Migrating from Windows Live Spaces to WordPress? Check these FAQs first !

 

As I had posted earlier about ‘Windows Live partners with WordPress.com to migrate 30 million Windows Live Spaces users to WordPress ’  and many of you must have already migrated also.

 

But many of you must still be having some queries about the migration, here are some queries answered about the same.  Have a look before migrating-

 

1.  What will happen to my old blog posts?
We will move all your old blog posts for you. They will retain all their text and media content and will be listed in order just like they were on your Space.

 

2.  Will my blog posts be in order by date and time?
Yes your blog posts will be arranged in order, just the way you published them.

 

3.  What will happen to my draft blog posts?
Your draft blog posts will not move with you. Please publish or back them up before moving  your content.

 

4.  What will happen to comments? Will I know who the comments came from?
Yes your comments will move with you and we’ll also try to remove any spam. The comments with have date and time associated with them as well as the URL of the user who posted them.

 

5.  What about my photos? Can I move my photos?
If you integrated your photos or any other media into your blog they will move right with your posts. However if you used the photos module, that will not move. You can always add links to specific albums to old blog posts without changing their published date and time. And your current albums won’t change their home – you’ll continue to be able to organize, edit and share them with your friends and family via Windows Live.

 

6.  What will happen to my theme?
You will need to select a new one from the almost 100 WordPress.com offers.

 

7.  What will happen to the various modules and gadgets I have?
Gadgets won’t be available to move. WordPress.com offers a Widgets Feature if you’d like to add any Widgets.

 

8.  What will happen to my lists, guestbook and notes?
Sorry but we won’t be able to move those since most blogging services do not offer that functionality. We recommend for you to copy and paste it to a local document or email to keep.

 

9.  How will visitors find my blog if I move it?
All your old URLs will redirect – so if visitors land on any of your old links – in profile, directly saved or from another page, they’ll be redirected to your new account.

 

10. Will all my old links continue to work – for my blog, for any individual articles and reference links within my blogs?
Yes, anyone landing on your old blog link or individual article links will be redirected to the right plan on your WordPress.com blog. If you referenced any other Spaces not belonging to you, that will depend on whether that blog is active and will be moved before March of 2011.

 

11.  What if I have a private blog – will my blog now be public?
No, we’ll move your blog based on your old settings. During and after your move you will be able to change that option.

 

12.  I have a private blog, will my friends need to do anything to view it?
For private blogs you have two options – you can either share it back to your Messenger Friends or you can invite individual friends to share with. In the latter case your friends will need to set up a WordPress.com account if they don’t already have one – should take less than a minute.

 

13.  What will happen to my custom URL?
Your old custom URL will redirect your blog to your new location. You can choose to keep the name of your old blog on WordPress.com if it’s available.

 

14.  Can I add a new blog to my existing WordPress.com account?
Yes. Just select the add a new blog option to your existing account during the move process.

 

15.  Can I merge my blog posts with an existing WordPress.com blog?
Yes. Your posts will be merged according to date of publish. You can select a blog to add to when you move your blog.

 

16.  Can I move and download my blog?
Yes you can but you should download your blog first and then move it if you want a human readable form. Alternatively you could move it to WordPress.com and then export an XML version of your blog.

(Source: WLSC)

Also check the screenshots of the migration process.

Windows Live partners with WordPress.com to migrate 30 million Windows Live Spaces users to WordPress

Looking at the Blogging needs and what different companies were providing Windows Live announced an exciting partnership with WordPress.com. So a migration path for 30 million Windows Live Spaces users will be provided to upgrade their Spaces blog to WordPress.com.

WordPress.com was chosen as a partner because of its host of impressive capabilities – from a scalable platform and leading spam protection, to great personalization and customization. WordPress powers over 8.5% of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month. So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, it was decided the best thing to do for customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.

 

 

As part of this project, WordPress has added support for Messenger Connect as a Publicize option, which enables you to automatically share updates to your WordPress.com blog with your friends who use Windows Live Messenger.

This migration of Spaces users to WordPress.com will be an easy upgrade path via Automated content migration with easy account set up .WordPress has created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com.

One also will be provided with the download option to download the Spaces content in human readable, well structured HTML  before upgrading to WordPress.com.

If a user already has WordPress blog , he can merge a spaces blog with a current wordpress blog .

Visitors will continue to have great experience as blog articles will be redirected.

Spaces Users can take with them/download blogs, inserted photos, videos. Comments without spam to WordPress.com. Option for Comments as is can be downloaded.

Gadgets, theme/skins can not be moved to WordPress. com. Similarly  draft posts, guestbook, notes, lists  won’t be available to move and are recommended to be manually  backed up if required.

With the announcement, the option will be available to users and they can still continue to use Spaces. You have time until March 2011 but you should upgrade to WordPress.com today!

• For now, you can still make posts to your Spaces blog, and you can decide when to upgrade.
• Starting January 2011, if you haven't upgraded yet, Spaces will be read-only and you will no longer be able to add content to your Spaces blog, but your existing content will still be visible. The same options to upgrade, download or delete your blog will still be available.
• March 2011 will be the last chance for you to get your stuff. Why not upgrade today?

“And when Windows Live Essentials 2011 releases later this fall, Windows Live Writer will also use WordPress.com as its default blogging solution.”

For step-by-step migration Path of Spaces to WordPress Screenshots , please check

How to upgrade and migrate your Windows Live Spaces blog to WordPress – Screenshots

 

Source : WordPress.com and Windows Live partnering together and providing an upgrade for 30 million Windows Live Spaces customers

Welcome Windows Live Spaces Bloggers

Windows 7 Silverlight based Countdown timer

Few days back I had posted about the third party Windows 7 Countdown Gadget which can posted on ones blog or site. And I also had put it on my blog. But it could not be put on Windows Live Spaces based blog as it rejects scripts. Now our MVP colleague Vikram Pendse has created a Windows 7 General Availability (GA) Countdown timer based on Silverlight. And the good thing is , it can also be put on Windows Live Spaces based blog. The below image shows as put in my Windows Live based blog LiveViews.

To display this on your blog/spaces/site, just embed the following code-

 

<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width:158px; height:200px" src="http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/75985/NewWin/iframe.html"></iframe>

 

For users of Windows Live Spaces, add a ‘Custom HTML ’ module.  Sign-in to your Spaces and Customize >Add modules >Custom HTML >Add and type the above code and save.

As you know, Windows 7 General availability is on 22nd Oct. So its that date when it will be available in the Stores. So Count it down along with this nice timer. Thanks Vikram !

(Source: The South Asia MVP Blog)

TBot’s Space and other Windows Live Translator Offerings

As in my earlier post Translation powered by....Microsoft Translator! , I posted about MSR-MT Team successfully transitioning all of translation services to technology developed by Microsoft Research. Here are some more Windows Live Translator Offerings.

TBot gets a new Space http://wltbot.spaces.live.com/ 

Various other Offerings links are :

Translator Homepage: http://translator.live.com

Windows Live Translator Toolbar Button: http://gallery.live.com/default.aspx?pl=3

Add our Web Page Translator to *your* Site: http://translator.live.com/addin.aspx

Need affordable professional Translation? Get an instant quote from our partner at LiveTranslation https://livetranslation.com/microsoft.default.aspx

 

English as a Second Language – Assistant

, this is also provided as an add-in for Outlook 2007 which will allow you to send the contents of the email message you're writing directly to ESL Assistant. This text will then be immediately checked for errors.

Look up a word in the Encarta Translation Dictionary

Windows Live Spaces and Events updated

As some of you had already noticed some updates to Windows Live Spaces, now it has also been  officially announced at The Space Craft.

A new feature added to Windows Live Spaces is Common friends display. When you are signed and visit a friend's Space, you can see the friends you have in common. You can 'Explore Friends' with options, 'All', 'In Common' and 'Not in common'.

Another feature added is, you have option to add more than one photo album to your space from the Customize page. I thought it was already there.

Now let us see what's new in Windows Live Events,

Any public Events you organise, will be shown in your Windows Live profile and Events Homepage, so that your friends and Messenger contacts will know about that Event, when and where it's happening.

When you create an event on Windows Live, your own name and e-mail address appears on the invitation instead of the automatically generated e-mail address.

The Spacecraft also goes on to inform about the SkyDrive , which I had already mentioned in the separate post earlier.

Eye-Fi demo video

Check out this cool demo of Eye-Fi by its Co-Founder Ziv Gillat given to channel 10.

By now, you must already be familiar with this product. I had also posted about it on its launch, Upload Photos from Your Camera to the Web

and also when it provided support to Windows Live Spaces which enable user's photos to be seamlessly transferred from their camera into their Windows Live Space.
Upload your Photos wirelessly from your camera to Windows Live Spaces

For those who are new to Eye-Fi, "The Eye-Fi Card is a wireless memory card. It automatically uploads pictures from your digital camera to your PC or Mac and to your favorite photo sharing, printing, blogging or social networking site. No cables, no waiting, no hassles."

Video link : Eye-Fi Wireless Memory Card

Upload your Photos wirelessly from your camera to Windows Live Spaces

Now you can upload your photos from your Camera WIRELESSLY to your Windows Live Spaces. For that you have to get the Eye-Fi card.
Actually I had posted earlier about the Eye-Fi card when it was launched last year,
Upload Photos from Your Camera to the Web
I found it to be one of the nicest innovation on its launch and truly so it was among the Top 25 Innovative products of 2007 awarded by PCWorld recently.

"The Eye-Fi Card is a wireless memory card. It automatically uploads pictures from your digital camera to your PC or Mac and to your favorite photo sharing, printing, blogging or social networking site. No cables, no waiting, no hassles."
It's a Wireless Memory SD Card and yes, there really is Wi-Fi inside that tiny little card.

And now the new addition is, Angus Logan and Windows Live Team has been working with Eye-Fi team to to enable user's photos to be seamlessly transferred from their camera into their Windows Live Space.

"Eye-Fi used the Windows Live Spaces Photo API which allows users to delegate permission for Eye-Fi to Create/Read/Update/Delete Photos & Albums in their Windows Live Space. Delegation is important (as I mentioned in this Wired article with my new promotion) because users should never share their Windows Live ID credentials (username & password). The end user is also in control of their information as they can revoke permissions, so any web site they have granted access to will need to re-request."

This is really nice addition and will be very convenient. But sadly Eye-Fi is not yet available worldwide, So I am not able to try it out. For full instructions and steps involved and with nice explanation, please check Angus Logan's Post :
Want to upload photos to your Windows Live Space without ever plugging in your Camera? do it with eye.fi

Windows Live Spaces and HP Snapfish India

Few months back Windows Live Spaces announced a partnership with HP Snapfish to offer online photo printing from Spaces, which initially was available only in US. Then last month, this ordering online prints was extended to 9 new markets including Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

Now that HP Snapfish is available in India also www.snapfish.co.in , so when does Spaces team extends this service to India, so that one can order prints online from within Live Spaces?

By the way, as a introductory offer HP Snapfish India is offering 20 FREE digital photo prints.

So I hope to see the HP Snapfish feature integrated into Spaces being introduced for India region also soon.