Bing in Hotmail, webDotWizards, Apollo 11
July 16, 2009
Live Hotmail's quick add
You may have noticed when you begin a new email in Live Hotmail that there's a Quick add pane on the right-hand side of the screen. This is where you can use Bing to search online for images and videos that you can easily insert into your message.
For example, you want to insert a colourful image of some flowers for a special occasion. Click Images and the pane brings up a search box - in this case, type in flowers and click Bing's search icon. The right-hand pane then brings up a collection of flower images. Note the tab about half-way down with an arrow pointing to the left - click this to widen the pane showing the images that Bing has found for you. Note under each image that there's an Insert link so choose the image you want and it's inserted for you into your new message. Alternatively you can click the image you want to insert.
At the bottom of the pane showing the collection of images there's a link to More results if you're not happy with what's currently displayed. A new browser window open with all the resulting images that Bing has found. To insert an image from this page will mean you have to save it into your pictures folder and then attach it in the normal way.
Quick add can be similarly used if you wish to insert a video. Before inserting the video you have to the option to view it.
webDotWizards sharing ideas
A while back some webDotWizards were having problems uploading photos to their online Live Photos albums. The problem centred around not all photos being uploaded from Live Photo Gallery. Some questions that came up included something wrong with the computer, Live Writer or Live Photo Gallery errors or some other strange quirk.
After some discussion among various webDotWizards on the occasions they get together at Rushworth Community House, the problem of photo uploads was clarified. Firstly, there was nothing wrong with anybody's computer and Live Writer and Live Photo Gallery were discounted as being sources of the problem (everybody is using the latest version and the same as that used at Rushworth Community House).
The problem turned out to be the slow upload speed we all have to bear with on our internet connection in Australia. For example, RCH has a 1500 kbits/second download speed (theoretically) but the upload speed is only 256 kbits/second. Those webDotWizards on slower download services have a correspondingly slower upload speed provided by their internet service provider and when uploading photos in their original size the destination servers just didn't like the slow upload speeds.
So the solution to the problem is to not upload photos in their original size in large groups but to rather upload photos so they're reduced to 1600x1600 pixel size.
Apollo 11's 40th birthday
Do you remember where you were on July 21 (or July 20) in 1969?
As you'd expect there is an abundance of material on the web about the Apollo missions, in particular, Apollo 11. There is the Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal (text), a whole range of images at NASA's Apollo 11 40th anniversary site and videos that include the first step on the moon that many of us saw on TV on July 20/21. An easy way to see which videos are available online is to do a Bing video search for Apollo 11 (here's the link).