Windows Live Mesh – Tech preview

Windows Live Mesh is a very good Service from Microsoft. It’s Service of Cloud Computing, which means you can get your data virtually everywhere, on any device. Visit www.mesh.com to find out more and view take a tour. (Requires Silverlight). 

 

What is Live mesh ?

To put it simple, it is a file storage on the Internet (cloud) and to move it across Devices., I.e. Computers, Cell Phones etc.

What we need is a Live Mesh Service and Internet Enabled Device. Now its still under Tech Preview., thus it works only on Windows PC.

To sign up go to www.mesh.com. (Service now available to U.S Registered IDs or else through invitations)

This basically useful for multiple PC owners or the people who want their data anywhere., Online or Offline.

The Dashboard of Mesh is as shown below

I have my Office PC, My Home PC , Media Center PC all the in the Ring, I am yet to set up my Laptop. It all works across Windows XP and Vista.

The Live Desktop is where you can view folders that are added to the Mesh or Cloud.

Features:

1. Add Devices, Different Computers to the Cloud.

2. Stay Connected, Share Across the Cloud.

3. Remote Desktop Feature.

4. Peer to Peer Sharing without Going to Cloud (Yet not in Client but the service is built in)

5. Share Across friends .

6. Get the updates on the live mesh taskbar. Can also add own comments.

and still improving….

You may just add Folders online or you can share any folders on the computer..

Once Installed you may find the Mesh Icon on the System Tray and Live Mesh Folder as Special Folder in My Computer.

Sign into the Live Mesh using your Live ID.

on Mouse Hover it shows the Devices.

Once the Other PC’s are online, you may use the remote desktop directly. There need not be any router configuration separately to enable remote desktop. However the remote desktop experience in local clients in same LAN is very poor and this can be understood because it is still in very early stages. But the whole point of service is very good.

Lets see how to add a desktop folder to a cloud.. 

Simply Go to any folder on your drive.. Just Right click and Click on “Add Folder to your Live Mesh”

and after OK it becomes like this..

It begins to sync with your live desktop in few seconds. and Notification is shown of how much is uploaded or Downloaded.

You may also choose to Sync with Other Devices from Mesh Desktop

The coolest thing in live mesh desktop is, it just works like your normal windows panels with in the web interface (web browser). You can move the window inside the browser area etc.

The Live Folder gets always attached with all shared folders, which gives information on what is going on. All the news, about modification, addition, deletion is all displayed here. This info is shown even in Local Desktop, when you click on the folder that is shared on Live Mesh.

Live folder on Live Mesh Online Desktop

Live Folder on Personal Desktop .

From the Live Mesh Panel You may View News, Members with whom this folder is shared and the Devices with which this folder is shared.

If they are part of buddy List it shows whether the Member is online or Offline.

You may share a folder across anyone, Just click on add members to send them a email invitation to view the shared folder. It also now includes live mesh invitation.

Lite Version of Live Mesh is already there for Windows Mobile Devices. The Mac version

Work is being done behind the scenes of Live Mesh, today they are rolling out an infrastructure update:

From LiveSide.Net

Live Mesh infrastructure update

We will be rolling out an update to Live Desktop today, July 21. There will be no update to the Live Mesh software. You may notice a slowdown in service or some display issues while the servers update.  If you are still seeing these problems after the 21st, please report them on the forums or through Microsoft Connect.

So don’t think it’s you, your browser or computer if you experience these! Besides that they are reminding us that we can now synchronize between devices without synchronizing them with the Live Desktop (also known as “Ghosting”). We already gave you some tutorials, I’ll list them at the bottom, to show you how to use that and give some ideas on what to use it for.

Did you know?

Now you can choose to synchronize folders between devices without synchronizing them with your Live Desktop. Sign in to your Live Desktop, right-click the folder, and click Change sync settings.

You can install Live Mesh on multiple devices—then Live Mesh can keep all the folders in your mesh synchronized for you. To add a computer to your mesh, visit http://www.mesh.com/ from the computer you wish to add, sign in, and click Add Device on the Devices page.

If you didn’t get all your friends and family in yet, you can get them in by using an invite if you still have one left:

To get even more from Live Mesh, share folders with friends and family. Simply open a folder you’ve added to Live Mesh, click Members in the mesh bar, and then click Add.^* Your friends will be able to access your folder as well as install Live Mesh on their devices.

* You can enter any e-mail address to invite others to a folder; it doesn’t have to be a Windows Live ID. However, they will need to use a Windows Live ID to sign in to and use Live Mesh.

Feedback can be left as usual:

Feedback

Thanks for being one of the first to use Live Mesh. We’re working hard to create the best experience and appreciate any feedback you have. Please send us feedback using our online form. You can also submit (and view others’) feedback and bugs here on the Microsoft Connect website.

Thank you
The Live Mesh team

Also the Mac Version Desktop., Early Pictures (not out yet released as of today).

 

From the Channel9 Video on Peer 2 Peer sync, the feature is already in the system where it can sync from PC to PC without need to be stored in the Cloud or Mesh. However now the it is being disabled in the client side. But this is enabled automatically when your storage limit is full in the cloud.

Further there are lot of developments planned ahead, to make it sync without going into cloud even when you have space in the cloud, By having only Schema’s or feed or Meta Data about the folder.

What I wish to have is ?

If there are two different Mesh, I should be able to connect to Other mesh’s Device, provided the user gives permission, Mainly to enable remote desktop. The folder Sync can be done even today. But remote desktop is not possible. In channel9 Video they have however hinted on this. the mesh has long way to go…

The New windows Services are really promising, and as I said Microsoft is trying to keep up its name in not just Desktop oriented Technologies but also in Web Based Technologies.

There are still few problems with Microsoft, they just concentrate things to make things work on windows, or else up to mac, and I find the LINUX community is doing wonderful job, and after earned this much of money, Microsoft should support its technologies for everyone.

I wish that Windows Live Hotmail to enable POP and/or IMAP services, so that everybody can use it. I prefer GMail because they support everything.

I wish that  Microsoft to unify their services. There are three services Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live FolderShare, Windows Live Mesh which more or less are doing analogous job. If everything is united, it will be wonderful.

I wish that Microsoft Keeps EVERYTHING FREE.  Don’t make just share holders happy, bring happiness to consumers too.

A Comparison of Windows Live FolderShare ,Windows Live SkyDrive & Windows Live Mesh

Of all the three, Windows Live mesh gives the more controlled environment.

In future it should get add more features and if More space can be added, that would be great.

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Barath

Its All New Windows Live Services – Windows Live Folder Share

Microsoft is actively trying in every possible ways to fight GOOGLE to make its presence in this Internet Computing (Cloud Computing).  Here are some new very interesting services…

1. Windows Live Folder Share (www.foldershare.com) beta

2. Windows Live Mesh (www.mesh.com) – Technical Preview

2. Windows Live Skydrive (http://skydrive.live.com/)

All earlier windows services are improved and updated like Hotmail, windows live writer, messenger etc.. There is one problem with Microsoft., still the customers (including myself) are not convinced that Windows Vista performs better. Personally I have lot of problems with the software’s and sometimes with the drivers. All the tools that Microsoft creates is mainly for Windows Platform or at far to Mac. After using UBUNTU a bit (still not a mainstream OS) I really find Linux is so amazing and above all everything is for free. Also with Compiz Fusion Plug-ins they surpass the graphics provided by Microsoft or Even Mac. I guess Microsoft should consider effort of Linux developers and what ever service they create, the service should be open to LINUX as well. Any ways Linux always has tons of alternatives. Microsoft Silverlight is available to LINUX as MoonLight. Microsoft has promised Live Mesh for Linux as well but…. lets hope they do it. Lets get to the story ..

I am not sure what Google is up to these days. There are no new services while Microsoft remains quiet aggressive. The skydrive has been improved a lot. The interface the upload has all been improved. But I am still expecting for a desktop upload tool. There is an activeX control which allows you to drag and Drop. To find out more on skydrive visit http://skydrive.live.com or read my review here.It’s been rumored that Google GDrive is in action but no news yet.

Ok Now Lets Move on to Windows Live Folder Share

This works Like a Peer to Peer File transfer Program ( a feature which I would like in Windows Live Mesh). It is very common these days that household have more than one computers. Managing Data and Sharing Digital Media and Documents is hell of work and keep it all in sync is very very difficult. I have a Home PC , A media center PC and a Laptop Computer + my Office PC. I need some documents to be all in sync but to do I use an external HDD and then carry data to every computer and Sync Using sync tools like SyncToy. With Windows Live Folders you may share the folders Peer-Peer.

Features:

1. Can sync Files of Different Computers.

2. Use FolderShare to create a mirrored image of your most important folders – like your Favorites, Pictures, and Documents.

 

1. Sharing files with Friends Sharing with friends, co-workers, and family is easy when you add and update files in a shared library.

2. FolderShare can sync files up to 2 GBs in size. And it works on both Mac and PC., Sorry No LINUX.

1. Get to your files instantly when you’re away from home through Remote Folder Access

2. Can Install FolderShare in all the computers and Login with same ID and create a name for computer, to view all files.

It all Gets started Here

To begin with Folder Share Download your FolderShare Client for Windows or Mac.

After Download Install  FolderShare.msi (For Windows)

Then when you begin

For New account click on Sign Up

After Creating .. You need to check whether your system ports are forwarded properly. Click on FolderShare icon on system tray and click on settings.. To set you need to add ports TCP 6571, TCP 8000, TCP 80 and TCP 443 forwarded to your computer. For Local computers on subnet if your Windows Firewall / Personal Firewall port is open then it should be fine. For Internet Access you should forward the port on your NAT router to your system IP. ( This is a difficult part in large enterprise system, I have not tried without forwarding, Yet to test. With forwarding it just works fine). uPNP port mapping is also available but doesn’t seem to work well for me.

 

So now How to Share a Folder..

Go to FolderShare Website.. from the option in FolderShare Tray icon.

1. Create Personal Library

Select the folder and Click Create Library Here button.

2. Creating a Shared Library is the Similar. If you already have folder then Select the folder and Click Create Library Here button.

Just add the Email invitation. Invitation looks like this..

Just the respondent must download and you can share directly.

This works only when both are online Just like a Peer-Peer Sharing program. This does not have a online storage. Thus you may not able to transmit when one is offline.

3. View your desktop files remotely and Download.

Go to any drive. and then select the file.. and Can Download directly.

The Remote Computer has to be online to get the files.

But it is one of the best way to keep multiple computer folders in Sync.

Windows Live Mesh is something similar to this but has an offline file support. The more insight will be in next article..

I wish these services are integrated with MSN/LIVE Messenger. Actually Messenger has folder share. But its all independent. If it is under same cloud it would be great.

thanks for reading.. Enjoy FolderShare service..

Barath ..