Did you ever wish you could get a quick, preview map of an address you’re looking at on a web page?

I do! It’s such an inconvenience sometimes to have to switch to another page just to search for an address. (And, I’m also a Map Geek.)

Here’s a practical example: one day I was looking for a DHL drop box near the hotel I was staying at, so that I could mail home some of the extra clothes that I couldn’t fit in my carry-on luggage (long story!). This is what the DHL drop off location page looked like:

I’ll be honest – there’s a map below the "fold". But I don’t have the patience to scroll down, and often times, those maps are of a few locations at once. I just wanted a map of the first address on this list, right then and there. I also wanted an aerial view so that I could get a sense of where the box was.

Fortunately with Smart Menus, a new feature of Windows Live Toolbar, I was able to do just that. To do this, I simply selected the address with my cursor, clicked the map button when it appeared, and used the map when it dropped down.

Huh? Whuh? Here’s a picture that I hope will help clear this up a little:

Nifty huh?

The official Marketing-speak is that Smart Menus allows you to "Get smart, relevant information about the Web page you’re on such as driving directions. stock quotes, weather reports, click to call a phone number and more.” I prefer to think that Smart Menus allows you to get cool previews of stuff you’re interested in!

Here are some more examples of Smart Menus at work. They’re in WMV format – I hope you can see them!

• In this example, I’m trying to find a DHL drop box near my office:

Click here to download this video for viewing in an external application

• In this example, I’m trying to find a Ralph Lauren Polo store (I collect Polo shirts) that’s near the beach – but before I go, I wanted to check the weather first. 

Click here to download this video for viewing in an external application

•  This is my favorite example – the Windows Live Local knows about things like "Empire State Building" and "Space Needle" even though they’re not real U.S. addresses. So, even if you select something that you know is a valid address, but Smart Menus doesn’t detect it – you can override it and have you show a Map anyway:

Click here to download this video for viewing in an external application

• You can get instant stock quotes…

Click here to download this video for viewing in an external application

• If you have Windows Live Messenger installed, and an account on Windows Live Call, you can actually call phone numbers too:

Click here to download this video for viewing in an external application

• Finally, does it just bug you when you have to copy and paste a url because the page author didn’t hyperlink the address? Well, now you can just click on it:

Click here to download this video for viewing in an external application

People all across the Windows Live organization, in both Redmond and Silicon Valley have put a lot of effort into this project. We hope you find it as useful as we do. This is very v1, very innovative, and very blends-web-services-with-desktop-software.

I think we’ve done a great job of creating something that enriches the browsing experience, but isn’t annoying. What do you think? Please try it out and leave feedback!

In the meantime, enjoy!

P.S. Right now most of these features are U.S. only. But rest assured that we are working on plans for support for additional countries in the near future.

Those of you who know me personally know that I’ve been exceptionally busy since… oh… Mid-March. And all I could ever say was “Work.”

Well, now I can finally talk about what I’ve been working on, because it is now live: Windows Live Toolbar 3.0.

This product was released as a public beta back in March, and since then we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback that we’ve incorporated. In the next few posts, I’ll talk about some of my favorite changes, and new features we’ve made to the product.

In fact, the next entry will be about a great new feature called “Smart Menus”. Stay tuned!

Why is it that unchecking this checkbox in Adobe Reader (you know… acrobat) requires something to be uninstalled and, thus, my computer to rebooted?

There must be a better way.

So Money magazine published the TOp 100 places to live…

MONEY Magazine: Best places to live 2006: Top 100 1-25

1 Fort Collins, CO 128,000
2 Naperville, IL 141,600
3 Sugar Land, TX 75,800
4 Columbia/Ellicott City, MD 159,200
5 Cary, NC 106,400
6 Overland Park, KS 164,800
7 Scottsdale, AZ 226,000
8 Boise, ID 193,200
9 Fairfield, CT 57,800
10 Eden Prairie, MN 60,600

I haven’t been to any of these places (well, I think I’ve driven through Fairfield.) The closest would be Bellevue, WA coming in at 21. Congrats to all my blue/orange badge friends!

But wait… SF/SJ didn’t make a showing at all?

MONEY Magazine: Best places to live 2006: 10 Best Big Cities

Rank City Population
1 Colorado Springs, CO 369,800
2 Austin, TX 690,300
3 Mesa, AZ 442,800
4 Raleigh, NC 341,500
5 San Diego, CA 1,255,500
6 Virginia Beach, VA 438,400
7 Omaha, NE 414,500
8 Columbus, OH 730,700
9 Wichita, KS 354,900
10 New York, NY 8,143,200

Ack! SF/SJ didn’t make a showing here either? Youch!

Wait… I know where I can find it:

MONEY Magazine: Best places to live 2006: Top 25 Pricey homes

1 Newport Beach, CA $1,362,500
2 Greenwich, CT $1,129,000
3 Santa Barbara, CA $979,500
4 Palo Alto, CA $929,000
5 Cupertino, CA $880,000
6 Goleta, CA $870,000
7 San Clemente, CA $848,500
8 Bethesda, MD $790,000
9 Pleasanton, CA $785,000
10 Santa Monica, CA $784,000
11 Redondo Beach, CA $777,500
12 Redwood City, CA $767,500
13 San Francisco, CA $755,000
14 Yorba Linda, CA $750,000
15 San Rafael, CA $745,000

Heh!

Having worked on a PIM product, I’ve learned to swear at time zones. They’re an enormously complicated business. More than once I’ve thought: Wow – we should be like China and have just one time zone. But then I come to my senses and realize that living in the West Coast, that would probably impact me more than if I lived in New York again.

In any case, for once in a long time, time zones came to my advantage. At 8:50pm tonight, I had a question about Apple’s return policy – if you buy something from their site, can you return it in the store? I looked for a quick bit and couldn’t find the answer on their website. So instead, I called the local store in Valley Fair – only to find that it closes at 7pm on Sunday. Undeterred, I thought about it for a minute and realized that it was only 6:50pm in Honolulu. So I called Hawaii and asked them the same question (btw, the answer is Yes). Hurray!

The last time I did this was in high school – I had a question about which store location near me had a certain product. So I called a location in California and asked them to check their inventory records in NY. Can’t really pull that trick anymore. (Especially since Herman’s is now out of business!)

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1

Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is a powerful software virtualization solution that allows you to run multiple PC-based operating systems simultaneously on one workstation, providing a safety net to maintain compatibility with legacy applications while you migrate to a new operating system. It also saves reconfiguration time, so your support, development, and training staff can work more efficiently.

… and it’s free!

Holy cow! This is one my favorite apps of all time. Why? I do a lot of deployment/servicability work on the Toolbar team. VPC has a feature just for me – undo drives. See, after I’m done installing something, I just close VPC and boom! My virtual hard drive is restored to the way it was before I ran the test. Sweet! No more installing and uninstalling – just installing! Now, I always have a clean machine to test on.

This is also important for usability tests. In the old days, you’d have to write a script to clean up and restore the machine to the way it was before the participant started using it. Now, with VPC, I just close the app and VPC forgets everything that was done.

Sweet!

Mike found a guide to Windows Live:

Windows Live – Product Team Tour

Hey it even Reeves! Hi Reeves!

(BTW, Reeves is not in Red-West A as the opening screen implies – but rather here in Silicon Valley Campus)

Wow… The Onion has reached its 10 year mark already. Here’s a classic from 1996:

‘Midwest’ Discovered Between East, West Coasts | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

September 4, 1996 | Issue 30•04

A U.S. Geographic Survey expeditionary force announced yesterday that it has discovered an unexplored and heretofore unknown land region between the New York and California coasts.

“We shall call this land ‘the Midwest,’” said Dirk Zachary, New York City native and leader of the 200-man exploratory team. “And its primitive inhabitants shall be known as ‘Midwesterners.’”

Zachary and his men discovered the region while searching for the fabled Midwest Passage, the mythical overland route passing through the uncharted areas between Ithaca, NY, and Bakersfield, CA.

“I long suspected something was there,” Zachary said. “I had flown between the city and L.A. on business several times. The duration of my flights seemed to indicate that some sort of a large area was being traversed, an area of unknown composition.”

It’s deadpan humor has cracked me up for years. It’s one of the few sites I check every week! Otherwise, gems like this might be missed:

Year in Pictures: 2001 | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

New Grill To Revive Foreman-Ali Rivalry

April 11, 2001 | Issue 37•13

Alas… some mocking articles tend to foreshadow reality… like this one from their famous September 11th issue:

A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Shaken by the tragic events of Sept. 11, people across the nation have abandoned such inconsequential concerns as the Gary Condit scandal and Britney Spears’ skimpy outfit at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. No longer are they talking about shark attacks or what’s-his-name, that Little Leaguer who was too old to play. Instead, they’re focusing on the truly important things in life: friends, family, and being good to one another.

How long can it go on like this?

Three weeks after the horrific attacks that claimed more than 6,000 lives, many Americans are wondering when their priorities will finally be in the wrong place again. Some are wondering if their priorities will ever be in the wrong place again.

(You can click on the picture to see the full sized version.) Less than 5 years later, Britney, Michael Jackson, and Tom Cruise’s personal lives are often featured as top stories.