Bing is really awesome - I'm impressed. 

Check out the Wall Street Journal Review:

Microsoft's Bing Yields Results - WSJ.com
I've been using Bing for more than two weeks now, and this search engine really did retrieve on-target, useful information on the first try. But what I like best about it is that it does so in a user-friendly manner that looks and feels more inviting than Google.

A few friends have gotten their first iPhone in the last week and I thought I’d list my current favorite iPhone apps (besides Text, Mail, Calendar, Phone).

Useful apps, in order of how much I use them:

1. Facebook
2. mBox Mail – for Hotmail/Live Mail
3. Listomni – this is how I manage my life! I have 200+ tasks prioritized which keeps me focused and not overwhelmed. The grocery list is worth the price of admission: it remembers what I shop for, knows where to find things, and it makes it super easy to shop
4. Mint.com – money management and budgeting.  Amazing.
5. Accuweather and The Weather Channel – Accuweather is pretty accurate
6. Tweetie – my favorite Twitter app
7. Yelp – This comes in handy often – I check it to see the best restaurant/shopping/repair place nearby and I write reviews that feed out to Windows Live and Facebook
8. Urbanspoon – A fun way to find restaurants
9. Wikipanion - Wikipedia
10. BigOven - Recipes
11. MyNetDiary – Food, Weight, Exercise tracking
12. Pandora – internet radio. Only problem with it is the speed/quality/connection but I use it at the gym when I have good reception
13. iPhlix – For managing Netflix
14. eBay – Dangerous!
15. Amazon – Even more dangerous!
16. Tipulator – An easy way to split a group check
17. Bump – Easily exchange contact info with another iPhone user

How I get my news:

1. Mobile News – all the basics, even local
2. Huff Post – the left
3. WSJ – the right
4. NYTimes – the Times
5. NetNewsWire - RSS

Fun stuff:

1. myLighter - fun at concerts
2. Flashlight - this has come in handy more than once
3. Rain Stick – what a nice sound
4. Labyrinth LE – tilt to move the marble around the wooden maze
5. LightSaber - great sound effects
6. Handy Level – it’s a real level!
7. Ocarina - amazing use of the iphone’s capabilities

Headed to SXSW Interactive tomorrow – I’m very excited.  I’m from Austin so it’s actually a vacation and I’ll be down there for a week and a half to visit the family and play in the sun as well.  This is the weather here today in Redmond and I need a vacation!

If you are as overwhelmed as I am by the almost 400 panels, here’s my Excel spreadsheet that I used to sort and filter. http://cid-989d470165883d80.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/SXSWi  

Unfortunately it’s not up to the minute accurate (copied from http://sxsw2009.sched.org/ last night) but it’s a good way to get a baseline.

And if you get a free afternoon, here’s my list of swimmin holes that are fairly close to the city.  http://maps.live.com/?v=2&encType=1&cid=989D470165883D80!7002 tinyurl http://tinyurl.com/asmwuo

Say hi if you see me there!

I’m going nuts trying to straighten out all my social media feed publishing and get rid of the duplication and circular references. Check this out:

My Twitter is updating my Facebook status and my Windows Live Messenger status is updating my WL Profile status but my Twitter status is also updating in my Windows Live What’s New feed (but not the status). My Twitter is appearing in my Facebook news feed via Friendfeed so it’s there twice –doh! Then my Windows Live blog updates are publishing to Friendfeed but they don’t always show up so I post them individually in Facebook (nicer formatting too) and then delete the automatic Friendfeed update (if it appears at all). But now that I just added Friendfeed and Twitter to my Windows Live Space in custom HTML modules I realized it’s posting Windows Live blog entries (so they are there twice), not to mention the duplicative Twitter updates that are now on Windows Live in three places...

OK. So now I’m asking, “What are all these services really for?” That’s the only way to straighten all these flows out.

• Facebook is for personal blogging and lifestreaming (commenting on the delicious things I consume on the web), and my other services should feed into it but not duplicate
• Windows Live is for public blogging and photo sharing (even for personal photo sharing – the experience is vastly superior to Facebook and you can use privacy settings)
• Twitter is for public micro-blogging
• Friendfeed is for public lifestreaming but only on topics of general interest (like politics or social media) and not the typical personal minutia that is Facebook

So now I’ll take Twitter out of my Friendfeed which will make it much more consumable for my fellow social media discussers, but I wonder if anyone on Twitter is missing my Friendfeed and Windows Live blog…

Got it? I’m not sure I do. Maybe I should make a diagram.

Twitter -> Facebook and Windows Live

Friendfeed -> Facebook and Windows Live

Windows Live -> Friendfeed and Facebook

That still leaves one circle with Windows Live and Friendfeed but I can live with it since its only a side module that also includes other stuff.

How are you managing your mingling feeds?

There’s something unsettling about knowing what old classmates are eating for dinner yet not knowing what they’ve been doing for the last 20 years.  For many of us in our thirties, Facebook reached a tipping point in the last year and we are being deluged by friend requests from old high school and undergrad classmates that we had completely lost touch with.  People in their twenties or younger had the Internet when they were in school so they very likely never lost track of people – I think this is mostly a pre-Internet phenomenon. 

So for us older folk, pockets of our friends are connecting in waves that get bigger as the months go on.  I’m adding at least one old friend a day, sometimes three or four.  At this rate, I just can’t keep up with my Facebook email – I gave up about 70 friends ago.  Every time I look at my Facebook inbox I cringe – there are dozens of messages in there from people I have really missed but I don’t know where to begin.  There’s so much to say, so much to catch up on, so much to respond to (often years of photos, links, blogs, etc).  So I haven’t said anything.

This is causing my brain to be put through some very strange paces.  It’s hot wiring memories – jumping over the normal gates and straight onto the third rail.  I know what these people think of the latest episode of Lost, yet I can’t connect these new bits of flotsam to my former memories.  All of these new data points jumble around in my mind, mixing with the other bits of unprocessed data from my day, and appear in my dreams.  For weeks I’ve dreamt of people I haven’t seen or even thought of in over 20 years.  They are baking brownies, they are skipping stones, they are talking to each other.

I think the only way to stop the dreams is to just start at the top of my inbox and work down.  So if you are my long lost Facebook friend, you’ll be hearing from me soon.  I may even have a dream or two to tell you about.

1. At first the notion of email chain migrating to Facebook was so distasteful that many of us resisted.  Then as we read a few and wrote our own lists, some included snarky comments like “I’m not tagging anyone” and “The buck stops here”.
2. Most of my friends are really interesting!  I think that is what has made this so compelling and challenged even the most snarky of us to submit to the meme and write their own.  I read 18 different lists a few nights ago over an hour – it was truly great reading
3. Most of my friends are really funny!  Many have an amazing sense of comedic timing which is one of my favorite things ever
4. OK, there were a few that weren’t interesting or funny.
5. There’s a gap in what Facebook is offering us in terms of communication.  Micro-blogging (our status messages) are too superficial.  We want more substance
6. The flexibility of the platform Facebook has provided is impressive.  They gave us tools but we created the meme
7. Whoever thought to start a chain using Notes was pretty clever and I wonder if they thought it would turn into the tsunami it has
8. You can tell people some pretty intense stuff in this forum because people don’t have to respond.  Death, adoption, addiction – it’s all fair game
9. Many of us have had “other lives”
10. This is a great way to give the details about the most impressive things on your resume
11. This is a great way to fill in holes in your resume – the life adventures that taught more than any school ever could
12. This is a great way to give the flipside of your resume – the horrible jobs you wish you could forget
13. A lot of people have OCD (including me)
14. Music is intense for people
15. Kids do really creative, telling things
16. The most creative kids become the most interesting grownups
17. People can overcome major tragedies and turn out OK
18. Some of us are aspiring writers, philosophers, pundits
19. 25 things is about 6 too many.  See?

What have you learned from 25 things?

In honor of the Christmas season, I’m pulling out an oldie but a goodie out of the archives.  The following is a 100% true story I wrote for my personal web site back in 1997 before the days of blogs.  Enjoy.

The worst job I ever had was a temp job working the customer counter at UPS during the holiday season. I learned so much of the psychology of Christmas; it was both fascinating and disturbing.

As I expected, I dealt with hundreds of hurried shoppers who were breathless from trying to make those last purchases in time to get there before Santa, but as the days wore on, the true ugliness of human nature was revealed in to me in a way I would just as soon forget. Every other customer was a spouse (usually the husband) sending presents to ungrateful distant relatives that his spouse (usually the wife) had packed. What exactly was in those huge boxes was unbeknownst to him. He was just doing his (easier) part of Christmas duty and he just wanted to shell out some money and get rid of the damn things. But ah, it is not so easy! First we must know what is *in* these mammoth boxes so that we can discern whether they are a hazard to UPS employees. If they contain glass of any kind, which most Christmas presents do, they must be checked to make sure they are "double-boxed" which will make them more likely to arrive in one piece. Yes, this means opening the boxes. Yes, this means unwrapping the presents. Is that a picture frame? A Christmas ornament? A jar of mint marmalade? You don't know? Well I'm afraid we have to unwrap it. Yes, you can call your wife.

So there was always one man in the service area calling his wife. There was also always one wife having a nervous breakdown about us having to ruin her intricate gift wrapping and wasting her valuable time. "What do you mean you have to tear this open? I just want to get rid of this stuff! Take it! What do I care if it breaks? Just take it! Here I'll break it for you! (Stomp Stomp Stomp!)"

There were more than a few women who resorted to stomping on their packages for us to demonstrate their willingness to send broken presents. Hell, what did they care- it's the thought that counts, right? And wouldn't it serve those ungrateful nieces and nephews right to get mangled booty. Wretches. This in turn made the men on the phone change their minds about calling their wives. “Oh, I just remembered what was in those packages- it's books! Yeah, right. Books and clothes!” That became the savior phrase of the season. I whispered it to the temporarily bewildered customers as they waited in the serpentine lines. Books and clothes. Books and clothes. A seasonal mantra evoking safety and peace.

May your holidays be full of books and clothes.

Everyone is freaking out about snow today (schools are closed and work is a ghost town and not a flake has fallen – go figure) and it reminds me of that intense winter two years ago when the power went out and the snow fell like cottage cheese:

More crazy snow pics

Just heard Brad say, “The wind’s blowing outside – you’d better go home.”

I wrote up a tutorial on how to keep things private on Windows Live and talked about setting up categories for your friends.  I did this in Facebook too (they are called “Friend Lists” there) and thought I’d share it here as well since so many people use it.  Using categories is an extremely freeing way to use social networks because it allows you to easily share different kinds of information and photos with only the people you want.  There's a little bit of overhead in setting this system up, but once you have the hang of it you will find yourself using social networks even more and feeling much more secure about it. 

Why use categories?

There are several ways to set up your friend categories.  I set mine up using four levels:  Very close friends (they get to see the most personal pictures), friends (they see most pictures), professional friends (they don't see many pictures), and strangers (they don't even see my status updates).  I know some people only make one distinction: friends and acquaintances.  Some people make three distinctions:  personal friends, professional friends, old acquaintances.  It might be easier to use terms like "full, moderate and limited access” instead of trying to describe the people in the group (“friends, acquaintances”).  You should think about your content and what you might want to share to what people and from that you can figure out what categories you will want to create for your friends.

Putting your friends in Friend Lists

Putting all my friends in category lists was a lot more tedious on Facebook than on Windows Live because it took several clicks for each person instead of being able to add multiple people at a time using checkboxes (UPDATE 2/2/09 – they now have multi-select).  Also, when you confirm a friend on Facebook (they added you), you have to add them to your friend lists before you confirm them – if you forget you have to go into “Friends” and add them from there.  If you add them from their profile page it lets you add them to a list right in the popup:

To categorize your friends, first you go to Friends in the top nav and sort by “Recently Added”:

Then you have to expand a friend’s section by clicking the box icon in the top right of their module so you get the little arrow next to “View Friends”:

When you click the arrow the lists appear:

Then I put each person in two lists: a category and a permission level (I made up these terms to distinguish between the different kinds of friend lists I set up).  These things are independent, at least for me they are!  A category is where I know them from which is useful for recommending friends to other people or inviting friends to an event.  For example, I recommended other former classmates from Vassar for my friend Jean: 

(Yes, “Filter by network” would work the same way but not everyone joins the networks).

You also may have noticed I have four friend lists that start with “PERM” – I made those up so I could use them as permissions levels.  Permissions levels are how I decide who sees what.  Who can see my phone number, my status updates, that incriminating photo album of the company Christmas party, etc.  I made mine all start with "PERM" which stands for Permissions so they would all be grouped together alphabetically.  I added a number "1" - "4" so I could just type the number in entry boxes and the right list would pop up without me having to remember exactly what I named the different levels.  For example, if I friended Kayte and saw "Add to a friend list" I would type in "1" because I want to put her in the "Close friends" category but may not remember I named it "Close friends" and not "Best friends".

So now you can see how these two things (category and permission level) can be independent – I may have personal or more professional relationships with coworkers or former classmates, etc.  Maybe I want my old college buddy to see my wacky photos and she’d get on my “Close friend” list but maybe I didn’t know another classmate very well so he’d get on my “stranger” list even though both would be on my “Vassar” list.  It's a "matrix" organization for you geeks out there.

So once you have all your people on your friend lists you can go and set up your privacy settings.

Setting up your privacy settings

To set permissions for your profile information, go to Settings in the top nav and pick “Privacy settings”

Then go to “Profile”

Now start checking it out:

If you don't know what bits of information are in each of the buckets like "Personal Info", just click on the question mark on the right. 

I know it's annoying that you can't set up permissions on every individual bit if information, let alone why Facebook considers Relationship Status "Basic info" and not "Personal info".  That's just all part of the challenge of designing web applications - there are always trade offs between simplicity and flexibility.

You can then “Edit Custom Settings” on each bucket of information:

Very cool.  So zip through and set all the settings!  And don’t miss that tab next to “Basic” that says “Contact information” – you need to permission all that stuff too so your ex girlfriend doesn’t start drunk dialing your mobile phone.

I love how Facebook uses “Except these people” but the drawback of using "Except" or subtractive permissions is that if you add someone as a friend and forget to set their permission level they get access to stuff by default.  So for example if I add Dan Quayle to my friends but forget to add him to the “PERM 4 – stranger” list he can see my Personal Info because I've permissioned it to my Friends except for levels 3 and 4.  If I'd set up my Personal Info to be permissioned to my friends but only levels 1 and 2 he wouldn't see it.  So I may go back and change the way I've set mine up (see above) or I have to remember to immediately put people in lists when I add them.

I don’t want people to know I’m calling them “strangers”

Now you may be wondering, “But what if my new friend sees that I just added him to my “Stranger” list!  That’s not very nice even if she did steal my boyfriend in 9th grade!”

Rest assured that your friends can’t see any of your friend lists.  The only way they could figure out what list you put them on is if they hear about some content you put on Facebook that they don’t have access to – maybe from a friend in an email (“Aren’t those Christmas Party pics that Ann posted incriminating?”) – and they go to look for it and can’t find it.  Or maybe they are looking over the shoulder of a mutual friend of yours and they see that your friend’s experience of your Facebook profile is different from theirs.  Or maybe you talk incessantly in your face to face time about how much you change your status message yet they recall that they’ve never seen one from you. 

These scenarios are outliers or “edge cases” – they are unlikely to happen in real life so you shouldn’t worry too much about them.  Even if they did happen, that person that doesn’t have access to your incriminating party photos because you consider them a stranger is unlikely to know you well enough to call you out on it.  They are more likely to be aware that you have a distant relationship and would understand why they don’t see everything you share online.

Still worried what all this will look like?  Check this out:

See how a friend sees your profile

Another cool feature Facebook has is that you can see how specific people will see your profile using this hard to notice box “See how a friend sees your profile:”

It puts a box at the top of your profile:

Now you can see what different friends see when they look at your profile.

But wait – some of my “stranger” friends can still see a bunch of stuff that I don’t want them to see

Not every bit of information is able to be permissioned, at least not from the profile section.  Most (if not all – I still can’t find “Pages” though) of these exceptions are applications like Groups and Events.  To change those permissions, go to the main Privacy page and click “Application Settings” and “Show:” all of the applications you have “Added to your profile”.  Click “Edit settings” and then the “Profile” tab to lock them down from there.

If you are feeling like you want to lock down everything and truly not let your “stranger” friends see anything at all, you might consider locking down your profile altogether, which is the first setting on the profile privacy page.

You might ask, “Then why friend these people in the first place when they aren’t going to see anything on my profile?”  Well, at least they’ll be in your friend list and they won’t see that you haven’t confirmed them yet:

Don’t you hate it when you get a friend request from someone you really didn’t know well and you ignore it and then they invite you again?  Spare yourself the guilt and embarrassment – just accept them and put them on a “stranger” list.

Photos

OK, now the part that everyone really cares about!

To set photo album privacy click “Album Privacy”.  There's a link to it where you set up permissions for Photos tagged of you ( "Edit photo album privacy settings") or there's a link to it in your photo album list in the Photos section ("Album Privacy"):

And then you can set permissions for each album:

Send me your feedback

Whew!  That's a lot to keep you busy!  Let me know what you think about this or about Windows Live privacy settings.  How do you wish this stuff worked?

I know the biggest want for most people that I talk to is the ability to permission specific status messages.  If I want to post “I’m going postal!” and only have my close friends see it and not my boss, it’s pretty much impossible if he is permissioned to see my status messages in general.  I can’t imagine how this UI would work though so perhaps it’s a pipe dream, or in the pipeline ;)

I spent a good portion of the last year working on Permissions and Privacy on Windows Live.  We made a lot of progress but setting this up can be hard to figure out if you don't have a good strategy.  Here’s a tutorial that will help you see how you can use permissions settings on Windows Live so you can relax a little more about sharing your personal information online.

Windows Live

Personal information

• Click “Profile” in the top nav
• Click “Details” in the left nav
• Every chunk of information says who you are sharing it with.  You can change this permissions setting by clicking on it (in this case “Everyone (public)”)

• You can let everyone see it, only people in your network see it (that’s people in your Hotmail address book, on your Profile, and in IM), or your extended network (that’s friends of friends)

• You can also make your own categories of people and permission it to them. 

This is super helpful if you want to set up “close friends” vs. “strangers” distinctions for sharing bits of information and content.  When you add new people you can add them to a category and voila – they have permission to see only the things you want them to see!

You can go back and categorize all your people easily using the category dropdown on the People page:

• You can also enter individual people

Photos (Files and other things work the same way)

• When you create a new album you have an opportunity to set the permissions

• You can limit it to your network so only your friends will see it

• Or you can get the more detailed options shown above if you click “Select people”

• You can also go back and change the permissions settings for old photo albums by clicking the “Shared with:” link at the bottom

Facebook works in much the same way – I’ll post a tutorial on that soon.

Tons of details on the Space Craft: http://thespacecraft.spaces.live.com/

And lookee:

Pretty!    Now go check out yours!  http://profile.live.com and see what your peeps are up to at http://home.live.com

No peeps yet?  Import your contacts from Hotmail, Facebook or Linked In and get goin! http://profile.live.com/connect/ (this is one of the features I worked on btw!)

I know – you are thinking, “Why join yet another social network?” Well, first of all, if you use Windows Live Messenger or Hotmail you are already a member!  And I love the little ways all of the parts of Windows Live integrate.  For example, here’s the “What’s New” feed right at the bottom of the Messenger window:

Here’s another: Check out the the people in my network.  Their online status is reflected in the color of their glass frame.  That’s cool.

And I just updated my status message on the site and it updated in Messenger automatically!

These little things add up to an unbeatable experience and we’ll be finding more ways to integrate and leverage the huge social network that already exists in Windows Live.  Come along for the ride!

There are some songs that are so monumental that I clearly remember where I was when I first heard them.  The thing they have in common is that they are musically revolutionary.  As the song plays I can feel the depth of its impending impact on music culture.  It’s revealed to me slowly as my brain fails to classify the song and I realize how much it will change the current structure.  Here are the most memorable to me:

NIRVANA

One of the strangest song stories I have is from college.  I was at a party and was um, imbibing, and there was this music playing that was just so good I kept asking the hostess who it was.  She kept telling me but I kept forgetting and would ask her again a few minutes later.  Finally in exasperation she took a slip of paper and wrote, “NIRVANA,” on it and put it in my hand (it was the Bleach album).  The next morning I found the paper in my pocket and had no recollection of what “NIRVANA” referred to but figured I must’ve had a great time at her party!  I taped the paper on my mirror in my dorm room, hoping I could reach nirvana every night.

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

Two years later, I pulled into the parking lot of Antone’s Records in Austin and this song was on the radio. I stopped the car, sat there, and listened, stunned.  In the era of Guns n Roses, this was something so raw and real yet pop perfect that I knew the game had just changed completely. It took several more months before I put two and two together and realized that’s what the “NIRVANA” paper on my mirror referred to this band!

Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)

This video came on while I was walking out of my bedroom and I remember thinking, “Oh yet another beautiful ingénue singing a forgettable song,” but as I stood and listened to the lovely simplicity and sincerity in her voice I took another look and knew that this was a face that we would become quite familiar with.

I’m Just a Girl (No Doubt)

I was driving down I-5 to Capitol Hill and my first thought when I heard this was, “What the hell kind of drugs is Madonna on now?”  As the song progressed I debated whether Madonna would dare use guitars that rockin and while I thought Madonna might be able to pull off the feminist message, I had the feeling that I was listening to a voice that was going to eclipse even the Material Girl herself.

Bring Me To Life (Evanescence)

Driving down 520 I heard the piano plinking and almost turned it off, thinking it was Tori Amos.  Amy’s voice was so haunting I hesitated before changing stations and as the guitars entered I was blown away.  By the time the rap bridge hit, I knew this was a game changer.

Time is Running Out (Muse)

OK, this song may not have totally revolutionized modern music culture, but it sure was revolutionary to me.  At first I thought it was a song from the 80’s that I vaguely remembered but as it went on and I became fascinated by the way Matthew Bellamy inhaled after every phrase.  An earworm like no other - I ordered the import version of this CD before it was released in the states.  I had to have it.

What are your monumental song memories?

I’m excited to finally be able to share what I’ve been working on for the last year.  I lead the design for WL Social Networking and I can honestly say it was the most excited I’ve felt about my work in the 8 years I’ve been at Microsoft.  I love social networking (OK, mostly Facebook, LinkedIn, and Windows Live Messenger though I dabble on MySpace due to a few of my stubborn anti-Facebook friends) and have been blogging here on Spaces since 2004 so it was fun to work on something I use so much.

Here’s a taste of some of the great press we’ve received:

TechCrunch: Sweeping Changes At Live.com: It’s a Social Network!

Windows Live to get social networking features

Windows Live Gets More Lively

I’ve been tracking my food for the last few months (32 lbs lost so far in the ProClub’s 20/20 Lifestyles program!) but their online tracking system has a mountain of frustrating user experience issues.

I was so happy to find MyNetDiary – it isn’t free but it’s cheap and you can try it for free.  It also has an iPhone app that is KILLER.  Easily exponentially boosted my mobile OS switching costs.

What it offers (that I use):

• Food tracking
• Weight tracking
• Exercise tracking

Things that make MyNetDiary’s food tracking superb:

• The food database is huge.  I typed in “Mr. Good” and it knew Mr. Goodbar.  (I know – Halloween – ugh)
• You only have to type in a few letters and it word wheels through suggested entries (check the image for an example)
• It remembers what you entered previously and those rise to the top
• Previously used amounts bubble to the top
• You can copy meals from day to day
• You can enter custom foods easily
• You can save recipes from individual items in a meal – this is my favorite feature -  so now I only type in “CB” for my usual Canadian Bacon, Eggbeaters, zucchini, tomato, artichoke heart and parm breakfast.

Other cool stuff:

If you want to track your foods, this is the app to do it with.

The flag means something different today.  It is no longer a symbol of conservative, militaristic values.  It is now a symbol of peace and possibility, diversity and unity, freedom and equality.

Take back the flag.

This is our country now.

Check this out – in the section of my ballot that explained how to write in a candidate, they used my own name as an example.  Seems like my ballot should not have any identifying information on it.  Even if it’s just my first name, it makes me wonder what else they printed on just my ballot.  Worrisome.

So are we just lucky?  It took me less than five minutes to vote.  I did it at my own kitchen table, where I’ve voted for the last six years or so.  I am a permanent absentee voter and my ballot comes in the mail and I send it back through the mail.  I don’t understand why if I can vote this way that other people are waiting for hours to do this.  Can someone please explain why it’s so easy for some but so difficult for others to exercise their right to vote in this country?  It just doesn’t seem fair.  I hope President Obama does something to fix this system.