AdamU's WebLog

We're having fun watching the BlendTec commercials since we've announced that the product code named Sparkle is now Blend. Since my last post 6 months ago in July where I visited a company in Raleigh NC, I've been amazingly busy. I've visited...

Two weeks ago, I spent an entire week at a customer site. This customer is in Raleigh, NC, and I got to see their early progress on a WPF prototype. They see the User Experience opportunities with WPF as a key differentiator in their market. This opportunity...

We've made available new CTPs of Expression Interactive Designer and Graphic Designer that work with the June CTP of the .Net Fx 3.0. Links are below. Interactive Designer Graphic Designer

With apologies to Lyle Lovett .... I'm spending this week in Texas; specifically, at Microsoft's Las Colinas Customer Support Center in Irving, Tx. Now why in the world would I do that, voluntarily? Well, I'll tell you... Each year as I review my...

enjoy! http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2006/03/09/543851.aspx

I went to Syracuse a little over a week ago to recruit for Microsoft. Since I started on the Sparkle project nearly 4 years ago, I've had the opportunity to go to Shanghai, Romania, Bulgaria, U-Penn twice, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Va Tech, UCLA, USC, Arizona...

I was exchanging email with a candidate last night who was confused about the differences between what dev and test do at microsoft, and as I tried to compose my thoughts about what it is that SDETs do, I thought that it would be good to share this on...

It's been a work in progress for what seems like a lifetime... But as of right now we FINALLY have a build of Expression Interactive Designer (EID) available for public download. We've also updated Expression Graphic Designer with a new XAML exporter...

I was playing around with Virtual Earth on Windows Live Local, and they've recently added a bird's eye view to the mapping software. Here's a bird's eye view of my building on the Microsoft campus. http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=47.639567...

I went to a White Elephant gift exchange with about 20 other people about 2 weeks ago. What was unusual was that this was with people who were on my very first team here at Microsoft, over 9 years ago. We hadn't had a daVinci team function in a long time...

I was in Shanghai last week to interview candidates for Microsoft, and got a day to do a little sightseeing. Shanghai is a pretty neat city!

Andrew Watt, an infopath MVP asked, "What exactly is Acrylic for?" Acrylic is intended for pro designers (people who use today's pro design tools) to create rich visual content, primarily for use in user interfaces, either desktop apps or web apps...

In case you missed the Sparkle Video on Channel 9, here's the link: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=115387 And the NorthFace Concept Video: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=116327

OK, here's your chance. Blast away. I did this last year, and got lots of questions from people about how hiring and recruiting works at Microsoft, as well as some test questions. So, what would you like to know? Something about Sparkle? Or Acrylic...

Well, given that we (finally!) announced today (at PDC) the project I've been working on for the last 3 years, I can now put in my blog that I've been working on "Sparkle Interactive Designer". You can check it out here . And yes, if you get a chance...

I started using a tool this week that measures the lines of code (LOC) that are going into our source tree. I discovered several things that make me believe that measuring how much code we've written (along the lines of TSP or PSP) and some of the other...

Ok, Myth #3: An automated test must find bugs to be useful. Here's a scenario for you: you have a car, and you have an car insurance, right? Do you really need car insurance? if you're a safe driver, maybe you have a claim every 5 years, and...

Myth #2: Testing does not, by itself, improve software quality. I love this one! I must have heard it like a gazillion times. And taken at its most literal, it is entirely correct. Huh? Yep, it's entirely literally correct. So why am I calling it a...

I've been reading a lot lately, and wow, there are so many opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of writing test automation. I thought I’d share my observations as to the common misperceptions that anyone in the software development business (engineer...

For the last several years, Microsoft has had days devoted to Engineering Excellence (EE), and to TrustWorthy Computing (TWC). Much of EE days in the last couple years have been about pushing quality upstream, which I interpret as getting more testing...

I was camping this weekend in Central Oregon. Each year my wife's father's siblings (all 8 of them) and many of their children and grandchildren get together (50 to 60 people) and go camping just outside Sweethome, Oregon, which is about 30 miles east...

From the 8th to the 14th, I travelled to Beijing to meet with 5 vendors who've been working on one of my projects for the last year. Yanchun (Tracy) Guo, who is a test lead for Microsoft in Beijing, helped me out by taking me out to lunch, and in general...

It's not sexy, but it sure is fun. Santosh recently had a great post on what it's like being in test at microsoft. For those who read my posts from last year on campus and industry recruiting at microsoft, I would encourage you to also read this to...

I ran into Adam Barr ( www.proudlyserving.com ) last week while volunteering to assist with a local Vocational High School's computer curriculum. Adam had left a few responses on my Blog on exchanges on testing at microsoft, and it was a pleasure to meet...

I've been on vacation with the family and busy with tons of other stuff, and I realized that I hadn't posted in over a month! Wow, time flies. While my next test topic post is a discussion of why you should do test automation (it's about half complete...