WiFi Live Center Beta 3 – details

alright…. finally checking this out….

I had to set up my donations to this important fund…..

It is ok, not a lot of new features, and as I thought the new “Live Look” is lame, I am getting sick of the live look and feel. I think it is a great marketing effort and certainly is valuable for people to understand what kind of application they are in and what they should expect from that application. The flip side of that thinking is that it is tiring and old and not customizable…which, well, ugh another blue border?

Driving directions are still coming soon :(

“Print this”, just sends to the default printer…….I want to choose which printer

The pop-out details screen is not movable…it pops out and stays in that same place on the screen (annoying)

I still think this is a great technology though!! very usefull! I was talking to someone just last week who was in need of a wifi connection, there was not one available where we were and they were ranting about not having a way to find one…. this is a great way to solve that problem (no internet connection is needed to get the information).

Windows Live WiFi Center Beta 3

New Build!!

downloading now, more later….

The email says “think live local’s virtual earth”…. & … more Windows Live look and feel (I liked the old one, I hope this doesn’t suck)… & … some bugs are fixed!! woohoo..

Windows Live WiFi Center Beta – details

I promised more details because I think this is really cool. First, here is some stuff other people have put out there….

• Maarten has the best overview of WiFi Center

• Tris has some details too (who I’m jealous of because he lives on Salt Spring Island)

Other then that though the details are pretty short in supply…

Just to review this is a 32 bit application (Microsoft’s Live Desktop phase is in full swing now)…..

Here is Tris’s view of the world from WiFi Center:

My area in Seattle showed 15 free connections (including the Shoreline branch of the seattle public library and a miriad of coffee shops)… They are all sorted by distance and you have the ability to map them (which is expected).

There is a link to driving directions which produce a box that says “coming soon”. You can do all the other neat stuff, copy to clipboard, print, and email to a friend (which is helpful for meeting a perspective business partner)…

The email is helpful too, it contains tons of information (here is one for a local spot near me):

Hotspot Name:
King County Library – Shoreline
Address:
345 Northeast 175th Street
Shoreline, WA 98155, US
Telephone:
206-362-7550
Category:
Library
Service Providers:
Independent Provider

There are also some helpful tops about WiFi security and the like. This is a great start to this kind of application. There is a lot of room for improvement here too….

• Integration with in-car/boat navigations systems
• Integration with Windows Mobile
• Planning day trips with associated hotspots (ensure the morning coffee in Seattle has a hotspot, then make sure a stop in bellevue has access, then lunch in Redmond with a connection, and end the day with coffee in Bothel where I can finish up my email)

Windows Live WiFi Center Beta

I just got it installed (haven’t rebooted yet) so no review……

But here’s a screen shot in case your interested :)

It required the .net framework 2.0 & MSXML 6.0 prior to the install. Other then that there were no major requirements (well it required XP SP1 – vista support is still in the works).

In case you didn’t know this desktop application is a way to use http://HotSpot.Live.Com to find hotspots nearby

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