About two weeks ago, I blogged about the Live Mesh Tech Preview.

As you can’t have failed to have noticed, Microsoft recently had their annual PDC conference and announced a plethora of new products and technologies (Windows 7, Windows Azure, Live Services, etc).

The new version of Live Mesh was one of the big items.  If you’re a developer – you’ll get a lot more excited by the info here.

If you’re a general IT user or IT pro, then you’ll be pleased to see what Mesh now offers.

Expanding from my original blog posting, the new Live Mesh Beta offers:

Support for Mac OS X (10.5.1 or higher): Mesh is becoming truly multi-platform, allowing you to group and access all of your information together, irrespective of platform.

Support for Windows Mobile (6.0 or higher): Even on the move, Mesh is supported on your phone.  I have it installed on my main phone and “emergency” phone – see the screenshot above of the devices now in my Mesh.  Right now – any photos I take on my phones automatically enter my Mesh and get synchronised onto the cloud and onto my main Tablet PC.  I can also dump “CD of the week” into my Mesh folder on my notebook, which gets synchronised back onto the two phones.

Support for WAP access: browse to http://m.mesh.com to access your Mesh files from your WAP-enabled phone.  Although not as rich as Windows Mobile (as there’s probably no support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc), you can probably still view pictures and listen to music from your phone.

Three Member Roles: Readers are members who can only, well, read folder contents.  Contributors can view, add and change but not invite new people to a Mesh folder.  Owners can do, well, anything.

P2P Sync: Yes – now you can set machines to sync directly to another machine through Live Mesh, but without the files ending up on your Live Desktop (and hence, eat into your current 5GB quota).  So – I can now set my Windows Media Center box at home to sync all of my TV recordings directly onto my Tablet PC.  Even better – I can sync these recordings through Mesh to my sister in Edinburgh, instead of periodically sending her DVDs of TV recordings.  I can even P2P sync to multiple devices, should I require!

Drag and Drop: Your Live Desktop will allow you to drag and drop files from your own PC onto the folders that run within your Internet browser.  Treat your web browser as any other computer folder!

There are many more features in Live Mesh, but I’ve described the core new ones (that I haven’t already covered in my earlier blog).

Live Mesh has certainly changed the way that I work.  A few good examples of how my life is made easier:

• As I mentioned previously, I keep all my OneNote notebooks and Internet Explorer Favorites synchronised between all of my computers.  It doesn’t matter whether I log onto my home PC, my Tablet PC or my Windows Media Center PC – all my OneNote data and IE Favorites are consistently synchronised.  I can choose to sync any number of folders between any number of machines, if I so choose (with no limitations).
• I keep important “current-work” files synchronised onto my Live Desktop within Mesh.  This is my 5GB storage “on the cloud”, so to speak.  The files are backed up here, but are also accessible anywhere.  Should I need to log onto a client PC to access a particular file, I can do so.
• I can share folders to anyone I choose.  I’ve already cited an example of how I can share my TV recordings with my sister, who lives 120 miles away.  I also have files relating to another business I help out in my spare time – the Live Mesh folders mean we don’t need to keep e-mailing files across, and I’m always guaranteed the latest version of any file/folder that has been tagged as a Mesh folder.

Mesh will continue to grow in functionality but, even in its current beta state, it’s a fantastically solid, reliable and extremely useful technology.  Synchronising save games across many PCs, or photos with family, is all seamless, easy and accessible.