If this works then I'm back up and running again! Had a few blog issues since my (now deleted) Live Search Gadgets post, which screwed up my blog template for posting which in turn made Windows Live Writer unhappy. Now I'm upgraded to dasblog 1.9 and it will hopefully be all good!

I look forward to more blogging soon.

I just noticed that Rod has started blogging about Xero.

I cant think of what more to say in this post so go read what Rod has to say about Xero.

I've done a few modifications to the look and feel of my blog - hopefully to the better, and there's still a bit more to come. Blog now has a new background colour and a reorganized and rearranged right side, removed the Google/Amazon ads for now. They were cluttering the area I think, also added a little bio about myself and created a new feedburner feed.

Please do subscribe to the new Feed Url : http://feeds.feedburner.com/DanDotNet

I hope the changes are nice!

I just noticed these two buttons when reading some emails in outlook, they magically appear on screen when you hover over the area where they are at! If you have a conversation with several emails going back an forth, you can go up and down based on the one being read, to see those buttons hover over the right corner side around the separator line between emails. I've only taken a screenshot of one direction, they also show 'previous' ...etc

Interesting idea, but why aren't these always visible?

The first MS NZ event for 'O7 after the launch is coming next month, lots of awesome content and also some nice give aways and all for just $199. Details are here

I even noticed that JD - 2006 Blogger of the year award winner -will be co presenting with JB this year. Nice stuff JD. The next generation of Microsoft tech geeks is emerging. Looks like me & JD are leading the wave but in slightly different ways (Shameless self promotion here )

I'm sure JD would agree this is just the beginning!

Just read this post on Scoble's blog and it got me thinking. I don't really care what Microsoft's intentions are to take Google head to head by offering similar services or what but I personally am very happy with the Windows Live family of services and Live Search specifically.

I think the problem is Google is just good enough for the search needs of most people and it also seems to fit very well when speaking about it  - I mean when saying "I googled this and that", it doesn't sound as easy to say I Yahoo'd blah blah or I Live Searched so and so.

Microsoft need to convince people that Windows Live - (and I'm speaking of Live Search specifically in this post) it's become my favourite area - is worth trying. AND IT IS! But on the surface there is no obvious reason that would let people use Live Search instead of Google. All of its good features have not been talked about enough, if ever, and I don't know why. Like Scoble indicates most of the people in Redmond (read MS employees, USE Google) well that's the problem! If people at Microsoft are not convinced their search engine is the best then how is it ever going to take off.

I think all what Live Search needs is for those that tried it to speak about it - what happened to all of those bloggers out there, if a word can spread through blogs online then MS people are the best to do it! How many MS bloggers do you know of?

The different features that Live Search offers need to come to the surface so people can know about them and try them. It's not just another search engine!

Here are a few things of the top of my head that I love about Live Search, go try them!

- Customizable Search algorithm
- Search Macros ( I was first introduced to this concept on Live Search and then Google came up with the very similar Personalized Search)
- Live Image Search (not having to click a NEXT button is just fantastic), the scratchpad is also a VERY interesting idea

So there goes a few. More on this topic in the future...

And what's the deal with the tag game thing, everyone currently says that everyone they know has been tagged 30 times so they aren't tagging anyone! It's interesting I have not been tagged yet, maybe my readers are not that many after all! My blog must be boring!

I read this morning on ScottGu's blog about the new Visual Studio Web designer. It looks promising! I've always found the Visual Studio 2003 annoying especially when switching views... Visual Studio 2005's designer is less annoying but still not perfect. So it's about time we see the Least Annoying - this is going to be my word - expectation - on it till I try it ! .

Here's a list of some of the new stuff in the designer taken from Scott's blog.

I look forward to playing with this when the CTP is out.

I thought I was keeping a good eye on what's happening with Live Search but Chris was faster to post about the ability to have Windows Live Search on your mobile. See his post here

I still have a couple more posts I was meant to write up last year and haven't yet, they should be coming soon. Stay tuned for more on Live Search.