A look at: Live Mesh
As life gets more digital by the minute and you have personal data floating around on several devices; who wouldn’t want to be able to access all of it from anywhere at any time? Well, now you can.
Most of us have daily contact with at least two computers, one at home and one at work or school. Added to that is your mobile device. So three devices with different data on them, but all important to you right?
No matter which of your computers/handhelds you’re using, Microsoft Live Mesh (available as beta) brings your information to all of them. This will not only provide you with access to your information regardless of whichever device you’re on; it also acts as a great backup solution. Since your information is synchronized onto multiple devices you won’t lose it if one of them breaks/gets stolen/lost etc. The seamless synchronization of Live Mesh helps keeping all of your files up to date, on all of your devices.
So what if you’re at an Internet Café and want to access your information; Will you have to synchronize all your information onto that computer to? The answer is no. Live Mesh also provides you with a web-access feature called “Live Desktop” where you’ll find all of your synchronized files as well.
So what’s the catch? Well, you’ll have to sign up for a Windows Live ID and there is a 5GB storage limit for the Live Desktop, but that’s pretty much it.
As Live Mesh is still in an early beta stage it shouldn’t come as a surprise that everything isn’t in place yet. As I’m writing you’re able to use the service with Windows, Mac OS X and the Live Desktop (web access). Still to come is support for mobile devices.
Let’s take a closer look and setup Live Mesh in a real world scenario. In the following scenario I have miscellaneous information on two computers that I want to synchronize using Live Mesh: a Mac Mini running Mac OS X and a Netbook running Windows 7. Let’s get crackin’!
Using Live Mesh is easy as pie. If you want to setup a new device for synchronization or if you want to access your files from the Live Desktop, all you have to do is navigate to http://www.mesh.com and sign in.
Once signed in you’ll see the below screen. This is where you add/remove devices and access your Live Desktop.
WINDOWS 7
As I don’t have any devices setup yet I’ll start with adding my Windows 7 netbook by clicking the “Add Device” button. Make sure the right OS and CPU architecture is chosen in the dropdown and then click the Install button. Note that Windows 7 is not available to choose in the dropdown. This is probably due to the fact that Windows 7 has not yet been made available to the mainstream. If you have Windows 7 just choose the correct CPU architecture and you’re set to go.
Clicking the install button will initiate a file download of the Live Mesh software (1.4MB).
Choose to Run the application to start the installation right away or save it to run it later. I’ll choose to Run the installation right away.
When the setup finishes you’ll be prompted to fill in your Windows Live ID. Enter your credentials and click Sign In.
The next step is to add your computer to Live Mesh. Choose an appropriate name and click the Add Device button. Note: as this is a Windows computer you have the option to “Enable synchronization enhancements and Live Mesh Remote Desktop”. This option will enable faster file transfers between Windows devices on the same network and add the functionality to remote control your computer from anywhere. To learn more about this: http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=live_mesh&market=EN-US&querytype=keyword&query=ezimitpo
You’ve now completed the Live Mesh setup and it’s time to choose which files/folders you want to be synchronized. All you have to do is navigate to the file/folder you want to be synchronized, right click and choose Add File/Folder to Live Mesh.
You’ll now have the option to specify an alternate folder name to be displayed in the Live Desktop as well as synchronization options. Click the OK button to finish.
When you’ve added a folder to Live Mesh you can easily tell that it’s a part of your mesh by the folder icon that has turned blue.
When you open a folder that’s a part of your mesh you also get the additional toolbar (Notifier bar) with easy access to the news, devices and folders.
Mac OS X
The setup procedure for Mac OS X is pretty much identical as for Windows, but I’ll cover it all, just in case 
Once again you navigate to http://www.mesh.com, Sign In and click Add Device. At the moment you’ll have to click the link “Limited Mac Tech Preview now available” to be able to add your Mac device. Once that’s done, click Select to initiate the installation.
Choose to open with DiskImageMounter or Save File to run the installation at a later time. I’ll select to open with DiskImageMounter.
Drag the Live Mesh icon to your Applications folder and then double-click to launch the application.
Enter your Windows Live ID credentials and Sign In.
Choose an appropriate name and click the Add Device button.
This is where Windows and Mac OS X start to behave just slightly different. To add a folder to your mesh you can’t just right-click to add, you’ll have to click the Live Mesh icon and select Add Existing Folder.
Browse to the folder you want to add, check synchronization options and click OK.
Notice that the folders you add to your mesh do not turn blue (as they already are blue that would be kind of.. stupid?) but instead gets branded with the Live Mesh icon. Clever solution ey?
When you open up the folder you’ll get the full Notifier bar.
In summary
We’ve now added a Windows and a Mac device to our Mesh. We’ve chosen to synchronize the selected folders between the computers and the Live Desktop. This means we’ll have access to the selected folders regardless of which of the computers we’re using and all changes to the files will be synchronized to the other computer and the Live Desktop. Have a look:
Windows 7 device:
Mac OS X device:
Live Desktop:
