Get your sidebar gadgets!

gfrancisco — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:42:00 GMT

Our team recently released a series of Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets with the help of Donovan West from LiveGadgets.net. These visually appealing gadgets provide a friction-free desktop mechanism for keeping users engaged and up to date with our latest content on Channel 8, Channel 9, Channel 10, TechNet Edge, and Mix Online.

Features:

· Automatic rotation of latest articles on the site allows you to quickly see what’s new and keep up to date without opening a browser

· Read articles and view videos right on your desktop or navigate directly to the post

· Gadgets works with both Silverlight 1.0 as well as the beta

· Users get a friendly error when attempting to use the gadget in 64bit mode. If users prefer to use this in 64 bit environment they can use this workaround.

These gadgets are available on the Windows Live Gallery:

· Channel 9

· Channel 10

· TechNet Edge

· Channel 8

· Mix Online

We would love to get feedback and reports of any issues which can be sent to us at evnetbug@microsoft.com .

My interview with 2 female developer evangelists

gfrancisco — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:54:00 GMT

Last week I had the pleasure to sit down and chat with a couple of female developer evangelists who were at SVC for our Women's Leadership and Development Conference. We were fortunate to have Lynn Langit as a speaker for the conference - talking about how she made her career transition. Lucky for me - she convinced Asli Bilgin to come to our conference as well. It was a lot of fun doing this interview - both are very funny, dynamic women. I really appreciated how candid they both were during our session. I hope you enjoy it too!

Cha Cha Change... and some random news

gfrancisco — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 02:36:00 GMT

Farewell Team System... Hello Channel 9! Or to be more specific - the Evangelism Network team which brings you Channel 9, On10 and VisitMix. I haven't been blogging about Team System since last fall due to major changes in my life since then. Recently I re-joined Jeff's team and I'm now working as a PM partnering with Adam on Channel 9 v4 and other Evangelism Network projects. It's been a refreshing change so far. I had a great time being an evangelist, but I was itching for something new and different that would stretch me and this definitely hits the spot. Aside from working on process, features and schedules, I'll also have my own Channel 9 video series here on the Silicon Valley Campus (SVC). There's a lot of fantastic, innovative work happening here at SVC and I'm looking forward to turning the spotlight to these teams.

I've also been working with some very talented women in our local chapter board of Women at Microsoft (W@M). We had a fun lunch today with the HR lead for our campus to discuss some of our ideas. It was really great being engaged in lively discussion with my fellow SVC W@M board members who really care about our campus community. We had some ridiculously funny ideas that we were bowling over in laughter over. I really hope we'll make them happen. In the meanwhile, it's been great meeting so many people on campus through the W@M events that we put together - definitely a great way for me to figure out who I'll be interviewing for my Channel 9 series.

Some cool things that have happened this week so far:

Digigirlz at SVC

We hosted our first Digigirlz day at SVC. Though the turnout was smaller than we were hoping, I still thought it was a great start. I had a chance to meet some of the young women - mostly seniors in the local high schools - during the lunch event. It was fun to talk with them about working in high tech and to listen to their top of mind concerns - like which college to pick and if their bus driver was going to block traffic again on the way back to their campus. It was interesting to hear one of the attendee's concerns that being technical meant being isolated on their computers all day long. So of course I had to chime in about other options in the technical field that give one a great variety of things to do in a day and unchains you from the desk - Evangelism is certainly a great example of that, and so is the presales engineer role (we refer to that as a "Technical Specialist" here at Microsoft). It really can be a fun experience. Of course I had to put in a plug for Channel 9 to let them know checking out some of the video interviews there could help give them some insight into what working in high tech is like and WM_IN highlights some of the cool women working here at Microsoft.

Microsoft sponsors a Stanford jazz concert

Microsoft sponsored a jazz concert at Stanford yesterday. Irvin Mayfield and NOJO delivered such an amazing performance of contemporary New Orleans Jazz - much of which included their original works. I had to keep myself from bawling when they showed a video segment at the end of the show to honor all of those who perished in the Katrina disaster. It was a really entertaining and educational show, and I loved that they brought out a Gunn High school jazz band to join them at the very end. These kids were amazing.

The countdown to MIX

Adam's team has been really busy updating the VisitMix site. Make sure to check it out. Folks are packing their bags and singing "Viva Lost Wages..." in preparation for this fantastic event next week.

graceworld : Channel9

Get your sidebar gadgets!

My interview with 2 female developer evangelists

Cha Cha Change... and some random news