Alex Barnett's blog

This is a story about spam, the trademarking of SPAM, a product that tackles spam and a SPiced hAM company that was unavailable to talk about SPAM . - Tags: Spam

Lucky Shawn. There I was feeling all important by meeting Bill last week for a total of 10 seconds , and here is Shawn Morrissey having a proper meeting with Ray Ozzie and Bill on the topic of calendaring in Vista and Office 2007 . I wish I could tell...

I lost my shaving stuff somewhere between London and Seattle last week. So I went off to the local shop and was confronted by an array of choice. I've been a Gillette 'man' for as long as I can remember shaving. So when I looked at the Gillette shelf...

After the live webcast breaking the news that Bill's transition will complete in July 2006, there was an internal meeting (called 'Townhall meetings) with Bill explaining to Microsoft employees the reasons behind his decision and the plans moving forward...

Lots of luscious screenshots in Krunker.com's comprehensive review of Windows Media Center Preview in Vista Beta 2. Remember I told you that a very cute puppy nearly lost its life moments after it knocked a pint of water onto our laptop? Well...

Wow.... "Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in Microsoft effective July 2008 to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and will continue to serve as the company’s chairman...

Everyone's getting a wiki this week. First MSDN (well, last week), then eBay . Who's next? Update, June 14 : Dion Hinchliffe has a look at the MSDN Wiki offering. Makes a good point re: Firefox.

I like this. A lot. MSDN now has a web API into the MSDN and TechNet Publishing System (MTPS) MSDN2 (not 2.0 ;-) library. 2.0 ;-) Craig Andera has the details, but the bottom line is this: the MSDN document library is enormous (and I mean...

ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn points out the facts that Jason Matusow's blog hasn't been updated since May 24 (a whole 20 days!!!) and Scoble's leaving of Microsoft , and therefore proof positive that Microsoft has no interest in the open source community...

Sam Druker (my boss's boss's boss, on the left) and Anders Hejlsberg talk about the May CTP of LINQ , Entities and the future of ADO.NET on Channel 9 . This was Duncan Mackenzie 's first Channel 9 interview since joining the C9 team as a dev. I...

The Windows Live product teams have a number of blogs, some hosted on MSDN and others on MSN Spaces. Now you can keep up with all these in any one of four ways. 1. Subscribe to a single feed Atom or RSS flavor) that aggregates the various posts...

Wow. I just heard the news and read his own confirmation that Robert Scoble is off to pastures new. Holy crap Robert! I'm a bit stunned actually. I knew the day would come, but didn't think it would happen so soon. Only last week I was London and...

Yesterday Somasegar (who runs the Developer Division at Microsoft) announced the beta version of the MSDN Wiki - allowing customers to contribute to Microsoft’s developer documentation. "In the MSDN Wiki beta , you can add code samples and content...

About four weeks ago I made my way over to ZDNet's studios in San Francisco to be interviewed by Mike Elgan for DevSource and discuss a number of topics close to my heart. The video (15-ish mins) is now published. Mike asked me about microformats ...

The Content 2.0 event in London this week was great fun. Most of the focus revolved around user-generated content and 'modern marketing'. The day was kicked off by Marc Canter's energetic preaching on a wide range of topics including Structured Blogging...

As you may have noticed, I'm taking some time off the blogging thing. I'm also in London now for the Content 2.0 event on Tuesday and taking a few days 'vacation' as part of the trip. At Content 2.0 I'm involved in the panel debate 'Search and Enjoy...

I'm really impressed by the new Local Live release (you'd might say 'you would say that' 'cause I work at Microsoft. But I mean it)...I got so excited by one feature Tommy showed me (adding pictures to Collections) that I made this screencast to show...

Windows Vista Beta 2 feedback. Wot Chris sed .

Tim Berners-Lee is getting some more deserved airtime over at the BBC regarding the net neutrality issue. I've stayed out of the discussion so far, not due to apathy, but because the idea of a 2-tiered internet is such a bad idea that I really couldn...

Raymond sheds some light on the mystery of J .

In late July I have an appointment with a surgeon who will remove my thyroid. Technically, this is known as a Total Thyroidectomy - a complete removal of the thyroid. In case you don't know, this is where your thyroid is (unless you've had yours removed...

Since posting the Del.icio.us Inside and Tagging behind-the-firewall posts, I've been pinged left right and center by a bunch of tagtastic people (both inside and outside Microsoft) regarding the topic of tagging within the enterprise / business context...

Who says Web 2.0 hasn't hit the mainstream - they've even made a movie about it. Slight re-branding though - the Net 2.0 . - Tags: web2.0 movies

This Allofmp3.com news doesn't look good.... ( disclaimer time) I've been a customer for around 2 years, have been recommending the site for some time and currently have about $20 unspent credit caught up in there. I've never had problems with the...

My dad sent me the following this morning. I just have to share this with you...enjoy: - Dear Alex, See link below for a glorious, hilarious mess-up by the BBC. A producer rushed to the reception area and mistakenly took a mini-cab driver to be...