Think Beyond the Back Cover

My family and I, yes me too, have really enjoyed this game.  I saw a Live Spaces site go up talking about traditional Xbox 360 players and how they typically wouldn't enjoy a game like Viva Pinata, but a lot of people do.  You can find this site here. 

There are other sites that also provide lots of information on playing the game, in addition the Saturday TV kids show with the same name.  Our kids really enjoy that, and you get clues on there show as to how to do certain things in the game.  Happy playing!

The family took a very short notice trip to Maui a couple weeks ago.  I have posted some pictures here for you to see.  We had an incredible time.  We stayed at the Grand Wailea which was quite the place.

We went from sea level to 10k+ feet to the top of Haleakala crater, up above the clouds to 70ft below the surface when Mary and I went diving the next day at Molokini crater.

Enjoy the photos, we are hoping to go back soon.  :)

Live Spaces added the ability to take photos off your camera phone and email them to your Spaces site, right into the new or existing photo album.

Sending photos to your space

Several days ago we made uploading photos taken with your camera phone to Spaces more powerful. In the past you could post them only to your blog. Now you can also post photos directly to photo albums. You can do it as long as your phone allows you to send e-mail. There are two ways to set up the feature: from the PC site and from the mobile site.

If you are on the PC just go to your space (make sure that you’re signed in), go to Options, then E-mail publishing, and at the bottom of the page you’ll see a list of e-mail addresses for photo albums in your space. Each email address has the following format:

Member_name.Keyword_of_your_choice.Secret_word@spaces.live.com.

By default the keyword is a GUID, but you can change it to any string that you want. Then just add the email address to your phone’s address book and you can start sending photos to the photo albums in your space.

Another way to enable the feature is from the mobile site. Just go to http://mobile.spaces.live.com in your mobile browser, sign in and go to your space. From there, navigate to the photo album to which you want to post photos and select “E-mail publishing.” You’ll be given an e-mail address for that photo album (once again, you can change the keyword used in the email address to anything that you like).

One more note: if you want to post photos to a completely new album you can do it too. Just go to your space in the mobile browser and select the link to “Add an album”. Then save the email address generated for that photo album to your address book and you're all set.

PS. According to Telephia’s research Windows Live Spaces are #2 in the UK and #3 in the US among the sites receiving mobile-generated content.

For information on the tool, Windows Live Writer, which is free to download, go here:  http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/ 

It connects by default into your Windows Live Spaces site but also allows you to configure into many blog hosting systems. 

In case you have been wanting an Xbox 360 and haven't been able to find one, there is good news.

Microsoft to ramp up Xbox 360 shipments - Games - MSNBC.com

Have you ever spent time taking 6 or 7 photos, just trying to get everyone's faces turned correctly and smiling correctly?  Ever wish you could take the best parts of each photo and glue them together?  That's Group Shot.  MSR Group Shot helps you create a perfect group photo out a series of group photos. With Group Shot you can select your favorite parts in each shot of the series and Group Shot will automatically build a composite image.

http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/

If you are big into listening to music or capturing digital videos / photographs on your PC, you should really try www.orb.com.  Provided you have a high speed internet connection, Orb allows you to stream your videos, live TV (if you are using a Windows Media Center PC or other DVR method on your computer), photos, music, etc. right to another machine also using a high speed internet connection.  If you are using a Windows Mobile device that connects to an EVDO or other high speed mobile network, you can view the pictures, listen to the music, or see the videos right on your phone.

All you have to do is go to www.orb.com from your main PC that has all the images, videos, and music stored on it and setup an account.   It will build a collection of all the stuff you want it to capture.  Once that is done, on your other device, go to my.orb.com and after you sign-on, you will see your available music, photos, and videos.

Best of all, it is free.