Yesterday, the Live Mesh team expanded their Technical Preview to include Ireland (and Canada and India).

What does this mean? It means that if you are in one of the countries covered, you can sign in to Live Mesh and try it out.

If you have more than one computer, you'll love Live Mesh. Imagine having folders on your desktop into which you drop files, and access from anywhere you have internet access. The folders are automatically synchronized between all your computers, so now your desktop and laptop can share files without you having to worry about copying things to and fro, and remember which system is storing which version.

There's a lot more to Live Mesh than this though. As well as forthcoming support for devices and - woohoo! - Macs, you can open remote screen access easily, record a history or changes, share notes, and more. Live Mesh isn't merely an application, it's a platform. Microsoft does platforms. It's our thing. 

At the moment, using just my Hotmail address, I've been able to set up all my desktops and laptops to share folders and it's painless and useful. The day when all our stuff will be in 'the cloud' just got a little bit closer. Try it out for yourself.

My friends in Redmond were complaining about the heat around the Seattle area during the week, and oh, my heart reached out for them in sympathy. Not.

Ireland is having rather a wet summer so far, and the forecast has it continuing for another month or two. If you need constant, hot sun and blue skies, then Ireland is perhaps not the country for you.

The climate here is more.. mild. It doesn't rain ALL the time, but it rains more than Seattle (and as every Seattle resident knows, the stories of the rain there are mainly hype to keep too many of the Californians from moving up).

This morning the weather consisted of that special Dublin Drizzle. Not hard rain, but constant and very, very wet. As I'm still cycling into the office, there was just no point trying to keep dry, so I simply wore my t-shirt and shorts and resigned myself to it. Truth be told, it wasn't that bad: almost refreshing in fact. And after a lovely hot shower in the Microsoft changing room, I felt pretty good.

One thing I learnt is that ABS brakes on cars are very good indeed: someone decided to enter the roundabout at top speed when I was already on it this morning, and they skidded to a halt about 20 centimetres from me. It was a scary moment - and I've not even healed up after my last incident. I think I shall invest in some very bright clothing, and perhaps walk across that particular road junction from now on.

Today in the office I've been trying to gauge interest in an XNA support group, to meet up at lunchtimes and write code. We'll see how everyone is fired up after Gamefest! 

I'm delighted to be able to attend Gamefest 2008 in Seattle this July. I'm looking forward to the XNA tracks very much. If you are in Europe, the event travels to London in early August.

But now more about living in Dublin.

Dublin, as it turns out, has many pubs. So far, in my month's residency, I've managed to avoid going into said pubs. However, a good friend that I'd not seen for twenty years happened to be visiting the city for the weekend, and so we arranged to meet up in Sinnotts; a large, underground sports bar right next to St Stephen's Green.

It was a nice pub, and I enjoyed a pint (or two) of the first Guinness I've had in Dublin in many years. Unfortunately (or not) I'm not much of a drinker, so I reached my limit very quickly, but we had a good evening exchanging stories of technology from the good old days. Yes, nerd talk mostly.

I was planning on taking the LUAS home, but when I got to the stop, I realized I'd forgotten my LUAS SmartCard and I'd left my coins as a tip for the barman. The six mile walk didn't seem that appealing, but a LUAS train guard took pity on this clearly lost alien, and after telling me about how exceptional this was, wrote me a note on a little scrap of paper which effectively gave me a free ticket to get home. I'm not sure that would have happened in any other city. I like Dublin.

Yes, it's true - no more NEO. Now it's "On-Boarding". So, apart from being a hugely ugly word, what is "On-Boarding"?

When you join Microsoft, there is a huge amount of information to take in. From company values, to pension information, to health care options - there's a LOT of information. Microsoft therefore has a special day set-aside for new employees, and that's where I am at the moment. Well, it's a lunch break.

Although I've been a full-timer for eight years, there are enough changes that attending the MS Ireland day makes sense.

I'll tell you something else about Dublin: the roads are surprisingly slippy. This morning I was cycling to work, and whilst taking a nice, fast right-hand bend, the tyres on my bike completely lost grip, and I did a spectacular grating slide across the road on my right side. Lucky I wasn't hit by any cars, but I destroyed my shorts, damaged my bike and ripped an uncomfortable amount of skin from my arm, ankle and thigh. It looked a lot worse that it was, with blood everywhere, and I had to sit by the side of the road for a bit trying not to throw up. I was glad I had my helmet on!

Many thanks to Microsoft's first aid expert Patricia o'H. and and nurse Deirdre F. for patching me up, and reassuring me that despite the blood and shock it was only a fleshwound and a trip to the ER wasn't required. You know what men are like: we're convinced we're dying.

Being the good Microsoftie that I am, of course I'm in the office working. We're hardcore in Dublin!

As part of my career change, I also changed countries: specifically, I've moved from Redmond, Washington, I've moved to Dublin, Ireland.

Although I was born and raised near Belfast, I'm still a stranger here. Belfast is in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and therefore a completely different country from Dublin, which is in the Republic of Ireland. If it helps, think of how Canada and the US are joined and yet very different, with their own governments, currencies and culture.

So it is with Dublin. I've had to get used to new accents (everything is always 'grand, so it is!') using the Euro currency, and sign up for an Irish social security number and all the usual things that come with moving country. At least as an EU citizen I've not had to worry about work permits or visas. With all this moving, I currently feel like I'm tri-national: I have family in the UK, a career in Ireland, and a large part of my life still in the US. Passports and borders are so last millenium!

I'm slowly finding my way around Dublin (having only visited it a few times previously). It's by no means a large city, but it's a nice one. There are parks, and galleries and museums, and a light rail / tram system called the LUAS (pronouced 'lewis') that I use to travel from where I live (and work) about six miles south of the city, right into the heart of Dublin. There's also a giant spike in the middle of O'Connell Street outside the General Post Office (historially, an important place) for no readily apparent reason. 

I've managed to survive without a car for the time being, as I can cycle to work - not a bad thing given the price of petrol/gasoline over here!

Microsoft Dublin is spread over three modern office buildings in a region called Sandyford. There isn't the same campus feel as Redmond, but the buildings are airy, bright and I've no complaints.There is even a Company Store and a Gym, and I can see green hills through the window from where I'm sitting, and the exciting Irish weather happening. Pretty nice, huh?

Some immediate and not-partcularly-well-thought-out comparisions between Redmond and Ireland:

In work

• Open plan offices - I'm getting used to doing without my own office. It's actually an interesting change, and promotes a team atmosphere.
• No free Coke - not that I drank much soda, but unlike Redmond, the cans are in a vending machine rather than an open fridge. Thankfully there's plenty of tea and coffee to be had. There's also a Starbucks for that early morning / mid-afternoon jolt.

Outside work

• The cost of living is definitely a lot higher here that the US, unfortunately.
• So cosmopolitan! Unlike N. Ireland, there seems to be people here from all over the world! There is a fantastic array of accents, and restaurants and shops.
• Smoking is everywhere. The clean air of Redmond is something I miss when I'm walking down the streets. Smoking is of course banned in public places, but you can seen dozens of people huddled outside offices trying to get their fix, creating noxious clouds.

So far I'm enjoying myself. My new team is great, my job is shaping up to be interesting and challenging, and it will take me a while longer to explore Dublin. And once I've done that, there's the rest of Ireland to discover and of course, the rest of Europe is a short plane journey or ferry ride away.

So, being a Program Manager working with XBox games teams - that's got to be one of the coolest jobs going, eh?  

Well come back to me in six months, and I'll let you know :-)

For the moment, as well as lots of PM-y type things, I'm trying to get myself up to speed on DirectX using C++. Any recommendations for good resources very welcome indeed!

 I've also been making a list of recently updated blogs and other sites that may be interesting. Again, feel free to suggest your favourites! 

• GamerscoreBlog
• Circlets - Elle's Xbog 360 space
• XNA Team Blog

By nature, I’m not what you would call a social chap. Meeting new people is something I find stressful, and of course, I am perhaps the worst person for remembering names in the entire universe (it’s a good thing my mummy sews a label with my name into all my clothes, or I’d probably forget that too).

However, one thing I do very much enjoy is getting together with some fellow nerds to talk shop. Programming techniques, platforms, open source developments, mobile technologies – this is the stuff that I like.

I therefore greatly enjoyed the local chapter of the ‘Open Coffee’ meet-ups that were held in Belfast. I met some smart people, and had a good chat that got me out of the house and away from the LCD monitor for a few hours a month.

Now that I’m Dublin, I need to look up the local version. One event that immediately caught my eye was TechLudd, which is having a meeting tonight. If you are interested in entrepreneurical computer and technology developments, it might be interesting. If you are going, and notice me lurking around, say Hi!

When we last heard from our intrepid blogger, he was doing something with Windows Mobile docs in Redmond. Then it all went quiet..

Well, good news everyone: I’m back. It’s all change though - this time I’m a Program Manager, working with the Microsoft Games Studios teams in Dublin, Ireland. Did you know Microsoft have an R&D facility in Ireland? Well, turns out we do, and I’m working in it!

I’m still at the point where I’m working out exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, as well as signing up for all the various things I need to sign up for, sorting out healthcare, tax and social security and locating the nearest restroom, discovering the cafeteria and so on. Moving countries is hard, even when they speak the same language,

I’m not sure what form this blog will take, and what sort of information I’ll cover. Back in the Windows Mobile team, it was my job to talk about stuff, and explain new features. Over here, I’m not really sure my manager would like it if I posted information about the really cool new.... ooops. I’ll have to be careful obviously.

OK heroes, this is my last blog entry as today is my last day at Microsoft. I’ve greatly enjoyed the last eight years here, and sorry I can’t say longer. However, it’s back to Ireland I go. If you would like to stay in touch, please feel free to visit my person website at: http://www.johnterencekennedy.com/

Thank you, and goodnight!

Good news if English isn't your first language, or, I guess, you want to test your foreign language skills. Using a rather cool machine translation system from Microsoft Research, the Content Publishing Team have managed to convert the Windows Moble 6 SDK into multiple languages. You can even read them side-by-side to compare, in case the translation is lacking.

Your feedback is definitely welcome, so please check it out.

(link now inactive, sorry)

Back to work for a moment: if you now go to the MSDN site and check the Windows Mobile docs - in fact, the entire Windows Mobile and Embedded docs - you'll see one important difference: nothing. Well, hopefully you won't spot anything out of the ordinary.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms376734.aspx

However, in the background for weeks, we've been moving around every single topic we own, and sorting them into a considerably more logical platform/release structure. This sounds both trivial and common sense, but I should tell you that this was one of the first things I was tasked to do when I joined this team about two years ago.

In order to move these docs around, poor Troy on the production team had to create massive lists of instructions for the MSDN engineers to follow. We had to create new entry pages. We had to try and work out what to do with older content (Pocket PC 2000, anyone?) that we're legally obliged to include. We also had to work out where Windows Mobile 6 content, and any future content, would go. All the teams involved had to buy-off on the moves.

So, in between writing documentation, we finally found time to do this in the past month, and it went live yesterday. There are still a few bugs that need ironed out (we can't change the .Net Micro Framework's extra quotation mark in the title for example - that belongs to a different team, and the request to change need to be filed in triplicate, recycled as firelighters, and fed to the Bugblatter Beast of Traal ), but things will settle down soon. No URLs that point to content have been changed as far as I know, so if you have bookmarks, they'll still work.

If this is the kind of thing that interests you, maybe there is a career for you in the exciting world of programmer/writing and information engineering! :-)

Someone suggested in a comment to a previous posting that I write about the current state of the industry, and as I’m leaving the company, I might as well be completely honest. That would be a great idea, but remember that I only have the viewpoint of a foot soldier rather than a general, and so I’m not sure that I know the current state of the industry in any way that would be meaningful.

Also, I don’t think I’ve ever been dishonest when writing this blog (haha) so there might not be much new here. And finally, I would like to keep the option of working for Microsoft in the future open. I do like this place, and the people and I still have stock!

With that out of the way, I am happy to start with a rant and say I dislike the latest version of Word and its default typeface Calibri a great deal. Drives me crazy. The kerning seems whacky, and it doesn’t come with my favourite Helvetica. There, that’s set the scene nicely. You can tell I’m going to be at least a little mean here, but in a nerdy way. J

So, to be honest, I have a feeling that we lost our way a little.

My favourite mobile devices were the early ones: the Palm-size PCs, the Pocket PCs. There was no attempt to be a phone, they were PDAs – and back then, this was a really novel idea. The competitor was Palm, and Microsoft really shook them up. Sure, the user interface was clunky (after eight years here, I am still not convinced that a Start button on a pocket device is a good idea, and I don’t think I ever will be) but there was some real innovation. Remember “Channels”, that funny icon that looked like a satellite dish? Those were a cross between desktop widgets and RSS feeds – and that was ten years ago. Ahead of its time. Even the mighty iPhone doesn’t quite have the same model in place for pulling down content. If those had survived until WIFI/GPRS, they would have flourished. Sadly, all we have at the moment is the Mobile Internet Explorer web browser, which, let’s be honest here, is not amazing.

Back then, Pocket PCs had the ability to write plug-ins for the home screen that was powerful and easy to do.  I wrote and sold a program called “Sticky Buttons” that let you use anything from South Park characters to Star Trek-style graphics as your user interface, and the templates people emailed me were stunning. They broke every copyright law in the book, but they were stunning. Everyone loves customizing the look of their personal gadgets, and it's a shame that it’s increasingly difficult to change the look of Windows Mobile devices.

The move away from innovative new ways of using mobile devices seemed to happen when we started to mate these pocket devices with mobile phones. Of course it was inevitable that this union happen, but bolting a phone onto a PDA was kind of back to front, and highlighted the “Start button” model. In my view, it should be a phone first, and a computer second.  We always seemed to get that the other way around, even with the Smartphone devices.

Now, when I say lost our way, that simply mean deviates from the kind of device that I, personally, would like. I’m not speaking for the entire market. The market that Windows Mobile devices seems to be two groups of people: the business person who needs access to email on the road, and the company that needs to tweak a device into a bespoke platform for remote access to data. Given Microsoft’s success with Exchange Email Server and database tools, this isn’t that surprising when you think about it. Plus, Microsoft has Visual Studio in its catalog – and I’m biased of course, but this has got to be the finest, most powerful development suite in existence.  

Windows Mobile devices have been very, very successful in these markets, which is a Good Thing. But then I walk into a local phone store and see Windows Mobile devices on display, and I worry. I think that if we have these for sale in a High Street store, we’re reaching beyond business users, and in that case someone is going to buy one of these, and then they are going to discover that the device isn’t really ideal for, you know, fun stuff. The web browser, the media player – these are features that have not kept pace, and ironically this is exactly where mobile technology is blossoming. Social networks, portable video, Web 2.0 – we’re lagging behind there. Thank goodness there are some cool apps happening and many changes afoot that I can’t talk about, but there is still progress to be made here.

I’ve seen people put a Windows Mobile device and an iPhone on a PowerPoint slide, and check off the features: email, media, web browser. Sure, the Windows Mobile device gets a check mark but that’s missing rather an important point. I would like to see us make a device that combined the amazing, industrial-strength business stuff we have pretty much perfected, with the type of experience that would make me personally want to buy one of these for my brother, who doesn’t need to stay in touch with his office.

There. I’ve said it. For fun stuff, we’ve a ways to go. And that is what I like doing with devices, fun stuff. It’s what I liked doing on Pocket PCs and Palm-size PCs, and it was easy to write some applications to make fun-stuff happen. These devices aren’t fun for me anymore. My personal phone is not a Windows Mobile phone.

Of course, there are just my personal opinions. I’m far away from any team that implements these features, and defines which market segment Windows Mobile is aimed at. This company exists to make money for the shareholders, not create a device specifically for me. My job here has been to try and help developers write applications, by wrestling with the enormous number of programming APIs on one side, and the enormous overhead of the documentation creation process on the other. When I do get to pop my head up and try and see what’s coming next, another wave of new APIs and documentation tools crashes down on me, and I get caught up in the enjoyable process (and I’m not being sarcastic there, really) of getting information onto MSDN in a way that someone might actually be able to find it, and think it useful. Hey, it was a wonderful job – but it wasn’t a job that could influence the next generation of device user interface.

So I do think we strayed a little too much into the business user side, and could have spent more time creating user interfaces, customization tools,  web features and media players. 

Last month was my last full month at Microsoft, which means it was also the last full month in which I had a chance of getting more hits on my blog than my manager. I didn't manage it! Despite the fact that he didn't have a single new post, he still beat me by a comfortable margin. That's the benefit of getting onto a lot of RSS feeds while in a different team, I guess...

So, perhaps there is still hope for this month. I might be gone at the end of this week, but at least my manager will see the stats for October.

 All I need to do is writing an amazingly popular blog post that hits Digg or SlashDot or something. Hmm.. I could leak some secrets.. or publish some pictures.. or leak some secret pictures..

You tell me: what should I do? I've nothing to lose :-) I'm leaving the company AND the country :-)

Update #1 

Did I mention that I spotted Steve Ballmer in a Subway last weekend?

Update #2

Is it just the fact that I work in the Windows Mobile team, or is it a trend in society in general that men think it is acceptable to hold a telephone conversation, or to send text messages and emails, whilst in the toilet? Here at work I always seem to notice chaps standing up, talking away on their phone, or on one memorable occasion, as I sat in the cubicle I was forced to hear the occupant next door telling a collection agency about his ex-wife's spending habits...