www.live.com

Microsoft has always been made fun of, especially for the frequent crashes and virus attacks on their Windows OS. And partly due to Apple's influence and emergence over the past few years, Microsoft product's “user experience” is also often scrutinized and laughed at by both industry experts and casual tech consumers alike.

However, I feel that Bill Gates and his team has been trying really hard to dispel the notion that Microsoft only has difficult to use and unreliable products. It is evident in the upcoming Vista OS as well the new version of Office. Even as Apple and Linux are gathering momentum in terms of market share, they will find it extremely difficult to bring down the juggernaut that is Microsoft.

A new Microsoft “service” that impressed me quite a bit is www.live.com. With this, gone are the days when I had to open multiple instances of Internet Explorer, and log into each and every single website just to check if there are any new blog entries or news update.

www.live.com updates everything, and best of all, displays all the content neatly in one page.

Here's how you can get started:

1. Go to www.live.com, and click on the “Get Started” button.

2. To keep things simple, make sure all the check boxes are selected, and click “Next”

You'll be brought to your personal Live home page.

Each tab represents a main category, with the relevant contents in it. So, in the “News” tab, you have the head lines from MSNBC, BBC, NYT and so on. Click on any headline, and you'll be directed to the full story either in a separate browser or tab (if you use Firefox or IE7). If you don't like any preloaded “gadget”, just click the “X” button to remove them.

You can also add your own content by entering the RSS feed address of your favorite blog or news site. Click Add Stuff > Advanced Options.

Compelling features
New content will appear without the hassle of pressing F5, which in my opinion, is one compelling feature of this service. Another nice feature is its portability.

By logging in your hotmail or MSN or any Microsoft based account from any computer, all your settings and content will be loaded accordingly. So it doesn't matter if you are in some obscure Internet Cafe in Inner Mongolia, you'll still get to experience the same www.live.com service you enjoy back in the comforts of your home.

Conclusion
With live.com, Nearly everything that matters to you on the Internet can be conveniently accessed from one, single page.

Although the service is still in beta, I found it relatively stable, no big problems yet.

I think this is a great service and I log on to it everyday. Well, do try it out. You have nothing to lose as it's free of charge!

CE