Well it looks like I will have to pay a visit to London this month as Microsoft will be giving out free ice creams around the British capital via the Bing Ice Cream van.

Microsoft have a Bing map which you can follow where the Bing Ice Cream van will be during the month.

I think this is a pretty good way to increase interest in Bing and should prove a very popular way to get more users, who doesn’t like free ice creams?

Edit: And now you can add your support for the summer and Bing’s free ice creams with this new Twibbon.

Over the past few days I have been formulating an idea to create a new Metro inspired site and have been contemplating a name for this new site, currently I am calling it Project Tube. Metro is the new design language from Microsoft as seen on the Zune HD and PC software and Windows Phone 7.

In my quest to find a name, something I think I have done now, I was thinking about what words can be used to sum up Metro and thought it might be interesting to see what the readers of MML think.

Its probably best to only limit the number of words to 2, otherwise all the options will be ticked and if you think I have missed some keywords out just use Other.

Do you Bing or Bing Maps? Do you use Twitter? Then you might want to add this new Twibbon to your picture on Twitter.

(I also have a Windows Phone 7 Series Twibbon on my picture)

You can quickly and easily add the Twibbon to your picture using the control below.

For all you out there who want to own a Windows Phone 7 Series you can now add a Twibbon to your picture on Twitter and Facebook to show everyone else you want one of the phones.

Listening to Paul Thurrott today on Windows Weekly I wondered what Taskbar configuration most people use on Windows 7.

And another poll to see where you position the taskbar on your PC, idea from @Christo27.

A couple of weeks back I shared the link to the first social element for My Microsoft Life using Ning, it was brought to my attention that I should have used Windows Live Groups (I have now set up a group which you can join) to make MML more social and I don’t really know why I didn’t (I guess it would have been easier as everyone reading this site will have a Windows Live ID so it wouldn’t require signing up to a new service).

I always planned to review how the social element worked and so I want to know if you think Ning is the best way for interaction with the readers or if an alternative method would be best.

My intension for My Microsoft Life has always been to set some kind of community, whether that be through a forum or some other social system, as the comment system just doesn’t lend itself to real social interactions.

I have often thought of setting up a forum but to me they don’t seem as social or as useful as some services will allow. To make a useful community I thought about setting up a MML wiki where enthusiasts can add information and keep pages up to date with all the latest news and rumours, but that takes a lot to get it going and it might not prove to be that popular. For the time being I shall be updating a few tables of Microsoft information such as 2010 News, but this lacks the social aspect I am hoping for.

I first used Ning about a year ago to set up a social networking site for university society and over that time they have added quite a few more features and functionality and can offer most of the things I want a Microsoft community to be able to do. So today I have set a Ning site with the sole intension of being the social part of My Microsoft Life where any level of users of Microsoft products can come to share ideas, help each other out and speculate on future releases.

I shall review how the social network is doing in weeks to come and I am open to alternative suggestions for a social element for the site. Aside from some absent features Ning seems to offer lots of ways that Microsoft enthusiasts can interact with each other.

I look forward to seeing you on the social network and hearing what you have to say about the idea.

Take a look at Our Microsoft Life.

This is quite coincidental but this is my 100th post for My Microsoft Life and by my calculation this weekend also marks 6 months since the site first launched. I enjoyed blogging very much over the summer what with all the news of the Zune HD, Windows 7 and the constant threat of a new Windows Live wave. Looking forward seems to be as exciting with Office 2010, Windows Live Wave 4, maybe multiple Windows Mobile version/betas to play with and perhaps even the Courier.

Continuing to look forward I thought I would ask you all for your opinions of the site; the content, the way it functions and the way it looks. Now I am not fishing for compliments (I wouldn’t go as far as to say not to share them) but am interested to know if you think there are areas I could improve on to make the experience of MML better.

One more thing, I have toyed with the idea of setting a forum up to make the site more social where people can share their experiences of Microsoft, its products and its services; what do you think about it?

So please let me know your view by posting comments below.

Thank you very much for reading this blog! :D