Bruno Silva

Live Mesh - Quick Review

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.