Quotes not updating or slow to update

When: Dec 8, 2008

Effect: When attempting to update quotes in Microsoft Money or on MSN Money's Portfolio, the update may take a long time to complete or you may get an error message about not being able to connect to the online quote server.
This is currently under investigation.

12/9 Status: Possible hardware problem under investigation.
12/10 Status: Slowly improving. More likely to experience problems during busier times of the day. (Try again later). We anticipate having all of the affected hardware updated by the end of this week.

You may be able to get quotes updated by simply trying again or by limiting the number of quotes to update at one time (In Money Plus, you do this by selecting Pick Quotes to Download after clicking Update Prices in the Portfolio view).

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

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)

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.