I've had a happy time on http://blogs.msdn.com , but having decided to make some changes to my site, I'm going to go it alone and run my own version of Community Server. If you are reading this message and would like to stay up to date, my new URL is...

Software Architects have a tough job. They need to be experts in mapping business needs to technology, understanding the IT organization, and domain specific areas such as service orientation, workflow, security etc. One of the areas that often gets overlooked...

I have a new position in my team looking for a User Experience (UX) Architect Evangelist . I'm still working on the official job description, but given the level of interest in my last posting, I wanted to get it uploaded here first. The ideal person...

Update: This post has moved to here . My team has been spending a fair amount of time recently asking this question "What is it that you need to know to be an IT Architect?". What you should be reading? What skills should you be honing? Who should...

Who do you know that gets to play at work all day? It could be you. If you know the latest Web 2.0 and community technologies (RSS, ESS, IM Bots, Community Server, Wikis, VoD, Podcasts) and have a passion for IT architecture, then do we have a job in...

While using Outlook 2007 as my GTD tool, one of the things I’ve been missing is having the ability to rename tasks on the fly. Here’s a pretty common situation: · A new message arrives with the subject of “RE: Purchase Order”. It’s from Jack, and...

Microsoft’s Architecture Journal is a quarterly magazine, providing a world-class forum for the publication of unique articles on how good architecture can help create great implementations. Microsoft’s Architecture Journal is available as a printed subscription...

Learning WPF can be hard. Even if you have experience with Windows Forms or SWING, many concepts in WPF/XAML are very different and require a total brainwash before you can even put a button on a form. In his blog, Karsten calls this the WPF Curve and...

SPARK UX the two faces of design A FORUM TO EXPLORE THE INTERSECTION OF ARCHITECTURE AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN Too often today, software products and interactive experiences fall short of their potential because the user experience does not...

Scott has a great post about replacing “start/run” to launch applications quickly – I’ve used a number of the tools he lists in the past to find optimal ways of launching applications. One of the options he does miss however is the new start menu in Vista...

When I was growing up I used to take a lot of photos. Armed with an old Canon 35mm SLR, a few lenses, filters and other stuff, I strongly believe that if my current career hadn't worked out I would have found myself doing something with photography. Like...

I took the leap yesterday and installed Vista (5472) and Office 12 (4228) on my main machine (a Toshiba Tecra M4 Tablet). Although it's still been less than 24 hours, I've been very impressed so far. Both builds seem very stable and already I'm seeing...

Microsoft’s Architecture Journal is a quarterly magazine, providing a world-class forum for the publication of unique articles on how good architecture can help create great implementations. Microsoft’s Architecture Journal is available as a printed subscription...

I've now uploaded my slides (hosting space courtesy of Mark ) from my user experience presentation at TechEd 2006 this week. You can find them here: PowerPoint 2003 Format (60Mb) PowerPoint 2007 Beta 2 Format (20Mb) *** Update - Fixed link (again...

Thanks to all that came to my session today (ARC202 – Putting the User Back into SOA) at 10.45am. I really enjoyed putting the talk together and appreciate all the feedback (yes, I know the title of the talk needs changing for next time). For those...

Last week, I made the switch from Office 2003 to Office 2007 Beta 2. Prior to the upgrade I was organizing my “stuff to do” using David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology and using the NetCentrics GTD Add In for Outlook. Unfortunately, as I...

After the US NAF (National Architect Forum) last month, I sat down with Ron Jacobs to record my very first ARCast . The topic was "Putting the User back into SOA" - you can listen to it here .

Issue #7 of the Architecture Journal is now available in 8 languages (English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Simplifed Chinese, Japanese and Korean). To access these in PDF format, visit http://www.architecturejournal.net and select...

I can't believe it's been a year since I was at JavaOne last year - it seems like only yesterday I was getting my picture at Duke's 10 year birthday! (only kidding, of course :-)) Although I'm not in San Francisco for this year's conference, Microsoft...

Cliff Atkinson is my new hero. For those that don't know, Cliff put together an MS Press book called Beyond Bullet Points . In the book, he describes a new way of compiling and putting together presentations using PowerPoint (without bullet points!)....

Coming to TechEd US this year? Think you are a pretty good architect? Think you are the best architect at the conference? Now you can prove it by entering our "Iron Architect" competition as part of the Architecture Track. You'll get the chance to...

I’ve been doing a ton of work recently around user experience (UX) – and the importance of UX for architects. One thing that has become apparent is context for user interfaces – often the prettiest, most glamorous user experience does not lead to the...

I've been playing around with the "photo montage" effect in Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer . This effect lets you stitch together multiple photos to form one image - all done automatically. Here's an image I created with 9 separate photos from...

On Sunday I'll be heading down to the Mix06 conference in Las Vegas. Over the past few months I've been working on a new set of materials around user experience design (for Architects), so I'm really looking forward to the conference.

A couple of weeks ago I switched from Verizon Wireless to T-Mobile, and at the same time had the opportunity to pick up a new cell phone. After a lot of deliberation I went with the T-Mobile MDA Vario . This is the first PocketPC phone I've owned since...