Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

I have something like 20 or more websites open in browser that I want to be able to review or recommend. I haven’t got time so I will link them here, tag on delicious and clip into socialmedian as appropriate.

Here goes.

Microsoft

• Windows Live One Care for Server. Free trial. Works on Server 2008 Standard 64 bit, SBS 2008 Standard and Premium.
• File Dialogs – adding My Places in the File Open and File Save As dialog boxes. Quickly find frequently used locations on your PC or network.
• Adding signatures to email in Windows Live Hotmail
• Plugins – Flickr for Live Writer, Flickr for Outlook, Flickr for Word. Zemanta for Windows Live Writer. Hat tip to Sarah Perez from Channel 10 for this. (see our Geek Girl profile on Sarah)
• Another from Sarah is the Circle Dock Application launcher. Go straight to Circle Dock.
• How to share large files without attaching them to email
• Bulk convert old documents to new Office 2007 format from Digital Inspiration. I will be trialing this with a set of copied documents to test the results.

Step 1: Download Migration Manager kit and extract it into a new folder - say: c:\office.

Step 2: Download and install the Office Pack - this step is required even if you have Microsoft Office 2007 already installed on your computer.

Step 3: Assuming that you extracted the Office Manager files in c:\office directory, go c:\office\tools, open ofc.ini using notepad and add the following line.

fldr=c:\users\labnol\documents

This refers to the folder location that holds your office files. I am pointing this to my Documents folder but it could be different on your machine.

Step 4: Open command prompt and go to c:\office\tools. There you’ll see a utility called ofc.exe - this is the Office File Converter that will convert all old Office files to the new 2007 Office document format in bulk. Run.

Immediately all old Office files in that folder (and sub-folders) will get converted to the new format and are saved in a new folder.

This utility works with Word (doc to docx), Access databases, PowerPoint (ppt to pptx), Visio diagrams, Excel (xls to xlsx) and Microsoft Project files. The conversion may however fail for password protected documents.

• Record and send video email with Windows Live Messages once again from Digital Inspiration. Go diorect to the Windows Live Video Messages site.

PhotoSynth

This massive amazing technology was released for preview yesterday. Already the servers cant keep up. Its on and off again. They are working ion it.

I have downloaded and installed and created a synth – I think, I cant view it to check. It will be live soon I am sure.

Here’s a bunch of news about it and stuff you can look at it to review. This should have been in a post of its own. Sorry.

• Live Labs forum
• Photosynth blog
• Photosynth User Review from LiveSide.net
• Nick Hodge’s initial review of Photosynth

Entertainment

• Battlefield Heroes. A new game. Site built in Drupal
• Windows Live Messenger integrated with Line Rider.

Web stuff

• Goofy2. A new social media site? I haven’t even checked it out yet. Here’s what they say “Goofy2 is a service for you and the world to share and discuss about anything through short posts and comments with rich media embedment.”
• Widgenie. I still haven’t tested this but will one day!

Other

• How to win a photo comp. As I have to judge one soon I though this would be a good read – it was. Thanks Darren!