Friday, September 30, 2005
Sami Shalabi
I'm not sure how I let this happen but I neglected to mention that ex-coworker and friend Sami Shalabi has a blog.I've know Sami for a long time — since he was a college intern with the Domino Web Server team. He has done some really terrific work since then. He was one of the architects of Lotus Quickplace and more recently was the lead on Collaboration Services for Workplace. He's extremely sharp, has a great sense of humor and always jumps into new things with great enthusiasm.
Presbyopia
As the Rolling Stones sang 40 years ago : What a drag it is getting old. (A line that's a bit hard to accept from Mick Jagger who still tours even though he's now 62 years old).Growing older means dealing with age-related changes. My Mom and siblings wear glasses. When I was growing up, my Dad and I were the only ones who didn't need them. But eventually he starting using reading glasses. It became a daily source of family humor as Dad would go off hunting for his glasses. Now it's my turn to fumble for reading glasses. Last year I noticed that I was squinting while reading or working at the computer. I had to accept that presbyopia had taken hold. So I started to use reading glasses. They're the weakest magnification available but it's still annoying to rely on them. Fortunately, I only need them for close work and can just carry them in my pocket the rest of the time.
Superheroes
Back in the late 90s, Lotus was an underwriter for Boston radio station WBUR. Around the same time Lotus president Jeff Papows had written a book called Enterprise.com. During the course of the day, WBUR announcers would list the station's underwriters and some aspect of their business. One of the announcers would occasionally stumble when trying to say Lotus SmartSuite and would say Lotus SmartSuit instead. When noting that the Lotus president had written a new book he mispronounced Papows' name as Pa-POW rather than PAP-us. Combining these two mangled pronunciations sounds like a superhero:Jeff Pa-POW and his Lotus SmartSuit
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Scheme Is Love
Don Box has written an article in MSDN Magazine called Scheme is Love. If you've never learned Scheme or any other dialect of Lisp, it's worth a read. It's a short article that just scratches the surface of why Scheme is so powerful. If you want to learn more about Scheme, Kent Dybvig's The Scheme Programming Language is a terrific book. And if you decide to learn Scheme, why not read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP)? It can be tough sledding but worth the effort. Note: SICP is a first-year undergraduate course at MIT.
What do managers do?
Steven Sinofsky is senior vice president of the Microsoft Office organization. He's written a interesting blog post on how development teams are structured at Microsoft. He also posted a followup to respond to comments on his first post. Very worthwhile reading.
Ipod My Baby
Want to enhance your digital lifestyle? How about dressing your baby as an iPod with the iPod My Baby onesie? Available in pink, blue, white and Nano Black. (Via Gizmodo)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Connecting with Julio
Julio Estrada has started a blog. I've known Julio for a long time. We worked together at Lotus and Iris. It's fun to be working with him again at Microsoft. I look forward to reading his blog.
Note: It's interesting that two of Julio's first posts have been about Apple products. Julio's brothers Miguel and Tony also blogged about Apple. Of course, I share their appreciation of Apple and Steve Jobs. Miguel, Julio and I are among the few people crazy enough to buy a NeXT computer.
Note: It's interesting that two of Julio's first posts have been about Apple products. Julio's brothers Miguel and Tony also blogged about Apple. Of course, I share their appreciation of Apple and Steve Jobs. Miguel, Julio and I are among the few people crazy enough to buy a NeXT computer.
Middleware Shmiddleware
The new ad campaign for Notes/Domino 7 has a boxing motif. Not bad but look at the very bottom of the ad copy. It says:Notes/Domino is middleware? Hmm. Middleware is glue. It acts as an integrator of different application components. Sure, Domino can integrate legacy systems, external databases, etc. But is the Notes client middleware? A large percentage of Notes/Domino usage is for email. Is email middleware? IBM has products such as MQ that are classic middleware. But what's the point of applying the term to everything else? It makes it confusing and vague — nearly as bad as the term groupware.
IBM Middleware
Five reasons for Palm's slide
Good ZDNet article on how Palm is fumbling the mobile market.
Super!
The Register reports on Microsoft executives' recent penchant for putting "super" in front of verbs, nouns, trans verbs and adjectives (e.g. super excited). Yeah, I noticed that too. I guess it's okay with me. Better than polished executive speak.
Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell who's mentioned in the Register article spoke at the company meeting last week. I don't recall him using the "super" adjective but he's from New Zealand. At the end of his talk he showed a short video of New Zealand Rugby team All Blacks performing their pre-match Haka, a Maori dance intended to intimidate the opposing team. Wow. The Haka makes the pre-game trash talk in American sports look pretty tame by comparison.
Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell who's mentioned in the Register article spoke at the company meeting last week. I don't recall him using the "super" adjective but he's from New Zealand. At the end of his talk he showed a short video of New Zealand Rugby team All Blacks performing their pre-match Haka, a Maori dance intended to intimidate the opposing team. Wow. The Haka makes the pre-game trash talk in American sports look pretty tame by comparison.
Turn Your Head
Turn Your Head can transform your profile into a pirolette. The result is a personal 3D version of the Vase or Faces? optical illusion. Clever but I wonder if there's really a market for these. How about a sequence of pirolettes from newborn to adult? Now that would be very cool.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Watching your own drama unfold on TV
Jetblue airliners have satellite television monitors installed in the backs of seats. That made for a surreal experience for the passengers of a crippled Jetblue airliner. For three hours, they watched TV news reports of their plight as it unfolded. Fortunately the plane touched down safely. Just imagine if the damage had been more severe and passengers learned from CNN that they were doomed?
Pacific Northwest Tsunami?
A few months ago I wouldn't have given much thought to the animations on this page. Now they're, literally, a bit too close to home, especially this one. Yikes! It reminds me of an article in Scientific America years ago that described in great detail the effect of a nuclear weapon dropped on the city of Boston.
They have a different word for everything
Wikipedia has a list of British English words not used on American English and the converse list as well. I remember being puzzled the first time I read a local newspaper in London and I came across the British English spelling of jail (gaol).
Are you OOF?
At Microsoft when someone is going to be out of the office, they'll say something like "I'll be OOF on Friday". Outlook/Exchange also uses this acronym. But shouldn't the "out of office" acronym be OOO? What does OOF stand for? According to the Exchange Blog, OOF was a command used in the days of Microsoft's Xenix mail system, which set a user as "Out of Facility" — in other words, out of the office.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Windows Mobile Treo
Palm, Microsoft and Verizon announced the Windows Treo Mobile today. The press is calling it the Treo 700w; not clear if this is the official name or not. It will be available exclusively through Verizon in early 2006 and will run Windows Mobile 5. It supports EVDO, a high-speed wireless data protocol. This has to be a first for Verizon. They always seem to be the last wireless carrier to support cool new phones.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Company Meeting
As reported elsewhere, Microsoft's annual company meeting was held this past Friday at Safeco Field in Seattle. 16,000 employees were there including me. Overall the atmosphere was very positive. There are a lot of products in the pipeline for the next year.
If you followed the reorganization announcement last week, it shouldn't be a big surprise that Ray Ozzie was among the speakers at this year's meeting. It's clear that Bill Gates has enormous respect for Ray and that he now has an incredibly important role in the company's future.
Oh yeah, the Xbox 360 was shown as well. It's clearly more than just a game console. The hardware design is very cool too.
If you followed the reorganization announcement last week, it shouldn't be a big surprise that Ray Ozzie was among the speakers at this year's meeting. It's clear that Bill Gates has enormous respect for Ray and that he now has an incredibly important role in the company's future.
Oh yeah, the Xbox 360 was shown as well. It's clearly more than just a game console. The hardware design is very cool too.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Remember Lotus SmartSuite?
Did you know that you can still buy a copy of Lotus SmartSuite from IBM? SmartSuite is a decent product. It runs on various flavors of Windows including XP and can share files with all versions of Microsoft Office. It's also inexpensive. So why doesn't IBM give it more attention? SmartSuite applications support LotusScript (like Notes), use a lot of the same UI conventions as Notes, etc.
I used to work at IBM but I have no real knowledge about why SmartSuite was deprecated. What's wrong with it? As far as I can tell, the main problem is that it's not Microsoft Office. IBM backs OpenOffice instead. OpenOffice is, effectively, an open source clone of Microsoft Office. That's fine albeit not particularly innovative. Other vendors including Sun support OpenOffice as well. How do vendors make money from an offering based on OpenOffice when customers can just download it for free? And how do products based on OpenOffice such as Sun's Java Desktop and IBM Workplace compete against each other? Any improvements that they make to the code must be contributed back to OpenOffice.org which will also benefit their competitors..
I used to work at IBM but I have no real knowledge about why SmartSuite was deprecated. What's wrong with it? As far as I can tell, the main problem is that it's not Microsoft Office. IBM backs OpenOffice instead. OpenOffice is, effectively, an open source clone of Microsoft Office. That's fine albeit not particularly innovative. Other vendors including Sun support OpenOffice as well. How do vendors make money from an offering based on OpenOffice when customers can just download it for free? And how do products based on OpenOffice such as Sun's Java Desktop and IBM Workplace compete against each other? Any improvements that they make to the code must be contributed back to OpenOffice.org which will also benefit their competitors..
DOS Ain't Done til Lotus Won't Run?
Adam Barr as an interesting post on an old anti-Microsoft story that Microsoft would intentionally break Lotus 1-2-3 with each release of DOS. The claim was that the DOS team's slogan was "DOS Ain't Done til Lotus Won't Run". Adam did some digging both inside and outside of Microsoft. He even talked to Mitch Kapor. His conclusion is that it never happened. (More of Adam's investigation can be found here).
How Would You Say Puyallup?
Massachusetts takes its name from a local tribe of Native Americans but most Massachusetts towns use English town names — with their own interesting local pronunciations.
In the Seattle area many of the towns and cities use Native American names. Many of these were unfamiliar to us so we've been learning proper pronunciations. Here's a translation guide of some of the more challenging ones:
In the Seattle area many of the towns and cities use Native American names. Many of these were unfamiliar to us so we've been learning proper pronunciations. Here's a translation guide of some of the more challenging ones:
Practice a bit and you'll sound like a native. Unlike Boston, you don't have to worry about getting the accent right. Even though there is a discernible Northwest accent, it's subtle and much less prevalent than accents in Boston.Issaquah = ISS-a-kwah
Puyallup = pyoo-AL-up
Sammamish = sa-MAM-ish
Sequim = skwim
Snohomish = sno-HOE-mish
Snoqualmie = sno-KWAHL-mee
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
After my experience with Orkut I had no plans to try another networking site. But through a recommendation and then an email, I ended up signing up for LinkedIn. I used it to connect to people I used to work with. I don't really know if I'll go beyond just collecting contacts but through LinkedIn I've been able to reconnect with several people I hadn't talked to in a long time. In that respect it's already been more useful than Orkut.
Microsoft Campus Tour
Friends and relatives (Hi Mom!) have asked what the Microsoft campus is like. How should I describe it? I feel compelled to paraphrase The Hitchhiker's Guide:Microsoft has eight million square feet of office space in the Redmond area. As a point of comparison, the Pentagon has 6.5 million square feet of floor area of which 3.7 million square feet are used for offices.
Unlike the imposing monolithic Pentagon, the Microsoft campus doesn't really call attention to itself. Several dozens office buildings are spread over a very large area.
So what's it look like? Dylan Greene put together an informal campus tour with photos of many of the buildings. My office is in Building 34 shown below.
Note: I had an Aeron chair at IBM. It was a quirk of office furniture reallocation. I have no idea who approved that purchase. I thought only over-funded startups bought those.
The Microsoft campus is big. The Microsoft campus is really big. It is so big you probably cannot comprehend just how big it is...
Unlike the imposing monolithic Pentagon, the Microsoft campus doesn't really call attention to itself. Several dozens office buildings are spread over a very large area.
So what's it look like? Dylan Greene put together an informal campus tour with photos of many of the buildings. My office is in Building 34 shown below.
Note: I had an Aeron chair at IBM. It was a quirk of office furniture reallocation. I have no idea who approved that purchase. I thought only over-funded startups bought those.
50 Things That Out of Town College Students Must Know About Boston
I lived in Boston for my entire adult life including college. That is, until our move to Seattle a month ago. So this list made me smile. It's all true, or at least pretty close to reality. I can think of a couple items that they missed:
51. Don't try to imitate a Boston accent. Unless you grew up here, you'll never pull it off. Eventually you'll discover that there's actually more than one accent. Listen carefully.
52. Even if you can't fake the accent, learn how to properly pronounce "Woburn", "Peabody" and "Revere". Otherwise, noone will understand what you're talking about.
51. Don't try to imitate a Boston accent. Unless you grew up here, you'll never pull it off. Eventually you'll discover that there's actually more than one accent. Listen carefully.
52. Even if you can't fake the accent, learn how to properly pronounce "Woburn", "Peabody" and "Revere". Otherwise, noone will understand what you're talking about.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Pee Power
Scientists in Singapore have developed a battery powered by urine. Well, that's not entirely accurate. The battery is "activated" by urine not powered by it. I'm a little disappointed that pee isn't the power source. I was just imagining someone saying: "I'm sorry, I've got to go recharge my iPod".
Dunkin' Donuts
Living in the Seattle area it's probably considered bizarre for me to make note of this: there are no Dunkin' Donuts out here. Not a single one in the whole state of Washington.You may laugh and say "Who cares?". Seattle is up to its eyeballs in coffeehouses. Fine but I still miss Dunkin' Donuts. No, it's not for the doughnuts. It's the coffee. Dunkin' Donuts is good for a quick, unfussy cup of decent coffee. And then there's the difference in price and speed. Starbucks is expensive and slow. You're expected to linger while you sip your Quad Soy Vente Latte. Dunkin' Donuts may sell some weird coffee drinks too but most people order basic coffee.
Is the lack of Dunkin Donuts a result of the Starbucks Divide? (ie. liberals go to Starbucks while conservatives get their coffee at Dunkin' Donuts). Nope, Washington State may have been blue for the 2004 election but so was Massachusetts. And Dunkin' Donuts was originally founded in Massachusetts.
Perhaps the explanation is that the Dunkin' Donuts chain just doesn't stretch this far West. But then again, according to their web site, they have stores in 29 countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand. They're all over Asia and couldn't open just one franchise in Seattle?
Breathing Observation Bubble
This Breathing Observation Bubble (aka BOB) looks like something out of a James Bond move. The statement that "The training course can be completed in a few minutes" is a little concerning. It may be easier to use than Scuba gear but what happens if something goes wrong and you have to bail out? Glub glub...(Via Engadget)
Thursday, September 15, 2005
AutismCares
Looking for a way to help victims of Katrina? Contribute to AutismCares a nationwide disaster relief effort that aims to assist potentially thousands of Katrina families affected by autism.
Gillette unveils 5-blade razor
It's getting too hard to tell ridiculous reality apart from a spot-on parody article in The Onion. (Note: the Onion article may not be safe for work — it uses the F-word pretty liberally).
Twisted Network Programming Essentials
I don't know much about Twisted, a Python-based network application framework, but this new book on Twisted has one of the best O"Reilly book covers ever.
Press Your Luck
Back in the 1984, Michael Larsen was an unemployed ice cream truck driver from Ohio. He watched a lot of television. One program he watched was the game show Press Your Luck. After watching the show for a while, he realized that the swift, seemingly random flashing lights that bounced around the game board were not random at all. Larson discovered that there were just six light patterns on the board. So he memorized the light patterns, tried out for the show and was booked. He managed to win over $100,000 in a single show. Five times more than any contestant had won on the show before. And he didn't cheat. He just paid careful attention. It's a pretty amazing story — although Larsen's life goes quickly downhill after his win. (Via MilkAndCookies)
Memeorandum
Reading dozens of tech blogs is time consuming. The amount of information is overwhelming. Memeorandum Tech is a news page for tech blogs. It tells you what tech bloggers find important. Very nice. There's also a Memeorandum for politics. (Via Robert Scoble).
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Marc McDonald - Microsoft's First Employee
Marc McDonald was Microsoft's first employee. He was hired in 1976. He left in 1984 and then rejoined when Microsoft bought the company he worked for. Robert Scobel recently interviewed Marc for Channel 9. The interview can be found here. I have to say that it's good to watch and listen to someone who has worked for nearly 30 years in software and still has a lot of enthusiasm for the field.
The Six-Year List of Names for Atlantic Storms
Each year the National Weather Service designates a new set of hurricane names. The names progress alphabetically with alternating female/males names. The set of names are recycled every six years. That is, unless a storm was particularly destructive. In that case the name is retired. Here's the current list of names in use through 2006. Last year four names: Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne were retired.
I can remember two notable hurricanes that passed through Boston: Hurricane Gloria and Hurricane Bob. Both were destructive and their names were retired.
I can remember two notable hurricanes that passed through Boston: Hurricane Gloria and Hurricane Bob. Both were destructive and their names were retired.
Google Blog Search
Google has launched a new Blog Search tool. My first question was what does it consider to be a blog? According to the FAQ they want to "include every blog that publishes a site feed". So a blog is a page with a site feed? You can also create feeds from blog searches. Cool.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Belated Blog Anniversary
I realized this morning that I missed an anniversary. I've been posting to my blog for over two years now — since August 4th, 2003. In that time I posted 1616 entries. About 2 entries per day. Wow.Any resolutions for my third year? Yes, I want to start posting more technical stuff. I'm in the process of absorbing as much as I can about .NET technologies. I plan to blog about that as well as other software development topics.
It's funny, maybe even prophetic, that one of the top search strings for my blog has been C# switch which resolves to a blog post that I wrote in 2003. I've written posts about Java over 100 times and none of those entries appear as popular search results. Maybe I just found an unfilled niche for C# programmers in explaining how the C# switch statement worked and how it was different from other languages.
Surviving Unplanned Freefall
David Carkeet's essay Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips offers advice on what to do if you find yourself at 35,000 feet in freefall. For example:The essay is intentionally humorous but a number of people have survived freefall from such heights as well as survived from great heights by staying with the wreckage of a destroyed aircraft.
Update: Andrew notes in the comments that I failed to mention Jack Handey's take on this subject. Here it is:Still funny after all these years.
Much will depend on your attitude. Don't let negative thinking ruin your descent. If you find yourself dwelling morbidly on your discouraging starting point of seven miles up, think of this: Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die. Thirty feet! It's nothing! Pity the poor sod who falls from such a "height." What kind of planning time does he have?
Update: Andrew notes in the comments that I failed to mention Jack Handey's take on this subject. Here it is:
If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Is Boston is the most expensive US city?
According to this Boston Globe article, Boston is now the most expensive metropolitan area in the country.I know from personal experience that Boston is an expensive place to live but I find it a little surprising that it's considered to be more expensive than NYC, San Francisco and Washington, DC.
I'm not sure how Seattle compares to Boston in this regard. In our experience, Seattle seems to be less expensive. Single family homes are cheaper. There's no state income tax. Heating expenses are much lower. But then again, Seattle has been rated as the most overpriced city by Forbes — Boston doesn't even make the top ten in that list. Weird.
a family of four living in the Boston area needed $64,656 to cover its basic needs. This was $6,000 more than in New York City, and about $7,000 more than in San Francisco. Living expenses, which include healthcare, child care, and other basic needs, were $44,000 or less in Austin, Texas; Chicago; Miami; and Raleigh, N.C.
I'm not sure how Seattle compares to Boston in this regard. In our experience, Seattle seems to be less expensive. Single family homes are cheaper. There's no state income tax. Heating expenses are much lower. But then again, Seattle has been rated as the most overpriced city by Forbes — Boston doesn't even make the top ten in that list. Weird.
Time of the Wolf
When Speilberg's War of the Worlds came out, the Boston Globe review compared it to Time of the Wolf. I watched Time of the Wolf last night (it's free on Comcast OnDemand this month). It focuses on how people deal with the breakdown of society and law after a disaster. The cause of the apocalypse isn't clear but we know that the basic needs of modern life: water, food and fuel are in very short supply. The film follows a mother and her two children as they try to survive. A dark film both visually and in tone.
More Trunk Monkey
Hey, there's a fifth Trunk Monkey commercial. View it in Quicktime or Windows Media format. (Via Sean Clarke)
Friday, September 09, 2005
Sugar Gliders
At lunch today someone mentioned that his team used to have an intern who wore a cloth pouch around his neck. Inside were two sleeping sugar gliders. What's a sugar glider? It's a type of flying squirrel. They're originally from Australia and are kept as pets in the US. Why would you carry them in a pouch to work? Sounds pretty weird but apparently it's a way to tame them. I can't get too excited about pet squirrels but here's an idea: rather than taming them, train them like Trunk Monkeys.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
My Favorite Word
My Favorite Word is an opportunity to tell the world about your favorite word. I don't think I have one favorite word but two come to mind Cantabrigian and Zeitgeist. I'm not sure why, they're just both memorable words that I liked when I first heard them.
Burning Questions
I've been asked the same set of questions several times in the past few weeks so I thought I'd save some time and provide answers here.
Q: Why did you leave IBM?
A: I wasn't looking for a job. An opportunity presented itself. After thinking about it for a while I realized that I needed a change so I decided to take the plunge.
Q: Why did you join the dark side?
A: The weather in Seattle has been sunny and pleasant, not dark at all. But really, referring to my job change as "joining the dark side" is a little tiresome. First, it's a dated movie reference. Second, wasn't the Death Star kinda spherical? Hmm.
Q: Have you met Bill Gates?
A: No. He hasn't dropped by yet. I have, however, walked around Lake Bill.
Q: What are you working on?
A: I could just tell you but it's more fun to read press speculation. I never expected that my job change would generate press. It's even linked from the Microsoft Careers page.
Q: Is Microsoft hiring?
A: Absolutely. And no, Microsoft interviewers won't ask you why manhole covers are round. If you do come out to interview make sure that you're well rested. I took a late flight out to Seattle the night before. My interview day ran from 9am to 6pm followed by dinner and discussion until 10pm (which was 1am to my jet-lagged brain). It was an energizing experience but I was wiped out afterwards.
Q: Why did you leave IBM?
A: I wasn't looking for a job. An opportunity presented itself. After thinking about it for a while I realized that I needed a change so I decided to take the plunge.
Q: Why did you join the dark side?
A: The weather in Seattle has been sunny and pleasant, not dark at all. But really, referring to my job change as "joining the dark side" is a little tiresome. First, it's a dated movie reference. Second, wasn't the Death Star kinda spherical? Hmm.
Q: Have you met Bill Gates?
A: No. He hasn't dropped by yet. I have, however, walked around Lake Bill.
Q: What are you working on?
A: I could just tell you but it's more fun to read press speculation. I never expected that my job change would generate press. It's even linked from the Microsoft Careers page.
Q: Is Microsoft hiring?
A: Absolutely. And no, Microsoft interviewers won't ask you why manhole covers are round. If you do come out to interview make sure that you're well rested. I took a late flight out to Seattle the night before. My interview day ran from 9am to 6pm followed by dinner and discussion until 10pm (which was 1am to my jet-lagged brain). It was an energizing experience but I was wiped out afterwards.
Tablet PC Post
Trying to post using a Tablet PC. A bit frustrating but kinda cool. Reminds me of my experience with the Apple Newton — but the hardware is much nicer.
