devi's blog

What they don't teach you in many engineering colleges around the world - Soft Skills

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:27:00 GMT

This month, I had the opportunity to speak to students at a couple of engineering colleges. I spoke about essential skills they wouldn’t learn in engineering college – hard to teach and hard to quantify soft skills such as collaboration, customer empathy, creativity, integrity during execution and the ability to dream big. I don’t claim to be good at these soft skills but I do have the advantage of observing those who do possess an abundance of these soft skills.

In future posts, I will elaborate on the soft skills I introduced during these talks and maybe also publish and interview or two with some experts. In the meanwhile, here are some useful links for students to learn more about soft skills.

O msdn Success Builder – free courseware in softskills

O http://www.microsoft.com/india/successbuilder

O Microsoft S2B - Student to Business

O http://s2b.experience.com

O Office Online Career Center

O http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/career-center-for-job-seekers-powered-by-monster-com-FX010350405.aspx?redir=0

O Microsoft Dreamspark - Dream Today, Create Tomorrow

O https://www.dreamspark.com

O Microsoft Student – College Ready, Career Ready

O www.microsoft.com/student

- devindra

Adieu to Expression Program Management

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:44:00 GMT

I have transitioned into a new role. For the latest on Expression, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/expression

Expression Web available for purchase

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:24:00 GMT

Microsoft Expression Web is now available for purchase (as of Dec 4^th, 2006) for $299 US. Microsoft FrontPage customers can upgrade for US $99. For full pricing, availability, and new information about the product, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/expression which has recently been updated.

Training Videos for Expression Web Designer

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:37:00 GMT

New Expression Web Designer demo/training videos are now available on http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/web_designer/demos.mspx?v=wd_layout

Getting Acquainted With The Microsoft Expression Family

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:47:00 GMT

Great article by Marius Bancila

Getting Acquainted With The Microsoft Expression Family

CodeGuru - 6/9/2006

See an overview presentation on the three tools from the Microsoft Expression family: Expression Graphic Designer, Expression Interactive Designer, and Expression Web Designer.

It's Here -- CTP1 of Expression Web Designer

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:00:00 GMT

We are pleased to present the very first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Expression Web Designer.

To use ASP.NET-based features in Expression Web Designer CTP1, you need to download the Microsoft .NET Framework (see link below).
To uninstall Expression Web Designer CTP1, use the Control Panel (Start | Control Panel) instead of running the setup again.

Expression Web Designer CTP1 contains a known issue that causes the Help viewer to prevent you from downloading the latest version of Help.

Expression Web Designer CTP1 (230M)
Expression Web Designer CTP1 Help (1.2 MB)
.NET Framework Version 2.0 (22.5 MB)

CTP Resources

Register for Announcements
Join the Discussion Group (Browser based)
Join the Discussion Group (Newsgroup Reader based)
Report a Bug

Mix06 Videos

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 05 May 2006 19:34:00 GMT

Microsoft has posted videos from all sessions at Mix06. These include demos of Expression Web Designer among other cool demonstrations and keynotes.

http://sessions.mix06.com/

http://blog.mix06.com/virtualmix/

Lynda Weinman & Wayne Smith on Microsoft Expression Web Designer

What happened to Frontpage?

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:18:00 GMT

After nearly a decade of innovations, FrontPage will be discontinued in late 2006. But we won’t stop supporting the product. Nor are we ignoring the needs of our existing FrontPage customers. Four new products will meet their diverse needs as well as those of professional web designers and developers.

Which tool is right for you?

· Use Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 if you are a solution creator using SharePoint technologies.

· Use Expression™ Web Designer if you are a professional Web Designer building standards based, broad reach CSS/XHTML Web sites.

· Use Visual Studio 2005 if you are a Web developer who wants to build high performance, robust, and enterprise ready Web applications with ASP.NET 2.0.

· Hobbyists and enthusiasts can also get Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition which is a new, easy to use, and easy to learn development for building Web sites.

The RicRe value of a website

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 21:26:00 GMT

Rich versus Reach – We know that the richer a website, the poorer its reach. The Holy Grail for all websites of course is attaining the max value for (Rich) x (Reach) i.e. Maximum richness combined with maximum reach.

For the sake of discussion, let’s call the product of Richness x Reach of a website the RicRe value of a website.

Today,

Web sites built with Windows Presentation Foundation will have the maximum richness but the poorest reach.
Web sites built with Macromedia Flash will have very high richness plus impressive reach
Web sites built with AJAX will have impressive richness with extremely high reach

It’s hard to determine which of the above three options will have the highest RicRe value.

What is the RicRe value for your website?

How should we measure the richness of a website?
How should we measure the reach of a website?

Paying attention to Conversion Rates

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:17:00 GMT

One key facet of designing a great user experience on a website is paying attention to the website's 'conversion rates'. Conversion rate is the rate at which users on a website perform a desired action. Reading Jesse James Garret’s book on User Experience last night, I started thinking about the conversion rates for different kinds of websites.

For a retail site like Amazon.com, the conversion rate measures how many visitors actually purchase a product.

For a news and information site like cnn.com, conversion rate measures how many people sign up to receive email newsletters and become a part of the CNN news community.

For a customer support site like support.dell.com, the conversion rate measures how many people actually found the answer they were looking for.

As you design your websites, make sure you know what your conversion rate will measure, the target conversion rates, the actual conversion rates etc. Make sure you build features into your website to effectively measure and report progress on the conversion rate. This can help you design an effective user experience.

Schools that teach UI design

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 01:06:00 GMT

I am compiling a list of schools that teach User Interface design. Can you please send me the name of a school that offers courses in User Interface design at the Bachelors and Master's level?

thanks

Educating design Educators about web standards

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:43:00 GMT

I think most of us are convinced that conformance to web standards is a good thing. Professional designers will learn about web standards on the job but students have to be taught about web standards by their respective schools. To efficiently teach all students, it becomes imperative that we educate web design teachers in the usage of web standards. How should we go about educating educators about web standards?

I have a few suggestions:

Create a ‘Continued Professional Education’ type examination for web design teachers. The Web Standards Projects’ Education Task Force could administer these exams. In fact a ‘Web Standards’ based exam will be useful for all design professionals.
Encourage companies like Microsoft, Adobe and others to host sessions for web design teachers at their design conferences.
Work with web design schools to change their curriculum, making it mandatory for teachers to teach web standards.

Other ideas?

Expression Web Designer, SharePoint Designer

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 03:09:00 GMT

Last week we unveiled plans for two new products – Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and Microsoft Expression Web Designer. Expression Web Designer is focused on the needs of professional Web designers seeking to build high-quality, standards-based Web sites for companies. It provides exceptional support for integrating XML, CSS, ASP.NET 2.0, XHTML and other standard Web technologies into sites to make them more dynamic, interactive and accessible. SharePoint Designer 2007 is for information workers in an enterprise who are creating and customizing Microsoft SharePoint Web sites and building workflow-enabled applications on SharePoint Products and Technologies.

For more information:

Expression Interactive and Graphic Designer

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 02:35:00 GMT

The first Community Technology Preview for Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer is now available online. This release is accompanied by the fourth preview of Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer. Designers can now save graphics as XAML code for integration with Visual Studio and Expression Interactive Designer.

One second to lose the user's thought

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 23:08:00 GMT

Brian Goldfarb, my colleague on the ASP.NET team recently attended a web design conference. One of the things that stood out in his report was the following data:

· Response time limits:

· 0.1 seconds. Limit for having a user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously.

· 1.0 seconds. Limit for user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay.

· 10 seconds. Limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialog. For longer delays, users will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer expects to be done.

Web Designers may want to start paying close attention to this kind of data. Client side applications have long provided instant feedback when the user interacts with any UI element. Broadband access and AJAX now enables web designers to provide a similar experience. After clicking on an image hot spot in a web page, users will no longer have to guess -- "Did I click that or not?"

1024x768 rules

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:39:00 GMT

The W3Schools site reports that more computers are using a display resolution of 1024x768 pixels or higher. 53% users had 1024x768 in Jan 2005 but the number rose to 55% by July 2005. As a web designer, what resolution do you use as the target to optimize your designs?

CSS & XSL -- Can they be friends?

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 06:51:00 GMT

I was wondering how I would explain to a designer when to use CSS versus XSL?

It’s not enough to say that CSS is for styling HTML while XSL is for styling XML. XML can be styled by both CSS and XSL. One major difference of course is that XML can be used to transform XML documents into other XML or HTML documents while CSS is purely for style control. The W3C has promised that both languages will complement each other. My fingers are crossed.

IE7 -- Clean up your hack!

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 23:20:00 GMT

Prior to IE6, browsers built in non-standard rendering, without conforming to W3C recommendations With wider acceptance of standards, browsers began to operate in two modes – a ‘quirky’ mode called Quirks mode and a ‘standards’ mode. The former was used to support legacy pages. Quirks mode gets triggered if no DOCTYPE declaration is made at the start of a page. IE6 under Quirks mode does not make any behavioral changes. i.e. existing pages render unmodified. Under the STRICT DOCTYPE, IE7 will change behavior to be compliant with web standards (as far as possible). This is because IE7 has introduced new CSS functionality causing several CSS hacks to fail. In the IE blog on MSDN, the IE7 team recommends you review the following CSS hacks: html > body , * html - , head:first-child + body, head + body and body > element. (Note: An early preview of IE7 was given to PDC attendees and MSDN subscribers).

Job opening: Program Manager

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:40:00 GMT

Program Manager - Microsoft Expression "Quartz Web Designer"

Do you want to create the next generation of tools for professional web designers? Do you want to empower professional designers to create compelling user experiences? We are looking for a Program Manager passionate about multimedia and authoring technologies. Your job is to write specs and ship world class products that will take web site design to the next level. You will work closely with the FrontPage, Visual Studio and ASP.net teams and join an entrepreneurial team out to make a difference to the world of web design. The ideal candidate has at least four years of program management experience. Candidates must be comfortable working with web technologies such as XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and XSLT. The ability to work collaboratively across divisions is a must. A computer science degree or equivalent experience is preferred. Professional experience as a web designer or developer is a plus.

Apply for the Program Manager position

Test Manager - Microsoft Expression "Quartz Web Designer"

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:32:00 GMT

Test Manager - Microsoft Expression "Quartz Web Designer"

Do you want to lead the test team for the next generation of web authoring tools? Do you want to empower professional designers to create compelling web experiences? We are looking for a “hands-on” Test Manager to drive the testing and quality assurance of a professional web authoring tool. Experience managing a team of 5 or more testers is required. We are looking for candidates with a minimum of three years of leadership experience testing complex projects using C++ and MFC. Managed code experience is a plus. The candidate must have a demonstrated track record of shipping projects and driving automation and innovations. Expertise with Internet technologies (such as XHTML, CSS, Jscript, XML and XSLT) is highly desirable. BS in Computer Science preferred. The key to our success in this cross product effort is cross-divisional teamwork, so we’re looking for strong team players.

Apply for the Test Manager position

Software Development Engineer - Microsoft Expression "Quartz Web Designer"

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:21:00 GMT

Software Design Engineer - Microsoft Expression "Quartz Web Designer"

Do you want to create the next generation of tools for professional web designers? Do you want to empower professional designers to create compelling user experiences? We are looking for a Software Development Engineer passionate about multimedia and authoring technologies. Your job is to own the programming and technical design for a tool aimed at professional web designers. You will not only provide technical leadership for your team but will also make individual contributions. The successful candidate will have a solid background in software development. We are looking for candidates with a minimum of four years of industry experience developing complex projects using C++ and MFC. C# sharp and managed development experience is a plus. Expertise with Internet technologies (such as XHTML, CSS, Jscript, XML and XSLT) is highly desirable. Strong knowledge of componentization and object-oriented design are desirable. BS in Computer Science preferred. The key to our success in this cross product effort is cross-divisional teamwork, so we’re looking for strong team players.

Apply for the Software Development Engineer job

Can PNG be king?

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 07:16:00 GMT

I was wondering why PNG has not managed to knock-out GIF images. The PNG home page offered an excellent summary of the reasons. For those still wondering why we should be bothered about PNG, here is an executive summary: The W3C has had a recommendation to use PNG for web images since 1996. PNG has a few advantages over GIF: alpha channels, gamma correction, two-dimensional interlacing and slightly better compression. PNG is also patent free.

Why do I blog? What will readers get out of my blog?

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:02:00 GMT

Why do I blog?

To get customer input on features

How will readers benefit from my blog?

Readers will get a channel for providing direct feedback to the Microsoft Expression Quartz program management team

I also use my blog as

an outlet for my own creative expression.
a means to learn new technologies (I learn a lot when I write about something)

IE Developer Toolbar

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 08:09:00 GMT

I downloaded the IE Developer Toolbar beta a few minutes ago. It is very cool. Lots of goodies...

My favorite tools so far are: the ability to outline table cells and the quick validators

Download the toolbar

WCAG - Click the orange button!

4B4902D5-F4CA-4876-BAC9-A9008734B634 — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 02:59:00 GMT

I typed click orange button in my search bar to see how many sites point to a button by its color. I was disappointed to see several results. Sec 508 of the United States Access Board recommends that all web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color. When colors are the sole method of identifying elements, people with color blindness or low vision are excluded. This does not mean that all pages have to be displayed in black and white. Text labels are a great complement to color oriented element pointers. A simple way to test compliance with this guideline is to print your page on a black and white printer.

Resources

http://www.lighthouse.org/ -- the leader worldwide in helping people of all ages who are blind or partially sighted overcome the challenges of vision loss
WCAG recommendations