Adventures In SoftwareLand

While I've been to the Redmond campus of Microsoft, where I now work full-time, 5 times already this year, it's not the same as actually working here. I'm finding that I have to make an effort to get outside the building and get some fresh air every day...

...or so I once wrote in a song (MP3: Deadline ). I think I must have been younger then ;) and now that I listen to the current version of the song I think I changed the line to "Sleep for me's no option..." which certainly is not true! Songwriters rewrite...

UPDATE: Photos are now online. So... I MADE IT!!! I arrived in the Seattle area early afternoon on Sunday and then moved in to my corporate housing yesterday afternoon. More pictures on my Flickr site shortly. Today I start my new position and had my...

UPDATE: Photos now online So today's journey was longer and less pleasant than yesterday's but still completely successful. I left Eureka around 7:30 AM and arrive in Tillamook, Oregon around 4:00PM. The first half of the day was beautiful. More pictures...

Made it from Palo Alto to Eurkea in 7 hours! First batch of photos now up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/softwarelandguy Was so excited I woke up at 3am, tried to go back sleep and gave up and got up at 4... finally left Palo Alto at 5:30 AM and arrived...

As anyone who's read this blog in the past 2 weeks knows... I'm moving! I'm finally packed and ready to roll. I'm driving from Mountain View to Seattle starting tomorrow morning at 6am and am planning on taking 3 days to make the ~900 mile trip. Just...

I'm in that zone of moving where I can't believe I have sooooo much stuff! The good news is that I'm finally in the mood to trash all the stuff I shouldn't have been keeping. The bad news is even after I do that I have too much stuff! So how do I make...

<PERSONAL_RANT!!!> The news today ( from Engadget ) is that T-Mobile has pulled the HP iPAQ 6315 (PDA/Phone) from the shelves. I was an early adopter of this device starting about 6 months ago. I, after a while of searching, experimenting and tweaking...

Steve Cook , one of the co-authors of the Software Factories book that got me so inspired last year , has just done an in-depth interview entitled " Inside Software Factories " over at DNJ Online. It's quite good and contains tons of clearly explained...

Just a quick note to developers who have not yet discovered Virtual PC 2004... do it now! I continue to be amazed by this product and how it has transformed my daily work experience. I'm able to have multiple Whidbey builds, multiple operating systems...

Jeremy Mazner has just posted the link to the RSS feeds for MSDN blog posts about the upcoming Professional Developers Conference 2005 which will be held in Los Angeles this coming September 13-16. In my new role, I will be involved in community events...

Now, with a title like that you'd think that I'm about to give out the "secret" of passing Microsoft interviews.... well, I am but it's not what you might expect. ( This is my personal opinion and experience and, of course, your mileage may vary.) I've...

It just hit me: Regular posting has a value in addition to the production of the longer "thought" pieces. I was looking at my 200+ RSS feeds that only a couple of them, in my case Scoble and Dave Winer , have a place in my Favorite Folders (I use Newgator...

In preparation for my move to Redmond , which is currently scheduled for two weeks from Tuesday, I've spent most of this weekend in my "office" (aka spare bedroom), trying to decide which things need to be transported by "me" v.s. those things which will...

Ok, this is SoftwareLand launch control...the code has been loaded and has passed all required security checks...3..2..1..Ship!!!! ...that's how my very first podcast ( www.softwareland.org ) started back on October 1, 2004. Little did I know then that...

Gareth Jones notes the release of an update to our DSL tools . Small changes but a big help! This new release contains validation logic for the XML files that must be edited by hand to create a working designer. This was a big pain point in the previous...