Windows Live Essentials is an improved suite of free, downloadable products that is not only mandatory for pretty much anyone with a PC, but will also deliver on a promise to help you organise your digital life including your photos, videos and e-mail.
Here's the breakdown.
Use Photo Gallery and Movie Maker to wow people
Everyone would probably admit to leaving photos and videos on their hard drive gathering digital dust. Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker allow you to create something great from your happy snaps.
Photo Gallery lets you organise and find photos in your collection, with the ability to search photos by location, date and facial recognition (yes facial recognition, it's not just ASIO who use it).
If you're not happy with the shots you've taken, just "fuse" the best parts of a few average shots into one perfect shot. Go ahead and tag you and your friends throughout your gallery. And if you're in a creative mood, jump into Movie Maker and create something special.
Once in Movie Maker, add themes complete with music, credits and funky transitions — all of which come pre-packaged to speed up the process.
Before you're done, make sure you upload your creations directly to your social networking sites, such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.
E-mail, calendar and contacts integrated into your world
If you're working out of town or in a low-Internet coverage area, sometimes it's not always easy to get online and be productive. That's where Windows Live Mail comes in handy.
With Windows Live Mail you can access your contacts, calendar and e-mail (including Hotmail and other accounts) even when you're offline. The best part? Changes will automatically synchronise the next time you connect to the Internet.
You can also manage multiple e-mail accounts including Hotmail, Gmail, BigPond or Optus, all with the one sign-in. Once you're in your mailbox, Messenger is integrated into your inbox (just like it is with Hotmail) — so it's easy to start an IM conversation while working or e-mailing your contacts.
Easily share stuff between your PCs
With Windows Live Sync your photos, movies, music and other files are synchronised across your PCs, which comes in handy when you're on the go.
All your most-important files are automatically updated with the latest changes so you have access to your most current stuff when you need it.
Along with sharing settings for your favourite programs across your PCs, you can also set up Remote Desktop through Windows Live Sync. This handy tool allows you to access your PC (and the important files on it) from any computer that's connected to the Net. So when you're away from your PC, you can still access all your stuff.
For more on how Windows Live Essentials can work for you, watch the video tutorial below.
Look for many more updates over the coming weeks as we start delivering them to the Essentials suite.
Home