Ray Ozzie’s Blog V3
Glad to see that Ray is blogging again. Now that he is at Microsoft running the big new initiative this should be a really interesting one to follow!
"A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I brought life to a new initiative that, over the course of the months and years ahead, will catalyze and deliver a number of things that I'm very excited about. At that event, I said that unlike many other stealth projects I've/we've done, in this case many of our plans and offerings will evolve progressively and in the open, shaped in good measure by a dialog with you." (from Ray Ozzie's Blog)
Looks like it will be really interesting to follow! Ray Ozzie of course is one of the original guys who built Lotus Notes, and launched Groove, and is now CTO at Microsoft, right in the middle of a lot of cool new stuff. Technorati Tags: blog, microsoft
Interesting Wired article about War Blogs
I came across this a little while ago in Wired about War Blogs. Pretty amazing stuff:
"Strong opinions throughout the military ranks in and out of wartime are nothing new. But online technology in the combat zone has suddenly given those opinions a mass audience and an instantaneous forum for the first time in the history of warfare. On the 21st-century battlefield, the campfire glow comes from a laptop computer, and it's visible around the world." (from Wired)
Read the whole thing - it's interesting. Technorati Tags: corantessa
Did MSFT leak on purpose, or did they know they could easily be leaked?
I've read several accounts relating to Microsoft's recently 'leaked' documents about the new strategy, for example, Cringely says:
"While ostensibly written solely for internal discussion, the documents from Bill Gates and new Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie were clearly supposed to be leaked." … and … "These are external marketing documents -- the equivalent of those ubiquitous white papers …" (via Scripting News)
I have a couple of thoughts on this:
"On Purpose" is relative: Any email that is sent to tens of thousands of people is essentially certain to be leaked.
Any experienced emailer knows that just about any message might get leaked, and writes many if not most messages with that in mind.
When you write anything that will be read by tens of thousands of people, of course you copy edit it, of course you review it, of course you write it carefully. That's not evidence of any kind of evil intent, it's just rational
Oh, and do I have any substantial thoughts about the content itself? Sure, why not:
Microsoft and the press like comparing these recent memos to the famous Halloween memos from years ago when Microsoft 'turned on a dime' and embraced the Internet. I don't buy it. That was a long time ago, a much different Microsoft, a different Bill Gates.
I will wait to see it before I believe it. This is classic repackaging of old stuff, making many beautiful architectural drawings to distract the world. Color me skeptical.
Technorati Tags: microsoft
Roku Roku Roku: Aint Technology Great?
This little
gem really works! A StarTrek cool little device that sits on top of your
stereo or TV set. It's called a Roku Soundbridge
M1000. Has a
remote control, built-in Wi-fi (which DOESN"T MEAN wireless fidelity, darn
it) and
various audio-outs to connect to your amplifier. Simple as pie. What does it
do? All my iTunes music, playlists, radio stations, smart play lists, and so
on, now, directly accessible, searchable and browsable on that cool
retro looking illuminated display. And play them through your big
speakers.**Very cool. Very recommended. ** Technorati Tags:
music
What blogs are good for: Learning about Microsoft
So can you learn anything useful from a blog? I've often spoken admiringly to friends about Microsoft blogging. I've said that, it's not so much that people are giving away any trade secrets. You learn stuff that are not secret, but you probably would only find out if you ran into someone in a Starbucks in Redmond. Exhibit #1 (which I've used before, but continues to impress) Steve Sinofsky's Microsoft TechTalk Blog. Look at an amazing recent post on a topic of vital interest if you are doing business or doing partnering with MSFT.
"I've been asked quite a bit by people interviewing at Microsoft about "software release". This post will talk about our strategy around product releases for Office products, since we have been pretty consistent over the years and this represents a balance between some competing interests." (from Steve Sinofsy's TechTalk)
Read it if you are affected by Microsoft products at all.And who isn 't? Technorati Tags: microsoft
Learning about Open Source
Peter
Moldave, a friend of mine who has helped me
immensely with BlogBridge has (gulp)
started blogging! Yup, another one bites
the dust 🙂 Peter is a lawyer (at Gesmer
Updegrove LLP), expert in intellectual property,
patents, licensing, open source, and other legal matters of great interest to
us computer folk. He also has a
comprehensive site on all matters relating to
open source, Check out his site and
blog, it's very informative!
Technorati Tags: blogbridge,
opensource
Ultimate baby name choser
This
one has made the rounds, but in case you haven't seen it
yet. Whether or not you
are expecting a baby, have a child, or just love cool visualizations, you've
gotta check out "The Baby Name Wizard's
NameVoyager".
Incredibly cool! Technorati Tags:
babyboomers
Swallowing an umbrella
"The sword passes within millimetres of the heart, aorta, and other vitals but, surprisingly, few deaths related to sword swallowing have been described. A Canadian sword swallower did die, but that was after swallowing an umbrella." (from BMJ.com, the General Medical Journal, online, via MetaFilter.)
You do learn the darndest things on the web, don't you? Technorati Tags: funny
Wiki as in Wikipedia
I assume you know about Wikis and the Wikipedia. If not, click on the links to the left and you'll both find out and experience it, in one fell swoop. On BlogBridge we use a Wiki as a very lightweight project collaboration tool. Minimalist eRoom if you like. That's the kind that most often occurs to me. But if you think about Wikipedia articles work, they are actually meant to properly describe or define something that exists and has a name. In other words, they specifically are meant to be objective and timely. I've worked at more than one company where we, the CEO, or whoever was trying to write down , invent, or discover, for example, a company value statement , or a company strategy statement. It's a painful process on a lot of levels and when you are all done, it's not even clear that you've accomplished anything. What if you pretended that you were writing an entry in Wikipedia, for example of the company value statement. As a Wiki page, anyone in the organization could read, write, correct, update, clarify and append to the statement. It would be an interesting experiment if you could get it to work. If you did, you might have a better chance of getting some kind of common understanding and alignment, let alone buy in and agreement, than with other more top-down approaches. [inspired by a talk at the BlogOn conference, unfortunately, I can't remember which one.] Technorati Tags: blogon2005
For advanced nerds only: How the deathstar works
From How Stuff Works :
"There is no question that the last few years of world history have seen a fair share of chaos and disorder. With so much global unrest, governments worldwide are struggling to devise new methods to maintain order. The Galactic Empire's solution to order is the Death Star."
Read the whole thing! How Stuff Works has come a long way, with sections on Science, Health, Entertainment etc. Check it out!
Technorati Tags: cool