Marc: My Words : Microsoft Life

Time Flies

maholmes — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:09:41 GMT

It feels like only a few days since I mentioned the birth of my daughter Evan, but in fact it's approaching 2 years, and I'm approaching another bout of paternity leave for Baby v2.0.

Therefore it'll be a bit hit and miss on the blogging for a month or so. Not sure why I'm mentioning that as it's always a bit hit and miss - perhaps it's because there's a valid reason this time.

In the meantime, you're in the capable hands of:

MikeT: talking about RIAs and most recently building bit.ly add-ins for Live Writer. Hmm, I wonder why?
MikeO: talking about the web although most recently ranting about the quality of TV News.
Eric: looking after the MSDN flash, meandering through entity framework with his head in the (Azure) clouds.
Paul: usually taking stuff to bits and then rebuilding it - just slightly better than it was before.
James: virtualising your windows and befuddling you with genius bits of Powershell
Andrew: knows a lot about SQL BI, quite a bit about security which sits very well with his fine art training.
Viral: he's out there at your events, thinks about productivity and sometimes bashing Google.
Matt: ah... the architect. Thoughtful, insightful and occasionally a bit angry.

How could you go wrong?

Andrew Sampson, Stephen Fry and Social Media

maholmes — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:04:35 GMT

Over on the MS Advertising site, my friend Mel Carson has a great interview with Andrew Sampson - who discusses social media and his part in the Stephen Fry phenomenon. Interesting interview which covers:

How Andrew was inspired to set Stephen up.
How they identified a social media need.
How to balance content with different audiences.
When to start monetizing and how to approach it.
Being responsible with Social Media.
Building your personal brand online.
The scoop on the Untied Artists Network!
How advertisers should think about targeting social media sites.
Answers to a few of 300 (!) questions we were asked on Twitter.
What it's like working with a national treasure!

The Great(ish) Expression/Sketchflow UI Magnet Giveaway

maholmes — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:57:43 GMT

If you weren't at FOWA last week, then not only did you miss out on understanding the future of web applications, but you also missed the Microsoft crew talking about Web Platform Installer, ASP.NET MVC, and WebsiteSpark. (And The Gu was there. Funnily enough, I also bumped into The Hoff last week too.)

Much more importantly though is that we were giving away some awesome Sketchflow-inspired magnets for building your own UI. Aren't they lovely?

I'm happy to report that I've nabbed a box of them. If you'd like a set then drop me a mail with your mailing details. (UK ONLY FOLKS, AND ON A BEST EFFORTS BASIS).

I'll update this post when I've run out.

Advertising Week

maholmes — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:45:37 GMT

London-based friend and colleague Mel Carson was busy out at Advertising Week in NYC last week. The Microsoft Advertising team have put together a hub covering proceedings - you can find it here.

Of particular interest to me was this demo of Looking Glass - something I'd really like to get my hands on but haven't managed to yet. Mel talks about it a little here.

Interested in MS Advertising? You can follow them at: @msadvertising naturally!

ServerQuest

maholmes — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:49:06 GMT

Nice find from Mr. Bennett . Ah, those were the days. Nice bit of Silverlight too though I understand Silverlight 3 will have slightly better graphics ;)...(read more)

Aiiieeee 8

maholmes — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:30:30 GMT

Phew – long day yesterday as I was helping a bunch of fellow DPErs with the MWord in London – a little get-together to recap on the announcements from Mix. I guess the main announcement yesterday was IE8 and there’s only one thing to say really: go get...(read more)

2019 Vision

maholmes — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:18:33 GMT

Talking of all that cliched 20:20 vision stuff, nice to see that Microsoft dodged a bullet and went with 2019. I love this video as an “inspira-tron” and really want to get my hands on the smart newspaper thing. Meantime I guess I have to settle for Surface...(read more)

Visual Metaphors

maholmes — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:06:50 GMT

Loved this Periodic Table of Typefaces from SwissMiss The Periodic Table works really well as a visual metaphor presumably because it sat on the wall of despised Chemistry lessons for most of our childhood. That kind of imagery is difficult to remove....(read more)

VS2010 and Teleporting Squid

maholmes — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:05:01 GMT

Last Friday, I was involved in an event in London with Rich Erwin and Graeme Scott under the auspices of providing some information about VS2010 and SQL 2008, but also to watch “The Watchmen”. Rich has posted some follow-up on the tools blog , including...(read more)

GlaxoSmithKline and Microsoft Online Services

maholmes — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:26:27 GMT

Filed under “stuff that happened while I was away” is this fairly important announcement that GSK is to deploy 100,000 seats of hosted services from Microsoft (they’d previously been on Notes). As ZDNet reports , it makes Google’s 15,000 seats at Genetech...(read more)

Some TechFest Goodness

maholmes — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:14:49 GMT

TechCrunch picked up on a couple of goings on at TechFest 2009 – where the smart guys at Microsoft Research share their latest ideas. Stuff such as: Surface Image Projection beyond the screen. Social Desktop Viveri – actually, this was mentioned by LiveSide...(read more)

MVP Blog

maholmes — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:10:29 GMT

Jas Dhaliwal ( @jas ) is looking after some social media work on the MVP program in the UK and this blog has been fairly active since December . Nice one Jas. I pinged him on obtaining an OPML file for all the (UK) MVPs and hopefully he’s pulling something...(read more)

Multi-Touch Surface with Physics Engine

maholmes — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:14:58 GMT

Fresh up on the YouTube Channel is this awesome piece of work from the guys in the Microsoft Technology Centre . I’ve talked about the value the MTC for a business before . This particular work was by Dave and Andy who are some of the smartest guys I...(read more)

Windows 7 – Time please ladies and gentleman…

maholmes — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:03:34 GMT

If you’re not a TechNet or MSDN subscriber then time is running out (10th Feb!) to get your hands on the Windows 7 bits. If you’ve been procrastinating, now is the time! My personal reflections are that it’s a very positive experience. I’ve only been...(read more)

What People Actually Want

maholmes — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:10:13 GMT

I thought this article from Jack Schofield was interesting . Are Netbooks an additional device? My Netbook is certainly additional, but would be my main device if I spent a lot of time wandering around the streets of London (or similar). But overall I...(read more)