Across the [technological] pond

toddha — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:50:00 GMT

I haven't been writing much here recently for a few reasons.

1. Seattle is *very* nice in the summer time. Why stay inside blogging when you can go to the Center for Wooden Boats in Lake Union, Pike Place market, or take a ferry to Bainbridge?

2. Got married. We got married back home in Kansas City which took a while to plan for, especially since we were doing it all long distance. Afterwards we went to San Francisco for a few days and took the Coast Starlight train back. It's a very pretty ride, but I recommend you get a sleeper car. It's hard to sleep in coach and you don't get all the dining benefits the sleeper car has.

3. Changed jobs. I'm working on the Mac client for Live Mesh. I found the perfect job; not only do I get to work on UI and client code, but I get to spend my day on Macs (and sometimes PCs). Sure, compared to what I'm used to, the APIs are all different, the language is different, the OS is different, but that's the fun of it.

I know just enough to get into trouble

toddha — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:36:00 GMT

Apparently I do things in the wrong order. Since my very first post on this blog didn't say who I am or what I do, I thought I should give some background into this mysterious subject. So here's my introduction. It starts off slow.

My name is Todd Harris.

Previous to working at Microsoft, I worked at an aeronautical company in Kansas City. I worked mostly on test tools, protocols, and system configurations. Most of the coding work was C, C++, and Python. This is where my love for Python first started. I also got my hands dirty for my first time in embedded systems.

Then, in late 2005, I got the opportunity to come interview at Microsoft as a member of a test team. I love Kansas City, but I was ready to try something new where I had infinite room to grow. Everything went off without a hitch. I started working at Microsoft in January of 2006 working as an SDET (or tester) on a feature of BizTalk Server 2006. We RTM'd* in early April of 2006, so my first few months were very hectic. I was trying to get up to speed with my feature, BizTalk, life at Microsoft, and living in Seattle.

Since then, things have slowed down a bit, for sure. We've entered the planning phase for whatever our next cycle/product is, so there's not the sense of criticality and rush that surrounds the office before shipping. In this "downtime", the team's focus has switched a bit. I've moved into a primarily developer role (after going through yet another round of interviews), our development methodology has changed, and our team structure has changed. Since I can't necessarily talk about what I work (or don't work) on, I can't get into specifics. But I'm having a blast, and I work with some really smart people. It makes coming into work everyday really fun and enjoyable. I just happened to be one of the lucky people who really (but don't overly) love their job.

Introductions out of the way, this blog is for things that I run into during my daily routine that I find interesting or strange.

*RTM = Release to Manufacturing. This is when the project is shipped.

ToddHa's WebLog : Personal

Across the [technological] pond

I know just enough to get into trouble