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Too many devices in your life? Microsoft wants to help you simplify, and on Wednesday it launched a limited technology preview of Live Mesh.
Microsoft said Live Mesh is its new “software-plus-services platform and service that uses the Web as a hub to centrally connect people to the information, applications, people and devices they care about most.” The preview is currently limited to a relatively small number of testers, but a larger beta is expected later this year.

Harder, Not Easier

The platform came about, wrote Microsoft’s Amit Mital on a company blog, following an internal discussion about digital life. The Web is central to Microsoft employees’ lives, he noted, and they stay connected to it through a variety of devices.

“Unfortunately, at least initially,” Mital wrote, “every new device I add makes my life a little harder, not easier.” He said there were many times where he would find that a file was on another machine, or he couldn’t access something because he was offline.

Hence, Live Mesh. It allows devices to work together, data and applications to be available from anywhere, sharing to happen with just a few clicks, and your information to always be up to date and available.

In practice, a user signs up with a Windows Live ID and then goes to a personal Live Mesh page. The user then adds a device to a personal “device mesh,” which allows each Windows device to become “aware” of others. Mitral noted that, in the future, Live Mesh will support the Mac and various mobile devices.

Alternative Delivery Models

After a device has been added, there are a few changes in the device, most notably a new notifier icon in the Windows Taskbar. When a user hovers over the icon, a list of devices, news feeds and folders in the mesh pops up.

A user can, for instance, add a folder to the mesh, which adds it to all the devices in the mesh. A side Mesh Bar is available via Internet Explorer, which provides information on user activities and notifications and allows the user to remain up to date with any changes.

The contents of a folder can also be easily shared with others in a mesh, such as vacation pictures. If someone in your mesh adds pictures or notes to the shared folder, Live Mesh gives you a “News” update.

With Live Remote Desktop, a user can also directly access and control other devices in the mesh from any browser, such as a home PC or from someone else’s PC.

Live Mesh is part of Microsoft’s attempt to reposition itself, said Mark Margevicius, a research director with industry research firm Gartner. Just as it did when the Internet first hit, he said, the company “fears becoming irrelevant in the future IT world.”

The new platform could become one of the alternative delivery models for IT, he said, adding that Gartner has predicted that a variety of such models will emerge. Although Microsoft is in a unique position to leverage legacy systems for such an alternative model, Margevicius said he “won’t be surprised” if other companies offer similar platforms.

Source: CIO Today

Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 3 to manufacturers three years after the last service pack. SP3, the last release for Windows XP, will be available April 29th for download and includes security updates. An analyst said Windows XP will be capable of more years of service and it’s not clear that enterprises will embrace Windows Vista.

SP3 will be distributed to home users via Automatic Update in early June, the company said. Online documentation for Windows XP SP3 will be updated next week.

The new service pack is a 70MB download to update Window XP and can be installed on top of either SP1 or SP2. It doesn’t work with the 64-bit version of XP, however.

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Get the full story from Top Tech News here.

From Rick Cockrum of Shards of Consciousness fame -

Learn the difference between advertising and marketing. Use them both.

Marketing is the sum of the activities you perform to get the word out about your business and attract the customers you want.

Advertising is one marketing activity. It usually entails publishing paid announcements about your business.

At our theatre we advertise in the local paper weekly. Our marketing consists of a website, word of mouth from our customers (our best marketing), involvement in local activities, public service functions, involvement with local business groups, talking about the theatre in the course of day to day conversations, signage.

You can see that advertising, while important, is only a small part of marketing.