Windows Live Local addin for Outlook

The utterly amazing Eileen Brown (http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/default.aspx) will be posting this Windows Live Local for Outlook later today. In fact it was posted a few hours ago but somewhere there is a +5 hours time zone change that has got me scratching my ever receding hairline.

So. Windows Live Local for Outlook. The brief skinny:

Outlook. Exchange. Calendar event. That little box marked "Location" that has always been pretty useless now becomes fantastic. But WAIT. Don't all go running off to get your copy now - anyone on the 2007 Beta program as at today cannot install it. The installer wants Outlook 2002 or Outlook 2003 installed and it must be the "US English" version (don't get me started). Fortunately some of us have a VM with Windows XP and Outlook 2003 to demonstrate RPC over HTTPs before some Marketing type got hold of it, called it "Outlook Anywhere" and means I have to rewrite all of my configuration article.

So let's assume you've got Outlook 2003 and have installed LEO. What now?

New Calendar Item. Ooh, new tab called "Location". Put in the Start (eg Home or Office). Click the green arrow. The map zooms to it or at least pretty close to it. Put in your destination (which gets picked up from Location in the first tab if you completed that). Click the green arrow. Here you go Sir, directions, distance, map, travel time, option to print the map and directions. Also a tick to adjust the start time - you have just been told when you need to set off so that made sense.

Upsides:
1. Travel time is on there. You can modify that when you discover the average speed from Beverly Hills to Colorado across 1,000 miles is 65mph or the commute across London in 18 minutes when you know for sure it will be a whole lot more.
2. Directions on there.
3. You can start from "Home", "Business" or "Other" which you can set. No need to retype each time.

Downsides:
1. Would be useful to put the map and directions into the Calendar item so it goes to all attendees as a PDF - especially useful for those outside your org / not on Exchange.
2. Navigate around the map to find your start point or end point when it is not on the list and you cannot just double click to add in a point.
3. "Home", "Business" and "Other" must be in the list and you cannot just move the points to be exact.
4. The default location needs setting. I don't really need a full map of the US centred on Nebraska, can I set that myself please?
5. Adding the travel time to the appointment would ideally be a separate appointment "Travelling to" rather than part of the appointment - or at least an option for it.
6. New Appointment is defaulting to "Busy". I'm going to be "Out of Office" kind of by inference???

Summary:
Very good idea. Certainly a useable Beta, especially in the US. Would I buy it? Nope. Would I use it as a freebie Add In? Almost certainly. Need to check delegate access so the secretarial staff can set it up for their managers.

Download it today, install it today. But always keep a VM on hand. Just in case. Now move along - nothing more to see here.