You might wonder why it's useful to be able to email an entry to your Live Space or upload photos directly from your mobile phone to a photo album on your Space but occasions arise when it's convenient to do so. The first option is always possible but uploading photos requires a mobile phone that can access the Internet so that won't apply to all of us in our region.

To set up your Space so you can add entries via email, make sure you're signed in and then go to Options. Choose E-mail publishing from the choices on the left pane.

• tick the box alongside Turn on e-mail publishing
• enter a secret word - it gets added to an email address which you use to send new entries to your Space
• enter as many as 3 email addresses from which you'll be able to post entries and/or photos to your Space
• choose a unique keyword for the photo album you're going to post new photos to (note the help text in red - it'll remain until you've entered the correct info on this line)
• all the various email addresses are set up for you and you can copy them from the bottom of the page to store them for use when required
• click Save.

Now let's see how Muse helps you add entries to your Space.

Live Messenger can not only list your real family and friend contact information but there are more and more bots (unreal contacts?) that can be added to your contact list. For example, you can find information from the Encarta online encyclopedia when you add the Encarta bot, encarta@botmetro.net. You'll find others at the Live Gallery. Muse is one of these bots and her (his/its?) job is to give you a hand to add an entry to your Space when you have writer's block. Add Muse to your Messenger contact list using musebot@live.com.

Start a conversation with Muse in the usual way, say "Hi" and a pane opens on the right-hand side of Messenger where you can fill in details such as the title of your entry. As well, you'll see you have to type in your secret word you set up when enabling email publishing for your Space in the steps above. Away you go and create your content.

After writing your content, scroll down to save it either as a draft (so you can come back later to add more writing or make some changes) or save it to your space.

The Live Maps Space has a handy way to give directions to people who are visting your house for the first time even though they could get driving directions from Live Maps themselves. The same technique can be used in lots of other instances.

Basically you create a collection and add pushpins to highlight landmarks, which lane to be in at a certain location, what to look for when a turn is required and where parking is available. After you've made your collection, email it to those who need directions via Share - Send link in email with a note to your recipients to Print with Map and Text so they can have the printout with them in the car.

For those with a website, rather than have a static image of a map showing a location, follow the steps in the 10 Minute Map writeup to put an interactive map on your site. The Rushworth Community House site has such a map to show the Community House's location as well as the locations of other services in Rushworth and nearby local towns.

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