As Microsoft, we are the Persian forces, coming to the free land of Yahoo to ask for submission or some such nonsense. Sunnyvale gets to be the bastion of liberal thought, while Redmond is portrayed as a uninspired collective wanting nothing more than to grow in size.
I can really only appreciate the design of the joke, because as a part of Microsoft, I have a more humane view of the company than the rest of the world. The part of this that upsets me is how handcuffed we are. There’s no effective way we at Microsoft can comment on this sort of thing with the same tone; it’d only be funny to my co-workers, while for anyone else it’d be in extremely poor taste.
As a postscript, you’ve got to enjoy the irony of an ad for this parody appearing on Facebook.
My Friday started as innocently enough. Email and breakfast at my cafe, then a long slow mass transit trip to the airport for a flight to LAX. The Red Bull HQ wasn’t the sort of place LA cabbies seemed familiar with (but really, are they familiar with anything?), but I got myself there nonetheless. The Code Trip vs. Red Bull Party was largely an exercise in drooling over the gorgeous office space Red Bull calls home in Santa Monica (many thanks to Nate Warner for rolling out the waving wooden carpet).
After a riveting demo of SQL Data Services from Dave Robinson, I adjourned for the evening. Saturday was spent with my good friends Josh Fulton from Incase and the Nemesis of Evil and an early night of sleep.
For those that want to manage their Hotmail account (now known as Windows Live Hotmail) from Outlook 2003 or 2007, you can download the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector free of charge. You can also view your Windows Live Hotmail contacts in Outlook with the connector. So go check out all the benefits. I just installed it and it works great.
The home for technology enthusiasts in the Microsoft stable (and my first home with the company), Channel 10, recently launched a beautiful site upgrade.
The revised site looks more polished and is easier to read than its previous incarnation. Duncan and the development team also included a shiny new media player with embed code for spreading your favourite videos far and wide.
Joshua Allen recently dug into the rumor that IdentityMine, one of Microsoft’s most valuable partners, uses Macs for their cross-platform interactive design work.
You can imagine my consternation when I visited the offices of such a great partner, and discovered a bunch of their developers and designers using Macintoshes! In this interview, I try to get to the bottom of things and find out why the heck they are using Macs.
Nathan Dunlap demos how he does his day-to-day work using Vista and Expression Blend on the Mac, talks about his favorite software packages, provides some tips and tricks, and more. Be sure to watch all the way through for a humorous anecdote about his Macintosh overheating and melting (I’m not kidding).
In the future I imagine we’ll have impossibly affordable teams of virtual architects and coders and testers to construct our flippant software ideas into living, breathing wetware. Until that warm and shiny Tuesday though, we have Angus.
I’m lucky enough to have quite a few developers at my disposal (yay!).
If you have a killer idea and want it built out in the form of a Windows Live Quick App (either new or enhancement to the existing ones) tell me!
Getting a shot at the GDC spotlight certainly sounds exciting. Unleashing the citizens of the Interweb on console gaming is going to be very interesting.
And once you’ve absorbed the new features of the framework and tools, put them to great use in the Dream Build Play contest! Finalists get cash, the chance to intern at Microsoft Research, Lionhead or Rare Game studios, the chance to show off your game at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).
I was so stoked to see the last finalists’ games. Even if you don’t want money, glory, or a new job related to games, make this little pm happy over here in the blogosphere. I loved what people came up with that no one ever expected. They were very addicting. :)_
For those of you prepping to head out east for the Olympics next year. I don’t see China as an option in the Live Search for Mobile client yet, but then again my phone wouldn’t work over there.
We’ve launched our Live Search Maps site in Chinese ! Not only that but we have street data for China! The first public release supports most basic map and local search features across China with details for 114 cities, plus a Public Transit feature for 11 cities, but without Driving Directions and Public Collections; we will enable Public Collections in the QFE, and add Driving Directions in a future release. Enjoy! CP…(read more)
If the launch of Office 2007 was a new day at the office, is today only your second day on the job?
Here’s the official blurb…
“Wehave managed to complete the engineering work slightly earlier than we anticipated and are making the download available from OfficeOnline.
What can you expect in Service Pack 1?
SP1 focuses on the issues that matter most to our customers based on direct customer feedback and error reporting tools. You can expect:
Stability.Using data from the Dr. Watson bug-reporting system, we’ve fixed the top software issues for each application in the 2007 Office system. The 2007 Office system SP1 also improves the stability of server components in the 2007 Office system and delivers compatibility with Windows Server® 2008, so you can confidently plan for future upgrades.
Performance. The 2007 Office system SP1 improves performance in applications and servers. Performance improvements can be found in Microsoft Office Excel® 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007, and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007.
Security. By incorporating incremental advances in security and results from application testing, the 2007 Office system SP1 offers home and office users better protection against malicious software and potential threats to privacy.
Service Pack 1 eliminates distractions and performance issues that disrupt workflow, allowing employees to be more productive in the work that they do. SP1 is also an important milestone for deploying the 2007 Office system, making it easy to deploy the most secure and reliable version of Office to date.
How do you get it?
Initially, SP1 will be available as a free download from OfficeOnline. SP1 will be made available via Automatic Update in the next 3-6 months, and we’ll issue 30 day advance notice prior to delivering SP1 via automatic update.”
The home for technology enthusiasts in the Microsoft stable (and my first home with the company), 