Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Channel 9 recently did a video interview with my favorite executive, Jim Allchin, the guy at Microsoft (or more appropriately the Vice President at Microsoft) that is responsible for Longhorn.  This is a great video that clarifies and describes what Longhorn is from an English language perspective… yet at a fairly technical level.  He really explains what our intentions are around Longhorn.

I wish this had come out a long time ago.

Here’s a list of questions (and the time code location of each) that were asked:

00:00 Where are we and who are you?
00:25 What do you do?
1:10 If you wanted to change the start button to a purple color you could probably get it done, huh?
1:30 What’s your average day like?
3:00 What’s a Jim Allchin review like?
5:14 What don’t we know about you?
7:30 You’re dogfooding Longhorn?
8:41 Tell me about your press tour last week. (Discussion about what Jim’s passionate about; 64-bit, peer-to-peer, stuff happening around edge).
14:35 What’s going to be thrilling in Longhorn? (Reaction to Winhec reaction. Discussion of Metro. Discussion of what Winhec was for).
18:17 Why are you so passionate about 64-bit Windows?
22:13 When did you get into this industry?
22:35 Are you suprised by how far this industry has come in just your lifetime? (Discussion of where industry is heading).
24:53 So the PC is not dead?
25:17 Getting the Channel 9 guys involved. What’s coming on the Tablet PC?
27:30 Any guesses on how long it’ll take most mobile devices to have inking capabilities?
29:07 What’s the developer story on Longhorn?
31:16 What is a business going to get out of upgrading to Longhorn?
36:09 The most exciting thing about Longhorn for me is security improvements (discussion of security improvements in Longhorn).
38:12 What kinds of new applications (or improved ones, like Notepad/Paint) will ship with Longhorn?
39:03 Will Avalon and Indigo be in Longhorn?
39:40 What is the desktop compositor?
41:33 What will Longhorn do with RSS?
43:00 What’s different about search in Longhorn?
45:45 When will we get a chance to use Longhorn?

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=63208

 

 

Update for Windows XP (KB893357)
This update to Windows XP provides support for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), which is the latest standards-based wireless security solution derived from the IEEE 802.11i standard.  It also contains Wireless Provisioning Services (WPS) Information Element support, which enables improvements in wireless network discoverability.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=662bb74d-e7c1-48d6-95ee-1459234f4483&displaylang=en

There’s a new video posted to StartSomethingPC.com! http://www.startsomethingpc.com/GetUpdates.aspx#entry4

"The MSN Messenger server farm handles over 70 million concurrent sessions every single day. Until recently, they were using 250 32-bit servers to manage that load. When they switched to Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition running on x64 hardware, they reduced the size of the farm to just 25 servers."
http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott/Article/ArticleID/46175/windowspaulthurrott_46175.html

That’s right:  From 250 32-bit Servers… to 25 64-bit Servers.

I suppose this is yet more commentary, which I typically don’t do but I think this is fantastic.  And remember that with just 25 64-bit servers, we still have room to GROW!  

That’s 225 fewer servers to provide electricity to.  225 fewer servers to patch.  225 fewer servers to monitor.  225 fewer servers to cool with air conditioning.  225 fewer servers to service pack.  225 servers to administer.

And it doesn’t stop there:  How about the desktop?  Think of the ability to stuff the CPU registers with huge numbers… the ability to process way more information in a single clock cycle.  The ability to operate EVERYTHING in memory and never having to go to the disk for anything.  The difference in technological ability is as dramatic as 16-bit 8086 CPUs vs 32-bit Pentium CPUs.

Anyone that says 64-bit isn’t the wave of the future for servers & desktops isn’t very visionary.  They might as well be saying, "640k should be enough for anyone."