The Windows Experience Blog

Browse the Sky with WorldWide Telescope from Microsoft Research

2008-05-13T05:43:00Z

Want to try out for yourself what made Robert Scoble cry? Tonight, Microsoft Research has made available the Spring Beta of WorldWide Telescope.

Download: WorldWide Telescope Spring Release

WorldWide Telescope is an application designed to turn your PC into a "virtual telescope" by stitching together terabytes (soon to be petabytes) of high-resolution images of the universe. Massive amounts of data are generated by the various scientific and research facilities and WorldWide Telescope brings the catalog of that data together for anyone to access using the power of the Internet. This new application is particularly exciting for me being someone really heavy into astronomy. You can also use WorldWide Telescope and connect an ASCOM-capable Telescope to your PC to watch the night sky.

WorldWide Telescope lets me connect to Communities, access Collections of celestial objects such as the Solar System or Constellations, or take Guides Tours.

Using my mouse, I can navigate the cosmos zooming in and out to any object in the rich catalog of celestial objects. I can right-click to access quick information on any celestial object.

I can use WorldWide Telescope for 4 different "looks" - Panorama, Sky, Earth, or Planets. By default you are looking into the Sky when WorldWide Telescope but you can change the "look" in the lower left-hand corner of the application. You can view planets of the Solar System in 3D or view a panoramic shot as if you were standing on Mars (my favorite view so far!) taken from one of the NASA's Opportunity and Spirit rover missions.

I can also use WorldWide Telescope to browse the Earth using Virtual Earth.

WorldWide Telescope also lets you copy a view to your clipboard. In browsing the universe tonight with WorldWide Telescope I spotted several of these weird reflection-like images that I'm not entirely sure what they are:

Looks like a reflection from the telescope (or device) that took the image but I'm no expert.

By default, WorldWide Telescope is configured to view the night sky as if you were standing at Microsoft Building 99 in Redmond. But you can change your Observing Location very easily via View options.

WorldWide Telescope observes the night sky in real-time (which is awesome) however there are controls that let you move backward or forward as well as pausing at any given moment.

There are so many features in WorldWide Telescope that it would be hard for me to go through them all tonight in this post. Give WorldWide Telescope a try yourself and let me know what you think. And if anyone has any suggestions for ASCOM-capable Telescopes I might go out and buy that might work with WorldWide Telescope - let me know!

Put Certified for Windows Vista on your desktop

2008-05-13T00:35:00Z

Last week I posted an update on Certified from Windows Vista products in which at the end of the post I mentioned I had something else planned in regards to Certified for Windows Vista. Here at Microsoft in Redmond, the Windows Vista Logo Team made a poster that was put up around campus showcasing the Certified for Windows Vista logo. I thought the poster was really neat so I asked Deryl if he wouldn't mind if we released it as desktop wallpaper here for you to add Certified for Windows Vista to your desktop.

Below are links to download the Certified for Windows Vista wallpaper for your desktop (depending of course on your screen resolution) courtesy of Windows Live SkyDrive:

Enjoy the wallpaper!

For those not really interested in this wallpaper - you might check out another wallpaper of mine I released last month. I also hope to create some more wallpapers for you here in the coming months.

Looking for the Logo: Update on Certified for Windows Vista

2008-05-09T07:58:00Z

I caught up with Deryl McCartney, Marketing Manager for the Windows Vista Logo Program, to get a general update on Certified for Windows Vista products as of today.

Just to re-cap: Certified for Windows Vista products are products that carry the above logo. This logo represents a group of applications and hardware that have gone through an extensive certification process that means they work great with Windows Vista. We want users who are looking for devices, applications, or PC components to easily be able to identify the ones that will give them the best experience in Windows Vista today. When I go into a store looking for something for my PCs I always "look for the logo".

As of April, we currently have over 5,000 products that are Certified for Windows Vista. Since last July, the amount of Certified for Windows Vista products has almost doubled! As you can see - we've seen quite a bit of growth with new Certified for Windows Vista products entering the market.

Deryl is very excited about some of the new Certified for Windows Vista products hitting the market today and wanted me to share a few with you:

Logitech Quickcam Ultra Vision SE & Logitech Quickcam Orbit AF (Logitech has quite a bit of Certified for Windows Vista webcams)
Philips Webcam SPC900NC
Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4 Motherboard (perfect for building your own PC)
Epson Stylus Photo R1900
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Express Sound Card

He also tells me that there is a special section off http://www.windowsvista.com/ designed to showcase all the great Certified for Windows Vista products (right-hand side) worth checking out.

And there is even a Sidebar Gadget for you to add to your Windows Vista desktop that keeps you up-to-date with all the Certified for Windows Vista products and lets you search for specific products to see whether they are certified or not. Download the Gadget here.

I've covered my experiences with several Certified for Windows Vista devices here on the Windows Experience Blog recently:

Roadtrip around Central Washington with Canon Digital Rebel XTi (with several panoramic shots created with Windows Live Photo Gallery).
ATI TV Wonder 600 USB to watch TV shows in Windows Media Center.
Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 (keyboard and mouse set).
Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000.

I expect to be talking about some hot new Certified with Windows Vista devices in the very near future. And of course I expect to get regular updates from Deryl too!

And stay tuned as I have something else planned in regards to Certified for Windows Vista I think you'll like as well.

Best Practices for keeping your Windows Live ID safe

2008-05-06T03:35:00Z

Your Windows Live ID is essentially your online identity for all of the Windows Live services, Xbox Live, Zune and other third party websites (such as Expedia.com) that utilize Windows Live ID. If you're using Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, your Windows Live ID stores all your contacts and email messages. Your Windows Live ID is definitely something you don't want to have compromised and I've got several pointers - or best practices - in keeping your Windows Live ID safe.

Do not hand out your password! Don't give anyone your password to your Windows Live ID. Handing out your password to anyone is simply asking for trouble. Don't even give out your password to friends or family. I can't imagine a reason why they would need it. Just don't give out your Windows Live ID credentials at all.

Be careful giving your Windows Live credentials on non-Microsoft websites. There are some websites out there that will claim they "require" your Windows Live ID credentials for their service. Some sites use this tactic to gain access to your Windows Live ID.

Fact: Microsoft will only ask for your Windows Live ID credentials on login.live.com and nowhere else!

Use a strong password for your Windows Live ID. Don't use common words or names. Use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

Don't use an obvious answer to your secret question. Microsoft provides a list of possible "secret questions" for your account. A secret question is used when you forget your password for your Windows Live ID. Choose a secret question that has an answer that people won't be able to guess (friends, family, etc). The risk you have in using a secret question with an answer your friends might be able to guess is that your friends can try to "hack" your Windows Live ID and have fun with you. Your secret answer must have 5 characters or more and is not case sensitive. Remember to remember your secret answer of course.

Added protection: make your password expire every 72 days. You can login to account.live.com and change your password for your Windows Live ID and configure it to expire every 72 days. I personally don't choose this option rather I change my password every couple weeks on my own.

Neelamadhaba Mahapatro, General Manager for Microsoft's Identity Services (including Windows Live ID) has a post over on the Windows Live Dev Blog explaining Microsoft ongoing to commitment to keeping your Windows Live ID safe and what's being done today to protect Windows Live ID users from phishing.

Into Digital Photography? Check out Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1

2008-05-01T23:17:00Z

Microsoft today has made available a new tool for photographers using Windows for their digital photos: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1. This application lets you quickly edit the metadata on digital photos you've shot with your camera - including RAW formats.

Microsoft Pro Photo Tools also allows photographers to use geotagging for their photos. Geotagging is the ability to "tag" something with location information - and in the case of photos the location of where your photo was taken. You can quickly add location data from a GPS device or Live Search Maps to a photo's metadata.

Download: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1 (x86)

I use Windows Live Photo Gallery to manage all my photos. I'd like to note that changes in any specific photo' s metadata using Microsoft Pro Photo Tools will be reflected of course in Windows Live Photo Gallery - including title and tags.

You'll see here I've added a title, description, and keywords (aka tags) in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools to one of my photos.

In Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can see the title and tags I've added in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools are displayed in the Windows Live Photo Gallery UI (specifically in the Info pane). The metadata is also in the photo's properties as well.

In Windows Live Photo Gallery currently, the UI doesn't call out metadata for geotagging. But by geotagging your photos in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools now - it's in the metadata so in the future, that metadata can easily be called out by any app designed to call out geotagging from photos.

It's great to see us making investments in creating a better experience for photographers using Windows.

For further background on Microsoft Pro Photo Tools - CNET's Stephen Shankland was able to talk with Josh Weisberg, Microsoft's director of digital imaging evangelism, in a really nice in-depth post looking at Microsoft Pro Photo Tools including its origin and its future.

Show your Mom some love with the Portraits of Mom Photo Contest

2008-05-01T06:48:00Z

Mother's Day is fast approaching and what better way to show your Mom you care than to enter her in a photo contest! While I'm still working to get my Mom to join the online community, we have a fun way you all can recognize your own Mom and help her learn how to share all those family photos on her PC with the family and friends! Portraits of Mom is a contest that lets you showcase Mom using Windows Live by either posting her picture to Windows Live Spaces or visiting one of our temporary retail locations to have her photo taken by a professional. Anyone who doesn't work at Microsoft can enter their Mom's photo into the contest for a chance to win awesome prizes.

Visit http://www.portraitsofmom.com/ and use Windows Live Photo Gallery to upload your favorite photo of your Mom. Show off your photo on your Windows Live Space, and tell your Mom she's featured along with all the great Moms on the site. Then get her friends and family to vote for her picture posted on http://www.portraitsofmom.com/. If you don't have Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can download it for free along with the rest of the Windows Live suite at http://get.live.com/.

If your Mom or members of your family are in New York or San Francisco over the next two weeks, take them to visit the Windows Live Portrait Studios, a temporary "photo studio" where they'll be treated to a professional portrait sitting. After a quick stylist make-over, she can include the family, a pet or friends in her personal portrait...and the best part is that it's all for free! For location details, click here.

If you're in Seattle, bring your Mom to the Woodland Park Zoo on May 10 and 11 and get a free photo taken by our Quick Snaps team. Just find the Quick Snaps team - who will be wearing lots of Windows gear- and they'll snap a photo of Mom and her family or friends. She'll get a free copy of the photo on the spot, complete with instructions on how to sign up for a Windows Live ID and participate in the Portraits of Mom photo contest!

So come on, celebrate Mothers Day by showing your Mom some love!

Origami Experience 2.0 Part 1: Web Browsing

2008-04-30T08:10:00Z

In Part 1 of my 4 part series of blog posts looking at the Origami Experience 2.0 software, I am going to talk about one of the most important new experiences in the new release: browsing the web directly in Origami Central. Origami Central, one of the three apps in the Origami Experience, has the built in capability to browse webpages just as you would in IE7. ActiveX controls work just fine in the browsing experience of Origami Central - as does Flash and Silverlight (demo video below!).

In Origami Central, the browsing experience is tied to the toolbar that auto-hides at the top of the window.

Because the toolbar auto-hides, I get a full screen web browsing experience and with a UMPC running at 1024x600 resolution without toolbars and other things taking up useful screen real-estate.

Just like in IE7, I can use the address bar in Origami Central to do web searches. But in Origami Central, when I type something in the address bar (a phrase or URL), it searches through the history of websites I have already visited. I typed in "windows" into the address bar and these 3 previously visited websites came up:

To do web searches, Origami Central provides a really unique way of searching the web using Live Search. When I type in a search term, it provides a list of popular searches that change depending on the term of course. It also provides previous searches I've made.

Basic functionality for web browsing such as adding favorites also exists in Origami Central. In the toolbar, when I click the gadget-looking icon a list of options appears over the website I am on. Those options allow me to add the site to my favorites (which uses the same favorites as IE), add the site's RSS to my RSS feeds, take a snapshot of the site, or use the zoom capabilities.

When I take a snapshot of a website, it takes a complete "freeze" of the page I am at. I can go back to that site and read the site or access links etc. I can even scroll down to view other parts of the site (as long as it's on the same page of course).

My favorites, history, and snapshots are all available in my "Library" by clicking the star icon in the toolbar.

Origami Central also has touch capabilities as well but I think perhaps my demo video will be better at showcasing that feature (as well as the above mentioned features of web browsing in Origami Central. Take a look!

Web Browsing with Origami Central

In the demo video, I utilize the touch capabilities in Origami Central to navigate Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs. You can also see the overall experience of browsing the web via Origami Central first hand. I apologize in advance for some parts of the video (like where it sounds like I said "stylist" instead of stylus).

Stay tuned for Part 2 in which I discuss the new RSS capabilities in Origami Experience 2.0 with Origami Central.

Check out Windows Speech Recognition Macros

2008-04-26T06:47:00Z

The Speech Components Group has announced the availability of Windows Speech Recognition Macros (WSRMacros) Technical Preview. The WSRMacros is a tool designed to extend the Windows Speech Recognition capabilities already in Windows Vista today using Macros. These Macros are triggered using spoken commands using Windows Speech Recognition in Windows Vista.

Download: Windows Speech Recognition Macros Technical Preview

These Macros can perform a single task or a series of tasks. These tasks can be very complex using custom JScript/VBScript actions or as simple as inserting your email address someplace.

You can send feedback on Windows Speech Recognition Macros to listen@microsoft.com. Your questions and comments will help make Windows Speech Recognition Macros even better!

Taking a Closer Look at the Origami Experience 2.0

2008-04-26T04:07:00Z

In the next couple weeks, I'll be doing a 4 part series on the Origami Experience 2.0 which was announced at CES this year. The Origami Experience software is a "pack" of applications designed specifically for the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) running Windows Vista.

The Origami Experience 2.0 software comes with 3 applications that do specific tasks on the UMPC. I'll give a quick overview of these applications in which I'll go into greater detail in my 4 part series of posts about the Origami Experience 2.0.

Origami Central:

Origami Central provides quick access to your Media Library on your UMPC. That means your music, photos and videos. Origami Central lets you play your music, watch your videos and watch photo slideshows. On top of letting you access your media, it also gives you quick access to favorite programs on your UMPC like Microsoft Office OneNote 2007. In the Origami Experience 2.0 - Origami Central comes with a brand new browsing experience. You can now browse the web using Origami Central is full-fidelity web browsing - 100% compatible with IE7. That means you can browse sites that use Flash and other ActiveX controls. It also comes with a RSS feed reader also new to this release.

Origami Now:

Origami Now is a brand new application for the UMPC with the release of Origami Experience 2.0. It is designed to bring you information useful to you very quickly without much interaction. It does this by giving you the ability to customize "tiles". You can navigate between these tiles and their information. What kind of information can be in the tiles? You can configure tiles for weather, email, RSS and more.

Origami Picture Password:
You can use Origami Picture Password to login to your UMPC.

I'm using the Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC to run the Origami Experience 2.0 on (exact model number and specs here). It works wonderfully for me.

So I've broken up my 4 part series on the Origami Experience 2.0 software into the following parts:

Origami Experience2.0 Part 1: Web Browsing
Origami Experience 2.0 Part 2: RSS
Origami Experience 2.0 Part 3: Media
Origami Experience 2.0 Part 4: Origami Now

Expect part 1 soon!

Live Mesh Technology Preview Announced

2008-04-23T04:14:00Z

Today Microsoft is unveiling a technology preview to a really neat new software+services platform called Live Mesh. Live Mesh is a brand new platform that helps your devices act together through the internet enabling users such as you and me to manage, access, and share their files and applications from nearly anywhere. By bringing user's files, applications, and devices together along with the combination of social networking (such as with news feeds) - Live Mesh creates a unique platform experience.

First and foremost Live Mesh is a new platform. The first phase of the technology preview process provides a foundational experience that exposes core concepts and functionality of the platform. In the near future developers can expect to be able to take advantage of Live Mesh to extend their software to the Web, and their services to the desktop and devices.

Today's technology preview is a pre-Beta release designed to get early feedback to make the platform even better.

I've been lucky to be given the chance to play with Live Mesh for the last couple weeks. I've had a great experience with Live Mesh so far and thought I'd share my experiences with you.

So the first thing I did was logged in to http://www.mesh.com/. Live Mesh of course supports Windows Live ID. After logging in with my Windows Live ID - I am taken to the screen where I can add/remove devices to my "mesh".

To set up folders to sync with my devices in my "mesh" I need to go to my Live Desktop. This is essentially your device in the cloud where I can manage all my Live Mesh Folders when I'm not in front of one of my usual PC or mobile. You create folders in your Live Desktop and choose which devices you want to sync them with (after you add them to your Live Mesh of course). You'll notice I have three PCs added to my Live Mesh.

On my Live Desktop I have three folders I've created. The first Live Mesh Folder I created was the one you see here called "Mesh". I use this folder to toss files that get synced to the Live Mesh cloud - and then synced to all my Live Mesh devices. You'll notice that the Live Mesh folks have tried to present a familiar approach to file management. You can even drag the folder window to any place on your Live Desktop.

After creating a folder on my Live Desktop, I can choose to sync it with specific devices in my Live Mesh. I chose to sync with all devices. Because the Live Mesh client was installed on my PCs, the "Mesh" Live Mesh Folder automatically appeared on the desktop of all of those PCs I chose to sync with.

When I open the "Mesh" Live Mesh Folder on any of my Windows Vista PCs the standard Windows Explorer window opens but with a Live Mesh addition on the right-hand side. The Mesh Bar on the Windows Explorer window lets me access my Live Mesh information for that folder.

Each Live Mesh Folder has a News Feed where it displays a history of information like when files were added, when they were removed, as well as who added them and notes. This experience exists both on my Windows desktops as well as my Live Desktop.

A Live Mesh client sits on my Windows PCs in the taskbar. I can use it to quickly access my Live Mesh "stuff" (Live Mesh Folders, devices and news).

I have three tabs that you can switch between my news feed for all my Live Mesh Folders, my Devices, and my news.

From the Devices tab, I can use Live Mesh Remote Desktop to easily access any of my PCs. Building on the awesome Windows Remote Desktop technologies - I can login to any of my PCs running Live Mesh. You'll see that Live Mesh Remote Desktop also has a Mesh Bar.

I can also login to my PCs remotely using Live Mesh via the website as well.

I continue to use Live Mesh for syncing data and the overall all-out access to my information and devices. The above is just a quick overview of my experiences. To quickly recap - Live Mesh provides me with a way to manage and interact with all my data, devices and people.

You can read more about today's Live Mesh Technology Preview announcement from Amit Mital who is the General Manager for Live Mesh on the Windows Live Dev Blog. Keep your eyes on the Live Mesh Blog as well. Noah Edelstein, Group Program Manager for Mesh Platform Experiences, has a in-depth post discussing Live Mesh and possibly answering your questions about Live Mesh - like why you should care about this platform experience.

Channel 10's Nic Fillingham has a great hands-on video of Live Mesh worth checking out! Watch it here in Silverlight bliss:

Hands on with Live Mesh

I believe this is Nic's first video since joining the Channel 10 Team. I look forward to seeing more from Nic in the future.

Oh and Jon Udell over on Channel 9 got a chance to sit down with Ray Ozzie to discuss his role as Chief Software Architect and discusses Microsoft's overall software+services strategy.

You can sign up to get an invite to test Live Mesh for yourself here by logging in with your Windows Live ID.

Check out these new Sidebar Gadgets for Windows Vista

2008-04-22T05:49:00Z

Today I've got some pretty neat new Sidebar Gadgets to tell you about for Windows Sidebar.

If you're into Baseball, you'll like this new Gadget. Fox Sports on MSN is offering a Fantasy Baseball Gadget brought to you by People-Ready Business from Microsoft.

With this Gadget, you can check up on Fantasy Baseball news, check player stats, and create your own roster. This Gadget requires Adobe Flash so if you're running Windows Vista x64 (like me), you'll need to run Windows Sidebar under 32-bit. To do that in Windows Vista x64 - just go to C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Sidebar and execute sidebar.exe from there.

Download the People-Ready Fantasy Baseball Gadget here.

Another new Gadget to check out is the brand new MSN Video Gadget for Windows Sidebar. The MSN Video Team announced its availability today along with some highlights as to what you can do with the Gadget on their blog.

Download the MSN Video Gadget here.

Got a Sidebar Gadget recommendation? Would love to hear them!

Indexer Status Sidebar Gadget for Windows Search

2008-04-11T06:47:00Z

Brandon Paddock, who works on the Windows Shell Team here at Microsoft, wrote a Windows Sidebar Gadget that displays the status of the Windows Search Indexer.

Download the Indexer Status Gadget here.

I don't know about you but I think it's kind of neat being able to see how many files Windows Search has indexed on my PC right from my desktop. For folks giving the Windows Search 4.0 Preview a try, you can enable "Index Now" functionality (which is reflected in the above screenshot).

Brandon Paddock developed this gadget on his own time and isn't officially supported by Microsoft. Brandon also developed the Start++ search add-on for Windows Vista.

New Languages Available for Windows Search 4.0 Preview

2008-04-10T17:18:00Z

We're announcing quite a few new languages available of the Windows Search 4.0 Preview today.

The following languages are available for download for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008:

Arabic (Only for Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008)
Brazilian Portuguese
Bulgarian
Chinese - Simplified
Chinese - Traditional
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English (There is no MUI pack for English)
Estonian
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew (Only for Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008)
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Norwegian - Bokmål
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbian - Latin
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian

Please take note that the following languages are available on Windows XP/Windows Server 2003 only with an MUI pack:

Bulgarian
Croatian
Estonian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Romanian
Serbian - Latin
Slovak
Slovenian
Thai
Ukrainian

Got feedback on the Windows Search 4.0? We've got several places that you can go to leave your feedback:

For general discussion with Windows Search engineers and team members you can head over to this MSDN Forum.
For developer discussion, head over to this MSDN Forum.
For general (no-reply) feedback on Windows Search, you can submit feedback here.

Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Now in Beta

2008-04-07T20:33:00Z

As you may have read, the Beta release of Windows Live OneCare 2.5 is now available on Microsoft Connect for folks to start testing. I of course went ahead and installed Windows Live OneCare 2.5 to give it a spin myself. So what's new with Windows Live OneCare 2.5? After installing the Beta myself, I didn't notice anything different over the non-Beta version. I decided to ping the Windows Live OneCare team to see what we can expect with Windows Live OneCare 2.5. They tell me that the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 release is mainly what they call an "under-the-hood" release. That means that we won't see any big new features like the great OneCare Circle introduced in 2.0. Going forward with the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta - continue to expect the improvements and changes to remain "under-the-hood" and not very noticeable in the UI.

In testing the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta, I noticed after installing it on one of my PCs and signing in with my Windows Live ID that contains my OneCare Subscription - it was not displaying my OneCare Circle. This was because I was running the non-Beta version of Windows Live OneCare on my other PCs. When signing in with your Windows Live ID that contains your OneCare Subscription in Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta - it creates a new subscription for testing purposes. In order for me to take advantage of my complete OneCare Circle, I will need to install Windows Live OneCare 2.5 on my other PCs. I don't have to worry because this won't affect my OneCare Subscription in any way and I can always uninstall Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta and go back to the non-Beta version of Windows Live OneCare.

Interesting in giving Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta a try? Just click here to go to Microsoft Connect and fill out the short survey. All feedback for Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta should be submitted via Microsoft Connect.

Remember - it's important to stay "green" with Windows Live OneCare. And by that, we mean keeping your OneCare status green ;-)

New Wallpaper for your Windows Vista Desktop: Made by me!

2008-04-06T01:21:00Z

For the last week, I had been using one of the photos I took on my recent trip around Washington State as my desktop wallpaper. It was an image I took in the Columbia River Gorge near an abandoned railroad track. I got down really close to the railroad track for a really interesting shot. I think it looks really neat as a desktop wallpaper so I thought I'd create a range of different sizes of the image to share with you - the readers of the Windows Vista Team Blog - to use as your desktop wallpaper on your PC.

I've created a range of sizes of the wallpaper for you to download depending on your display resolution via Windows Live SkyDrive:

The shot was taken using the Certified for Windows Vista DSLR Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

Let me know what you think!