Recently I stumbled upon a discussion on facial recognition and creating models from them. Came to know that MSN China had lunched a service called "MSN Cartoon Beta".
Chinese is like French to me; I know neither :)

But I thought it would be an awesome feature to have for all Windows Live Services so tried my predict & clicking skills to get it working!
The following video demonstrates how to use the web based page to create MSN Cartoon without learning Chinese :)

Before beginning with the application there is a small web based install which pops-up but you know which buttons to click if you have used Windows for long enough!
The last button click on the page gives you a zip file containing the newly created smiley's for all  your cool expressions... Now stop reading and check the video and the site ;)

URL => http://cartoon.msn.com.cn/ 

If there is enough demand for audio commentary I will add voice to explain the different buttons and it's options.

Assume that you have a lot of contacts on Live Messenger which you would like to use in different applications provided in Vista.  By default you won't have direct access to contact due to security settings (encryption) to protect that information.

There is an easy tweak/option to enable this information.

In Windows Live Messenger go to
Tools -> Options -> Security (Uncheck the box shown below)

Now check your "C:\users\<login Name>\Contacts" folder, you will find a folder with your Live ID name and all your Messenger contacts inside that folder...