About a week ago I read on Channel 10 that Live Mesh was available to everyone on the U.S. Sarah Perez even gave me a tip: I could try it too! I just had to change my Windows Regional Settings, to tell Live Mesh servers that I was from the U.S. Shame on me, lying in order to access Live Mesh. 
I wrote about Live Mesh some time ago. Now that I am using it I can say that is just as I was expecting. You can register your devices (just Windows-based computers, for now) in Live Mesh in order to sync files between devices and remotely control devices. The screenshot bellow shows the devices list page. It includes your registered devices, a special device called “Live Desktop” and an Add Device button.
That “special device” Live Desktop to which you can connect is a simple interface where you can access your shared folders, download stored files, create folders, upload files, etc. AJAX allows a kind of user experience that resembles to a real Windows desktop, so the name “Live Desktop” is appropriate. Since you can share files/folders with other people, in order to keep track on your Mesh you have access to a “News” panel where you can stay up to date with changes that have been made.
The client software that you download from Live Mesh and install in your computers has an interface that is identical to the panel that is available on Live Desktop. This application notifies you when any change happens, and takes charge of all the syncing-related tasks. Bellow you can see a “Programs” folder on my desktop. Folders that you have in Live Mesh are fully integrated with Windows Explorer, so you can browse them as any regular folder. You can even share a regular folder in Live Mesh just by right-clicking it and choose the context-menu option “Add folder to your Live Mesh…”.
I must confess that I haven’t used the folder sync functionalities. I just tried one time after I installed Live Mesh, but one great functionality that I have been using is Remote Desktop. Using Internet Explorer you can remotely control any of your Windows devices from anywhere in the world where you have an internet connections, without any particular software, just an ActiveX control that acts as an Internet Explorer plugin.
Remote Desktop works pretty well. I can even browse in the web, check e-mail, install software, etc, in the remote device using this functionality. You can only connect to a device that isn’t currently in use and has the Live Mesh application installed, so if you are like me, and what to control your home computer from work, don’t forget to leave if locked or logged off. I have been having some issues with connectivity. When I loose my connection to the web, I get a retry connection button from Live Mesh, but it almost never works… Another issue is related with copy/paste files between your local machine and your remote device. It is way too slow… And copying text from the local clipboard to the device doesn’t always work. Well… It is just a Tech Preview, not a final version.
The mobile version of Live Mesh has became available this week, it allows you to check the news on your Mesh and download files. It is available at the address https://m.mesh.com. A Mac version of Live Mesh is on development.
So far Live Mesh is a mashup and rebranding of several “old” Microsoft products like Folder Share for file sync, the Remote Desktop connections via web browser of Windows Server 2003, and since we have 5Gb of storage that can be used not only for sync but also for sharing with other people, has a little bit of Windows Live SkyDrive. But the kind of integration that Live Mesh brings is pretty great as an user experience improvement.
I’ll be expecting news from Live Mesh team.
In understand that to make Windows Live Messenger profitable and free to all of us to use it has to have some kind of advertisement system attached to it. Sometimes these ads are useful, since they are different for each country and there are several major brands that use Windows Live Messenger advertisement.
Nevertheless, recently I’ve not been pleased by Messenger advertising. It has been really annoying. Now there are a lot of ads that just pop up out of out our main Messenger window showing some sort of flash animation. Some of them are pretty big and annoying when I trying to reach a contact that is hidden beneath the ad… Most of them disappear when the mouse leave the ad area (it is the minimum that I expect…) but other ads are only disabled by clicking a close button.
I am starting to understand those people that use software that patches Windows Live Messenger to remove all the advertisement. It violates the terms of usage and it is wrong to do it, but this Messenger advertisement “feature” is becoming to invade the user space. Some day in the future maybe I will consider the hypothesis of moving to a IM software like Pidgin (which I like pretty much 
) that is compatible with MSN protocol.
There is even a portable version just like I love in software).
Posted on 8:08pm 6/25/2008 by Bruno Silva in
My Life
First of all I want to apologize to all my RSS feed readers because just now I’ve noticed that I was making available only excerpts of my posts. I think this was happening since the last Wordpress upgrade I made. I had to change some code in Wordpress today to allow the RSS feed to show my complete posts.
In second place I want to anounce also to my RSS feed readers that don’t come to my website very often that I have a new theme Much clearer an easier to read, I hope.
Feedback is welcome.
O Pop Up andou por todo o país a dar uma cor diferente no dia-a-dia dos estudantes de cada local. Começou em Abril no ISCTE (Lisboa), passou pela Universidade de Coimbra, Évora, este presente na cidade invicta na FEUP, foi dar uma volta à praia na Caparica (na FCT) e terminou na passada quinta-feira onde nasceu Portugal, no campus da Universidade do Minho localizado em Guimarães. (…)
(…) O popup é sem dúvida uma grande festa! E mais do que uma festa, é um evento que é feito em conjunto com as universidades, com as Associações académicas e com alguns núcleos estudantis locais. Portanto esta é uma festa feita por todos os que nela participaram e contribuíram.
Ficamos à espera de voltar a ouvir falar, e mais do que isso, VER o Pop Up pelas universidades portuguesas no próximo ano lectivo. (…)
Excerto do Blog Oficial do Pop Up!
Posted on 7:18pm 5/04/2008 by Bruno Silva in
My Life
Now think twice before forwarding any “funny e-mails” to me. 
O Pop Up já se encontra a todo o gás! Começou no ISTE, ontem, hoje e amanhã, e vai percorrer diversas faculdades do país! E o que é o Pop Up?
“Esta é uma pergunta que, provavelmente, deverás estar a fazer a ti próprio desde que entraste no site! Afinal, o que é o Pop Up!? É, acima de tudo, uma grande (GRANDE) festa, mas simultaneamente um evento em que os estudantes que compareçam tenham acesso a formação e ferramentas que os ajudem a chegar mais longe, em que os temas, os conteúdos, e tudo o mais é completamente adaptado às necessidades / desejos destes.(…)“
Fonte: Site oficial do Pop Up
Como já disse o Pop Up encontra-se no ISCTE, conta com uma bolha insuflável onde se pode jogar X-Box, comer pipocas, realizar o registo no site para o sorteio de Smarthphones HTC, se forem simpáticos podem ter uma t-shirt e pins oficiais do evento Encontra-se presente uma pessoa da MegaFM para passar música. O que é excelente, porque existem puffs para o pessoal se sentar na conversa ou simplesmente a curtir o som.
Pipoca Sound System?… É a máquina onde estão as pipocas, e de onde sai a música. Weird, hum?
A adesão do pessoal do ISCTE tem sido excelente, todos têm curiosidade de saber o que se passa, e são imensos os repetentes que nos intervalos passam por lá. Tem sido realmente uma festa.
O evento pode ser acompanhado no blog oficial. As galerias de fotos também contam com uma actualização quase constante. Para o pessoal do Twitter, sigam http://twitter.com/thisispopup.
Não deixem de ver os passatempos que vão surgindo, já houve premiados!
