There have been a large number of updates made to Windows Live Spaces over the past couple of days.

Changes have been made to the homepage - now called the What's new page - and the main page on your Live Space especially in how the links are organised to make it easier to navigate and customise. As well, it's now easier for visitors to your Space to view your photos and download any photo they want.

If you go to your Live Space from the button on Live Messenger, you'll immediately see the changes (all screenshots are taken from webDotWiz's Waranga Basin Live Space):

In the above screenshot we're on our Spaces homepage (as indicated by the What's new button being highlighted) and there's a list of contacts which shows who has updated their Space recently. Notice that the Windows Live banner is thinner to give more screen realestate.

Over on the right-hand side of the page, there are links to the usual sorts of jobs you want to do on your Space, as well as a tip for enhancing your Space and a search box to find people with interests similar to your own:

If you load your Live Space from the Windows Live Toolbar or enter your Space's web address by hand into your browser, you're taken immediately to your Space's main page.

Note that the Windows Live orb at the top left is "live" and a click gives you links to other Windows Live services (this works on any Windows Live site):

The navigation at the top left of the main page has been made more meaningful by providing a link back to your Space's homepage, the Your space button is indented to indicate you're at your main page and the name of your Space is alongside. As well, there's a More button which provides another way to easily get to different sections of your Space. If you're the owner of the Space, you get a list of some modules you can add:

Over on the right-hand side, there's no longer a link that switches between being in or out of edit mode - the Customize button handles any type of editing you want to do on your Space. Note a new item, Apply a template - more about that one later:

Choosing one of the customise options brings up the choices again, this time listed against the familiar warning background with the Save and Cancel buttons:

The Templates customise option does the job of Themes, Layout and Modules in one step and there are plenty of choices to suit your needs:

After choosing a template, you see that you can get back to Customize to make other changes.

There are a couple of handy features to make it easier for visitors to see our photos and download them. We're already used to the seeing the button alongside the photo album on the front page that gives a full page view of the photos in that particular album:

Once in the album full page view, visitors now get two more options: to view your photos full screen and there's a link to enable them to download any of your photos:

Conclusion

Well, that's the list of main features webDotWiz has explored thus far.

One smaller feature is that visitors can click on a title of a blog entry to open it in a page of its own (and thus get the web address, for example, rather than clicking on Permalink at the end of the post).

• Need help finding your way around? It's just a click away...»

• The webDotWiz Column is published fortnightly, on the same day as Rushworth's volunteer, fortnightly paper, The Waranga News, and updated regularly as sites are added to the webDotWiz Sites Directory.

• Comments? Questions? Contact the webmaster

• © Bernie Halpin, webDotWiz Online 2000-2007.