Ray Ozzie: Introducing Live Mesh | Dan

Dan

RichardRudek wrote:
I don't know why Dan doesn't post the low res link, [but here it is] 131.6MB.

I right-click then choose save as file.

Fixed.

I normally don't think to do it for content that's less than half an hour long, but I should probably just do it for all videos I post.

ZippyV
Fired Up

Ow please, not that stupid logo again in the corner. Mad

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Here's a bunch of questions:

- The remote desktop through the browser thing. That's available on WHS right now, and while it works great if it works, it doesn't work quite as smoothly as one is led to believe. For instance, you need to install an RDP ActiveX control to be able to use the remote desktop feature in the WHS Remote Access website. When I'm at an internet cafe, I may not be able to install this control. When I'm at a friend's house, I may not wat to install stuff on his PC. Then what?
Also, I set my machines to sleep when I'm away. Most people power them down entirely. Then what? Will there be a way to wake them up remotely? Again, in WHS, I had to install a 3rd party wake-on-lan addon to even get WoL functionality, and then it's still a chore. I have to:
1. Use the remote access website to RDP to the WHS
2. Open the WHS Console on the server itself
3. Use the WoL addon in the Console to wake up one of my PC's
4. Log off of the WHS.
5. RDP to the computer I just woke.
That's not very smooth. How will Mesh's remote access features fix that? Will it, for instance, auto-attempt to wake any machine you RDP to?

- Can I 'meshify' my My Documents folder and automatically sync all my documents and application settings across PC's?
- Is there or will there be some way to sync my RSS feeds across devices? If I read an RSS feed, I want it to be marked as 'read' on all my devices, not just the one I read it on.
- What about email? Can I install Windows Live Mail on all my PC's and sync the message store across all PC's, so that I can check my email and read previously downloaded email on any PC? What will happen if I have my email client open on two PC's at the same time? Will it mess up the synch, or will I see emails appearing on my laptop when I download them on my desktop?
- The 5GB data limit. I understand why you guys are doing this, but I have a WHS that's available from anywhere in the world. I can get as much storage on it as money can buy. Can I choose to have Mesh store it on my WHS rather than in a Microsoft Data Center when it is storing stuff in 'the cloud', without any limits on what I can do? (In other words: can I set it up so that my Live Desktop is actually stored on my WHS rather than in a data center, so that I don't have to deal with the 5GB file limit?)

USArcher

DukeNukem wrote:
Can you add a Windows Live SkyDrive to be a device?

I agree, that would start to tie things together. Amit Mital, GM of Live Mesh, has said it is their intention to add many more devices in the months ahead.

hampycapper

The platform does support direct lan syncing. The user experience does not currently allow you to specify what files should go to the cloud and what should not. But it will.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

hampycapper wrote:
The platform does support direct lan syncing. The user experience does not currently allow you to specify what files should go to the cloud and what should not. But it will.

That sounds good, but rather than tell Mesh what files I want stored where, I think it'd be much better if I was able to tell Mesh that 'the Cloud' is actually 'this remotely accessible folder on my WHS here'. It'd make the thing more seamless, with the bonus of giving me 2TB of cloud storage space, if I want.

dcharles

MadRaven wrote:

Live Mesh really looks like a great product.
But it really only creates confusion since there are already a bunch of similar MS techs like FolderShare, Folder Sharing in Messenger, SkyDrive, Meeting Space, Remote Desktop, etc.

Same thing as on the communication front with a bunch of mail clients, IM clients etc.

Shame that these aren't integrated into a single offering so even inexperienced users could use it.

Eventually i think this is what will happen, if mesh proves to be a hit, they will phase the others out slowly!

jmazner

Bas wrote:
Here's a bunch of questions:

- The remote desktop through the browser thing. That's available on WHS right now, and while it works great if it works, it doesn't work quite as smoothly as one is led to believe. For instance, you need to install an RDP ActiveX control to be able to use the remote desktop feature in the WHS Remote Access website. When I'm at an internet cafe, I may not be able to install this control. When I'm at a friend's house, I may not wat to install stuff on his PC. Then what?

Live Mesh also uses a control to display the RDP session in the browser. If someone has figured out how to parse and display RDP in JScript, I am all ears Wink

Not sure there's really any better solution here...

Bas wrote:

Also, I set my machines to sleep when I'm away. Most people power them down entirely. Then what? Will there be a way to wake them up remotely? Again, in WHS, I had to install a 3rd party wake-on-lan addon to even get WoL functionality, and then it's still a chore. I have to:
1. Use the remote access website to RDP to the WHS
2. Open the WHS Console on the server itself
3. Use the WoL addon in the Console to wake up one of my PC's
4. Log off of the WHS.
5. RDP to the computer I just woke.
That's not very smooth. How will Mesh's remote access features fix that? Will it, for instance, auto-attempt to wake any machine you RDP to?

We don't have wake-on-LAN as part of our client communications platform. I will make sure that's on the list of things to consider.

Bas wrote:

- Can I 'meshify' my My Documents folder and automatically sync all my documents and application settings across PC's?

Well, I don't think app settings are usually in My Documents? You can meshify My Docs (as long as you don't have any other Live Mesh Folders already present in the My Docs hierarchy) and it should work, taking into consideration we're still in Tech Preview. App settings are harder, since some apps open their settings files for r/w access for the lifetime of the app, and some apps don't store settings in the filesystem at all.

Bas wrote:

- Is there or will there be some way to sync my RSS feeds across devices? If I read an RSS feed, I want it to be marked as 'read' on all my devices, not just the one I read it on.

The platform certainly supports this, if an app wants to implement this kind of functionality.

Bas wrote:

- What about email? Can I install Windows Live Mail on all my PC's and sync the message store across all PC's, so that I can check my email and read previously downloaded email on any PC? What will happen if I have my email client open on two PC's at the same time? Will it mess up the synch, or will I see emails appearing on my laptop when I download them on my desktop?

Email is one of those file types that's hard to synch today when you're dealing with a monolithic PST or OST file. Apps can certainly write to Live Mesh platform to enable great roaming of your email experience, but that will happen over time (once the platform is available.)

Bas wrote:

- The 5GB data limit. I understand why you guys are doing this, but I have a WHS that's available from anywhere in the world. I can get as much storage on it as money can buy. Can I choose to have Mesh store it on my WHS rather than in a Microsoft Data Center when it is storing stuff in 'the cloud', without any limits on what I can do? (In other words: can I set it up so that my Live Desktop is actually stored on my WHS rather than in a data center, so that I don't have to deal with the 5GB file limit?)

Yes, using WHS as your own personal cloud storage is a popular request, and one that we are looking into. The platform is certainly designed to support multiple, federated storage servcies.

-Jeremy, a PM on the Live Mesh team.

staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

Bas wrote:

hampycapper wrote: The platform does support direct lan syncing. The user experience does not currently allow you to specify what files should go to the cloud and what should not. But it will.

That sounds good, but rather than tell Mesh what files I want stored where, I think it'd be much better if I was able to tell Mesh that 'the Cloud' is actually 'this remotely accessible folder on my WHS here'. It'd make the thing more seamless, with the bonus of giving me 2TB of cloud storage space, if I want.

I think in another MS reply you can do that. After the 5GB is full, it will go direct Peer-to-Peer for file transfer and the cloud will not get new files, but I think it will "see" them. But not sure. The mesh folder *is your WHS folder in the cloud - virtualized.