Posted by: kurtsh | September 15, 2005

HOWTO: Set up MSN Alerts

<taken from the Spacecraft blog – the official blog of MSN Spaces>
 
Alerts aren’t available broadly yet, but you’ll notice some people already have them on their Space. The instructions below show how you can hack something together yourself.  
 
Quote

MSN Alerts on your own Space is a great way to enable people to get instant updates whenever you update your Blog!
 
While it definitely requires a little more work, it’s actually pretty easy to set up.

  1. Install the PowerToys "HTML Container Part" – click here to learn how to do this:  (http://spaces.msn.com/members/thespacecraft/Blog/cns!1pBU8QRvZvOfXG4QTjpv_GFg!127.entry)
  2. Sign up for Alerts at http://signup.alerts.msn.com/brochure/index.html.  
  3. Receive Welcome Email – Accept Terms of Use
  4. You’ll receive another instruction email with HTML code for your Alerts signup button.  Copy and paste that HTML code provided in the into the HTML Container Window.  Here’s an example of mine:
    <a href="http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts/login.do?PINID=xxyourPINxx&returnURL=http://spaces.msn.com/members/yourname/">
    <img src="http://images.alerts.msn.com/mcwebsite/graphics/blog/alert_signup_eng.gif" alt="MSN Alerts" border=0></a> 
  5. Click Save
  6. You’re all set!  Users can get alerted whenever you or a friend updates your space!

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Posted in Beta

Posted by: kurtsh | September 15, 2005

BETA: MSN Screensaver Update 1.0.0831 (Aug 31st, 2005)

MSN just made a minor update of MSN Screensaver Beta, which among other things, no longer requires you to hit "ESC" to make the screen saver disappear.  Thanks to the Spacecraft guys (MSN Space’s dev team blog) for this tip.

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Posted in Beta

Posted by: kurtsh | September 14, 2005

BETA: Microsoft Max & Windows Presentation Services

We just announced Microsoft Max at the Professional Developers Conference.
 
Microsoft Max (no jokes about a relationship to Bob, please) is essentially a sample application that turned photos into 3D slideshows that are very attractive.  The key is that it takes advantage of Windows Presentation Services, formerly known at "Avalon", which is an inherent component of Windows Vista.  The main idea of the tool is to highlight what is possible with Windows Vista & Windows Presentation Services… not to build a new tool.
 
WHAT IS WINDOWS PRESENTATION SERVICES?
What Windows Presentation Services does is provide a highly optimized, close-to-the-OS set of interfaces for presenting both vector & raster based graphics on the screen with very little effort.  A developer can write a small amount of code and create impressively beautiful, vector-scalable, & fast graphics into their applications without having to distribute graphics libaries with their application.
 
To put this into perspective:
  • ACROBAT:  Think of having all the vector presentation power of a Adobe Acrobat built in at a low level into Windows.  Now imagine that Acrobat’s rendering capabilities are in every application and having all these applications natively interactable – just like a normal Windows application.  For example:  A version of Microsoft Word with the same fidelity and presentation viewing capability as Acrobat (without the load times of Acrobat of course) and all the ‘security protectiveness’ of documents. (since it’s based on WPS libraries already loaded into memory)  This is sort of related to a project we have called "Metro" that some people have been touting as an Acrobat killer.
  • SHOCKWARE/FLASH:  Now think about having Macromedia Shockware/Flash animation and scale built into the OS, such that these creations run at top speed due to their closeness with the OS, by using WPS.  There’s a tool code named Sparkle that provides people with the ability to create these interactive animations for example, and it’s all using Visual Studio-based tools.  In other words, any MSDN developer can now do the equivalent work of a Flash programmer on Windows without knowing Flash.  Now you know why Adobe acquired Macromedia.
  • MAC ‘TIGER’:  Think of MacOS "Tiger’s" beautiful interface… now imagine having all of that standard and scalable to the capabilitiees of the hardware on your current PCs AND having the APIs completely exposed to any MSDN developer so they can change the UI or intergrate their own ‘plugins’ (aka Microsoft Gadgets) into the interface or the Windows Vista "Sidebar".
WHY IS MICROSOFT MAX SO FREAKIN’ BIG?
"Isn’t the developer supposed to be able to create ‘very little code’?  Why is the Max download so massive?"  Good question.  It’s because: 
1) This is Beta code which is rife with debug statements  and
2) This is a download of Windows Presentation Services for Windows XP.
 
The unique part of Windows Presentation Services however is that it’s been backported to Windows XP to enable developers to write programs that are usable by both Windows XP users today, and Windows Vista users in the future.  It’s just that Windows Vista users will find that the install will go MUCH FASTER being that the Windows Presentation Services will already be in the OS and not need to be installed.

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Posted in Beta

Posted by: kurtsh | September 14, 2005

HOWTO: Troubleshooting Outlook

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Posted in Training

Posted by: kurtsh | September 14, 2005

WEB: Notes on Presenting with Powerpoint

A friend of mine blogged recently about Jesper Johansson’s recent article about how to use Powerpoint:
 
I read through it and while I agreed with the general humorous gist of the article, I thought that there were some larger macro-level points about presenting that are more important to focus on rather than the nuances of building Powerpoint decks themselves.  I’ve read through numerous books that tell you such old advice like: Don’t use small fonts, Don’t pack too much in a slide, Use pictures,…blah blah blah.  This is stuff you can get out of any Dummies or Complete Idiot’s guide to presenting with Powerpoint.
 
I’ve been in sales for more than 10 years at Microsoft and I’ve consistently see the same presentation mistakes, and they frankly, usually have nothing to do with Powerpoint.  I’m not going to go off on a rant here but here’s just 3 examples of things that are pet peeves of mine of new technical sales employees at Microsoft that present.
  • GET TO THE DAMNED POINT:
    Answer the question that in your customer’s minds as soon as humanly possible, then go back an explain why your answer is correct.  Your audience has an itch to scratch, otherwise they wouldn’t be in front of you so don’t make them wait 15 minutes before you scratch that itch with background sides, history slides, marketing slides, or stuff that will just annoy them – no matter how important you think it is.  People that do this are usually slackers using some pre-fabbed presentation deck loaded up with marketing slides about "their company’s history" or "the ‘problem’ that they’re solving".  And make no mistake – it’s obvious.
  • POWERPOINT IS NOT A CRUTCH:
    Guide your pitch on what the audience responds to, and barring that, base your commentary on the slide title – not the actual content of the slide.  When you can give your presentation without looking at a slide deck at all, you’re ready to present.  People that don’t know their presentation flow are obvious because they read bullet items and are completely dependent on their slides to give their pitch.  This is the mark of a bad salesperson.
  • REMEMBER THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE:
    Measure and balance the following:  You, your pitch, the audience. 
    Make sure you’re jazzed about your pitch… if you’re not, reschedule.  And if your jazzed, the audience will be to.  If they aren’t you’re not scratching their itch and you need to adjust your pitch.  If your pitch isn’t on target with what you’re trying to communicate, reschedule, because if it’s not, it’s awfully hard for you to get jazzed/excited about.
On Powerpoint:  2 quick rules.
  • The main rule of Powerpoint is the "4×5" rule:  No more than 4 bullets, no more than 5 words per bullet on a slide.
  • The main rule of presenting is the "Tell them" rule:  Tell them what you’re going to say, tell them, then tell them again what you just told them.
 
 

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Posted in Web

Posted by: kurtsh | September 14, 2005

BETA: Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition

The product group has reached a major milestone and Beta1 of Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition is now available.  It was launched at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles yesteray.

My customers can now nominate themselves for Microsoft Compute Cluster Solution Beta1.  The external web-site has been updated. 

WEB:  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/hpc/default.mspx

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Posted in Beta

Posted by: kurtsh | September 13, 2005

WEB: “Windows Vista Secrets” web site

I’ve found this interesting site that has a decent amount of traffic on it about Windows Vista.  I accept no responsibility for the hacks and backdoor stuff found on this site, but I thought you guys messing with Windows Vista would enjoy this.

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Posted in Web

Posted by: kurtsh | September 12, 2005

FREE: Windows Financial Services magazine

There is a vertical business magazine out there called Windows Financial Services – "The magazine for Microsoft in the financial enterprise". 
 
This month there’s a few articles that many will find interesting – for example, there’s an article on Corporate Compliance, another on XBRL usage for financial reporting, one on the future of trading and technology, and a very interesting mention of SuperComputing of Compute Clusters – one of my favorite topics.
 
It’s all quite good and you can get a subscription for free if you qualify.

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Posted in Computers and Internet

Posted by: kurtsh | September 12, 2005

COMMENTARY: A note on the future of software

Bill Gates has a famous series of quotes where he says:
"Software is the best industry to be in" and "The best is yet to come." 
Who would be so self-rightous to make the claim that they foresaw the Internet as it is today?   Who would be so crude as to announce that they knew that technologies like SPAM filtering would be used to identify interesting genomes in DNA mapping. (Microsoft’s anti-SPAM technology is being used for just this purpose, in case you didn’t know.)
 
Robert Scoble, who I find myself not agreeing with a lot, has a great quote – and while I would rarely refer people to a quote of his because my personal opinions are generally different from his, I think this quote is something that everyone should remember, wherever they happen to be:
"All it takes to turn a company around is a very small team (Apple’s iPod teaches us that). You telling me that every single one of our 57,000 employees are dumb? ReallY? Ward Cunningham, inventor of the Wiki is all of a sudden dumb? Gary Starkweather, inventor of the laser printer has lost all his smarts?"
The bottom line is that while some people may think that we’re in a lull, technologically, I firmly believe that we’re just one breakthrough away from once again stunning the world. 
  • We have Gordon Bell working for us.  The inventor of the VAX and the first original scalable computing environment.
  • We have Jim Gray.  The father of modern databases.
  • We have Don Box.  The master of component development.
  • We have Gary Starkweather.  The creator of the laser printer.
  • We have Jim Allchin.  The godfather of the modern directory service.  (Banyan Vines)
  • We have Ray Ozzie.  The inventor of groupware.
…and we have Bill Gates.
 
And no matter what claim Larry Ellison might make about "the best software having already been created" and that "there are no new exciting things to be done in software"… it only proves to me that some others out there simply lack the vision necessary to take us to the next level of computing.
 
And if we continue to work at it, you can bet we’ll be there to make that happen.

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Posted in Computers and Internet

Posted by: kurtsh | September 12, 2005

VIDEO: Marc McDonald – Employee #1 at Microsoft

Here’s a fascinating interview with Marc McDonald from Microsoft.
 
Marc is the VERY FIRST employee of Microsoft and he’s still with us to this day.  I won’t even begin to try to explain what he used to do and what he does now – just watch the video.  What’s funny is that
 
He shows the very first Microsoft business card, and he discusses why his employee ID is not "#1" and how many people worked to try to get him Employee ID #1 today, and why it wasn’t possible.
 
This guy is sharp… but you can tell he’s just plain an uber-coder.  A true "Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott" aka "Scotty".
 
 

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Posted in Multimedia

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