Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Here’s a few fun facts about Windows Live Writer.  Don’t know if they’re published anywhere, but I think they’re interesting so here we go.

• Windows Live Writer was originally called OnFolio Writer in its inception, part of the OnFolio acquisition we made at the beginning of the year.
• Windows Live Writer was originally written by JJ Allaire, one of the creators of Cold Fusion, a very popular framework for web-based server applications, who is now a Microsoft employee.
• Windows Live Writer isn’t just a blogging tool.  Far from it – apparently, there are big plans for this tool as a editing tool for all kinds of online content.

It seems this has slipped out.  Okay.  Here it is.  It’s a tool we’re releasing to make it easy to hook up with near by WiFi HotSpots.

Announcing the Windows Live Connection Center Wi-Fi Beta
Do you want to be on the cutting edge of mobile computing? Do you want to be able to stay connected away from home? Do you frequently connect to Wi-Fi networks? Then you will want to try our Wi-Fi Suite beta! Consider what the Windows Live Connection Center Wi-Fi Beta can do for you:

WiFi Client

HotSpot Locator

• Easy to use website – Search by city, state, or zip code for a convenient wireless network

• Integration with Windows Live Local – physically see the location of the wireless networks and even get driving or walking directions

Joining the Beta Program:
The Windows Live Connection Center Wi-Fi Suite beta will begin August 22, 2006 and continue through early 2007. If you wish to participate, e-mail your Microsoft Passport Network account, (ex. JaneDoe@hotmail.com) to BellBeta@microsoft.com in order to receive an invitation. These invitations will be e-mailed beginning Tuesday, August 22, 2006.

How did Microsoft get the rights to the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" song for the Windows 95 launch?

PART 1:  http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/garten…

PART 2:  http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/garten…

I read this and it brought back some memories.  If you want the "blanks" filled in in the article that Brad doesn’t disclose, ask me the next time you see me and if you catch me on a good day, I might tell you.

Weird how this took a little longer than I believe it was supposed to.  IE7.0 RC1 is lookin’ reallllllly good.   It’s very reliable/stable and it’s fast, fast, fast.  Features?  Here’s a few:

• Relative Printing.  IE 7 automatically shrinks text so there’s no more of having your "right margin" cutting off the print text.  Everything fits on a single printed page.  They’ve also added cool options like the ability to kill the lame URL header at the bottom of the screen.  Finally.
• RSS Feeding. IE 7 allows you to programmatically download news articles, blog entries, and web posts from sites that have RSS documents published on them.  (Symbolized by the RSS icon/logo)  Basically, it’s a really easy way of summarizing and presenting the massive amount of text that is available on all the sites that you like to visit, without all the advertisements, graphics, and lame flash banners.
• Phishing Filter.  This is great for Mom & Dad especially.  It forcibly HALTS the progress of the user when they attempt to visit a site that doesn’t match the text that they originally clicked or one that’s been reported as a phishing site.  So if Mom clicks on "Click here to update your Paypal password" in an email message, and it really sends them to http: //207.68.169.170/paypal/hacker.html, IE7 will prevent them from going any further and notify them that this is dangerous.
• Tabbed browsing.  Not exactly a big deal but I actually prefer the look and feel of IE7.0’s tabbed browsing to the multiple IE add ons that exist out there, including our own Windows Live Toolbar – albeit, that’s a darned close second being that it’s kinda apples & oranges, what with all of it’s additional features and all. 
• …there’s a bunch of other stuff in there but you can read about it online.

What’s new in the Release Candidate 1?

<this is straight out of our press release>

Today, Microsoft is announcing the availability of Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) for Windows XP, available via free download at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx . With this release, Microsoft is strongly encouraging web developers, enthusiasts and IT professionals to finalize their testing and ready their environments for the final availability of IE7.

Microsoft is confident that developers and designers who optimize their web sites and applications with this build will be compatible with the final version when it is released later this year. For an easy path to compatibility, Microsoft encourages technical audiences to download the free Readiness Toolkit.

The RC1 build includes improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of IE7 making installing the new build even easier.

IE7 RC1 is available in English today, and all localized versions of RC1 will be available in September including Arabic, Finnish, German, and Japanese as well as the French and Spanish versions which will be available for the first time.

As previously announced, to help our customers become more secure and up-to-date, Microsoft will also distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates soon after the final version is released for Windows XP later this year.

DOWNLOAD:

• Internet Explorer Readiness Toolkit
• Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 for Windows XP SP2
• Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP1
• Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (Windows x64 Editions)
• Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Uninstall Toolkit

We finally announced the Habu.  Habu’s a gaming mouse that we’ve designed in tandem with Razer, a gaming peripherals IHV that builds some really awesome controllers and keyboards.

 It’s a good bet that the Habu will be a favorit for a lot of people in the upcoming holiday season because once you use it and get the feel for its precision and orientation (the 2000ndpi control resolution – Razer’s own technology – is wicked enough on its own) you probably won’t want to go back to anything less.

This won’t be a mouse for your laptop though unless you plan to be plugged in 24/7.  Because it’s designed to minimize latency (yes, there are gamers that can seriously tell these sort of little delays) the thing is consistently tapping power and otherwise "always on".

The weird thing about the mouse is that it really smoothly moves across surfaces.  They talk about some special teflon feet that they use and it really shows.  The sucker can be pushed across a table like a air hockey puck.

The programmability is great.  7 buttons that can be programmed on the fly using a heads up tool, with as many as 5 different profiles, for 5 different games.  Hmmm.  One for Counterstrike, one for Quake 4, one for Prey, one for Age 2, one for LOTR1, one for Halo PC, one for… uh… waitaminute.  Damn.

http://www.razerzone.com/Products/Gaming-Mice/Micr…

Okay, now this is cool.  It’s a plug in for Windows Live Writer that makes it easy to insert tags. 

Tags, for those of you not familiar with the term, is how an author of a web site categorizes the content on their site.  It’s a self-declaratory form of announcing to the world that the content of the page (or blog entry in this case) is relevant to a specific topic, such as, "Microsoft" or "Xbox" or "Blogging".

Normally people do this in HTML code but this has made the process of adding said tags easier for the end user.  I like this for no other reason than the purpose of Windows Live Writer is to obscure all the complexity of blogging and HTML and this is just another way of doing just that.  People can get their site indexed and categorized by Technorati or whatever dimensioning site they use publicizing their content.

http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName…

Ever wanted to talk to someone else via Instant Messaging in a foreign language?

The Made In Express contest is a contest that invites developers worldwide to write something up in Visual Studio Express for prizes and awards.  A developer in Pakistan has produced a pretty neat plug in for MSN Messenger that enables people to communicate with each other by translating the text back and forth between each person in the language that he or she understands.

The download point contains both the source code as well as the executable which of course requires the .NET 2.0 Framework to be installed on your machine.

http://www.madeinexpress.com/finalist10.asp?id=10

There are 11 other cool projects up there using the .NET platform, including a poker bot, robot, mood-based DJ, and more.  There is a community choice award and the website (www.madeinexpress.com) is currently taking votes from the public.

Starts 8:00 am Saturday morning.  This is a cartoon tied in with an upcoming Xbox 360 game launching for Holiday 2006. 4Kids Entertainment is our partner for this show and is the same company that commercialized Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon.

http://4kids.tv/vivapinata/

If you haven’t seen Viva Pinata, I recommend you check it out. (http://www.vivapinata.com)  It’s kinda like Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Platform but not exactly.  The animation is fantastic with the new shader they’ve created that "renders paper in an accurate & appealing way". (According to Xbox 360 Uncloaked, page 236)

Here’s a video, and keep in mind that the animation is all in-engine and none of it is prerendered: (Unlike a certain KillZone 2 video we’ve all seen… ahem.)

http://wm.world.mii-streaming.net/media/4kids/prev…

Most of you have heard of this "XNA" thingy that we announced earlier on which will allow anyone with some C# development skills to build their own XBox 360 game.  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/)  The thing that most of you haven’t seen is how to get the software.  You need to sign up for the XNA Game Studio Express Beta so that you can download the bits come August 30th which is when I believe they’re going live.  Here’s how:

1. Sign In using your Windows Live ID or Passport account (if you haven’t already)
2. Go to http://connect.microsoft.com
3. On the left-hand side click Available Connections
4. Scroll down and in the table that lists the various programs, go to XNA Game Studio Express Beta 1 and click on "Apply".
5. After filling out the short survey, you will automatically be enrolled.

That’s it.  All you have to do is wait until August 30th for the software to be released.   Oh by the way, it wouldn’t hurt to get the Visual Studio Express Edition tools before hand since you’re going to need those:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/gamestudio/

A customer asked me this question the other day and it dawned on me that an entire generation of bloggers has developed not knowing what the heck that "Notify Ping Server" setting is under Options –> Blog Settings in their Windows Live Space.

(As an aside, I love how horrendously vague we are with our description of this feature:  "Notifying ping servers gives you blog more visibility and helps grow your readership."  Cripes – so does calling up people and telling them that you have a new post on your blog but I don’t see a setting for that under "Options".)

A Ping Server is basically an ongoing log of "blogs that have been updated recently" for the purpose of letting .  By "pinging" a ping server, you essentially send an message saying that your blog has changed so it’s worth the time for syndicators to grab the latest RSS feed from your site.  The only time you actually see the content of a ping server is when you’ve looked at something like the "Recently Updated" spaces module in Windows Live Spaces where people will randomly see blog names that have been updated.  The reality is that RSS Aggregators are the actual primary consumers of ping server content, checking with them to see what blogs have changed before it goes out to download the changed RSS feeds at each individual blog site to refresh its cached content. 

In the case of Windows Live Spaces, if you post a blog entry using the standard blog interface through a browser, it pings WebLogs.com’s ping server when you a) publish a new blog entry on you Windows Live Space and b) you have the "Notify Ping Server" setting checked off.

Alternatively, if you want to use Windows Live Writer, the blog editor that Microsoft’s recently released for free, it can ping more than just the WebLog ping server for you.  It can ping TONS of Ping Servers and let them know that you have new content.  Frankly, the only folks that will use this content will be folks reviewing & scanning topical aggregators with an interest in your blog entries topic.

So basically if you’re trying to get as much exposure as possible and want completely random people hitting your blog, (Translation: You’re treating your blog as your personal entry into the ongoing geek popularity contest known as the blogosphere) it’s possible using Windows Live Writer to notify lots and lots of ping servers about your recent changes in an effort to advertise your geeky existence.

To configure Windows Live Writer:

1) Go to Tools –> Preferences –> Ping Servers
2) Cut & paste the following list of major Ping servers into the whitespace and save.

http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://ping.blogg.de/
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.britblog.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com/
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

(Thanks to Ahmed from OKAQ.com for the ping server list)