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Leave it to Microsoft to turn an upgrade from Beta to Full Release a freaking nightmare. Basically Live Mesh Beta is being shut down and everything you have syncing on the Live Mesh servers will be deleted as of 3/31/2011, yah a week from now. To go with the new version it isn’t a simple upgrade but rather a ridiculous process involving saving all your files, uninstalling Live Mesh Beta, reinstalling Windows Live Mesh and then re-syncing everything.

Dear Microsoft

Have you ever heard of an Upgrade button?

Sincerely

@professor

Dear Live Mesh beta participant,

You’re receiving this message because you used the Live Mesh beta from Microsoft. On March 31, 2011, the beta of Live Mesh will end, and the Live Mesh beta will stop working. After March 31, you won’t be able to access any files stored online in your Live Desktop or connect to your PCs remotely using the Live Mesh software. Microsoft will not be able to help you retrieve any files you have stored online after this date. Your files will also stop syncing between your computers and your Live Mesh online storage. Please read below for actions we recommend you take.

With the new release of Windows Live services, we’ve made a series of changes and improvements across the products. We realize they will have an impact on you and we want to make that as easy as possible for you. We thank you for your continued support of Windows Live services.

Why is this happening?
To deliver a better product for all our customers, we combined several services into a new product called Windows Live Mesh. Windows Live Mesh has several performance and reliability improvements compared to the Live Mesh beta, and with Windows Live Mesh, you can also sync your program settings for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. Learn more.

What you need to do before Live Mesh beta shuts down
To prevent loss of any of your files, please sync all files from your Live Desktop so that you have them on your computer when the Live Mesh beta service is shutdown. To do this, follow these steps:
On your Live Desktop, right-click any Live Mesh folders not yet synced with your computer, and then click Sync with this computer. Make sure all the folders on your Live Desktop have desktop shortcuts.
Select where you want each folder to sync, and then click OK. If a folder has a lot of files, this might take a while. Open each folder and make sure all the files are downloaded.

What you can do moving forward
If you enjoyed the functionality of Live Mesh, we encourage you to install the new Windows Live Mesh. You will first need to uninstall the Live Mesh beta, and then go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mesh to get the latest version of Windows Live Mesh. Before you do this, note the folders that you’re syncing on each computer and if they’re shared with anyone. After you download Windows Live Mesh, you can set up these folders to sync again. Learn more about how to upgrade

Thank you for participating in the Live Mesh beta. We hope you choose to move to Windows Live Mesh.

Sincerely,

The Windows Live team

I have a friend her name is Kyla Covert.  She was a student of mine at Johnson & Wales University.  She has since graduated and is now looking for the job.  I have worked with her on several projects in the last year and she is amazing.

So what does Kyla bring to the table?

Well other than amazing illustrative talent, she’s smart.  These days the word smart seems to be overused and under appreciated.  I don’t use “smart” that often, unless I’m talking about my boy, because frankly I think it’s hard to find smart talent.  What I mean by smart is that you don’t have to explain things to a point where you kill it for the talent to understand what you want.  In fact, with Kyla I under explain things so she can make it her own. I trust her!

I needed a logo done recently and I had an idea in my mind.  I sent Kyla a short 3 sentence email and she simply wrote back “I know exactly what you want”.  A day later she sent me a half a dozen logos that hit the nail right on the head. She just makes things easy.

Why am I writing this Post

Today when there is so much talent out there and employers are knee deep in resumes I think it’s important to highlight the real talent.

Kyla is so talented and motivated but to some degree naïve to her own talent. The purpose of this post is to do two things. One help Kyla realize just how talented she is, so she increases her own value and two to help her find THE job. Not just any job but one where she can grow and be utilized.

I have written a few recommendations for students in the past, I don’t write many because I try to focus on helping only on the real talent. To be fair most of my students wouldn’t get a recommendation to run an agency or be a creative director and that’s because they are young both in age and in experience. However I would recommend them whole heartily for a job where they can not only contribute, share ideas and grow with a company but learn from their team. Kyla is just that person. She’ll make a difference on your team, she’ll learn and improve her own skills every day. She’s an investment because she’s loyal and knows that with the right company her growth and success is directly correlated to that of the team/company.

Below is a small preview of Kyla’s work. If you have any questions about Kyla please feel free to email me. I’d be happy to share my feelings about her work ethic, talent and how she’s improved my projects. highfive [(at)] jesserfriedman [(dot)] com you can also find Kyla on Twitter.

Down the street from the University where I teach is a small pizza place called Pizza Queen Aside from their ridiculous name they are also dumb. This sign shown to the left hangs prominently for display above the register. I guess according to this sign paying by check means things are regular price???

Oh and i checked around, it’s against merchant policy for them to do this. So if Amex, Visa, or MasterCard are reading this, feel free to take away their credit card processing machine. Just make sure to cite stupidity for the main reason for the repo.

No matter how many people point out that the sign makes no sense it still remains up. I guess they invested too much money and time creating the sign, to take it down now.