46 posts filed under this category.
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. I will help build a feed syndication platform leveraged by Microsoft products and developers all around the world. I am excited to construct a team and product from scratch focused on scalability and connecting syndication clients and their users wherever they may exist: desktop, mobile, media center, gaming console, widget, gadget, and more. Live.com is the new default home page for users of the Internet Explorer 7 and the Windows Vista operating system. Live.com will be…
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…
Ray Ozzie, CTO of Microsoft and leader of Microsoft’s service business, is now blogging on MSN Spaces. MSN Spaces is one of the many Microsoft services receiving an overhaul as part of Windows Live. Ray’s former company, Groove, was one of the first companies to introduce a blogging policy. Groove’s policy has guided the policy of other companies in the many years since it was first introduced. I had to point to a copy of Ray’s previous blog at the Internet Archive because all of his previous blog entries now redirect to his Spaces blog homepage. Please don’t lose the…
The latest version of Office, 12.0.3111.1010, has hit the peer-to-peer networks and developer Alexander Gorlach has posted his first impressions and detailed screenshots of the subscription and reading interface. Microsoft throttles the feed update rate and respects the TTL element. Users can override this update limit which could be pretty scary as RSS updates are currently integrated with the standard send/receive function along with e-mail and most e-mail is checked every 5 minutes or so. Outlook 12 also supports the ability to download all enclosures for a subscription, regardless of the file type. Enclosures can deliver some nasty payloads to…
MSN has a new beta version of its homepage online with a cleaner look and easy to find links to other areas of MSN. The site does not look too great on Safari or Firefox but the site should be of interest as it will likely become the default homepage for millions of users. Tags: msn…
Dave Winer just posted the full text of memos sent by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie to Microsoft executives announcing the company’s new services strategy. Both executives are very frank about Microsoft’s failure to properly capitalize on the latest online trends, including many technologies pioneered by Microsoft. Ray Ozzie encourages updates in MSN and Windows Update to “better serve a broad range of highly-influential early adopters.” The entire plan is not yet complete, but corporate executives are working towards a December 15 deadline to outline next steps and product revisions. Thanks Dave for tracking down these documents and taking…
Microsoft Office Live is a set of small business services built around a Microsoft’s Sharepoint technologies. The new site combines bCentral with Sharepoint for free web hosting, e-mail, and group sharing online. Microsoft will also offer subscription plans with less or no advertising and access to over 20 additional online business applications. Anyone can now sign up for a domain name, setup their own website, and have a professional e-mail address. You can design your site using Microsoft templates directly from their web page. You can signup for up to 5 e-mail addresses at your-domain.com with 2 GB of…
Microsoft has a new collaborative editing program named Mojo. Mojo is a way to connect with other people to edit a document in real-time. Microsoft demonstrated connecting to a contractor off-site to edit some financial documents. You can initiate a connection via Messenger, e-mail, or phone and talk to the other person through your PC while you both work on the document. Mojo is a better solution than remote desktops because you share only the open window and not everything on your computer. There is a button at the top of the window labeled “Take Control” that suggests two…
MSN has been openly centered around Hotmail and Messenger for their online services strategy. Microsoft announced major upgrades to both components today with even more Web goodness. Windows Live Messenger Windows Live Messenger is a MSN Messenger replacement with lots of new social networking features built-in. You can now store up to 600 contacts, which is very good because Messenger now shows you all of your contacts through the program regardless of if they currently have a Messenger account. Messenger users can share and annotate their friends list with others through Microsoft’s people search interface. You can add even add…
Windows Live is a suite of Internet powered applications and services designed to run on top of the Windows platform. Microsoft unveiled a variety of services at its technology preview event today that it plans to release next year. All components of Windows Live are currently listed on the Windows Live Ideas page. Live.com Live.com is the center of the Windows Live experience. Users will access this personalized portal page for the latest weather, news, mail messages, and whatever else catches their interest. Live.com is similar to the Google personalized start page and My Yahoo!. Users select a content…
Microsoft announced today its new strategy around live services to integrate products and services across a variety of devices to 87 journalists and analysts at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Microsoft software already powers a variety of systems including servers, desktops, mobile phones, and the Xbox. The Microsoft Live architecture connects these devices through to allow end users to share preferences, presence data, and a digital identity whenever they access a compatible device. Microsoft has embraced the Internet as part of the desktop experience and invested in technologies to connect individuals and groups with their data and contacts….
Windows Live beta is up and running at Live.com. This page will be the default start page for Windows in the near future with Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista. Note that Microsoft has built feed search into the default home page on the top right under the “Add Content” header. Microsoft also now has a “Feeds” tab on its Windows Live search page, part of the MSN Search “Skylight” project it appears. You can also add podcasts direct to your home page by subscribing to the feed and the latest entry will appear with Windows Media Player loading the…
I am covering the Microsoft Technology Preview this morning in San Francisco. Microsoft is launching their “Live” software initiatives that include software as a service, synchronization, and even peer to peer. The biggest news to me so far is Bill Gates announcing that Microsoft will build advertising as a service for software development. Developers can call a web service and receive Microsoft advertising content targeted to their users directly in their applications. As the application grows in popularity it can provide different monetization options, but advertising is a good bootstrap model. Microsoft is announcing Windows Live and Office Live…
A large portion of Los Angeles lost power today as thousands of geeks converge on the city for Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference. Coincidence? Suggested headlines: Windows Vista takes so much it brings down an entire power grid. Microsoft opens a portal to Hell, sending Los Angeles into darkness. 12,000 geeks charge their laptops at once, cripple local power grid. Totally joking, but a strange coincidence. Tags: pdc05…
A Microsoft recruiter’s e-mail to Eric S. Raymond, a well-known open source developer and evangelist, cracked me up this morning. Senior recruiter Mike Walters sent Eric an e-mail allegedly on the recommendation of a research team at Microsoft. If you had bothered to do five seconds of background checking, you might have discovered that I am the guy who responded to Craig Mundie’s “Who are you?” with “I’m your worst nightmare”, and that I’ve in fact been something pretty close to your company’s worst nightmare since about 1997. Tags: opensource…
I am currently attending Gnomedex in Seattle where there are many product announcements happening. The big announcement of the morning is Microsoft’s integration of RSS into Longhorn at the platform level. Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, admitted Microsoft is “trying to get on the Cluetrain.” Microsoft’s marketing message for its RSS integration is “Browse. Search. Subscribe!” They distributed jackets to all Gnomedex attendees and expect to see this message at PDC in September and other marketing venues. RSS is again being used as a generic term encompassing all feed formats including RDF and Atom. Dean demonstrated Internet…
Microsoft is making available a public preview of Windows XP SP2 RC1. If you have a Tablet PC, this download provides RC1 of the new Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, codenamed “Lonestar.” Lots of security updates which could impact your applications….
Buckingham Palace is expected to announce tomorrow the planned knighthood of Bill Gates of Microsoft….
Scoble is wondering what Microsoft could do to evangelize Windows XP to users of Windows 98. My comment entry was getting a bit long, so I will post it here instead. Ask the average user and they have no clue when the support life of Windows 98 ends and why that might matter to them. I assume that Windows 98 users are mostly home users. The real question is will my stuff still work, how much will it cost me, and is all this change worth the chance that my stuff will not work as it is supposed to? What…
Bill Gates today received Patent 6,670,934 for a method and system for distributing art to “multiple display devices within an environment.”…
Today Microsoft was granted a patent for writing an application in HTML….
I just bought Office XP and I have been experimenting with it tonight. I figured out how to embed smart tags in Web pages, and I may try it on my Web space for everyone who has Office XP….
I just spent the weekend in Seattle, which was really nice. I visited Safeco Field, The Space Needle, Monorail, Pike Place Market, and the Experience Music Project….