Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Further details on October MSN Money update

When: October 23

Primary updates include:
Redesigned Investing Home page
A few new calculators including a Driving License quiz
Update to the Deluxe Portfolio for Vista users (all Vista users of the Deluxe Portfolio will be prompted to update/install)

One update will impact Microsoft Money 2007:
Due to an update to Windows Live ID (Passport), Sharing a Money file with multiple Live Ids will be disabled. We recommend that you follow the Stop Sharing help topic in Money to disable any secondary IDs allowed to sign into your Money files. To continue sharing your Money file with more than one user, you can create a new WLID that all users know and then associate your Money file to that "shared" WLID. You can change the WLID for a file by going to File - Password Manager.

This update should not result in any downtime. More information can be found on the MSN Money Status Page

Monday, October 06, 2008

October Site Update

When: On or around Oct 23rd

Effect:

Some features may not be available for a few hours after market hours. This may include:

My Accounts
Portfolio
Bill Pay
My Money

Duration: From approximately 2 to 9 PM (Pacific)

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Microsoft MVP Award 2009

I've just received this email:
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.
It means that I am now starting my 11th year as a Microsoft MVP.
To be honest, I was surprised that I received it this year, as my posting to newsgroups was much less than in previous years. I've focussed more on the http://moneymvps.org/ website and this blog as I feel it has a wider reach. In addition, it saves me repeating answers to questions that I have answered before. I've actually been dipping into the newsgroups a lot less recently. I've a number of short articles to write for the website, and I am trying to overhaul some of the product pages to allow me to update them easier and for them to perform better (they retrieve data directly from Amazon, and I am finding their web services a little unreliable).
The MVP award also gives me an invitation to Redmond (which will be in March 2009). I didn't visit this year, and as yet I'm not sure whether I will next at present, due to the uncertain (nay, lack of) job. Sometimes fellow MVPs get to visit the Money team - maybe that'll be possible next year.