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September 2004 - Posts

Thursday, September 30, 2004 10:11 PM

Using a GPS

Have you ever got seriously into navigating or tracking yourself with a GPS? I am thinking of getting better at using my GPS (I know how to read it, but not really use it) so once our puppy is old enough to hit the mountains with me, I can geek out with
Posted by bgroth | 4 Comments
Thursday, September 30, 2004 7:01 PM

Feedback on Microsoft Products

Have you ever wanted to tell Microsoft about a feature that you want in a product? You can easily do just that, and more, at http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp . And yes, the people building our software do actually read these suggestions.
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:45 PM

NASA World Wind

This is great! Thanks to Steve Makofsky for pointing it out. Check out NASA's WorldWind software (it's a free download ). In a nutshell, it allows you to zoom from any satellite altitude into any place on earth using various images captured from LandSat
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Thursday, September 30, 2004 5:47 AM

Solar Power in Washington State

Yes it is possible and you can learn more about it on October 2 nd (this Saturday) at a variety of locations. See http://www.solarwashington.org/Tour/2004/index.htm for more information. My suggestion: start using solar power now and be the cool kid on
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Wednesday, September 29, 2004 2:16 PM

An InfoPath Form to Translate Text

InfoPath is part of the Microsoft Office System and lets you easily create forms that can do pretty complex things. Do you want to translate some text in your form from English to French, or a bunch of other languages? Here is a little example to let
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Wednesday, September 29, 2004 2:11 AM

Solar Powered Backpack

I just saw this via Gizmodo : The Voltaic backpack has 3 waterproof solar panels embedded into the back, which can generate up to 4 watts of power, which charges a Li Ion battery pack for your devices to tap into. This would be a great way to make sure
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Tuesday, September 28, 2004 9:20 AM

The Microsoft Home

The Seattle Times has an article about the latest version of the Microsoft Home. It's hard to believe that the MS Home has been around for 10 years. I remember the old building that it used to be in (building 15 I think) when the "home" was sort of just
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 28, 2004 12:13 AM

How to deploy Windows XP SP2?

There are quite a few ways to deploy Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Check out what TechNet has to offer on the subject. I point it out here because SP2 is worth deploying, but I know many corporations face different challenges when trying to deploy
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Monday, September 27, 2004 11:04 PM

Why is a manhole cover round? A Microsoft interview question.

OK, so it probably isn't an "official" interview question (if there are any), but I have asked it during interviews in the past. For me, it is simply a way to help loosen up the interviewer and have some fun, but if the only answer I get is "I don't know,
Posted by bgroth | 22 Comments
Monday, September 27, 2004 8:03 AM

Uses for the TaslkList Command Line app in Windows XP SP2

This entry is a very simple explanation of "TaskList /SVC /FO TABLE" When using Windows Task Manager, I often wonder what some of the .exe files are doing. These are listed under the Image Name column under the Processes tab. But, with Windows XP SP2,
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Sunday, September 26, 2004 9:05 AM

PowerPoint Speaker Notes Text to Speech via the Excel Object Model

Back when Office XP was in beta, I was building "Information Worker" demos. One of them was to show how to make PowerPoint "speak" the speaker notes to you. This isn't quite Accessibility at it's finest, but it certainly doesn't hurt. You could figure
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Saturday, September 25, 2004 8:32 PM

Customer and Technical Facilities at Microsoft

When I tell people that I work at the Redmond MTC , I often get asked about other customer-focused facilities that showcase Microsoft products and technologies that are on the Redmond campus. Here is a list of them so you know what's available at our
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Saturday, September 25, 2004 8:09 PM

How environmentally friendly is your community?

Thankfully, Seattle is still a pretty clean place to live, although traffic seems to get worse all the time. Check out http://www.scorecard.org/index.tcl to see how your city rates. Hey Michael (my brother), I know the skiing is great at Alta , but Salt
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Friday, September 24, 2004 9:57 AM

Living Your Values

At Microsoft, we are fortunate enough to have a variety of guest speakers come to campus. Recently, Gary Erickson, the co-founder of Cliff Bar came to talk about how his company got started and how his values kept him from selling his company AND how
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Friday, September 24, 2004 7:42 AM

Partnering with the MTC: The Enterprise Engineering Center

Check out the Enterprise Engineering Center ’s WebLog at http://blogs.msdn.com/eec/ . We partner with this team for the Proof-of-Concept offerings. They have great facilities and people, so if you want to keep up on some great work happening for customers
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Thursday, September 23, 2004 6:34 PM

Japanese Business Relations and Culture

I just wrapped up a day-long training session with Doug Lipp and some of his associates. The course was all about interacting with our great Japanese co-workers, partners, and customers. Think culture, communications, meetings, expectations, etc. This
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Thursday, September 23, 2004 1:37 PM

The demo at a Microsoft Technology Center

So what is in this demo that I have mentioned? Without listing all the products that we have in it, we generally try to present a fake company that is an "Intelligent Organization" that: Enables Core New Capabilities Provides Mobile Access Empowers Users
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Thursday, September 23, 2004 8:34 AM

You can buy an old ski chair!

If only I had the room for one. Check this out from a newsletter I just got from http://www.onthesnow.com/ : Triple chairs from Heavenly's venerable Waterfall lift are being sold by the South Lake Tahoe resort for $200 a pop (cash only) at the California
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Wednesday, September 22, 2004 11:49 PM

The Demo and the Demo Platform at the Microsoft Technology Centers

More about what my team and I do: From http://www.microsoft.com/services/microsoftservices/mtcoffer.mspx : Capitalizing on expert knowledge, best practices, and industry leaders, the MTC staff can show your organization how to get the most out of Microsoft
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Wednesday, September 22, 2004 10:01 PM

New MSFT blog, but different

What Makes This Blog Different? Most of the blogs at Microsoft are from some great people who either work on building a product, or are working "out in the field" to generate excitement around Microsoft's products (now those are cool jobs!). Yes, that
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
 
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