I think we would all agree that the internet is an incredibly useful, rewarding and fun thing.  Most of the time.  But we also know that bad stuff can happen.  This week's challenge is about how you protect yourself, your computer, your personal information, and your family.

Maybe you're using some of the security features built into Hotmail or Mail.  You might be using Family Safety to filter websites or control who your kids interact with on-line.  Perhaps you have some other way you guard against potential problems or have a story to share about your own on-line safety/security battles.

Please tag responses to this challenge with Challenge: Safety using the approach outlined in the tagging guidelines.

Thanks and stay safe!

- Marcus

This week's featured member is Greg (a.k.a. Politically Incorrect).  If you've been checking out the cool content list, you'll see Greg has been an amazing contributor to the community!

One of the things that makes Greg so special is his willingness to help his fellow community members as well as his broader set of friends he's met on Windows Live.  He's even gone as far as to recently post a blog entry offering live help (using Windows Live Messenger) to anyone who might need it.

Thanks for helping us build a great community, Greg! 

- Marcus

Wow!  Have you checked out all the great things everyone is posting?  Thanks so much for sharing your stories and tips with your fellow clubhouse members and with us.

With all the posts coming in and with launch just around the corner, it's a great time to recheck the way you're tagging your posts.  Remember, every post needs three required tags:

1. clubhouse so we know it's something you want to share with the community
2. either how-to or story (please don't use both) so we know what type of thing you're sharing
3. and the Product Name(s) (like Writer or Spaces) so we know what your post is highlighting

Thanks again and we're looking forward to launching in the next few weeks and showing off your work to the rest of the world.

- Marcus

How do you balance your work, family, friends, and personal life? 

Please share your stories and how-to tips on what you do to keep up-to-date with appointments, e-mail, and everything else you have going on in your life. 

Have you tried any of the Windows Live for Mobile products?  When you’re on the move, how do you access what you need, when you need it, from wherever you are?  Or when you're at work, how to you keep tabs on your personal life?

One of the things I use to help me is something called Outlook Connector.  I've blogged about it and how it helps me blur the lines between work and home.

Please be sure and use the tagging guidelines in your post and include the Challenge: Balance tag.

Thanks,

Marcus

This week's featured member is Jamie.  He's helped jumpstart the community early with some great posts, and last week responded to our weekly challenge about events with a post about how he's using Windows Live Events as part of his upcoming wedding!  That's quite a testimonial for sure!  We wish him all the best for his upcoming special day.

He's also very willing to give feedback to those of us on the Windows Live and Live Search teams about how we can make our products and services better.

Thank you, Jamie.

With the arrival of summer here in the northern hemisphere (except, it seems, here in the pacific  northwest), Father's Day in the US, and graduation season it seems we all have one event after another on the horizon. 

Those events -- parties, reunions, barbeques, vacations -- can be a lot of fun.  But planning them can sometimes be a bit daunting.  How do you manage everything from sending out invites to organizing who's bringing what to making sure everyone knows where to go?  And how about sharing stories and pictures afterwards?

Please share how you're using Windows Live to make event planning easier and more rewarding for you and your guests.  If you've used Windows Live Events, we definitely would like to hear more about that.  I've posted a little video clip about Windows Live Events up on my blog if you want to learn more about it.

Please don't forget to tag your posts with Challenge: Events along with the other required tags and any optional tags you want to add.

Thanks and hope your summer is off to a great start!

- Marcus

Starting this week, we'll be highlighting some of our clubhouse members that have been particularly active in our community.  Either they have a lot of great posts or maybe they posted one really special thing that uniquely stands out.

Our first featured member is Winston, a consultant from Michigan.  Winston is a member of Microsoft's MVP Program, which stands for Most Valuable Professional.  MVPs are an independent group of experts from all around the world who volunteer to share their expertise with others. 

In Winston's case, he's sharing his in-depth knowledge of e-mail, ranging from Outlook Express to Windows Mail to Hotmail to Windows Live Mail.  He's gone back into his blog and retagged several great posts to share as part of the Windows Live community.  You can see them listed by his name up on our Cool Content page. 

Also, as you can see from his current profile picture (shown here), he's a big Detroit Red Wings hockey fan.  So you know he’s totally happy about the fact they just won the Stanley Cup!

Thank you, Winston, for all your help in building the Windows Live community.  We look forward to featuring more members in the future as we see what people post.  Please keep all those great how-to tips, stories, and challenge responses coming!

- Marcus

As Marty talked about in her post a while back and as I mentioned in my videos about tagging, the posts you're creating and tagging are going to be showcased all across the new Windows Live community web sites. 

To give you a better feel for how this is all going to work and look, I've put together this brief little "sneak peek" video of what you'll see when the full-blown community sites launch soon.

Sneak Peek Video:

We hope you like what you see.  And as always, we welcome your feedback -- please leave a comment below.  The stage is being set for the world to see all your great stuff!

- Marcus

How important is it to you to stay connected to everyone from anywhere at any time?  How do you maintain your "connections?"

This week's challenge is all about how you keep in touch with people.  Please let us know what you do to stay connected and what role Windows Live plays in helping you.  As always, we're looking for everything from how-to tips all the way to stories about how you keep connected.  Please make sure and tag your post with Challenge: Connections using the tagging guidelines.

I've started the ball rolling with a brief post about how I use Windows Live Messenger as my main connection "hub".

Thanks for all your contributions so far!

- Marcus

There have been a few comments and questions about how the tagging approach works for the new Windows Live clubhouse and our overall Windows Live community.  I've put together the brief two part screencast video that hopefully helps explain this a bit more.

Part 1: Overview and Guidelines

Part 2: Using Windows Live Writer for Tagging

Thanks again for all your posts so far.  It's great to see all the interesting and fun things people are doing with Windows Live. 

Happy tagging, and please let us know if you have need any more information about tagging or have any other questions.

- Marcus