microsoft
In software circles, dogfooding refers to the practice of using your own products. It was apparently popularized by Microsoft: The idea originated in television commercials for Alpo brand dog food; actor Lorne Greene would tout the benefits of the dog food, and then would say it’s so good that
ui design
I saw a screenshot a few days ago that made me think Windows 7 Beta might actually be worth checking out. That’s right, Microsoft finally improved the calculator app! We’ve been complaining for years that Microsoft ships new operating systems with the same boring old default applets the
microsoft
By now I’m sure you’ve at least heard of, if not already seen, the new Windows Vista advertisements featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. They haven’t been well received, to put it mildly, but the latest commercial is actually not bad in its longer 4 minute version:
open source
In Codeplex wastes six months reinventing wheels, Ryan Davis has a bone to pick with Microsoft: I saw an announcement [in March, 2007] that CodePlex, Microsoft’s version of Sourceforge, has released a source control client. This infuriates me. This cool thing they spent six months (six!) writing is called
.net
Way back in June of last year, I promised to donate a portion of my advertising revenue back to the community: I will be donating a significant percentage of my ad revenue back to the programming community. The programming community is the reason I started this blog in the first
microsoft
Well, you won’t technically see me at MIX08 this year. But you will see some very cool top-secret stuff Vertigo created in the keynote. MIX is by far my favorite Microsoft conference after attending the ’06 and ’07 iterations. And not just because this year they have a Rock
microsoft
Although I am generally platform agnostic, I make no secret of the fact that I am primarily a Microsoft developer. In a way, I grew up with Microsoft – as a teenager, I cut my programming teeth on the early microcomputer implementations of Microsoft BASIC. And I spent much of my
microsoft
I'm heading off to MIX07 today. MIX is by far my favorite Microsoft conference, because it "mixes" in a liberal dose of traditionally non-Microsoft folks for a broader range of perspectives. It's probably the only Microsoft conference I'll be attending this year.
navigation
There’s an interesting comment in this Amazon user review of The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications: My favorite entry, especially fun to find in light of Microsoft’s legal problems arising in part from its relationship to Netscape Navigator, is this Orwellian directive, found on p. 185:
directx
Has anyone noticed that Microsoft defines “version” a little loosely when it comes to DirectX 9.0c? Here’s a screenshot of the DirectX 9.0c download page on FileHippo: DirectX 9.0c was originally released in August 2004, according to the DirectX Wikipedia entry. But Microsoft has surreptitiously been
security
Microsoft has finally activated the most aggressive part of their Windows Genuine Advantage program – active notifications. After downloading the latest Windows updates, if your Windows cd-key doesn’t validate against Microsoft’s online database of cd-keys, you may be greeted with this unpleasant five-second mandatory delay dialog at the login
.net
Richard Grimes recently posted an Analysis of .NET Use in Longhorn and Vista, wherein he draws two conclusions: 1. Between PDC 2003 and the release of Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has decided that it is better to use native code for the operating system 2. Microsoft has shown no intention