PeteL's Blog : Personal

Post Web Direction North and Web Compatibility

PeteL — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:40:43 GMT

I got back from Web Directions North last Sunday, and I got hit HARD with a cold or something. I made it into work on Monday to meet with the great Molly Holzschlag to figure out what our priorities are going to be for content development, and where we're looking for our long term relationship to go. How do we make the most of Molly's time and resources?

Molly and I came up with some really good things I think. We have 12 topics we're going to focus on over the next year or so, both from an inside out perspective (creating help documents, samples, tutorials, videos, etc) and outside in (taking your feedback and making sure the product team for IE, and other teams hear it). As you can imagine, there is lots of feedback, so figuring out what the common themes are is a big task. Something I would like for us to spend more time on.

I ended up leaving Molly early on Monday, as I was getting sick. Sicker than I've been in ages! (Thanks Molly for putting up with a sick Pete) I went home, and went to bed. I think between Monday afternoon and Friday afternoon, I left my condo twice, once to go to the doctors, and once to take the garbage out. Thank goodness for TiVo, NetFlix and books. (I wish the library worked the same way NetFlix did, that'd be cool, I'd pay for that.)

I did spend some time this weekend updating my personal fine art photography site. I've got a show coming up in March, and well, I knew my site didn't render in IE6, and it looked pretty bad in FireFox. The big problem was when I originally wrote it, it didn't have the DOCTYPE switch in it, and well, yah, thats bad. So last night, I took the 20 minutes needed to put the DOCTYPE switch in, and fix the layout. But yay, now http://www.bbpphoto.com renders correctly in IE6, IE7, FireFox, Safari and Opera!

twitter

PeteL — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:02:00 GMT

(in my personal blog style)

okay, so i did it.... i signed up for twitter, not sure if it's a good thing, or a bad thing... you tell me... petele on twitter, feel free to add me... i'll likely add you back, especailly if i know you, have met you, or you're doing some kind of web development and are dealing with IE ;)

btw: more photos on flickr from web directions north.

PEte vs Pete

PeteL — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:20:00 GMT

A few people have asked, but I figured I'd post a quick note about why I sign my emails "PEte" instead of "Pete". And yes, there is a good reason. Well, at least I think it's good.

http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/pages/pete-vs-pete-the-inside-story.aspx

PEte ;)

Week 4 as a Product Manager

PeteL — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 23:50:00 GMT

One of the people I report to this week asked me what the difference between a Product Manager and a GREAT Product Manager. It turns out the difference is in how you answer a question. Instead of saying how difficult something is going to be to do, you just say, "consider it done!" It is kind of the culture of Microsoft, don't say no, ask how high. In order to do a great job here, you have to realize that you're going to be asked to do the difficult. Notice I didn't say you'll be asked to do the impossible, there is a difference. I haven't been asked to do the impossible, I've been asked to do the difficult. And so far, I've kept my head above water. :)

I've learned a few valuable lessons so far. We have an alias for all the people who report to my lead's boss. Generally the email alias is used to gather info, or share info, but just as importantly, it's used to make fun of those people who don't lock their computers. In my old product group, nothing like that ever took place, they were a tonne of fun, but there weren't too many pranks going on. It seems to be that the group up stairs likes to play pranks. One woman came back a from a few days away to find her office tinfoiled. The WHOLE thing. Pens included.

A lot of things have crossed my plate in the last few weeks, and I'm not able to blog as often as I'd like. It's not that there isn't stuff to blog about, it's more that there isn't time to do it. I'm currently working on getting two events together, An Ajax Experience in Boston October 23-26 and Web Design World again in Boston, December 11-13. I'm also REALLY excited to hear they announced a Web Directions - North in Vancouver, February 6-10 2007. If you've not been to Vancouver, I'd highly recommend it, it's a beautiful city! I've found a great web page on Upcoming.org that lists all kinds of upcoming web conferences that I'm using to help keep track of what's going on in the web conference world.

One of the other topics that I'm trying to work on is creating a IE Resource Kit CD/DVD. I'm not sure what it's going to entail yet, or what will be on it, but it's something that I think would be fantastic for developers! I want to try to have it done for WDW, but I'm not 100% sure I'm going to be able to get that done. If there is anything you can think of, let me know! I'd love to add it.

I've also moved to the 4th floor of my building. In my five years at Microsoft, I've lost track of the number of offices I've had, but I think this is the 9th office I've been in. Yes, 9 office moves. Hopefully I'll get to keep this one for a while, but I'm not holding my breath! The crazy thing about the 9 office moves is that they've all be in one building. I've never left building 42. Most of my friends have been in 3 or 4 buildings in their time here at Microsoft, and think it's crazy that I've never left this building. I just keep telling them it's because I'm in the building that is the answer.

And I gotta say, I've been an iPod guy for YEARS. But this Zune thing, it excites me. A LOT. A few friends have them already for testing, and as much as I love my iPod, it's going up for sale in the near future. The next question is how to diverge myself from all the songs I've bought on the iTunes Music Store. (BTW: Check out the Scissor Sisters new CD!!!!)

Thanks for all the fish!

PeteL — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:55:00 GMT

One of my favourite things about working for this company is the interaction I get to have with all of you, the end users, the developers, the IT professionals, the knowledge workers and so forth. In fact, over the least two or three years, I've been working hard to make that more part of my daily life here as a tester on Visual Web Developer. But, being a tester, I have a primary task, and interacting with the community wasn't it. And trust me, I tried as hard as I could to make it my primary task.

But, a few weeks ago, Brian Goldfarb, a Lead Product Manager for Developer Marketing sent me a link to a job he had open, the Product Manager for Internet Explorer. After reading through the job description, I knew it was something that I wanted to do. It's a career that lets me interact with the developer community on a much more regular basis, and find ways to make IE better, enable our developers to have richer development experience.

Brian recruited Keith Smith, our former test manager to come work for him last October as the Product Manager for Visual Web Developer, so making this role change wasn't something that is unheard of. I used it as a great opportunity to talk to Keith, Brian, and several of Brian's other direct reports. After learning more about the role and getting a good introduction to Internet Explorer, I decided to take the plunge and formally ask for permission. I felt kind of bad doing it, as our new test manager, the guy who replaced Keith, had just started. In fact, I asked for permission to interview on his first day on the job!

And that brings us to today. I'm closing down on my test responsibilities and getting ready to leave the team. It's something that is bitter sweet. I've enjoyed working with a group of extremely smart people. Each one of them has something great to offer, and is fun to work with. I'm going to miss those guys. Tomorrow is my last day on the team, though we "celebrated" (is that the right word?) that last Friday with a small party out in one of the sports fields.

SideStory: Right before I cut the cake, Vinay (our test manager) and Brad (one of the dev managers) decided it would be fun to spray me with some champagne. The last time I had a champagne fight was just after we shipped VS2002, so it was over due. Thankfully, they didn’t get me too bad, and it was a warm day, so it dried pretty quickly. I set about cutting the cake, a really nice chocolate cake (anybody see where this is going). I cut the first piece, put it on a plate, turned around and ran at Vinay, covering his face with a piece of chocolate cake. Revenge is sweet (mmmmm, chocolate icing)!

What isn't going to change is you, the community I'm going to be dealing with is very similar, it's the web designers, the add-in developers and other web developers. So stick around, the content on my blog likely won't change much, I'm still going to be dealing with HTML, CSS, but now I'll likely be adding more Jscript, and even some plug in stuff. I'd love to hear from you want you want to know about! What's missing in the documentation, what bugs didn't we fix in IE7 that you want fixed in future versions, and so forth.

If you've not checked out IE7 yet, I also encourage you to do that! It's been a while, but we're finally bringing the browser into the 21st century! Another great place to get some more info is the IE blog! They've done some great work there to spread the info about their team, and all the great stuff they're working on!

The Bellagio Fountains of Diet Coke

PeteL — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:37:00 GMT

As I was doing some of my morning infosnacking, I came across this post on slashdot. A few guys seem to have figured out how to recreate the Bellagio Fountains using only 2L bottles of diet coke, and several menthos.

Check out the video at http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

personal: this side up.

PeteL — Tue, 16 May 2006 02:42:00 GMT

I figured I'd share this with both my personal and work blogs as it's kind of funny and a little humbling. In my personal blog, I always write in smallcaps, so just ignore that fact, and hopefully you'll get a laugh out of my morning.

my friend heath and i have been rowing every morning for the last 6 weeks. after seeing summer storm about two months ago, we both got the itch. i rowed for a summer in university (thats where the b&w pic of me comes from). i only did it one season, but i still had a good time.

well, we started at lake union crew in their learn to row class, and had a great time. thom, our coach was really patient, funny and entertaining. between heath, myself and a few others in the class, i think we kept the class interesting and lively for him too.

heath and i have since graduated from the learn to row class, and are now doing the sweep and skull program. 6:45am m/w/f mornings. let me tell you, it's freaking early, but damn it's fun. being out on the water, the weather has been great (for the most part), in fact today it was awesome. our new coach, has had heath and i in a boat called the marcy every morning. the marcy is a decent boat, its a 2 person skulling boat, great for beginners as it's pretty wide and stable. we do okay in the marcy. we have a bit of a starbord strong pull, but we've been finding ways to combat it, and stay in a straight course (really funny using the words straight and heath and i in a boat).

so any ways, this morning, she puts heath and i in a new boat. the shimley. the shimley is a newer, narrower, faster boat. heath and i hop out into the water, and start going slowly, getting a feel for the new boat and such. one of the other rowers in another boat, asks us if we've "been in the drink yet?" we reply we haven't and are planning on staying that way. (as if that isn't foreshadowing) as we start to get comfortable, we start moving in this sucker. it freaking rocked. with no work, we kept it in a straight line, and we were just kicking ass and taking names (so to speak).

we got through the montlake cut, and we just finishing up a power 5, when both of us caught a crab on our starbord side... suddenly the port oars whipped out, and both of us lost our hands on the port oars. there is one golden rule in rowing: never let go of your oars or you're going for a swim. anyone see where this is going?

yep, heath and i went for a swim in lake washington this morning. the water was not as cold as i was expecting, but it did take my breath away for a second. after treading water for about 30 seconds, we pulled ourselves onto the boat (which didn't capsize, just leaned far enough for us to get out of the boat). we quickly realized that we were going to be able to get back and, and with a little work, we got back in even before our coach made it over to us. she handed us a pump and we pumped ourselves out and we're ready to go again.

she was expecting us to be cold and wanting to go back in, luckily we were both wearing enough synthetics that we just took the cotton off (okay, it was only me and it was only my shirt). within a few minutes, i was dry again (my shirt wasn't) and we were able to finish the practice. when we got back to the boat house, thom gave me a hard time about rowing without a shirt, until we explained the reason for my shirtlessness...

good times!

Don't forget to check your web application on other browsers!

PeteL — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:54:00 GMT

One of my pet peeves about web designers and web application developers is the ones who don't check to make sure everything works and looks good in the major browsers, not just IE*. I am a 100% IE user at work, and at home, I use IE when I'm on my PC, but on my Mac** I use Safari.***

Recently, I've come across a couple of sites that don't properly support Safari. First, I was trying to use Zillow.com to get some prices of condos in my neighbourhood, and well, as soon as you hit it from Safari, you're denied. It says that Safari is not supported and suggests either IE or Firefox. I know many Mac users who don't have FireFox on their machine, and they don't want it on their machine. They just want to have a simple, easy to use environment.

The other site I hit, was asking for my date of birth to make sure that I was old enough**** to get the coupon. Well, sure enough, I pop in my date of birth, and it says I'm not old enough and that I must be at least 18. Ummm, last I checked, I was over 18. I'm glad it complimented me and said I don't look like I'm over 18, but still.

Yes, there is still incompatibility between browsers, and it's getting better, but it only takes a few extra hours to run a few extra tests to make sure everything works properly. If it doesn't, then do something about it. And you also learn what not to do in your next development project!

* I admit, I'm guilt of that too on my fine art web site. I know its broken, I just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

** Long story, but it's really only used for music, web browsing and photo editing

*** I'd use IE, but we've since cut support for it on the Mac, so I have to use Safari. I've tried Firefox and don't like it all that much.

**** It was the KFC site where you can get your free sandwich, you have to be at least 18 for some reason

My Photography Is Hanging

PeteL — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 04:01:00 GMT

I've got two shows hanging in the very near future, not a lot of my work, but there is some, so if you're interested in seeing any, I'd recommend checking it out!

PCNW Staff & Faculty show is currently hanging at the Photo Center. I've got three pieces hanging in that show.

Music, a show that is hanging at Center House down in Seattle Center. I know very little about the show other than it opens Sunday and runs through the 26th of January.

VS Launch Tomorrow in Canada!

PeteL — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:33:00 GMT

As I was getting ready this morning, I realized something kind of cool, and at the same time, a little scary.

The last launch event I was at, I was in my teens, just finishing up high school, and working for Microosft as a high school intern. It was the Windows 95 launch at the base of the CN Tower in 1995. 10 years ago.

So, 10 years later, I'm about to get on an airplane and head to Toronto again for a launch event.

Crazyness!

Removing Spam Comments from nGallery

PeteL — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 02:47:00 GMT

Well, I guess one advantage of getting popular is that people seem to like to put spam on your website. I had a commenting enabled on my nGallery web pages, allowing my friends to comment on pictures that I had posted. I noticed this afternoon though that a bunch of people had decided to post lots of spam comments, linking to spam website on my comments :(

To combat this, I turned commenting off, which is unfortunate, since I like the ability for my friends to comment, but there isn't much I can do right now until I get some time to modify nGallery to allow only authenticated comments.

Rather than manually deleting the 2500+ comments from the website, I decided to modify the datafile programatically. I figured I'd share the code with others in case anyone else has had similar problems. You can find it on my website n the blog samples section.

Damn spammers!

VS Ship Party Pics

PeteL — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:37:00 GMT

Yesterday was a pretty good day, my team signed off on VS 2005 and we had our ship party. The party wasn't quite as exciting as previous ship parties, but it was still a darn good time.

I've posted my pictures up online at http://www.bigbackpack.ca/nGallery/albums/VS+2005+Ship+Party.aspx for all to see. Most of those people in the pictures are Visual Web Developer team members. Most of us were in costume and having a good time. I was the bag of Jelly Belly's. I think the only ones I have of me in costume are of my wardrobe malfunction. Ah well.

Too Many Domains

PeteL — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:21:00 GMT

Ugh, I think I just realized I have too many domains. And I'm most of them in some way at least!

http://www.usualsuspects.ca - not in use
http://www.bigbackpack.ca - in use
http://www.bbpphoto.com - in use
http://www.NoCommonGround.com - in use
http://www.SinDessertCo.com - holding for a friend
http://www.AMHConsultants.com - holding for a friend
http://www.PeteLePage.com - use for teaching

I just merged 3 accounts that I had at GoDaddy into one, since I really don't need 3 account. No if only they would register .CA domains, I'd be all set, but in the mean time, I'll keep the 2 .CA's at my .CA registrar.

Web Site Syndication

PeteL — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 05:52:00 GMT

One of the things thats been on my mind for a while has been to update my web site, and make it a central point of syndication. I've got several different websites that I am contantly updating but they're all running different application, and all with different purposes, but there is no central location where you can get information. And for the last few days, I've been slowly working on a central syndication site. http://www.NoCommonGround.com is the first of several steps that I want to take.

It currently has 3 working syndications, (1) from my snap shot photo web site, (2) my LiveJournal blog, which I mostly use to talk to friends, and see what they're all up to, and lastly (3) the syndication of the MSDN feed that I write in. I've got one more that I will definately be syndicating on to there soon, and thats the fine art photography that I do.

I had a few problems getting the syndication to work properly. It seems that my ISP has a proxy server set up for outgoing connections, and when I was trying to read the schemas for some places, it was trying to import a schema from another site and was dying. After some little work, I managed to figure out how to get the schema to sit on my computer, and then use a System.Net.WebRequest to do the request to get the RSS feed, and told it to ignore the schema in the file.

lblBlogTitle.Text = BlogTitle;
DataSet dsBlog = null;
dsBlog = (DataSet)Cache.Get(BlogRSSFeed);
if (dsBlog == null)
{
  System.Net.WebProxy myProxy = new System.Net.WebProxy("http://Proxy:8080/", true);
  dsBlog = new DataSet();
  System.Net.WebRequest wr = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(BlogRSSFeed);
  wr.Proxy = myProxy;
  System.Net.WebResponse wresp = wr.GetResponse();
  dsBlog.ReadXmlSchema(Server.MapPath("~") + "\\App_Data\\rss_schema.xsd");
  dsBlog.ReadXml(wresp.GetResponseStream(), XmlReadMode.IgnoreSchema);
  Cache.Add(BlogRSSFeed, dsBlog, null, DateTime.Now.AddHours(1), System.Web.Caching.Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, CacheItemPriority.Normal, null);
}

You can see how I overrode the web request and used a proxy. If I hadn't needed to use the proxy, you can simply use dsBlog.ReadXml(http://feed) which is pretty sweet! I also added the one hour cache in there to reduce the bandwidth on the servers, so everything sits in cache for up to one hour.

I've still got lots to do on this, but its a start!

What features would you want to see if this were your site?

close your windows!

PeteL — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 05:49:00 GMT

Yah, I guess they've started removing stucco.

Lesson for today, close your windows when they're going to remove stucco from your building.