Betsy Aoki's WebLog

It's been a while since I posted...sorry about that. I don't normally post on Mondays but since I've missed a week, I felt it best to just dig in and let the brain juice separate from the brain pulp. (Did I mention it's HOT here in Seattle? We are melting...

So it's a really non-kept secret that when you write the Gotdotnet.com feedback alias, you get me. Yep, just me. No customer service rep in a remote place (although Redmond can seem sometimes very remote), no robot voice saying "Please hold," no perky...

Everyone wants to know the secret agenda of technology. Luddites feel it threatens the very foundation of our moral fiber. Even people who love technology tend to question the ways that it takes us away from nature (why see the birdies in the forest when...

Ok, I'm taking a break from blogging about Gotdotnet today to talk about the idea for a new cable show that sprang upon me like a panther on a protein jag. It was inspired by Microsoft.com's very own snazzy lead product manager, Dave Morehouse (Microsoft...

I sit here typing, typing, with my cafeteria-bought chicken and broccoli/beans combo. I have had to repent of my bad girl ice cream ways (at least until the Long Weekend) and be good about my health regimen. The traditional food of code warriors: pizza...

So my MSDN pal Tina dragged me to a yoga class at 6 in the morning today. I have never done yoga in my life, and as a highly wound-up individual, I felt it was high time to embrace my inner peace. Of course, I'm not sure my inner peace was even awake...

Ever have one of those mornings where your right contact lens sticks to the roof of your eyelid, the coffee machine has to be re-pumped and re-primed before you get your brew, and civilization has devolved to conversing with your officemate through telepathic...

I bet I know what you all are wondering about this week. You are wondering how, in this season of warmth, goodwill, and people scrambling to throw their software deliverables over the wall so they can start their vacations, what can Betsy possibly use...

Never go on a health food kick while your product team is launching - the pizza fumes alone are enough to make a grown woman cry. :-) There is a leaning tower of pizza boxes in the kitchen, and the recycle bins full of soda cans, and the congratulatory...

So I mean to blog this weekend – it being Mother’s Day on Sunday and all. And because that particular holiday brings out thoughts of technology like no other. Christmas, you say? Birthdays, you say? No, because while you can receive...

So Valentine's Day is almost upon us, and before people start singing odes to their XBoxes or significant others (or both) I think I have to pay tribute to that most funny Valentine of all, Gotdotnet. People have speculated as to whether Gotdotnet.com...

So, I know it's months later than I meant for it to come out, but, I did in fact get the first of my "VB Newbie" series of articles published on MSDN . It's the only one that doesn't have any code sample/example attached because it's filled to the brim...

You'd think perhaps the big buzz going around MSDN would be all our fabulous technology. You know, Longhorn. The latest developments in Whidbey. All that. I'm here to tell you that in the halls of our building, there is a truly Big Buzz. A buzz about...

We've had our first thankfully cool, overcast day here, and I finally feel like I can think again (anyone read Terry Pratchett ? and how his troll Detritus' brain functioned better when supercooled?... that's me. :-) ) Today I had a brief but touching...

Well, soon you'll see the real me, albeit very tiny, on MSDN . A preview of that photo is on Gotdotnet right now. And I should warn you that it isn't what I look like all the time, or even what I may look like a month from now. This version also makes...

Have you ever had a head cold so bad that made video games swith spiky helmeted demons seem realistic? Gone through a box of Kleenex in a weekend and it wasn't all Chick Flick night or some weepy barroom confidence? Felt like dying was perhaps something...

My friends and coworkers at Live Search have been seeing the results of my latest non-work mania - which is to make bath fizzes, otherwise known as 'bath bombs.' (If you are too geeky, manly or allergic to keep reading about making your own bath products...

Yep, it's a barrel of lame monkeys that the Community Site Manager of MSDN doesn't blog that often. Or maybe the blogosphere breathes a collective sigh of relief. :D Things have been busy here. Not to let the cat outa the bag overmuch (since she's...

Well, through the kindness of the Australian Microsoft team, I will be evangelizing blogging at TechEd New Zealand and TechEd Australia (at the Gold Coast). The first thing I'll be doing is presenting on the Power of Blogging at TechEd Auckland's Student...

Some of this will likely take folks as a surprise (although the hallways have been buzzing around here as the internal mails have flown around), but today I am stepping down from my position as queen of Microsoft employee blog sites and principal program...

By now you've seen that spate of Rolex spam come and go; now apparently the new trend is about penny stocks. It's amazing to me how often spammers manage to perfectly nail some demographic that I don't partake in as a consumer (stranded in a foreign land...

Well, it's not as big as it could be, but the Microsoft Blogger's Index page on Gotdotnet is growing. Not to be confused with the list of blogs.msdn.com bloggers . What's the difference, you ask? Gotdotnet's blog list used to be a list of just the...

Well things are winding down, down here, and I feel the need to cover some loose ends. First, the matter of the Cabana Talk. Frank and I spoke to about 40 people. When we began we asked what people wanted - the hosting engine, the content delivery...

Hi all, I'm blogging this on the eve of our next Workspaces code drop: some performance fixes, a couple interface tweaks having to do with the FAQ, a subtle Gotdotnet home page change, and a majority of the bugs you've seen in Workspaces (knock on formica...

I heard these guys got a lot of flak on Slashdot, which frankly they don't deserve; the debuggers worked on Gotdotnet when we struggled with live site issues this spring and they assisted us in the Whidbey conversion this fall (Jeff Stucky this spring...