| 1. |  | The Next Few Entries  - Captured: 9-2-2005 19:04:04
For a time I had an internal blog at Microsoft for posts that were either only really internally relevant or contained information that wasn't suitable for public consumption. For assorted reasons I didn't keep it going, and the few poor people who were looking at it gave up, so when I moved groups most recently I decided not to try to put it back up.
Full article ==> The Next Few Entries
From: myShoggoth |
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| 2. | | This Old Blog - Captured: 9-2-2005 19:04:04
When I first started this website/blog, it languished for a while before I got serious about putting up some content that anyone would really care about. I think there's enough now for some kind of critical mass, so rather than demanding that I continue to put up stuff that meets some kind of 'article' feel like I have in the past I'm going to generally switch over to more of a conversational feel with occasional articles on topics as I get the request or urge to post them.
Full article =...
From: myShoggoth |
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| 4. | | Foundations: Usability - Captured: 9-2-2005 19:04:04
Despite what some applications display, the UI does not exist to show the user how the code works under the hood, what the data structures are that store the user's information, nor the graphical embodiment of the organizational structure for the team working on the project. The User Interface exists for the benefit of the user, and should be designed around the user. Novel concepts, huh.
Full article ==> Foundations: Usability
From: myShoggoth |
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| 5. | | Brewing the Best Coffee - Captured: 9-2-2005 19:04:04
I'm not the worst that I know, but I'm definitely a Coffee Geek (but not the Coffee Geek).
I buy my coffee green, roast it myself, and am very particular about how it is brewed. That said, I'm not a total snob, I will drink coffee from Starbucks, some restaurants, some cafes, etc. It just takes special circumstances, since the stuff I make myself is generally leaps ahead of any of the above.
I started a 'coffee club' at work, and besides supplying the beans and the brewed I o...
From: myShoggoth |
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| 6. | | RSS vs. The Web - Captured: 9-2-2005 19:04:04
This is not my debate alone, the basic question is, is an RSS feed a replacement for the website or an entry point to it? Should I optimize for making the RSS feed the best I possibly can, or put my work into the website itself instead?
Full article ==> RSS vs. The Web
From: myShoggoth |
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| 7. | | The Joys of CSS - Captured: 9-2-2005 19:04:04
I don't know the exact name of the group of people who hold similar XHTML + CSS views as I do (other than 'snobs' or 'impractical'), but there's not only a certain amount of style and simplicity to it, but practical application as well. This site's design is not as much a culmination of my CSS knowledge as much as an intersection between it plus my personal aesthetic.
The original intention of this site was to explore ideas around XHTML and CSS and web sites created with those plus the to...
From: myShoggoth |
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| 8. | | Note enough commute time - Captured: 5-1-2005 11:14:00
About a 1 ½ years ago, I decided to purchase an iPod and get a membership with audible.com (which I highly recommend) in an effort to “read� more. Since the birth of my second child in mid-2003, my amount of free leisure time had been drastically cut and hence my reading time had become almost non-existence. I am pleased to announce that this experiment has been quite successful, and in fact – I am basically stopped listening to the radio during my 70 minutes of total commute...
From: Andrew Conrad's WebLog |
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| 9. | | Getting out of town for new years - Captured: 4-1-2005 18:46:19
Pam and I took a trip to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island for New Years. While
a bit cold, we had a nice time; a good dinner, time in a Jacuzzi, breakfast served
at our room (at the Tucker House), buying some artwork and seeing the island. We also
found a book that is perfect for our trips: a directory of weekend trips detailing
what to see when, where to eat and place to sleep.
On the 2nd, we had Misha, Rachael and Ben over for a salmon dinner. I used...
From: Doubt's Log |
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| 10. | | Tuesday Morning Links - Captured: 7-12-2004 19:19:14
The lame duck session of congress gives us an Intelligence
Overhaul.
Reality seems
to continue marching in Iraq, although not
everyone agrees.
Here is a pretty detailed article about the status
of Nuclear Weapons and Iran. Things that stand out to me is that the civilian
program issues is still a two year timeframe, alligations of military programs especially
related to two sites, Parchin and Lavisan II, an Iranian ...
From: Doubt's Log |
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| 11. | | Weekend Update - Captured: 7-12-2004 0:26:51
Decent weekend, Friday night was dinner at Mediterranean Kitchen and some shopping at the Bon. Saturday we went to Keshav and Kerrie's pre-Christmas party. Unfortunately I slept through the first part of it, but I did get to play a bit of halo 2 co-op and watch Keshav show off the new Grand Theft Auto game. Sunday, pam and I went on an 8 mile bike ride through a small snow storm, meeting our ride leader Ted. Pam's phone didn't survive the trip. We did a bunch of chores around the house, finally ...
From: Doubt's Log |
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| 12. | | Why Choose Microsoft for your Portal? - Captured: 14-1-2005 10:51:00
Whether you're a business or technical decision maker, it's important to think about what's important to your organization when making a software decision. For most companies, software is an enabler of business. That is to say, your company is probably not in the business of making/developing software, but rather using software to run your business. Since I'm most familiar with the Portal space, my remarks are specific to Portal software. Nevertheless, many of the same suggestions and concepts a...
From: Arpan Shah's Blog |
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| 13. | | Indian Vacation - Captured: 27-12-2004 8:04:00
I'm in India right now on vacation visiting extended family and friends. I've been here since the 20th and will be on vacation for the next few weeks. I have, almost, completely detached myself from work (haven't checked work email for the last 1+ week) and I've just really begun enjoying my vacation now that I'm jet-lag free. It's always great meeting extending family and friends in India. It reminds me that there's another, very different world out there. Speaking of which, family calls...
From: Arpan Shah's Blog |
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| 14. | | SharePoint MSDN RSS Feed - Captured: 24-11-2004 8:00:00
We hosted an Architect Portals Bootcamp last week in the Seattle area. I was impressed with the different projects the architects were involved with. However, one thing that I did notice, based on comments and questions some of the attendees had when I spoke to them, is that many folks out there are not familiar with all the whitepapers we post on sites such as MSDN and TechNet. With the growing popularity of RSS and to make it easier for people to get notified when a new whitepaper is rel...
From: Arpan Shah's Blog |
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| 15. | | Table editing feedback - Captured: 15-10-2004 20:07:00
For lack of anything better to post, I would like to get an idea of what people think of the table editing in the HTML/ASPX designer in whidbey. I spent a lot of time trying to improve this area. After VS.NET 2003 I rewrote some parts of this code, hoping to create something that was more powerful and easier to use. For example: Selecting rows and columns is hopefully easier now with the selection widgets that we added. Selecting cells should be easier now (you can hold down CTRL to get an Exce...
From: BenCon's WebLog |
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| 16. | | Responding to feedback - Auto Position feature has been added to the designer - Captured: 28-9-2004 16:22:00
After hearing a lot of support for the idea of automatically positioning controls, I got the go ahead to implement the feature. The fact that we are able to respond to what customers ask for is very encouraging - I hope that this and other examples (such as Mikhail's) will help to create a positive feedback loop where we implement more suggestions, so people are more likely to communicate with us, and therefore we get more data, which allows us to even better implement suggestions, and so on. He...
From: BenCon's WebLog |
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| 18. | | Searching Through Video and Audio Content - Even With MSN - Captured: 29-1-2005 18:47:05
Video search engines have been getting quite the hype this week as Yahoo! and Google introduced
a video search engine to the public. But wait, only Google truely searches in video
content. Yahoo! only searches through images names and basic meta data. But if you
think they are pioneering anything at all, you are quite wrong. At least HP
has been providing the same service long before.
So audio mining has been around since some time, even for your own use,&...
From: Benjamin J. J. Voigt :: Creativity is Inspired by Activity |
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| 19. | | CES 2005 Video is Online - Captured: 20-1-2005 23:12:29
Apparently the CES
2005 video is (finally) online. Watching the show made a couple of thing crystal
clear:
1.) BillG and humor
Formerly I imagined Bill to be the kind of person who could say funny things
about his work, the kind of person who doesn't take himself too seriously in public
and who could answer to a humorous comment equally amusingly. I kind of missed that. If
something breaks on stage (And, thanks to Murphy, thats quite often) it's...
From: Benjamin J. J. Voigt :: Creativity is Inspired by Activity |
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| 20. | | Marketing Eye for the Dev Guy - Captured: 25-1-2005 18:13:00
Ok, I'm taking a break from blogging about Gotdotnet today to talk about the idea for a new cable show that sprang upon me like a panther on a protein jag. It was inspired by Microsoft.com's very own snazzy lead product manager, Dave Morehouse (Microsoft.com communities team). I have to tell you that Dave is a man of substance, suave haircuts, and snazzy shirts, but it's his documentation that always makes me feel unkempt and well, like my specs just don't wash behind their ears. Every time I g...
From: Betsy Aoki's WebLog |
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| 21. | | Kickboxing through molasses, or, the ancient curse - Captured: 24-1-2005 17:06:00
First, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies as program manager for Gotdotnet - the only one left standing I might add, except for Texas Ops Ranger Clayton - for the fact that both the site and Workspaces was down today. I know that Workspaces started acting, well, tetchy over the weekend. I was actually online on Sunday and saw it happen, and started flagging the Microsoft.com ops folks at that point. Little did I know what would await for me (and you) this morning. So, we had a hardware...
From: Betsy Aoki's WebLog |
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| 22. | | Meeting physical force with soul force - Captured: 17-1-2005 10:46:00
Martin Luther King Jr. Day has a special place in my heart. My first Web site for The Seattle Times was a site we built in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I worked with editor Bill Ristow, who, like many who work with me, stared at me as though I were a maniac. :) And I was. We did this site because Frank Blethen, publisher of the paper, has always felt strongly about educating the public about Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. and about supporting the holid...
From: Betsy Aoki's WebLog |
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| 23. | | Turn of the tide - Captured: 30-12-2004 10:54:00
So 2004 winds to a close. The devastation in Indonesia and Thailand beggars description (despite all the news commentators, who still find ways to talk about something that just leaves me speechless). Advances and retreats in medicine are announced every day. I'm trying to do one of those "sum up" blog posts and I really can't. Microsoft's pace (up until the beauty of the holiday weeks, when no one is here) has been such that it's been hard to remember what I did the week before, never mind 52 w...
From: Betsy Aoki's WebLog |
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