Alex Barnett's blog : Microsoft

Moving my blog

alexbarn — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:38:00 GMT

OK, so I moved my new Alex Barnett blog to here for a number of reasons, explained here at my, er, new blog.

I've not met Frank, but I know about his shirt.

alexbarn — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:18:00 GMT

I've not met Frank Arrigo in person, but I know about his shirt.

In the latest episode of the 'Frank and His Shirt' reality show series, the hunt is on for an apparent posuer.

The background to this rather potracted saga is a story unto itself, even getting press coverage in the local IT rags (local = Australia in Frank's case).

Windows Live QnA service - public beta

alexbarn — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:43:00 GMT

Congrats to Betsy and the team: the Windows Live QnA service is now in public beta.

I've been on the private beta for a little while and turned to it for help for a couple of things when I got stuck. One example was asking for good seafood restaurants in Seattle. I tried out one of the recommendations and was not let down...it works!

Update: TechCrunch picks this up.

YouTube video - How to - using Windows Movie Maker

alexbarn — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:31:00 GMT

A video on how to make a YouTube video using Windows Movie Maker, on YouTube, made using Windows Movie Maker...

Top 10 Ways to Light Up Your Windows Vista Apps

alexbarn — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 22:58:00 GMT

Somasega introduces the 'Top 10 Ways to Light Up Your Windows Vista Apps'

1. Follow the Windows Vista style guidelines
2. Enrich the user experience
3. Enable users to visualize, organize, and search
4. Run securely
5. Design for reliability and manageability
6. Establish a customer feedback loop
7. Build for connected systems
8. Bring data to the user with RSS
9. Make document data accessible
10. Build for mobility

RSS feeds, OPMLs and Grazr

alexbarn — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 22:37:00 GMT

Kevin Briody of the Windows Live team has published the RSS feeds he subscribes to as OPML files for your feedreader. Some good feeds worth checking out there, including a bunch of Windows Live individual employee and team blogs.

Kevin, one way of displaying these as a blogroll is to use Grazr. Below is your OPML file for the Windows Live team blogs rendered inside the Grazr ui:. Just wack in the url of any OPML file here and then copy and paste the code...

I have to update my OPML file, but you can browse mine at my blog's left hand nav.

Private equity buyouts and crack

alexbarn — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 21:52:00 GMT

Mitch Ratcliffe spotted a column published ealier this month on the FT. The article, written columinst John Plender, proposes that a leveraged buyout of Microsoft by private equity bankers would be a good thing. As Mitch points out, this scenario would be a good thing for the private equity bankers and er, that's pretty much it.

I can't see the whole article (behind a paywall) but from the citation Mitch provides I think I can help Mitch out on his question around what was being smoked at the FT that day - it begins with a 'c' and it rhymes with smack.

Windows Live WiFi - beta testers wanted!

alexbarn — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 20:10:00 GMT

Laura John (who I used to work with while we were both at MSDN / TechNet), has blogged about something I've not heard of before...Windows Live WiFi:

"We provide dial-up access to a ton of users across the United States but we've also been working on a stealth project that we're now ready to Beta -- Windows Live WiFi. This version is pretty basic, but you'll want to be in on the Beta, I'm sure, because there are some very cool and incredibly useful features coming."

The Windows Live WiFi team blog (Un-Wired) has more details and is currently looking for beta testers...

IE7 - RCs, Changes and CSS

alexbarn — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:04:00 GMT

As you probably know by now, Dean Hachamovitch announced this morning that Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is ready for download.

So what is the difference between a 'Release Candidate' (RC) and a 'Beta'? Here's the short answer from Dean's post:

"A release candidate is fundamentally different from a beta. With the exception of a very short list of issues we’re aware of and working on, we think the product is done. We’re looking to enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros to tell us if this build has any critical, must-fix before we ship issues. The real world is much richer than our test environment and I appreciate the feedback that has helped us make the product better."

In a follow-up post on the IE7 team blog, John Hrvatin points out a few of the changes made to the installation process for the Release Candidate. Example:

"If installation detects a previous version of IE7, it begins uninstall for you so you don’t have to dig through ‘Add/Remove Programs’."

Seth McLaughlin, also from the IE7 team then posted the A Quick Reference Sheet for IE7.

"We’ve created this sheet to bring together keyboard shortcuts and directions for common tasks in one, easy to access location. Rather than provide an exhaustive listing of ALL the IE shortcuts (there are a lot!), we focused on outlining only the ones that perform the most popular actions within the browser."

I like this one: 'Open the website address that is typed in the Address Bar in new tab ALT+ENTER'.

You can the rest of these tips here.

Some quick links / quotes / reactions from around the web:

Ed Bott;

"The most interesting part of today's announcement that an IE7 release candidate is now available is the almost complete lack of news. No new features, a few bug fixes since the last beta release. And now the march is on to fix remaining bugs and compatibility problems."

Paul Thurrott:

"Internet Explorer 7 RC1 is faster, more stable, and better looking than previous IE 7 betas, so it's a required update for any users who installed IE 7 Beta 3 or earlier. As for IE 6 users, I think it's both safe and prudent to migrate to IE 7 now: "

Regarding CSS, Joe Wilcox says the IE team still has a way to go:

"Absolutely, way, way many more Websites properly load in IE 7 than do not, and Microsoft at least deserves some of the credit for that. The company has done a terrific job communicating what it's doing with the browser, and Microsoft put IE 7 into protracted beta, which facilitated broad testing by many Web developers. So, Microsoft has made great strides, just not enough to reach the goal."

dev/nononsense also comments on the progress made regarding CSS:

"In my opinion it’s fantastic that the IE team have made so many improvements to the CSS engine in Internet Explorer 7 - almost all of the rendering bugs I’ve had to combat in various web designs seem to be fixed, and many more bugs I wasn’t expecting to be looked at.

...I think the team have done a good job in picking some very common CSS issues - hopefully they’ll move on in future releases to even greater compatibility."

Not surprisingly, CSS issues have been a long-running theme throughout IE7's development and today is no different. If you have any interest in this area, you should check out last week's post by Richard MacManus where he wrote up his interview with the Group Program Manager of IE7, Chris Wilson, all about the topic of IE7, CSS and web standards.

Update:

I should have included a link to this post by the IE team: Details on our CSS changes for IE7 (posted by Markus Mielke, Aug 22).

150 cool Windows XP downloads

alexbarn — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 18:00:00 GMT

150 cool Windows XP downloads.

via JoshBlog

1 line in XAML

alexbarn — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:00:00 GMT

Tim Sneath asks:

"What's the most impressive WPF demo you can construct in a single line of XAML? Can you improve on these?"

On CodePlex, Open Source and Microsoft

alexbarn — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:55:00 GMT

Korby on CodePlex:

"My take, from the trenches, is that CodePlex is Microsoft doing what it has always done: quietly supporting the needs and expressed wishes of our most important customers: developers developers developers developers, the fine folks who write the awesome applications that run on (and by extension, convince people to buy) our platform products."

Talking of matters open source and Microsoft, David Berlind's take on Eric Raymond's call to arms is a great read.

P.S - Blogging this from Missoula, Montana.

Meet Erik Meijer on Channel 9 (and why he keeps a penguin in a box)

alexbarn — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:41:00 GMT

Meet Erik.

Erik Meijer is an Architect in Microsoft's Data Programmability team. As you can see from these pics he let me shoot in his office, Erik keeps a penguin...

I first knew of Erik when he was starring as the 'Head in the Box' on VBTV. (I wish I had a pic for you - you'll just have to watch it...). I remember watching the show as part of my researching Microsoft during the interview process for Microsoft UK. Little did I know then that years later I'd be working in an office in Redmond, across the corridor from the very man who's head I watched with awe and some bemusement. Now I get to see his shirts too.

Maybe Erik's Head in the Box experiences explains why he keeps a penguin in a box in his office.

Erik is a smart cookie. Before joining Microsoft, he was an associate professor at Utrecht University working on advanced scripting languages such as Haskell, XMLambda, and Mondrian and other things that sound like dances in Brazil.

Here's one patent he holds:

In fact, he hold several patents...

He mentioned that he has more of these blocks tucked away somewhere.

What's he doing in the Data Programmability team? That's what I wanted to know, so got I him in a room with Charles on Channel 9.

Enjoy.

Instant IM Translation and other winners

alexbarn — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:55:00 GMT

The Made In Express Contest is reaching its conclusion - there are a total of 10 finalists' projects and now it is time to pick the winners...Who will win? Well, that's really up to you.

My personal favorite is the Instant IM Translation. I confess - I've not played with the app - but the idea works for me. In Ali Kalid's own words:

"I have a friend in France whose english is not so good, so whenever we are talking on the MSN Messenger, I copy what ever he says, paste it into a translation service, then type my reply in english, translate it into French and copy it back in MSN Messenger. What I would love to work on would be to make a plug-in for MSN Messenger or use the MSN Messenger SDK to build a new messenger which will use a free Web service for translation, and do all of the above things automatically, so that he will see only french in his IM and i will see only English in my IM."

(Imagine that...I'd actually understand what my wife was saying! - when IM'ing in Flemish of course...)

So, Ali went off and built it (source code and installation guide here). Here are the other 9 projects to choose from..... Go on, vote!

ADO.NET vNext - a load of links....

alexbarn — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:44:00 GMT

The ADO.NET vNext Community Technology Preview ('CTP') went live today...Hopefully I can convince Tommy Williams to write up his 'from the trenches' post once he's recovered ;-)

Anyways, on to the ~~LINQs~~ links:

Today

Announcing: The ADO.NET vNext August CTP, by Pablo Castro
ADO.NET vNext CTP - tools and screencast, by Sanjay Nagamangalam
Incremental Improvement, Important Milestones, and Complementary Goals, by Britt Johnston

And, of course, you can get a hold of the download itself.

MSDN Forum

Got feedback for the ADO.NET team on the CTP? Questions? Running into issues? Something broke? Confused? Frustrated? ~~Feeling lonely~~? Go here: ADO.NET vNext Technical Preview Forum

Now, if you aren't familiar with all this ADO.NET vNext business, check out these resources:

Whitepapers:

Next-Generation Data Access: Making the Conceptual Level Real - José Blakeley, David Campbell, Jim Gray, S. Muralidhar, Anil Nori (yeah that Jim Gray!)
The ADO.NET Entity Framework Overview
ADO.NET Tech Preview: Entity Data Model

Channel 9

Chatting about LINQ and ADO.NET Entities - Anders Hejlsberg and Sam Druker
ADO.NET Entity Framework on Channel 9 – Pablo Castro, Mike Pizzo and Britt Johnston

Screencasts

ADO.NET vNext CTP - tools and screencast (out today), Sanjay Nagamangalam
ADO.NET vNext screencast, Shyam Pather

Blogs

Blog posts

Announcing: The ADO.NET vNext August CTP (out today), by Pablo Castro
Incremental Improvement, Important Milestones, and Complementary Goals (out today), by Britt Johnston
ADO.NET vNext: The Entity Framework, LINQ and more by Pablo Castro
Entities in Olympus and Channel 9... by Britt Johnston
Conceptual Schema by Britt Johnston
ADO.NET vNext - feedback so far, by Alex Barnett
LINQ and ADO.NET innovations, by Somasega

MSDN Dev Centers