Jacky Mok's Blog: Blog

livechronicles.spaces.live.com

Wed, 30 May 2007 04:35:28 GMT

LiveChronicles launched!

I haven't been blogging to this site for close to two months now but because of good reasons. I've been working with various teams to get more content on a Canadian WL blog and the net result of it is the Live Chronicles. Instead of maintaining by me and myself, this new blog will be maintained by a wide range of WL experts and you can expect better contents and more frequent postings.

The site is http://livechronicles.spaces.live.com. This site will be decommissioned in a few months. See you there in the new blog!

MSN Soapbox beta is open to public

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:54:18 GMT

Since 3 days ago, the MSN SoapBox beta has been released to the public! The interface is slick! From the flash enabled menu bar to the asynchronous media streaming and browsing, all the way to the tagging and comment system, everything just works and with a lot of styles too! Now you might think I said all these cause I work for Microsoft, and you can think whatever you want, just I urge you to try out the product yourself http://soapbox.msn.com. Trying uploading, searching, streaming at the same time and I hope you would be as impressed as I was. I've also embedded a random sample video from soapbox in this post.

A little disclaimer though, this is just a random video. I don't hold any grudge against Mac :) I just found this guy really animated.

Video: Why Mac Sux

Series of Tubes in Gears of War

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:22:24 GMT

Yeah I know this is an old joke, reading on the thread from below drove me to dig up this series-of-tubes joke once again, and to my surprise, I did find something that's quite interesting...

[quote]

Gears of War

The phrase pops up as a joke in the Xbox 360 game Gears of War as an unlockable achievement. To unlock the "A Series of Tubes" achievement, one must host and complete 50 ranked matches.

[/quote]

Seems like this joke is going to hang around for a little longer. And here is the original thread that I was referring to:

Feed: The Globe and Mail - Geekwatch
Posted on: February-15-07 4:38 PM
Author: Mathew Ingram
Subject: Block those Intarweb tubes!

U.S. Senator Ted Stevens has already achieved a certain kind of blogosphere and Internet infamy for his comments about teh Internets being "a series of tubes" (click here to watch a dance-video remix of his address to the Senate). Now, he seems to want to compound that infamy by[amp]nbsp;passing legislation - Follow link to read full post

View article...

Let us know what you think!

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:53:55 GMT

Post us a comment on our products, our services, feature requests, anything!

Microsoft Clippy, RIP: 1997 - 2007

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:24:33 GMT

How can they do this? Who doesn't love clippy?

[quoted from engadget]

Microsoft Clippy, RIP: 1997 - 2007

Vidcast series

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:53:23 GMT

I'm starting a vidcast series two weeks from now and I'll feature different people in the Windows Live team, so you can get a closer look at the people working in the Canada office, and also get some information on what are the cool stuffs we are working on. Stay tune!

Currently I have the following topics (tentative)

What is Windows Live
Live Maps
Windows Live Search
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Mobile
Windows Live Spaces and Gadgets

Let me know what other products you want to be featured!

Talking about Windows Live Mail name change

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:44:02 GMT

For those of you who have been using Windows Live Mail, MS is proposing a name change to Windows Live Hotmail. So, what do you think?

Quote

We Heard You Loud and Clear

Just on the heels of another great release for the beta (M9), I’d like to share some interesting news to our loyal users. When we launch the mail service worldwide, it will be named Windows Live Hotmail. That’s right! And for starters, some of you will begin to see the Windows Live Hotmail brand show up in the beta – first in our Microsoft internal version (dogfood) and eventually in the public version in the coming weeks.

We've had incredible success with the beta so far and learned tons from our millions of users. THANK YOU! We have used your input to make many feature and timing decisions, and now we’re announcing a naming decision based on your feedback!

Here is some background… When we decided to build a new web mail service several years ago, we had two major goals:

Build a faster, simpler and safer mail service for our Hotmail customers
Create a service powerful enough to meet the needs of a broader set of customers (for instance, did you know our mail is also the mail behind the new Office Live service?)

To do this, we started from scratch and built a whole new service from the ground up – and we called this Windows Live Mail. As we brought users onboard to this new service and had them kick the tires, we learned quickly that users loved it. We knew we were onto a good thing. We also found that many users were extremely loyal to the Hotmail brand and perceived the beta as an upgrade to Hotmail. In fact, our most loyal users have been very happy with Hotmail for years and while they loved the improvements in the beta, some were a bit confused by name change.

As we prepare to launch the final version of our new web mail service, we recognize the importance of ensuring that our 260+ million existing customers come over to the new service smoothly and without confusion. By adopting the name “Windows Live Hotmail”, we believe we’re bringing together the best of both worlds – new and old. We’re able to offer the great new technology that Windows Live has to offer while also bringing the emotional connection many existing and loyal users have with Hotmail.

We hope you like the approach we're taking and see this as a positive change. Keep the feedback coming because I promise, we’re listening!

- Richard Sim, Senior Product Manager

Welcome!

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 21:48:38 GMT

Welcome to my blog.

I'm a Windows Live Product Manager at Microsoft Canada. This is the very first official blog from the Windows Live group in Canada.

"What is Windows Live?" I've been asked this question in various occasions, and that deserves a 50-pages discussion, and I'll leave that discussion later. If I were to summarize our goals in a one-liner though, it would be this,

Our organization provides services that help to weave your online / offline experiences together. Confusing? Check out this site http://get.live.com.

Windows Live services includes a rich family of products and beta products: Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live OneCare, Mobile, Windows Live Mobile, Microsoft AdCenter, Live Map, Live Search and more. Keep checking for updates on each of these products!

Other than the business stuffs, I'll also frequently post blogs about the latest tech, gadgets, and my 2-cents on random stuffs.

Feel free to leave me a line on any suggestions/comments.