The CyKho Blog

Nothing is quite so hard as shopping for Christmas. This is the one holiday where we need to dig deep down in the annals of memory to find something thoughtful for your loved ones. The whole matter is only complicated by shifting tastes and the need to...

Ever wondered how you can spend less time at your desk or in the office? Follow these four tried and true steps to get out the door in four hours or less every day: http://www.techcareercoaches.com/2011/11/4-steps-to-4-hour-work-day.html

I just finished a monster post to the CIMLS.com Blog about using mail merge to build a customer base and posted it to Hacker News (upvote us if you can!): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077006 This information is targeted at folks new to...

Running a big CIMLS.com ">commercial real estate information database like CIMLS.com requires a lot of automation. However, there's still a lot that needs to be done by hand (and not us). So, we have contractors. If you're thinking about farming out some...

Since I've moved on from working at Microsoft, I've started to use what I learned to help others navigate the Microsoft technical interview process at http://www.techcareercoaches.com/ Check it out and let me know what you think!

Thank you all for the emails asking where I've been! Recently I've decided to return to school to pursue my MBA at Harvard Business School . While in school I've gotten involved with cimls.com - a great startup focused on revolutionizing the commercial...

For those of you just getting started in windows Phone 7 development the Windows Phone 7 Jump Start training is the perfect way to make the rubber meet the road: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/egibson/Windows-Phone-7-Jump-Start-Session-1-of-12-Introduction...

After many trails and tribulations Paul has finally gotten Save and Load working for his Windows Phone 7 Game - Alien Military Strike (AMS). He has also been so kind as to write up some more great tips and tricks on how to get this working for your first...

Thanks again to Paul Oliver for writing up some tips and tricks he picked up from coding Helium . Really great technical gotchas good to know for and and all aspiring Windows Phone 7 developers! 1. Beware your garbage generation - High end video games...

Thanks to Paul Oliver (check out his game portfolio: http://pauliver.com/)– one of our top influential developers in the Mid-Atlantic (originally an MSP at the University of Baltimore County) has released the Helium Game Engine. http://helium...

One of the .NET community leaders in Delaware Doug White has just kicked off his new Ocean Bytes Blog ( http://www.oceanbytes.org/ ). Doug works with the Oceanic Information Center researching new technologies and systems to help us all understand...

What great news – a superstar high school education from Silver Spring, MD has been selected to participate in the 2010 Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Educator Forum in South Africa at the end of October. Pat has done some amazing work over the...

I hear all the time that hiring managers that much of the content students learn in college (even Computer Science Majors) does not transfer well to the work they are asked to do on the job. Reading my colleague Alfred Thompson’s blog brought this...

Yesterday was one of the worst storms in Washington DC downing trees (and power lines) across our nation’s capital. Driving into the office I noticed the opposite lane was blocked in two places. In one instant there were 20+ people out of their...

I've decided to jump back on the blog bandwagon! Stay tuned for updates coming along once or twice a week from the academic front at Microsoft.

For the last few months I've been working on building a place for students to come talk to Microsoft - all kinds of people, jobs and opinions.  Now we're live on Facebook!   =>  

It's kind of funny. Regardless of how many project management and development life cycle project and courses I've participated in, I still create software (personally) in the same way: start with and idea start coding remove features as they...

The top computer science/engineering grads in the world choosing the warm embrace of the corporate world generally have three choices: get a job at - Google, Amazon, or Microsoft.  At least when I graduated, they all paid about the same and recruited...

Often times I look around me an wonder what most people are doing with their lives. Unfortunately, the answer is all too often nothing - too many of my peers let the minutia of living take over their life. Constantly keeping busy with parties, movies...

In recent times we've seen enrollment in STEM (Science technology engineering and math) majors plummet.  Even as the need for professional in these areas reaches an all time high (with no sign of stopping) students are still reluctant to enter into...

Recently, I've started using (follow cykho).  For those of you who don't use twitter - think of it as micro blogging.  You write 140 character posts about whatever you're thinking of doing at the time.  Then, you can follow (think RSS)...

First of all, let me apologize for my long absence.  During the period I have been away - my fingers have been busily typing the 13 page epic poem which is the full summer of my activities over the last 9 months.  I simply couldn't bring myself...

If you hang out with the web 2.0 kids long enough you'll inevitably hear the word REST/RESTful. I've gotten this question enough from the CS students I work with to create a little knowledge nut right here: REST = Representational State Transfer In a...

FYI - this is one of those thinking in general posts... I just realized something interesting: 20 miles = distance from one side of DC to the other 20 MPG ~ the in city mileage of my car Gas ~ $5/gallon So, for me to drive from one side of the city to...

I was planning to blog as I attended this conference (last week).  However, the presenters and other attendees were just so darn interesting I never found the time (shame on them)! Throughout the conference I had the opportunity to speak with all...