The Live Local mapping service was updated for Australia about a week ago with better road information, address locating, satellite and photo imagery, and links into Yellowpages for better business searching. At the time of writing, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth have high-resolution imagery and Melboune will be soon.

When you load Live Local (for Australia) for the first time, you might be located in Sydney or New South Wales but don't worry, it's easy to re-locate the map. On the left, a window will open to give you a brief summary of some sights and access to some help topics. You can close this window or move it off the screen to give you more map viewing space.

There's a navigation box at the top left so you can pan the map and zoom in and out. Just note that the scroll wheel on your mouse zooms in/out, so to pan, hold down the left mouse button and drag the map. Or, if it's more convenient, use the direction arrows in the navigation box. To zoom in and out in steps, use the plus and minus buttons in the navigation box.

The navigation box also gives you the option to view a map in road or aerial view (there is a third option, bird's eye view, available in some countries which you might have already investigated). When moving around a city or region to locate a particular sight or feature, change to the road view until you get your bearings.

At the top of the window are two text boxes with prompts for you to enter a business or category (e.g., real estate, restaraunts, movies, dentists, plumbers) or an address (e.g., 1 York St Sydney, or simply Rushworth, Stanhope, or any other town or city).

If you enter a business category, for example movies, a list of theatres will pop up on the left of your screen and pushpins are placed on your map. You can hover the mouse over a particular theatre in the list or over the pushpin to get more information such as address and telephone number (this data is taken from nineMSN's Yellowpages data).

When entering an address, such as 1 York St Sydney, the map pans to that location and adds a pushpin. You'll also automatically get a scratch pad over on the right of your screen with an entry for 1 York St. As you locate more addresses, each is given its own pushpin and is added to your scratch pad.

For future reference you can save this collection of addresses. Check if you're already signed into your Windows Live ID (in old language, your Hotmail or Passport account) by looking at the top right of the browser window. If not, sign in then you can save your collection. Note you only need to save and give your collection a name when you first save it - as you add more addresses and sights, they are automatically saved and you'll be able to return to it later to add more locations.

Two other features on the main menu that you'll notice are Driving directions and Share. To use driving directions, enter your starting address (or town or city), and your destination address. You may be prompted to confirm your start and end points, then the list of directions will pop up. You have a choice between the shortest and quickest route.

Share enables you to display the same map with a friend when messaging with Live Messenger. Before going any further, webDotWiz will not resolve disputes over who is in charge of panning the map. Despite this possible problem, you can show the person you're messing (via text or talking in an audio or video conversation) some locations, decide where to meet, give directions, or choose a movie or restaurant.

There are many powerful and useful features available in Live Local, one of which has been mentioned in past columns, namely, recording a history of events from your youth or documenting a family history. Combined with photos and references to web sites for more information, Live Local is a fun way to record history and highlights.

Aside from the update to Australian road maps and aerial views in Live Local talked about above, keep an eye out for a significant update to your MSN Space. Firstly, the service name is changing to Live Spaces and, secondly, there will be lots more modules and gadgets you can add to your Space to provide more information to your visitors and connect with your Messenger friends. Check out Discover Spaces to see the new features.

Live Mail received an update in the past week or so and features such as the photo upload tool, rich text signature, checkboxes in the message list, and printing a list of contacts are now available.

The Windows Live Gallery is the site to visit to add more gadgets to your Live.com page (e.g. the Live Favorites gadget is useful) or extra games or activity tools to Live Messenger (e.g., Live Local Shared Map or the Live Safety Scanner).

You can keep up to date with news about the latest Live services by subscribing to webDotWiz's Space on your Live.com page or visiting the site every few days.