Microsoft Live Calendar Tutorial

As we announced a few days ago on XatakaWindows, the new graphics finally arrives on the Microsoft Live calendar, renewing the visual style and the user experience closer to the Modern UI style of Windows 8.

I am going to take the opportunity to carry out the step-by-step analysis of this time management application, and discover the power and novelties that it offers me under this new skin.

Share my calendars

One of the things that every web application of today must do in the most complete way is to share the information And the calendar Microsoft Live meets initial expectations, although because of the war started by Google, it does not cover everything it could.

So, by going into the share menu, I can give it Co-Owner, Read-Write, Read-Only, and Restricted-Read-Only permissions to any other Live account.

Another way to share, but only in reading mode, is by obtaining a link to be able to be consumed from a web browser (HTML), to be able to import a calendar in ICS format or a feed reader (XML format ). The three formats with the disadvantage of not being able to modify or add entries, only read.

Import or subscribe to other calendars

Another feature that is interesting in Microsoft Live Calendar is the ability to import calendars in ICS format This is a standard format in internet and uses, among many others, Apple iCal, Google with its Calendar, Mozilla Lightning, etc.

I can also subscribe to a dynamic calendar in ICS format, so every time the event feed is updated, the calendar will be automatically refreshed.

To find a good library of sources for this type of subscription, I refer you to the iCalShare page for Hotmail where we access hundreds and hundreds of all kinds of curious or interesting calendars, such as the NASA release schedule or news on the Xbox360.

To bridge the two worlds of my Office on my personal machine and my calendar in the Cloud, I can use a free program called Outlook Connector to fully integrate my Live account, including calendar , in my particular Outlook; this in the event that it is a 2010 or earlier version.

In the case of a 2013 version, it is enough to to directly register my Live account as a normal Outlook account, I can now keep my calendar up to date in either situation.

Views and configuration options

But not only can we display my events in the standard view, but I can restrict the range of visibility to a week or even a single day .

Even more comfortable is the Agenda view, where the different events that I have scheduled in the calendar are grouped together with the date they are registered. So, at a glance, be aware of the schedule I have in the following days.

Finally, I can access a special view where I have the list of all the tasks that I have registered, how long remains to reach its expiration date, and all those that we have completed.

As a small curiosity about the mania of Americans with the weather, I have a five-day forecast of the expected weather. That for me, personally, is worth nothing more than to occupy space in the calendar and give some joy to a minimalist interface.

To end this miniseries, I want to give a brief overview of the basic settings that I can adjust in the calendar and that are not much different from any otherThis is how I define which is the primary calendar, what time it starts, what day is the first of the week, if I want to use degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit for the weather forecast (I can also disable whichever is displayed), or the zone hourly; among a few things.

In summary, a simple application that requires close updates to catch up with its competitors, but which currently – within a Windows ecosystem – is of great utility and easeof use.

In XatakaWindows | The new Microsoft Live calendar step by step