It’s very nice to see Microsoft inside CJ Network. I think it is the first product from Microsoft in Commission Junction. Microsoft is already running their own Affiliate Program(s) at microsoftaffiliates.net where publishers can promote Windows Live OneCare, and Windows Live Toolbar but will they move all those programs to CJ? Let’s wait and watch.

Microsoft® Corporation is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Office Live Small Business has helped over 600,000 customers realize their potential by providing solutions to get online, attract customers and manage their business.

Office Live Small Business is an online service with powerful, do-it-yourself tools and templates that make it easier and more affordable for customers to grow their business online—it puts large-company technology to work for small businesses.

Join the Microsoft Office Live Small Business Affiliate Program to team up with Microsoft and help your small business customers realize their potential. Microsoft offers a competitive compensation rate for each completed Office Live Small Business sign-up you refer. The program requires minimal effort and signing up for Office Live Small Business is FREE for your customers.

Program Highlights:

• A recognized brand name that sells itself
• $5.00 per completed sign-up you refer
• Limited to small business customers in U.S. only
• No qualifying event necessary
• Customer sign-up for Office Live Small Business is FREE!
• A dedicated Affiliate Manager and team to support you

I’ve just applied for this program and my application got declined immediately :D. So, let me shoot an email to their affiliate manager to approve my application.

Source: Microsoft Office Live

Windows Live Beta is no longer a Beta service. It’s out of Beta and it has got a new look. See the next generation of Windows Live here Windows Live. So Microsoft may soon offer @live.com email addresses. According to CNET Microsoft is offering @live.com email address at get.live.com. But I didn’t see anything there and I tried to Sign Up from hotmail.com but still only @hotmail.com choice is there. Well, I managed to get an @live.com email address long time back using a hack but unfortunately it’s no longer working. And I wonder whether my @live.com email address would work or not when Microsoft starts giving @live.com officially.

The new Windows Live Service includes desktop software like Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, and Windows Live Writer. And online services like Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Live Family Safety. It’s available as a single download called Windows Live Suite (approximately a 130 MB download) but you are free to choose only the required applications and services. I didn’t installed any new services. I just upgraded my copy of Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Writer.

More Insights:

Microsoft unwraps Windows Live desktop suite

The Google Pack of 13 applications, which include Picasa photo editing, Norton security scanning, IM client, browser toolbar, and desktop search, may be the closest competitor to the Windows Live bundle. However, the Google Pack does not offer a desktop blog composer or a e-mail client as Microsoft’s suite does.

Windows Live Emerges From Beta

Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, said this marketing push is indicative of divisions within Microsoft, between the old guard running the MSN online business and the Windows Live group. “Windows Live is about making Windows better by tying it to online services,” and thus driving more people to buy Windows computers, he said. MSN “is still the old business model,” of generating revenue with Web advertising based on online applications that don’t connect to Microsoft’s desktop software.

Microsoft Releases Windows Live Software Suite

Windows Live Suite is a set of Web-connected applications for Windows that can be installed with a 130 MB download. Microsoft’s Windows Live brand of software and services has sputtered along for much of the last two years, sowing confusion about what exactly it is and what it isn’t. On Tuesday, Microsoft is bringing a bit of clarity to Windows Live by making what it calls the Windows Live Suite available for a download.

Microsoft Unleashes Windows Live Software

As part of its three-pronged quest for worldwide Internet domination—via MSN, Live Search, and Windows Live—Microsoft has unleashed a bundled download of its installed desktop Live software: Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer, and OneCare Family Safety. Also included is a slightly redesigned version 8.5 of Messenger, which intimately ties in with the rest of the suite; for example, starting up when you run Mail.

Here are some interesting related stories:

Google Vows to Increase Gmail Storage Limit

Google is speeding up the rate at which it adds storage to Gmail due to increased storage requirements for attachments such as photos.

Microsoft Goes to 1 GB, Google Ups Gmail to 4 GB

Microsoft late Thursday announced its Windows Live SkyDrive service was being upgraded to support 1 GB of file storage – double what was previously available. Meanwhile, Google on Friday said it would “speed up” the counter increasing storage available to Gmail users, reaching 4 GB by the end of the month.

Gmail: 42 GB Free Storage by 2038

Gmail just revised their storage estimates for the next 1449 years. Googlified dug around in the code and discovered that you’ll be getting a tiny increase to 2912 MB on Friday, 4.2 GB by October 23, 6 GB by January 4 2008, 42 GB by 2038 and 2.70266701 × 1072 TB by 3456. Google has since since confirmed by on the Gmail blog that the counter’s speed has been increased.

Gmail’s Storage Increases, 6 GB in January 2008

Gmail will increase the free storage gradually in the next days. On October 23, you’ll get 4321 MB of storage, then the growth will slow down until January 4, when you’ll have 6283 MB of storage. From January 4, you’ll receive 3.3 MB every day, that’s 10 times bigger than the current rate of growth.

Never ever delete email, Gmail storage increases

Running out of Gmail space already? How would you like some additional storage space so that you never, ever have to erase anything ever again? Well, everyone’s wishes have been answered!

More Gmail storage coming for all

When people ask me about my job, one of the common questions I get is, “Where does Gmail put all that mail?” I generally answer by pointing them to a web site like this one. While that’s not exactly how it works, we do spend a lot of time working to make sure our users have all the space they need.

Pick up cool how-to tips, swap ideas, and chat about Windows and the digital life at Click.

Click is a Microsoft blog about Windows and the Digital Life. "It is a place to share stories, blow off steam, swap tips, get help and talk shop about Microsoft Windows and the other technologies in our lives".

There are so many blogs about Microsoft some of tem are official and some of them are written by business journalists who represents Microsoft. Click is Microsoft’s Official Windows Help blog. Even though I mentioned ‘Click’ as a help blog it’s more than that. See it for yourself.

I discovered this blog in the Exploring Windows Newsletter from Microsoft which I received on September 19 so I thought the ‘Click’ blog was launched this week. But when I checked the archive I found that it was launched on July 10.

Microsoft on its first post Welcome to Click says that whether it’s a question about Windows or Microsoft, or even a suggestion for improving Windows Help or just some random musing about life in the digital age, "we hope you’ll join the conversation at Click".

Windows Live

Windows Live™ is a new set of services that brings your online world together. Finally, the information you need, the people you care about, and powerful protection – all at your fingertips.

Microsoft introduced an updated suite of Windows Live services along with a new unified installer that enables us to download all of these applications.

1. Hotmail: Next-generation e-mail on the Web
2. Mail: Multiple e-mail accounts on your desktop
3. Messenger: Connect, share, and make every conversation count
4. Search: Say hello to the next generation of search
5. Toolbar: Think outside the search box
6. Gallery: Personalize your Windows Live experience
7. Spaces: Your blog, your photos, your social network
8. SkyDrive: Password-protected online storage and sharing
9. Photo Gallery: Edit and share photos and videos
10. Writer: Publish rich content to your blog
11. OneCare Family Safety: Help keep your kids safe online
12. Windows Live Home: Start here for search, blogging, and e-mail

Source: Windows Live

Windows Live Writer from Microsoft is a free desktop application that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog. It helps you create and format blog posts with rich content like maps, tables, hyperlinks, tags, and categories.

It features What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Authoring, it means that you can exactly see what your blog will look like before you publish it to the Web.

If you have more than one blog, you can use Live Writer to post to any or all of them as you can add multiple blog accounts, and switch easily between them.

Compatible with your blog service
Writer can to publish to Windows Live Spaces, Sharepoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type, Community Server, and many other weblog services.

WYSIWYG editing
Writer knows your blog’s visual theme. So you can see exactly what your posts will look like as you write them, before you publish. No more wasting time previewing your posts online.

Rich media publishing
Writer makes publishing rich media as easy as sending e-mail. Insert and customize photos, maps, tags, and lots of other cool content—then click the “Publish” button. It’s that easy.

Powerful editing features
Creating compelling blog posts is much easier with the ability to insert and edit tables, check spelling as you type, and format and hyperlink content at your fingertips.

Offline editing
Now you can blog anytime, from anywhere. Writer synchronizes drafts on your blog with changes you make when you’re offline, so you don’t have to worry about reconciling different versions.

Download Windows Live Writer Beta

It also features Inline spell checking, Table editing, Ability to add categories, Page authoring for WordPress and TypePad, Support for excerpts and extended entries, Improved hyperlinking and image insertion, Paste Special (Using Paste Special (Ctrl+Shift+V), you have the option to remove all HTML formatting but preserve hyperlinks and images.  Or you can try the Thinned HTML option which preserve the fonts sizes and text alignments but strips the source text of all extra formatting like CSS styles.)

One of the less obvious features available in Windows Live Writer is the ability to automatically ping (send a signal) to popular blog aggregators every time you publish something to your blog.  This feature actively pings the servers of the blog aggregators you specify and to indicate when there is new material.

Extend the functionality of Windows Live Writer Beta with plugins downloaded from the Windows Live Gallery to customize the types of rich content you can publish to your blog. Download Windows Live Writer Plugins which add extra functionality to Windows Live Writer Beta, such as adding extra options on the insert menu.

Source: Writer Zone

Gmail:

Pros:

• Very fast interface; responds quickly even on an ancient machine.
• Advanced search functions worthy of the name Google.
• Conversation view.
• Tagging – like folders, only better.
• Tons of geek users, and consequently a deep knowledge base of hacks and master tips and tricks.
• Ads are minimal — only text-based Google ads, and no promotional tag lines in outgoing messages.
• E-mail attachments up to 20 MB in size.
• Free POP access; check your Gmail address from desktop mail clients.

Cons:

• Only about 2.5 GB of storage — pay extra for more. Prices start at $20 a year for 6 GB.
• Browser compatibility: Officially, Gmail supports IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, and Safari. No official support for Opera, and reports indicate that some functions don’t work in Safari. Gmail offers a reduced-functionality version that should run on most every browser.

Yahoo Mail:

Pros:

• Interface has the look and feel of a desktop mail client, including drag-and-drop capability — great if you want something that looks familiar.
• Free unlimited storage.
• Tabbed layout; a nice feature if you want to compose different messages at the same time.
• Send SMS text messages to phones (only available for phones in the U.S., Canada, India and the Philippines).
• You can sort your messages according to sender, subject line, and several other factors.

Cons:

• Interface can be slow and temperamental, especially on slower computers.
• POP access only available in Mail Plus, which costs $20 a year.
• Free service has lots of ads: graphical ads all over, plus promotional messages in outgoing mail. There are fewer ads in Mail Plus.
• Free service limits attachment size to 10 MB and limits e-mail organizing filters to 15; increase your attachment size to 20 MB and get 50 filters in Mail Plus.
• Browser compatibility: Officially, Yahoo supports IE, Firefox, and Safari. No official support for Opera, and reports indicate that some functions don’t work in Safari. Yahoo’s Classic version should run on most any Web browser.

Windows Live Hotmail:

Pros:

• Like Yahoo, the interface has the look and feel of a desktop mail client, including drag-and-drop capability.
• Again like Yahoo, you can sort your messages according to sender, subject line, and several other factors.
• The system has a built-in audio player that lets you play e-mailed songs from within your browser.
• Free POP access
• 5 GB in free storage — less than Yahoo, but more than Gmail.

Cons:

• Browser compatibility: Officially, Hotmail supports only Internet Explorer and Firefox. But some of its functions work only on Internet Explorer. The “classic” version — the old Hotmail — should run on most any Web browser.
• Its interface can be even slower and more temperamental than that of Yahoo’s.
• Lots of ads: graphical ads are all over, plus promotional messages in outgoing mail. Additionally, it does not work with the AdBlock Firefox add-on.
• Attachments are limited 10 MB.

All systems also include spam protection, mobile access, and a contact management system; Yahoo and Gmail also have chatting.

Source: Machinist