The mobile Spaces experience has always been a place you could go to view blogs and photos while on the go.  Very cool, right?

But it gets cooler.  Last week, we rolled out a number of changes to improve the mobile spaces experience from your mobile device, and we think on-the-go users everywhere will be happy to see them.

The new design optimizes space viewing for limited screen size and slow data connections, bringing you directly to what you want to see.  When you start viewing someone else’s space, we bubble up the newest stuff for you right away.  The newly added “Recent updates” page shows all the latest and greatest changes on the space, from newly added friends to recently added blog entries and photos.  We’ve also incorporated rich previews so you know where to look in the space for fresh and interesting new content.

When viewing your own space, you are probably already aware of the things you’ve recently done… it’s all about how other people are seeing you.  That’s why we show you your friend requests, the statistics on how many people have looked at your space, and the things they are saying about you.

If, however, you know exactly what you are looking for and maybe it didn’t happen so recently, we still provide you a navigational home page that allows you to see all types of content along with little snippets from each.  And with the navigational home page, we’ve also enabled you to access profile and friend list information.

That’s right, mobile spaces just joined the social networking world.  You can view information about your friends, your friends’ friends, even your friends’ friends’ friends…then you can add them as friends, or link directly to their spaces!

The newest feature changes will keep you connected, up-to-date and in-the-know…what are you waiting for?   Visit your space (and everyone else’s, too) at http://mobile.spaces.live.com from your mobile phone!  And of course, this is only the beginning—look for more great mobile spaces changes in the coming months.

Read the Spaces blog to learn more about the other features that were included in this release and get yourself a Space, if you don't already have one.

Looking for a killer Windows Mobile application that can make your phone both fun and useful? Check out the Windows Live Search for mobile downloadable application.  This is available in the US only at this time.

It's a Mobile rich client – Download an application to your phone for local search, maps, driving directions, and live traffic information in a faster, richer and more interactive user interface. It's the best way to search from your phone.

Mobile Browsing - Access maps and directions directly from your phone’s browser. Simply enter mobile.live.com/search into your phone’s address bar and select Map. Choose from the likes of Local, Web, Map, News and Spaces and get Live Search on your mobile device.

Text Messages (SMS) - If you don’t have a data plan, you can simply send a text message to 95483 (WLIVE) with a query like “Toys Chicago, IL” or “Coffee 90210” and you’ll immediately receive a text message reply with the nearest business listings with address and phone numbers.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this beta so we can continue to improve. Just send them over to wlsmbeta@microsoft.com and, check out mobile.search.live.com for more information.

- Darwin and the Windows Live for mobile Search Team

Windows Live SMS Search Beta for mobile. 

I love this. It’s so simple. I am not a brainiac but now I can act like one. J By getting instant answers to whatever gets thrown my way and by finding my way around town. When I am on the go and can’t remember the phone number or address of my favorite nail salon, coffee shop, or the restaurant that I want to go to. All I do is whip out my phone send a text message to 95483 (WLIVE) and plug in ‘salon rae seattle wa’ and I get the phone number and address. I can call and see if they can squeeze me for a quick fill. J

Here’s the best part. I can save this to my phone so I don’t have to look it up again and this is much more cost effective and easier (and ok safer as I am always doing this in my car) than dialing for information on my phone and being transferred to the business. In the past, if their line was busy, then I was out of luck. Now I just feel really in control of the info I want and need.

It’s so simple…You can do this. Give it a try. It’s in a Beta right now and available for a test drive to subscribers of Cingular, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and Alltel in the US only. Watch this space for details as to when it’s coming to your market!

 Here’s how it works and a sneak peek at what fun you can have with this service

 Easy to follow instructions

1. Send a SMS to 95483 (WLIVE) on your phone

2. To find a local business - Type in ‘salon rae seattle wa”

3. For instant Answers - Start all your queries with a ? question mark (?), like ? mothers day

 So here’s the full list of what you can find out with this service and become even smarter too……

  ü       Local Search Queries

·         Local Business & Residential Listing ( e.g. Starbucks and your zip code)

·         Reverse Phone Number Lookup (‘4258828080’)

 ü       Instant Answer Queries (Remember to start your queries with ‘?’unless specified otherwise)

·         Stock Quotes (U.S. & Int’l Exchanges)

·         Area & Country Telephone Codes

·         Word Definitions – use ‘D’ instead of ‘?’

·         Holiday Dates

·         Math (Calculations,  Unit Conversions & Equation Solutions- ‘? 15% of 32.99’ or ‘? Cups in liter’ or ‘? 2y^2+5y+10=40’

·         Health & General Information (e.g. ‘? Calories in Martini’ OR ‘? Tokyo Population’)

ü       Auto Spell-check and Correction

ü       Improved Formatting of Result Messages

  We'd love to hear your feedback on this service!  The mobile search team launched a new site last week- go check it out and you might learn something. Go to http://mobile.search.live.com/about

One of the most requested features in our recent Windows Live Mail for mobile beta was the ability to delete multiple emails at once. Now you can. Starting today you’ll see checkboxes next to email headers in your inbox. You can select multiple emails and then delete or move them with one button press. As always, we have shortcuts assigned to the most common actions, so in order to delete emails just mark them and press 7. Thanks to all the beta testers who participated in the beta and provided their valuable feedback!

To get to Windows Live Mail for mobile please browse to http://mobile.live.com from your mobile phone browser and select the Windows Live Mail link.

Michael Smuga

We recently launched Windows Live Spaces for mobile. Here’s a quick recap of available features:

• When you navigate to Windows Live Spaces for mobile and you sign in you’ll see a list of your friends spaces that have been recently updated
• You can view blog entries and photo albums from any space, no matter whether it was created/updated from a mobile device or on the PC
• You can view and post comments to blog entries and photo albums
• You can search for other spaces
• If you don’t have a space you can create one from your device
• If you have a space you can post new blog entries
• You can view statistics for your space
• You can change settings for your space

To get to Windows Live Spaces for mobile please browse to http://mobile.live.com from your mobile phone browser and select the Windows Live Spaces link (alternatively you can navigate directly to http://mobile.spaces.live.com).

Here are a couple of screenshots:
 

Space view:
 

Michael Smuga 

You have to check this out (it's cool, trust me):

• Go to http://search.msn.com/local/results.aspx?q=bouchee+cr%C3%AAperie+and+caf%C3%A9&w=Seattle%2C+WA&FORM=QBXR (it's a Local search for Bouchee Crêperie and Café Fremont from the point of view of someone sitting in Seattle)
• Click on "Send to Mobile"
• Enter your cell phone's number - assuming it can get an SMS message
• Go to your cellphone and check out the SMS message, which will contain the restaurant's phone number, address, and a URL to a map of where it is located

That's my experience using a Windows Mobile 5.0 device anyway, but any device that can get an SMS message should be almost as good.

Very, very cool. I now have the details of the restaurant where some friends and I will be going to dinner on Friday. Yes, I used to live on a houseboat very close to it and the owners are friends of ours, but still, it's really cool technology - and usefull!

What’s the big deal about having a data plan?

Surf the Web. Read and send e-mail. Check the weather and latest sports scores. Search for your favorite restaurant—all from your cell phone. Now that’s cool. Mobile versions of your favorite services make it fast, easy and convenient to get things done. And having a data plan helps get you all the information you want, when you want it—without breaking your bank account.

What kinds of data plans are available?

The tough part of getting a data plan is figuring out what type and size you need, so you don’t end up wasting money. Data plans come in all sizes and price points, just like regular cell phone plans. Check your mobile carrier’s web site to find out more about what they offer, and how they charge for their data plans. Some offer “all you can use” plans, plans based on the number of minutes used, or the amount of data used by your phone (such as file size that is sent to your phone).

Advantages of paying by minutes—some mobile carriers allow data usage to be part of unlimited evening/weekend minutes. If your plan allows you rollover minutes, or if you have a sufficient cushion of minutes in your existing plan, you may not need to commit to an extra plan.

Advantages of paying by megabytes—if you spend 20 minutes reading an article, you only pay for the data consumed, not the minutes spent. Additionally, a number of mobile carriers are starting to offer unlimited usage megabyte plans on their networks. On such plans, they provide you an unlimited amount of data usage for one monthly fixed fee, often for a low monthly rate.

Get the data plan that works for you

Figuring out the best data plan for you based on your usage and budget is akin to shopping for the right gear for your favorite sport. Everyday sneakers will get you around town in style and comfort, but you will probably want to invest in great-fitting athletic shoes for performance sports. Same goes for your data plan.

How often do you read your e-mail on your phone, or conduct a local or Web search?  For instance, how many e-mails can you read with a 1 MB plan? To view one e-mail using Windows Live Mail for Mobile you will use up approximately 25 kb of data. That’s 17kb to open the inbox view and another 8kb to open an average-size e-mail. Doing the math, factoring in that one megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes, and then you should be able to read nearly 40 e-mails (if you read only about one email every time you access your inbox), or up to 90 emails (if you read about 5 emails every time you access your inbox) on a 1MB plan, at an estimated cost ranging from $10-20 a month.

How many searches can you execute before you exceed 1MB? Well, if you want to find the closest coffee shop using the Windows Live Local Search, you’ll use up about 29kb of data. That’s 4kb to open the Local Search page, 6kb to get to the results page, 9kb to view details of the location (which includes a map), and 10kb to view detailed driving directions.  That means you can do about 35 searches for 1MB (more if you don’t always need a map but rather just the phone #), at an estimated cost ranging from $10-20 a month. Ask your carrier for more details on the various bundled packages of voice and data plans that they offer

So if you purchase a 1MB data plan  assuming that on average you view 5 e-mails every time you go to the mailbox, you’ll be able to read about between 90 e-mails, or find about 35 locations, including driving directions to each of the locations. Of course these numbers can vary, depending on your browser. Some browsers are better in caching content and the above numbers can be slightly better (you'll be able to get more out of your 1MB data plan) and some browsers don't do as good job caching, and the numbers above can be slightly worse (you'll be able to get less out of your 1MB data plan).

TIP to save money: If you are on a limited data plan – you can conserve by disabling the icons in Windows Live Mail and thus allowing for less data needing to be transferred back and forth –this will save you on time it takes to display the browser page on your phone and the data used.

[Originally published on February 7, 2006]

As Michael Smuga said last week, now when you compose an email, you can just use a few letters of your friend's name in the To line, and it'll search your contact list for that name and prompt you with its best guesses as to which of your friends you meant:

Enter contacts manually.
You could go to the PC website to do this, but you can also do it from your phone.  Go back to the Inbox, and then type 6 for Contacts, then scroll off the search box and type 4 for New Contact - then fill in the form and click OK:

Now if we go back to compose, like we did above, and type "Smuga" in the To line:

Voila!  The mail form knows who my buddy is now.

Add a contact from an email message.
If your buddy has already sent you an email message, you can add them directly to your contact list.  Notice how there's a contact-list icon next to the From name in the message?

Selecting this link will take you to the contact card for this sender in your contact list. If you don't already have the sender in your contact list, it'll automatically pre-fill the 'Contact Add Form' from the data in the message. Once the data is pre-filled, you can simply select the Ok button to save the sender as a new Contact in your list.

It's that simple!

Import your contacts from Outlook or Outlook Express.
If you've already g