Update: This article is now out of date. Please refer to my newer updated article called "Windows Phone 7 Feature Availablity Matrix: The Mango Edition". It contains updated information that applies to Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). This article is being kept PURELY for historical purposes (to watch the rollout of features as they slowly make their way to more countries in each version. Thanks!
Windows Phone 7 is available in many different countries across the world, but where you live depends on how much of the experience you are able to get. The 3 major features on the Windows Phone revolve around availability of online services and they are the Zune Marketplace, Xbox Live and Bing Local search. Microsoft has not made each of these 3 services available in every country that they are launching Windows Phone in and therefore have created a mess of what services are available on the phone in each country (with some countries even having partial access to some services).
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The Zune MP3 player and associated marketplace and PC software were first launched in the US in 2006. Between the launch and October 2010, these services were available only in the US and Canada, but on October 11th 2010 the PC software and the marketplace were made available to other countries in the world to coincide with the worldwide launch of Windows Phone 7 which links in with these services. The marketplace is only available in some parts in some countries, such as in Australia where we can access the video, movie rental and Windows Phone 7 apps sections of the marketplace, but not the music section that's available in some other countries. So you can download here in Australia is version 4.7 of the Zune PC Software and it's actually a very decent media management solution which is extremely stylish, simple and quick unlike iTunes 10. The user interface is based on a style called Metro which is now used on the Windows Phone 7 devices and Windows Live Messenger 2011. This software is the only way that Windows Phone 7 devices will be able to sync with a computer and will only sync Music, Podcasts, Videos, Apps and Updates.This article will take a look at the Zune PC Software and the features you can use in Australia and then show you the additional features the US have and that hopefully Australia will receive next year. To download the software visit 
Audacity is a very powerful tool that you can use to record and edit audio. It's pretty easy to use, very powerful, works on Windows, Mac and Linux and is totally FREE! This is a tutorial for those who need a bit of help using Audacity for the first time. For those of you on the Mac who wish to use GarageBand, I'd recommend that. GarageBand has a specific podcast section that will make life easy for you. For everyone else on Windows, this is how to use Audacity on Windows. It goes through every step from installing, to setting up the LAME MP3 Encoder to recording, editing and exporting. If you find this tutorial useful, please tell me, and if you think it needs updating or something extra added, also please let me know. You can find contact links on the left of the page.
Yesterday, Microsoft finalised its Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite and made it available for download. The Windows Live Essentials are pieces of software that are designed to compliment Windows and add extra functionality not built into Windows itself. Many of the applications in the Windows Live Essentials are applications that used to be included with Windows (such as an email program, a photo editor, a movie maker, instant messaging program and parental control software). Microsoft took most of the programs that weren't a key part of an operating system (such as all those programs mentioned above) out of Windows 7 (they were all included in Windows Vista) to make the operating system less bloated, to allow them to update them more frequently outside the Windows schedule and probably to avoid another anti-trust case against them. So there is a new version of this suite of software with plenty of changes and many little features and additions designed to make the suite integrate into Windows 7 effectively.
Facebook Places, the new location tracking service which is a copy of FourSquare was launched in Australia yesterday and already it is concerning me. The service works by tracking where a Facebook user on a mobile device is using the GPS in that mobile device and then when the arrive to a location that has GPS co-ordinates registered with Facebook, prompts the user to Check-In that they are currently at that place. That information is then shared to their friends in the news feed. A few people I know have commenced using it and already I know where someone's house is (with a map) and that someone was at my local McDonalds at 2am last night. Anyone who is friends on their profile could see this information and with the number of friends that some people have on their profiles these days, that's a lot of people to be telling where you are currently. The service I personally believe is dangerous and will encourage stalkers and so here is a guide on how to disable it if you do not wish to use it at all (like myself).
With the Windows Live Essentials 2011 reaching the RTM stage today and being made available publicly to Windows Vista and 7 users + Facebook Chat integration being rolled out to Australian users, it's time to prep your Windows Live IDs so that you can take advantage of these new features (especially in Messenger). Microsoft realised a few years ago that creating another social network would be a complete waste of time, money and resources because the public had already chosen the services they want and would stick with them (Facebook, Wordpress, Youtube, Digg etc). Accordingly, Microsoft decided to turn it's Windows Live service into a place that simply aggregated all the content from those other services into one place so that it is easier to keep a track of and then link that into it's extremely popular instant messaging and email services (Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail) to create a central social dashboard. For all this to work though, the user needs to link up these different social networks to their Windows Live ID in a process called "Connecting Services To Your Profile". Windows Live Messenger 2011 also uses more of the information from your Windows Live Profile & Contacts so therefore these need to be updated accordingly. Finally the the entire Windows Live ecosystem now has much improved privacy settings that are also probably worth checking out, to make sure that all of this information is going only to the people who you wish to see it.
