I don't have a Zune (like Terry does ), but here are some links about it that I'm following: how to subscribe to Podcasts with Zune detailed review from ExtremeTech by somebody who really took the time to understand it. One intriguing part that you don...

The early winter ice and snow in the Seattle area has closed the schools. Then Microsoft sent this message to employees: The MICROSOFT Facilities in Puget Sound, including satellite areas (SAMM, Millennium, etc.) will have LIMITED SERVICES due to Snow...

By the way, here's a 6-min video of me, my boss Fil Alleva, and Jon Hamaker (developer lead) climbing around the Great Wall of China, at Mutianyu. The last segment of the video shows how we got down, via a toboggan slide. Video: Great Wall of China

At the end of our busy week, we stopped at the Great Wall for a bit of sightseeing. Lots more happened in China this week, so remind me to write about it when I'm back. Right now I'm headed to the airport.

This big sign is attached to a store right across the street from the Microsoft offices in Beijing: Jon and I want to try going inside sometime before we leave. People say it's not much different from the ones you see all over the U.S. Wal-mart has over...

I'm safely in Beijing now but what a close call. We had a crash on board. Of the inflight entertainment system, that is. I was in the middle of watching a movie when the system bluescreened! Northwest airlines has these new on-demand video systems...

Argh...Too bad I'm in China this week. I would have loved to attend Seattle Mind camp . Ever since my friend Bill Katz told me about Stanford Bar Camp , I've wanted to go to one of these.

Microsoft is showing off a bunch of new technologies at Innovation Day this week in Europe. Bill Gates kicked the whole thing off, but our own Miguel Dias is there too, talking about our Language Development Centre in Portugal. We just received a €178...

I've been on a couple of test drives, so I'm slowly narrowing down my decision on which car to buy. Rob Chambers says I should look at the BMW X5, because it's absolutely loaded with gadgets. But the X5 is an SUV, which is just too big and bulky for...

Oh, I forgot to mention. I'm staying at this hotel while in Beijing: http://www.tianhongplaza.com/en/1_introduction.htm It's located not far from the Microsoft offices here: http://research.microsoft.com/asia/aboutus/map/images/map-new.jpg ...

We have so much going on in Beijing that I really need to get out there more often than I do. So I'm going there next week, with Fil and Jon. We want to meet with the TTS team and others who are doing work with us. I'm hoping to see the people from Chinasoft...

I'm not at all a "car guy" -- I just like something that gets me from Point A to Point B with as little hassle as possible. "Point A" is my home, on Mercer Island, and "Point B" is my office, 13 miles away in Redmond. I rarely drive on weekends, because...

The speech team finally signed off on Vista, which means after exhaustive testing we don't know of any issues that stand in the way of our users productively using speech. Of course, we're one of many teams, so this doesn't mean Vista is ready to ship...

The whole world is going IP and before long it's going to be everywhere. One of the most important areas is TV: future TV sets will come with an RJ-11 port (Ethernet) instead of the RF/AV ports they have today. One place this is starting is at Swisscom...

The Windows CE team rolled out their CE 6.0 release yesterday, and the big news is that it's now available through a "shared source" program that essentially lets developers. Wow. Several of my friends, including ex-Microsoft ones, have started companies...

The Wall Street Journal mentions how public radio stations are using podcasts to increase their audiences. I've been a believer for a long time . But this technology is still very young and there's much more to do. Here are some things I want in a podcast...