Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Starting September 6, 2006 and running through September 12, 2006

Now in its third year, the Unwrapped for Financial Services Webcast Series is back! Sessions will be both technical and strategic in nature, covering the newest Microsoft solutions for Capital Markets, Retail Banking and Insurance firms. Microsoft Product Mangers will also be on hand to answer your questions live and delve deep into the latest Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Vista, Office 12 and Excel Services, Windows Presentation Framework and Expression Interactive Designer.  All the sessions will be presented live.

Join us for this new webcast series starting September 6, 2006, where we will highlight common concerns, case studies and best practices within financial services.

Register Today!  (Use Referral Code: FSG)

• 9/6/2006  Kickoff: Building Connected Systems in Financial Services
  11:00am- 12:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303395
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303395&x=19&y=13
  
• 9/6/2006  Microsoft Technologies in Capital Markets (Level 200)
  1:00pm- 2:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303396
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303396&x=7&y=13
  
• 9/6/2006  Patterns & Practices Smart Client Software Factory (Level 300)
  3:00pm-4:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303398
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303398&x=14&y=11
  
• 9/7/2006 Workflow Enablement in Banking (Level 200)
  11:00am-12:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303399
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303399&x=16&y=9
  
• 9/7/2006  Application Risk Management (Level 200)
  3:00pm-4:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303457
  https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303457&x=11&y=12
  
• 9/8/2006 A4SWIFT Empowering SWIFTNet Messaging (Level 300)
  11:00am-12:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303458
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303458&x=19&y=15
  
• 9/8/2006  Windows Vista in the Enterprise: Benefits for the Business and IT Professional (Level 200 – 300)
  1:00pm-2:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303462
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303462&x=19&y=9
  
• 9/8/2006  Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and Excel Services (Level 200)
  3:00pm-4:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303463
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303463&x=20&y=8
  
• 9/11/2006  Learn The ABCs Of Programming Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for WINFX (Level 300)
  11:00am-12:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303464
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303464&x=16&y=15
  
• 9/11/2006  Building Custom Solutions with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Excel Services (Level 200)
  1:00pm-2:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303467
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303467&x=5&y=14
  
• 9/12/2006  Customer Care Framework (Level 200)
  8:00am-9:30am
  Event ID:  1032303402
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303402&x=10&y=6
  
• 9/12/2006  Windows Presentation Foundation in Financials, the Good, Bad and the Ugly (Level 300)
  11:00am-12:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303472
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303472&x=9&y=11
  
• 9/12/2006  J2EE and JEE5 Interoperability with .NET (Level 300)
  1:00pm-2:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303473
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303473&x=18&y=11
  
• 9/12/2006  Overview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System (Level 200)
  3:00pm- 4:30pm
  Event ID:  1032303478
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032303478&x=11&y=15

Related Resources

1. Developer Connection for Financial Services
   Visit the Developer Connection for all the latest information on events, hot topics, case studies and resources for developers in the financial services industry.
2. Financial Services Developer Quarterly Newsletter
   This quarterly newsletter offers subscribers information about how Microsoft and its partners are helping the financial services industry deliver high-impact business solutions and provides access to the latest resources, tools and technologies to help build fast, deployable web solutions. The newsletter is available in text and HTML formats and is sent right into your inbox! If you would like to receive this free quarterly newsletter, all you have to do is register: Subscribe now.
3. MSDN Architecture Center
   Scan headlines, access RSS feeds, and visit Community sites, all designed to help you map your blueprint for success.

Players will be able to get Texas Hold ’em for free on Wednesday, August 23rd next week on Xbox Live for Xbox 360. The launch will enable people to have a 48 hour period to download the full version absolutely free.

After that it’s going to cost you 800 points so get online and prepare to start downloading.

The Case for Portfolio Management
Do you know which department has been the most successful in getting its projects moved from concept to completion? Do you know where your IT budget has gone? What percentage of the dollars spent in your organization have support the top three objectives? How profitable has your investment in projects been in increased revenue, cost reduction, or customer satisfaction? If you want to be able to answer any one or all of these questions, it may be time to look into tools that support Portfolio Management.

November 28, 2006
The Case for Portfolio Management
Event ID: 1032304191

All sessions are scheduled for 9:00 AM-10:00 PM (Pacific Time).

This training is free to my customers.

To Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032304191&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

A Preview of What’s Coming in Project 2007  
Preview the possibilities with Project 2007!  This session is not your typical Deep Dive–it’s a preview of what’s coming in the next version of Project. Discussion will center on new features in Project 2007 and a focus on planning for resource management – planning your organizational needs, and best practices for decision making regarding resources.  

October 24, 2006
A Preview of What’s Coming in Project 2007
Event ID: 1032304189

All sessions are scheduled for 9:00 AM-10:00 PM (Pacific Time).

This session is free to my customers.

To Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032304189&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Reports that Communicate Project Information – Version 2003 and Project 2007
So, where does all of your project information come from and how do you pull it together? How do you begin to determine what is needed for reporting?  This session focuses on how to creatively leverage the collection of data. Take a look at how to mine data from Project Dashboards; cross-department and cross-system scenarios; and incorporation of audit and client information. Focus is on Version 2003 and the next version of Project 2007. 

September 26, 2006
All sessions are scheduled for 9:00 AM-10:00 PM (Pacific Time).
Reports that Communicate Project Information
Event ID: 1032304060

This event is free to my customers.

To Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032304060&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Preview Project 2007 – Planning for Timesheets            
Many organizations want to track actual work and cost then compare those data with planned work and cost. Project Web Access timesheets help you collect actual effort and post that data into the project schedule tasks. This session helps you understand how timesheets work and how to prepare for using timesheet functions. This session is not your typical Deep Dive–it’s a preview of what’s coming with timesheets for Project 2007.

August 22, 2006
Preview Project 2007 – Planning for Timesheets
Session is scheduled for 9:00 AM-10:00 PM (Pacific Time).
Event ID: 1032304058

This is a free online event that any of my customers may participate in.

To Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032304058&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Psst.  There’s one Office application that I consider to be a nifty little secret weapon on my war against "Information Overload". 

OneNote.

See, I have a major problem with Information Overload.  I get too many tasks, I have too many projects, and I have too many idea & concepts to bounce around in my head.  I don’t do a good job of prioritizing and I need to write things down because my memory is shot for being in the computer industry too long.  (See my previous blog article about the horrendous affects of Email & Instant Messaging on a person’s IQ and attention span: http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DA410C7F7E038D!369.entry)

COLLAPSIBLE LISTS

I’ve found that the best way for me to keep organized and to keep track of everything I need to get done has been to use OneNote & its collapsible lists feature.  OneNote gives you the ability to create outlines of content like lists of things to do with sub lists, and then subsequently collapse them or expand them as you see fit.  This allows you to see an entire list of things to do, for example, without having to see all the details. 

 
Creating outlines and keeping them collapsed is an easy way to view lists

If you want to see the details of any one list item, all you do is "expand" the item so that you can see all its sub items or sub lists.

Expanding items is as easy as double clicking the little square to the left of each item 

An interesting feature of this is that the collapsible lists work with both typewritten content as well as handwritten content.  I can handwrite "tasks I need to do" and "steps I need to complete for each task" and have each task "collapse" into a single line item – then expand it out when I need to see the details.  And I can add details to each item in my own handwriting as I need to.

Handwriting can be expanded & collapsed just as easily as typewritten items in collapsible lists 

RECORDED MEETINGS

Probably the most powerful feature of OneNote however is it’s ability to record the audio or video of a meeting and synchronize your note taking to the audio or video recording.  How many times have you heard people rattle off their names during meeting introductions for example, and you can’t get everyone’s name written down fast enough?  Or you phased out during part of the meeting and you’d like to listen in on what was said after the meeting is over?

The recording can be in any number of codecs, meaning that you can make the recording take less than 2MB of space for an hour of recorded audio or for higher fidelity recordings, you can shift to a better codec which may take 50MB for an hour of recorded audio but do so with crystal clear fidelity. 

 
Audio can be encoded in multiple frequencies & codecs 

While you are recording the meeting’s audio or video, you can be taking notes.  This is important because when you PLAY BACK the audio and/or video recording, OneNote will highlight the text or handwriting that you wrote or typed during each section of a recording.

Audio recorded meetings make it easy to type notes about the recording and have the recording mark at what time in the audio stream you typed in your comments.

Recently, I’ve read a bunch of negative discussions around our acquisition of Winternals… the typical folks complaining about how Microsoft is going to hose them by suddenly and dramatically charging for the Winternal tools.

Which is frankly nuts, if you ask me.  No company would start charging for tools that are publicly available for free… but conspiracy theorists will always lurk.  These are probably the same people that think we’ve collecting detailed information about them during Windows Activation.  (Which we are absolutely not.   Note:  I figure that I have to make sure I say this outright and clearly with the way our legal system works these days.)

In any case, let me state for the record that there are no plans to start "charging" for these current tools.  We will be shipping a release of the Wininternals Admin Pack after we’ve done a complete code review on them.  As for the SysInternal tools, we intend on moving them to Technet and our public Internet properties to keep the community around them alive.  The sustained engineering group will decide what technologies will evolve into the OS or somewhere else in the future but their current instantiations will continue to be posted publicly.

Stay informed and entertained with your wireless device! Try out our newly-launched MSNBC.com Mobile beta service. It’s FREE thanks to the ongoing support of our advertisers.

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Note: MSNBC.com Mobile beta supports many mobile devices. If, however, yours is not supported, you will receive a message saying so when you attempt to download the application.

So now that it’s out, I guess I can write something about it finally:  I’ve been using this tool we’ve been developing called the Windows Live Writer and, dare I say it, been providing a bit of feedback on the device of the past few months of it’s development. 

It’s essentially a client-side blogging tool that enables you to write & post blog entries on your desktop without having to open a browser window.  To those of you who lift your noses at the prospect of having a real Win32 tool to post content, I say that you can’t possibly be a real blogger.   Blog writers have been plagued with the problems of lousy server-side editors for years.  Not having spellcheck, having crummy formatting tools, having to login-logout to switch between blogs… it’s a downright headache to maintain anything more than 1 blog – heaven forbid you actually have multiple audiences. (BTW:   Download of "Writer" is available here:  http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/9/a/f9a19…)

Personally, I think it’s looking pretty good although I don’t pretend to understand all its synergies with the rest of our online & desktop application strategy.   One thing I do know is that the tool’s been immensely useful.  It’s light, its easy to use, relatively bug free, and it’s provided me with a weird cross between FrontPage & Word to publish to my many Windows Live Spaces blogs.  (Yes, I have more than two out there.)

The tool does all the typical things other blog writers do… spellcheck, wordwrap, stylesheet replication, blah blah blah. (You can read everyone else’s blog if you want to read about that stuff) 

What the tool does that makes it unique in terms of client-side publishing are a few interesting things: 

1. MULTIPLE BLOG SUPPORT
   The thing works with multiple blogs from multiple vendors using multiple user accounts and multiple saved passwords.  I can edit a Blogger blog, then immediately switch over and seamlessly sign in to my Windows Live Spaces blog, then do the same thing to my TypePad blog… all with a single dropdown menu on the toolbar.
2. PUBLISHING PREVIEW
   This might not seem like a big deal to some of you but this is very FrontPage like and for those of you who have used FrontPage religiously like I have over the past 10 years since it was a Vermeer property, this is a godsend.  Being able to see a preview of your posting the way it will eventually be published is a really confidence booster for folks that publish as regularly as I do.
3. TASKS PANE
   This is that window pane on the side of an application like Word 2003 that shows all the things that you can do in the current context of the application.  For example, when you first load Word 2003, you might look at the task pane and it would say, "Open New Document".  In the case of Windows Live Writer, it lists out all the DRAFT blog entries you still haven’t completed yet, it lists out all your most recent posts, and it shows you what sort of objects you can insert.  I think this paradigm was one of the true unheralded innovations in Office 2003 that’s been passed down to Writer:  Contextual help.
4. AUTOSAVE
   The thing autosaves your blog entry after a default of 3 minutes (adjustable) of usage. 
   NUFF SAID.
5. AUTOCORRECT & AUTOSPELLCHECK
   It both autocorrects and spellchecks automatically right before you post.  Again, nuff said.
6. OFFLINE SUPPORT
   Admittedly this one surprised me because I didn’t expect it although I suppose I should have.  Writer gives you the ability to blog offline on an airplane flight example and save drafts for later posting.  It also enables you to review all the most recently posted entries that you’ve made through Writer to your blog which is really conveninient in the event you decide to make updates to past entries while you’re offline.

One thing that it lacks is Tablet PC stylus & digitizer support – aka support for digital ink.  Yes, I understand why this might have been left out but aren’t we at that point where EVERY application that Microsoft churns out should instinctively have Tablet PC Support?

Windows Live Writer (BETA)… a really cool Blog writer for your Windows desktop.

IT’S THE DESKTOP & THE SERVICE PROVIDER, STUPID

This brings up an important topic:  I understand a few important facts… one of which is that this is a v1.0 product but it’s a perfect example of where a desktop application working with online software makes for a super-powerful offering.  Why?  Because online applications have a ceiling in terms of their power and nothing beats having rich APIs powered by a local CPU.

Certain folks would have you believe that the "world is going to go completely online for their applications" – the day of the end of desktop applications is nye.  I say horse hockey.  The day Bank of America – a company that had a profit of $18 billion dollars last year – decides that it’s okay to have their financial analysts plug numbers into an online spreadsheet just to save the company $1 million in Excel software costs, is the day hell freezes over.

Some argue that there’s an area at "the bottom of the pyramid" of consumers that would move to an online application model that was ad sponsored and free.  It’s been proven time and time again that this model only managed to attract the folks that wouldn’t have paid for desktop software anyway. 

Seriously ask yourself:  How many Norwegian Linux users do you think have ever paid for a copy of Microsoft Office?  Yet how many of them do you think have used Microsoft Office?

THE SALESFORCE.COM EXPERIENCE

Look at Salesforce.com:  An online customer relationship management application that has become somewhat popular because of it’s ease-of-use (proving again that the user is king) and it’s ease-of-administration.  Basically anyone that’s a subscriber can get to any browser and work with their customers & their sales opportunities.

Wellllllll almost everyone.  Salesforce.com had a ‘tiny’ outage that had their customers hanging in the wind without their CRM data for over 24 hours.  They blamed Oracle’s database as the problem but the damage was done:  The online ERP model was seriously called into question, bringing rapid acceleration to the offline/desktop applications side of the business for Salesforce.com.  It was amazing how high profile their desktop version of their CRM application became after the outage as if to say, "Don’t worry!  You can have a local copy of your CRM data too, so this will never happen to you.