46 posts filed under this category, page 1 of 2.
Microsoft released a developer preview of Windows 8 at this week's BUILD conference including a preview release of the next version of Internet Explorer. The new browser runs in two modes: with and without plugins. Microsoft is bundling a special compatibility view list to spoof iPhone, iPad, or even Firefox User-Agents to trigger special views on websites designed for a plugin-free or full-screen experience.
Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system includes support for widgets on every desktop. Windows widgets are permanently docked in a sidebar, providing up-to-date information and easy access to small tasks throughout the day. In this article I will walk you through the major components of a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget including major differentiating features, best practices, and tips for widget packaging and distribution.
Microsoft opened a new online marketplace last night to sell a new class of desktop and web applications directly to consumers. The new version of Windows Live Gallery extends the existing Windows Live Gold partnership program with premium content listings, partner storefronts, and the ability to charge Microsoft's users for each new widgets.
Earlier tonight I attended a Windows Vista launch event in San Francisco and was surprised to find not a single person in line to buy the software less than an hour before launch. CompUSA stayed open late to provide hands-on demonstrations of Microsoft's new Windows Vista and Office 2007 but for most people I talked to in the store the event was a learning experience and a chance for some special sales and discounts. When I left about 45 minutes before Vista officially went on sale to consumers there were no eager customers ready for launch. Potential customers picked…
The consumer version of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system is only a month away and bloggers are already receiving their first review units. So far the review units sound pretty boring compared to the Windows Vista capable hardware available throughout the world. I put together my own list of five grope-worthy notebook computers ready to test Vista on multiple fronts. You might prefer a silent ultra-portable or a power-hungry luggable. You can search for WiFi without ever opening your computer or get online anywhere with cellular broadband. The latest Apple hardware runs Vista without a problem too. I expect this…
On June 21, 2005 eight Microsoft employees claimed invention rights for a "content syndication platform," exemplified by Internet Explorer 7 and its support for aggregating feed content. Patent application 20060288329 pursues the "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" (see United States definition of a patent) normalized web feeds made available via an API and centrally stored feed lists. The patent application was revealed yesterday after an 18-month privacy window expired. Authors Edward Praitis, Jane Kim, Sean Lyndersay, Walter V. von Koch, Bruce Morgan, Cindy Kwan, and Amar Gandhi (now at Google) claim…
If you could ask Bill Gates one question, what would you ask? I spent an hour today with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the company's Redmond campus. I chose to ask Bill about Microsoft's intellectual property stance against Linux and its open source developers, from the SCO Group's litigation against IBM to Steve Ballmer's recent claim Linux infringes on Microsoft patents after signing a patent indemnity with Novell. Bill Gates claimed he had never heard of BayStar Capital, an investor in SCO Group and their litigation against large corporate supporters of Linux. According to recent court documents BayStar founder and…
There have been a few accounts on the web about a copyright enforcement action I took yesterday morning. Below are some long details if you are interested in the full details in about 1400 words. Yesterday morning a Microsoft employee used a photograph of mine in a corporate blog post promoting new features in the Windows Vista operating system and version 7 of the Internet Explorer web browser. The photograph used in the Microsoft blog post pictured Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer component of Windows, on stage at the Gnomedex 2005 announcing support for web feed syndication…
Internet Explorer will be released in just a few weeks, pushed to Windows XP users as a critical update. The Windows RSS Platform ships as part of IE7 and will likely become the most popular desktop aggregator by the end of the year. Are you ready for the switchover? There are changes to CSS and JavaScript handling and an OpenSearch search box you should probably code against if you would like quick and easy access to your site and its archive. I'm mainly interested in the changes in feed syndication so I'll walk through some areas that might trip…
Microsoft has awarded three web developers with its Most Valuable Professional status. The MVP program is Microsoft's way of recognizing the work and contributions of independent developers and these individuals are rewarded with a fast-track to product feedback teams among other benefits. The first three awards include a consultant in Australia who maintains the Via Virtual Earth community and a consultant in Washington D.C. who creates Microsoft gadgets. Recognition of independent third party developers and community leaders will play a significant role in the rollout of web as a platform strategies from big Internet companies. How do you reward…
Microsoft just released a new desktop feed aggregator, codename Max. Max features news displayed in a newspaper layout and two-pane interface, a bit different approach than many other aggregators on the market. MSN Filter is built-in, helping you follow the hottest news in lifestyle, music, TV, sports, technology, and movies. You can share your favorite feed items with the Filter community to help influence the recommended reading of others. Microsoft Max is available for Windows XP SP2 and above (including Media Center). It takes advantage of some of the latest hardware and software, including .NET Framework 3.0 RC1 and…
I just found out about two clips from The Office stars Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant about life as a Microsoft employee (thanks Kevin!). The same jokes hold true for most big corporations, but listening to Ricky's responses to Microsoft's core values really cracked me up. Ricky Gervais interviewed on Microsoft core values Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant conduct a Microsoft performance review My favorite clip is Ricky's response to being "open and respectful in all of our dealings." He recommends firing people with consistently bad ideas and making your good ideas work for you….
The two Microsoft blogs discussing the upcoming Zune product suite, Zune Insider and Madison and Pine, are powered by Six Apart's TypePad blogging software. That's Apache on Linux using Perl and PostgreSQL. Microsoft is heavily into "dogfooding" everything, from Windows Mobile smartphones to the latest build of Vista. It's good to see the Xbox team step out and blaze their own path….
Internet Explorer 7 beta 3 is now available and includes some new feed reading features for users who like to browse their feed items in the browser. The new beta includes a refresh all option, mark all feed items read, and a few other final tweaks on the path to ship. Sometimes it's not fun to obey the machine and its update schedule. Advanced information hungry readers can now update all feeds at once, grabbing the latest content before disconnecting from the Internet or to be absolutely sure you're caught up on all your feeds. You can now mark a…
Vic Gundotra, Scoble's (former) boss' boss, is leaving Microsoft to join Google. Vic is taking a year off to allow his non-compete to elapse without legal issue. Vic is a general manager for platform evangelism and helped build Channel 9, 10, and other general developer evangelism efforts within Microsoft….
Apple is looking for ways to cut down on wait times at its stores' checkout lines and roaming WiFi-enabled processing stations in the hands of each employee may be the answer. The same employee helping you pick out the right set of headphones for your iPod can scan product barcodes and take payments via credit card right on the spot. Your receipt will sent to you via e-mail just in case you need to make a return or file an expense report. The handheld devices Apple uses in its store are powered by Windows. More information is available in…
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is stepping down from his full-time role at Microsoft to spend more time on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Microsoft announced the two year transition plan for Gates shortly after the close of U.S. financial markets. Ray Ozzie will assume Bill Gates' job title of Chief Software Architect after recently completing his team's integration of Groove Networks into Office 2007. Bill Gates will be 52 years-old when he steps down from Microsoft and he is currently worth about $50 billion according to Forbes. The current life expectancy for a male in the United States…
Many people like to keep up with new product announcements and launches across Microsoft but wish they had an aggregated way to keep track of it all. Meet MSReadr! MSReadr is an information aggregator for all of the product team blogs across Microsoft's Windows Live division. Search, Messenger, Mail, they're all in there. You can view the latest news right in your browser, subscribe to one feed for updates from all of the blogs, or add the site's OPML file as a reading list. The site is powered by Python and Sam Ruby's branch of Planet Planet. The domain…
Reports are coming in from the Vloggercon conference about Robert Scoble's latest career move. According to Beet.TV and a few other verbal sources who were at the conference Scoble will publicly announce he is leaving Microsoft within the next few days and joining Silicon Valley startup PodTech.net as a videoblogger. Scoble has been at Microsoft for about three years and plans to move back to the Bay Area. Robert Scoble was employed as a videoblogger at Microsoft's Channel 9 developer center, interviewing teams across Microsoft on their latest releases and features. Later in his Microsoft career Scoble's popular blog became…
Microsoft Research will be demonstrating some of their projects tomorrow afternoon in Mountain View. It's a total geek science fair, with futuristic ideas such as recording and indexing everything you see and hear throughout the day, auto-classifying blog content, or searching the web based on a cameraphone picture. The demo room is open from 2-4 p.m. for browsing. I'll be on the lookout for a tricorder or new textual analysis of blogs. Tags: msresearch…
Starting next week I will join Microsoft's Windows Live division to create a new product team around syndication technologies such as RSS and Atom.
The Windows RSS platform is included in Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista, both due out later this year. The platform exposes feed and list data to all Windows applications via a common API, manages enclosure downloads, and applies common security settings to feed data and downloads. Common Feed List Windows XP and Windows Vista users will soon be using Internet Explorer 7 as their default browser. They may notice a glowing orange button on their toolbar, click it, and start subscribing to feeds exposed on the page. A subscribed feed is added to the Common Feed List, a centralized…
Microsoft unveiled some new Windows Live Messenger features during Bill Gates' keynote tonight at CES. My favorite new feature is Messenger activities prompted by a chat bot. Activities Microsoft showed off a chat bot that allowed a user to ask questions about TV programming. One possible response from the bot is a link to a list of shows playing that night, The link opens up directly inside the chat window in an activities pane, allowing the user to browse the content and ask the bot a few more questions. The bot is learning about the individual user and his…
I created a Simple Sharing Extensions exporter for NetNewsWire followed links as a proof of concept.
Ray Ozzie announced Simple Sharing Extensions for RSS and OPML this morning. Ray explains on his weblog the need to synchronize data such as contacts, calendaring, and read status on a wide range of devices across multiple profiles such as personal, family, and professional. The new namespace is the first extension of OPML I know of. Ray mentions there "nothing to announce right now in terms of which [Microsoft] products will support the spec, when, and for what purpose, but people are experimenting with it and are intrigued." The acronym "SSE" makes me think of Intel's Streaming SIMD Extensions processor…