchSmart PC Family. I hope to blog more about the HP TouchSmart PC this fall!

Under the TV + Movies menu in Windows Media Center, you may have noticed a new tile: MSNBC News Beta. The MSNBC News Beta tile will begin appearing in Windows Media Center for users in the United States and Canada running Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. Users don’t need to download anything to enable MSNBC News Beta in Windows Media Center. MSNBC News Beta gives users quick access to the latest election news, top stories and weather all from one screen.

Directly within Windows Media Center, users can browse Editor Picks and Most Popular videos (which are selected by viewers). I discovered that when I click on a specific video, a “+” icon appears. When this “+” icon is clicked, it gets added to a custom news video playlist. There are quite a few videos to choose from which is nice.

I was able to quickly browser through a bunch of MSNBC’s Decision ’08 videos and add them to a custom news video playlist to watch all at once.

I was also able to browse other categories such as Business, Sports, and Entertainment which all have videos I can either watch as I go or add to a custom news video playlist. MSNBC News Beta also sports some pretty neat search functionality that lets me search for stories with specific keywords.

And the 5-day weather forecast (available for any ZIP code in the United States) is impressive too!

As a heavy Windows Media Center user myself, I for one will be using MSNBC News Beta to stay on top of not only the upcoming U.S. Election but all the latest news.

For more on MSNBC News Beta and Windows Media Center – click here!