Ken Levy's Blog

Moving on to something new, but staying close

2008-07-12T02:48:36Z

After working at Microsoft for over 7 years as an employee and almost 5 years before that as a contractor/vendor, I’ve decided it’s time for me to do become independent and start my own company. My official last day at Microsoft is July 18^th. I’ve enjoyed all the years working at Microsoft since the early 90s, especially with great people making many friends along the way.

I will continue be involved with Microsoft plus other technologies, attending various developer/technology events, and being active in the communities in general. I’m very enthusiastic about the developer community growth around extending Visual Studio and the plans Microsoft has around upcoming versions of the VS SDK as well as various community member projects recently started. I plan to attend the VSX Developers Conference this September in Redmond and I’m looking forward to talking to many VSX developers and VSIP members there.

My new company is called MashupX, new blog is at http://mashupx.com/blog/, and new email address is klevy@mashupx.com. I will be blogging about my startup company activities, travel, gadgets, movies, and technology in general. I’ll post more details on my blog later this month, so check there soon for more details.

VSX Community Letter for April 2008 posted on VSX Team blog

2008-04-17T01:57:29Z

Just posted the VSX Community Letter for April 2008.

Channel 9: Sean O'Driscoll talks about Microsoft MVPs and MVP program

2008-04-09T01:29:31Z

Video posted today: Channel 9: Sean O'Driscoll: General Manager for Community Support and the MVP Program (36 minutes).

Last year I had this idea to do a video interview of Sean O'Driscoll, a General Manager for Community Support and the MVP Program at Microsoft, to discuss the history, current state, and future of Microsoft MVPs and the MVP Program. This interview is a discussion only, no demos, so downloading the WMA or MP3 audio file is a good option to listen.

Being an MVP myself for much of the 1990s before joining Microsoft as well as being apart of all MVP Summits that Microsoft has hosted, the discussion with Sean was educational and nostalgic. Sean and I also talk at length about communities in general and how passion for a product or service is usually the driving factor behind any type of community. The annual MVP Summit is occurring here in Seattle and Redmond next week with around 2,000 MVP attending from around the world.

More about Sean... For the past 5 years, Sean has been responsible for the MVP Program which now includes about 4,000 MVPs worldwide. Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) are a select group of experts representing technology's best and brightest people who share a commitment to community. Sean will be leaving Microsoft later this year, see his blog post about it from last December: 15 years at Microsoft, coming to an end…mixed emotions.

For more information about the MVP Program, refer to http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/.

Using Ctrl+F1 in Office 2007 to hide/show ribbon toolbar

2008-04-09T01:19:47Z

I recently found a useful hotkey tip using various applications in Office 2007. Just toggle Ctrl+F1 to show and hide the ribbon toolbar area. This is similar to the F11 hotkey in Internet Explorer to toggle IE full screen view on and off.

VSX Community Letter for March 2008 posted on VSX Team blog

2008-03-14T00:30:00Z

Just posted the VSX Community Letter for March 2008.

VSX Community Letter for February 2008 posted on VSX Team blog

2008-03-01T05:55:00Z

Reminder about the VSX Community Letter for February 2008.

VSX Community Letter for January 2008 posted on VSX Team blog

2008-01-16T08:25:00Z

Just posted the VSX Community Letter for January 2008.

VSX Community Letter for October 2007 posted on VSX Team blog

2007-10-04T11:20:00Z

Just posted the VSX Community Letter for October 2007.

VSX Community Letter for September 2007 posted on VSX Team blog

2007-09-17T22:27:00Z

Just posted the VSX Community Letter for September 2007.

VSX Community Letter for August 2007 posted on VSX Team blog

2007-08-10T20:23:00Z

Just posted the VSX Community Letter for August 2007.

Ultimate Ears on Channel 10 - Part 1

2007-07-02T21:17:00Z

On June 15th, I informally hosted some folks from Ultimate Ears on the Microsoft campus in one of the cafeterias. During their visit, I invited the folks from the Channel 10 team to stop by to do a video interview for on10.net. The video they created is a compilation of edited video material from Ultimate Ears, a short introduction interview with me talking about community around Ultimate Ears headphones (passion for the product = community), and a detailed interview with Mike Dias of Ultimate Ears. You'll see interviewer Laura Foy trying out several UE headphone including listening to Def Leppard on my Zune. There is possible part 2 video on Ultimate Ears coming to Channel 10 in the near future, as indicated near the end of the interview with Mike. The video can be viewed online or downloaded (various formats) at:

Ultimate Ears: How music was meant to be heard
You've never listened to your Zune like THIS before. I used to think headphones are headphones are headphones - but now I know that's not the case. Musicians know their stuff and they need the highest quality, most precise audio in their ears and that's why most on-stage performers use Ultimate Ears. There's actually an insane amount of technology all crammed into that little tiny earpiece. I wish you could all experience what I heard but take a look at this clip and I'm sure you'll get a better understanding of how music was meant to be heard.

VSX Community Letter for July 2007 posted on VSX Team blog

2007-07-02T20:30:00Z

Yesterday I posted the VSX Community Letter for July 2007 on the VSX Team blog. This is the first in a series of ongoing monthly letters to the Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX) community. The letter is also highlighted on the http://msdn.com/vsx/ developer center. The general theme of each community letter is a summary of information from the past month including: 1) what the VS Tools Ecosystem team has been working on 2) recent news, announcements, and content 3) useful community and events information. The letter concludes with a what we are working on now and a sneak preview of what to expect next month's letter.

Ultimate Ears visits Microsoft in Redmond on June 15th

2007-06-14T23:23:00Z

Ultimate Ears visits Microsoft June 15th, building 34/35 cafeteria

Mike Dias from L.A. based Ultimate Ears is up here in Redmond visiting the main Microsoft campus on Friday June 15th from 11:00am to 6:00pm in the building 34/35 cafeteria. This is Mike's second visit to Microsoft, and all Microsoft employees are invited to stop by to meet Mike, learn more about Ultimate Ears headphones, and receive a demo of the amazing new Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10 Pro headphones.

New triple.fi 10 Pro headphones

The Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10 pro headphones for consumers are brand new and will be released later in late June. I've been listening to a pair for over a month now and they sound just as good (even a bit more natural deep bass) as the custom UE-10 models. The triple.fi 10s have 3 stereo drivers and a cross-over in each earpiece and are essentially a consumer (non-custom) version of their top of the line UE-10 headphones.

Reviews from users and publications

From a blog post about Mike's last visit to Microsoft in late 2005, Robert Scoble blogged about Ultimate Ears saying his Ultimate Ears the best he's ever heard. I talked to Robert at MIX07 a few months ago and he was still raving about his Ultimate Ears headphones, as does everyone I talk to who is part of the Ultimate Ears community. You can search online and find many other great reviews online including editor and review awards in many technical and audio publications.

Discounts for Microsoft employees

Ultimate Ears offers special discounts to Microsoft employees. Mike will have a limited supply of both black and white super.fi 5 Pro units (30 total) on hand for immediate sale.

Custom UE-10 headphones (free giveaway during visit

Any Microsoft employee who stops by and tries these amazing headphones out can enter for a free raffle to win a $900 valued pair of custom UE-10 monitors (raffle winner will be notified by email later that same evening).

Ultimate Ears used by over 80% all professional musicians world-wide

Ultimate Ears product line significantly dominates the professional music industry world-wide. To see a partial list (over 1000 listed) of professional artist and some celebrities who have Ultimate Ears headphones, check out:

Ultimate Ears artist and celebrity clientele list

Previous postings about Ultimate Ears custom and consumer headphones

For some detailed background information about Ultimate Ears custom and consumer headphones, refer to my previous detailed blog posts:

Quick tour of the Ultimate Ears lab in Irvin, California

In the summer of 2006, I visited Ultimate Ears in Orange County, Calif and recorded some Channel 9 style interviews including the one of Mike Dias below in the Ultimate Ears custom headphone lab.

Video: Ultimate Ears - Lab Tour 1

VSX Team Blog and VSX Developer Center

2007-06-08T10:31:00Z

An update on a few things I'm working on relative to the new VSX community building including a team blog and the msdn.com site for VS extensibility. I created the new VSX Team Blog recently and kicked off the steady blog activity (the 5 entries this week all listed below) while here at TechEd 2007, some including short video interviews.

VSX is a short name and acronym I coined for Visual Studio eXtensibility. While I post all the blog entries on the VSX team blog, I do so in third person context as a kind of voice of the team for community. I'll differentiate from what I post on the VSX team blog and what I post here on my blog as follows. The VSX team blog will include mostly formal news and announcements from the VSX team, while here on my blog I'll post additional details about VSX team and community as well as topics beyond VSX.

I also now directly edit all of the content on the VSX developer center at http://msdn.com/vsx, which was updated (home page only) last week. Next week I'll be working in updating the VSX dev center site completely to take on a new template UI. Check out the http://msdn.com/vcsharp or the http://msdn.com/vbasic dev centers to see what the new UI looks like for tools and language sites on msdn.com. The new UI and additional updates for the VSX dev center is scheduled to be completed near the end of this month.

Sara Ford commands ScooterCam-1 at TechEd07

2007-06-08T09:51:00Z

At TechEd 2007, Sara Ford drives what she calls ScooterCam-1 to get around the conference due to her injured leg from a recent hiking incident (see her blog post Not broken after all). The name ScooterCam is derived from the fact that she hooked up a camcorder to the scooter using duct tape to record first person videos while driving the scooter around the conference. C# developer Rob Robertson of Intel, who Sara and I got to know at the MVP/Influencer party the night before, jumps on the back of ScooterCam for a free ride. The ScooterCam turned out to be a mobile social community gathering during the breaks between sessions.

Video: Sara Ford commands ScooterCam-1 at TechEd07