An interesting metaphor given the wet, rainy weather we have this week in the Redmond area: 40 days and nights from now, the television world should be changing to digital broadcast in the States.
But not if Obama’s team request for a delay in digital TV transition is heard. As Joelle Tessler, technology writer for AP reported today (January 8, 2009)…
"President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won't be ready.
"In a letter to key lawmakers Thursday, Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the digital transition needs to be delayed largely because the Commerce Department has run out of money for coupons to subsidize digital TV converter boxes for consumers. People who don't have cable or satellite service or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the converter boxes to keep their older analog sets working.
"Obama officials are also concerned that the government is not doing enough to help Americans - particularly those in rural, poor or minority communities - prepare for and navigate the transition."
The story was reported broadly, but isn’t met with broad support: this from PBS President Paula Kerger who called digital delays "inexcusable." As Mark Dawidziak (Plain Dealer Television Critic) reports…
"Paula Kerger, the president of PBS, used her semi-annual meeting with the nation's TV critics to wag an admonishing finger at the federal overseers of the Feb. 17 switch to digital television. She is particularly distressed that viewers seeking coupons for converter boxes are being on a waiting list. "I'm very disheartened to hear that, a month before the DTV deadline, the federal government has run out of money to help citizens purchase digital converter boxes," Kerger said.
"Consumers need those coupons, and they need them now, and to put them on a waiting list, which is what is happening, is inexcusable."
This is nothing new: as reported last year, government officials chided the Digital TV transition effort. Kim Hart wrote in the Washington Post (July 11, 2008) that the "billion-dollar program to help consumers prepare for the upcoming switch to digital television has been mismanaged and is running out of money, key lawmakers said, prompting concerns that millions of TV viewers could be left in the dark." Further, Hart wrote that the Digital TV transition wouldn't be as easy as it had been advertised. Generally, if you have a television that receives TV channels locally via the analogue antenna on your roof or atop the TV itself, you'll likely need a new digital converter box and antenna to receive your local channels.
If you have a Windows XP Media Center or Windows Vista computer coupled with an analogue broadcast tuner card, you'll need to either upgrade to a suitable and supported digital tuner card or USB peripheral, or connect a digital converter box after February 17, 2009. This will enable your computer to receive what's called local "over-the-air" (aka OTA) television broadcasts with a digital antenna. See the site DTV Answers: What you need to know about the February 17, 2009 switch to DTV. This site provides info on the switch from the old analogue TV signals to digital television, or DTV. For more information, visit the US FCC website on the digital TV transition at www.dtv.gov.
(Where was this kind of site and promotional effort when the government was preparing for the change to daylight saving time in the States?)
As I noted in a this prior post, a majority of Americans today receive television via cable and satellite connections (70% are connected to cable). So if you subscribe to cable, satellite or fiber-provided television then you should be unaffected: for the most part, analog television receivers should continue to work as normal before with cable TV and satellite TV receivers, plus other video devices such as camcorders and VCRs.
Key word there: "should."
It turns out that the national digital transition is not the only digital television challenge.
As Brier Dudley, Seattle Times staff columnist, reported in his article "A digital switch on way for some cable customers, too" (last Dec 10th, 2008) that Comcast decided to take the opportunity in February to make a digital switch of their own, "a move that will affect more than 1 million households in Washington state." The move will require cable box needed for just about every television. (See more FAQs in his post on "Comcast digital switch stirs more questions.")
Comcast's advertising here exclaimed that "current customers don't have to do anything" come 2-17-09. That's not quite accurate. As I noted in a Tweet to comcastcares (to Comcast's rep on Twitter), the challenge is that most digital ready TVs, DVRs & PCs (with Windows Media Center) will now need a new converter set-top box if I want to receive stations above channel 30 on Comcast's local channel map given the in-house cable connections to TVs are analogue. And that means that most digital-ready televisions won't be able to decrypt the encoded digital channels from Comcast above channel 30.
Although local cable subscribers will continue to get the local main affiliates in the lower channel map (single digits) plus a few local access stations, home shopping and the Discovery Channel, much of the programming we watch at home (CNN, CNBC, SciFi and of course MTV) will require inserting a digital converter into the mix.
Not pretty.
Comcast is also placing a limit of two free digital to analog boxes per home. Recently, the fount of knowledge that is USA Today reported that the there are more TVs in the average American home than people…
"That threshold was crossed within the past two years [of 9/21/2006], according to Nielsen Media Research. There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said."
… so it appears that this may not equate to (as Comcast advertising stated) the "same experience as you have today" if you have more than two televisions. YMMV.
I wasn't planning on adding yet another set top box to my television system, another remote and adding the intricacies of an IR blaster if I want to seamlessly integrate the set top converter box with my DVR and Media Center.
As noted in the article "You don't need satellite TV when times get tough" from CNET News (December 19, 2008) Marguerite Reardon covered what one family found when they decided to cut some of their expenses at home, including their satellite television subscription…
"[Debra James of Oakland] said she found a wealth of legitimate sources for TV programming online. Sites such as Hulu, Fancast, Joost, YouTube, and most major TV networks' Web sites offer TV shows and other video content for free. Using an existing rooftop antenna, James plugged her TV into the hook-up to get more than 50 high-definition TV channels over-the-air. The cost for these HD channels: zero.
"And instead of spending an extra $20 a month for HBO or any other premium movie channels, James subscribed to a $17-a-month Netflix service, which allows her to rent three movies at a time..."
We may vote with our feet and move off the cable television grid and see if we can implement a similar experience at home.
Tags: Windows, Media Center, television, DVR, Obama, policy.
http://tinyurl.com/obamaontv
Last night, Robbie Bach and Steve Ballmer delivered the keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show for 2009 in Las Vegas, as PC Magazine covered here. Steve announced the Windows 7 beta (as reviewed here) as well as the latest release of Windows Live. (And see this post from Michael Miller's blog WRT Ballmer's keynote.)
This is from Microsoft Press Pass…
Microsoft Kicks Off 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), January 7, 2009 -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered the pre-event keynote at International CES 2009, joined by Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment and Devices Division. Hear how new technologies such as Windows 7 and Windows Live will help improve the way people interact with technology and deliver a connected experience across the PC, mobile phone, and Web.
It's reported that the Windows 7 Beta will be available from the Windows 7 website on Friday and is available now to MSDN (as noted here) and TechNet subscribers as noted here.
Tags: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Microsoft, Xbox 360, CES 2008, CES, travel tips.
http://tinyurl.com/Win7atCES09
Just a quick notice before I dial into a call on Daylight saving time this year (2009) in much of the States and Canada, courtesy of Encarta:
- 2009: Begins Sunday, March 8, and ends Sunday, November 1
- Daylight Saving is a system of setting clocks 1 or 2 hours ahead so that both sunrise and sunset occur at a later hour, producing an additional period of daylight in the evening. Clocks are usually set back to standard time in the fall.
Two hours ahead? That's a new one.
More on European Summer Time is available online: as noted on the Wiki, all countries in Europe save Iceland (which smartly observes GMT throughout the year) "observe EST from 01.00 GMT on the last Sunday in March until 01.00 GMT [that's March 29 in 2009] on the last Sunday in October [October 25 this year]."
More info is available on DST around the world via Live Search, on this blog, and WRT Microsoft products on the Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center at http://www.microsoft.com/time.
Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, leap second, DST.
http://tinyurl.com/dstdates09
It's that time of year again when fake online greeting cards increase in the daily Outlook mailbox and in web based mail as well).
A common give away? The sender is often listed only by first name – no last name – and includes links to various e-card sites: this was from Michelle offering "Happy Wishes!"
Michelle has created the ecard.
Here's your greeting card: [this one from included a URL from greetingcardcalendar.com]
Thank you, greeting-cards.com team.
As I noted in a post last year on the subject, Brian Krebs of the Washington Post highlighted this problem in his post on Not-So-Friendly Greeting Cards. Krebs noted that the rise of fake online greeting cards that can install keystroke loggers on to your computer, rather than delivering what you thought to be an innocent e-card from a long lost aunt.
"You might want to think twice before opening that e-greeting card sent to you via e-mail. Cyber crooks have recently been blasting out millions of fake online greeting cards in the hope that recipients will click on the included links and infect their computers with password-stealing viruses.
"Previous e-greeting card scams harbored their viral payload in an infected e-mail attachment, but fraudsters now are simply embedding links in the fake card messages. Anyone who clicks on such a link without the benefit of the most recent security updates for their Web browser is likely to have their PC silently whacked with an invasive keystroke-logging program.
"... It is sad that the state of e-mail security has come to this, but Microsoft Windows users would be well-advised to simply delete any e-greeting cards that land in their inboxes."
For more info, see the Wiki link on the Storm Worm, and here on Symantec's site.
Also, here's the link if the embedded links above don't work: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/07/notsofriendly_greeting_cards_1.html
And see my past note on how there's no immunity from security vulnerabilities.
More info:
Tags: Microsoft, security, antivirus, antispyware, Windows Defender.
http://tinyurl.com/bogusecards
(A brief post whilst I clean up my OS drives, deleting window.old folders using the disk cleanup wizard, as noted here.)
Attending CES in Las Vegas this week? Then check out my post on Surviving CES in Las Vegas: A few helpful hints from last January.
I've been to my fair share over the years -- since the days of Comdex -- and thankfully will be at work in Redmond next week.
My hat is off to the many folks we will have at CES this year.
I was asked today for a couple of restaurant recommendations, so here are a few tips for those heading off to Vegas this weekend for the event...
I should revise and add a few new sights and places to eat.
Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, CES 2008, CES, travel tips.
http://tinyurl.com/7xequ3
Originally posted at http://tinyurl.com/8927vn
For the last post of 2008, I thought to reprise my post on being thankful, as I am fortunate enough to spend my holiday with my family. In that past post, Of interest: Being Thankful, I noted the Seattle P-I newspaper's slide show on "Words of Thanks."
"What are you most thankful for? P-I photographer Meryl Schenker profiles six local residents who have different reasons for giving thanks on this holiday."
At home, we're thankful for many things, primarily for good health, family, and our community. The philanthropist W. Clement Stone said that "If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share."
So I've included this link on how to help over the holidays from my previous hometown paper. Or just pay it forward. I'll do my part for 2009 starting this week.
As we noted to friends, family and associates on our Christmas card list, with the severe weather we’ve had over the last week, we’ve been a bit challenged to keep the boys from going stir crazy at home, spending our less-than-abundant free time occupying theirs. So this year, rather than rush to send out cards, we decided to reprise our electronic Christmas card effort of a few years ago: to donate the money we would normally spend (towards postage, cards, photos and the like) to the local chapter of the United Way.
Have a wonderful new year, and best wishes in 2009.
Tags: what I read.
First it was questions about whether or not we'd have to worry about the coming Leap Second, then today after our power came back on, customer questions about the Zune 30.
As we have a couple of Zune 30s in our home going strong, I was surprised to see a post on the Zune Insider blog WRT the 30 GB Zune and news of issues reported today related to leap years (which some referred to as Zune2K and Y2K9), especially with all of the efforts we have applied to dealing with time and calendar changes around the world.
The team has been working throughout the day on this issue, and Paul from the Zune Insider blog offers this update this afternoon:
Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year.
The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.
Customers can continue to stay informed via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).
We know this has been a big inconvenience to our customers and we are sorry for that, and want to thank them for their patience.
From the FAQs:
Q: What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation?
This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st.
Q: What’s the timeline on a fix?
The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1.
Q: Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008?
There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.
The Zune service is unaffected -- as are all Zune 80, 120 and Zune flash models -- so we'll be listening to music via our PC this evening.
Happy New Year.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune.
http://tinyurl.com/7sjl6f
To start my collection of random quotes, I offer this from one seven-year-old boy at the end of the new movie Iron Man just as the closing credits rolled. It's a testament to his proficiency on Guitar Hero and eclectic music library:
"Is that Black Sabbath? I love Ozzy Osborne."
That's what you get when you hang around with the good folks like Kevin, Jay, Vinnie -- and especially his guitar teacher and bassist extrordinaire 'E' -- at Northwest Guitars.
Tags: articles, photos, quotes, music
I've been accused (rightly so, I might add) of enjoying general vanilla, Everyman news purveyors such as USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, along with Wired, BusinessWeek and Fortune. (I also read much more, much to my wife's chagrin as noted by the stacks of materials and periodicals around my home office and other areas, and the weight of our weekly recycling bin.) Although I receive print versions of each, I'm reading the online versions more and more: 2008 is the year that I believe I passed the half-way point for most of my news consumed via bits and bytes rather than by bits of paper.
I resolve in 2009 to cut at least two and migrate completely to digital. (Note: one decision was already made for me, as PC Magazine announced the move to go all digital in 2008 and quite thoughtfully automatically converted the duration of my subscription. I wish others would offer similar opportunities to their subscribers, rather than only offering much higher priced versions than their paper doppelgangers.)
In addition, I have a number of my web news favourites including CNET News, which offers their own coverage as well as syndicated and links to other top stories across the news web. This week, CNET offers their take on the news highlights from 2008, including these year in review stories on the cloud compiled by Dawn Kawamoto, Staff Writer at CNET News…
"Look beyond the tumultuous economic storm and you'll see something else forming--cloud computing, a term and concept that took off in 2008.
"If you look at Google Trends, 'cloud computing' came out of nowhere in 2008. People were searching for it in the third quarter of 2007, but it went bonkers in 2008," said Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst with Forrester Research.
"Indeed. Not only did the number of Google searches for the term "cloud computing" skyrocket in 2008, so did the number of related news stories."
Amazon storage 'cloud' service goes dark -- Some Web 2.0 start-ups get cranky after Amazon.com's Simple Storage Service goes offline for a few hours. February 15, 2008
Study: Cloud to brighten future of data centers -- New hosting companies that target start-ups could bring cloud computing into businesses as a data center replacement, research firm Forrester says. March 10, 2008
More on Microsoft's database-in-the-cloud service -- Microsoft's new SQL Server Data Services, a database-in-the-cloud service coming soon, might have been the sleeper announcement of this year's Mix conference. March 10, 2008
Yahoo looking to unleash its cloud infrastructure -- CTO Ari Balogh says that much like Amazon's EC2 and Google's App Engine, Yahoo could offer infrastructure services. June 26, 2008
Can you trust your business to Google's cloud? Cloud computing is ever more fashionable. This week's Google Apps outage shows that online applications and services aren't perfect, but that the concept is growing up. July 11, 2008
HP, Intel, Yahoo join forces on cloud research -- New "test bed" project will give companies, as well as partnering researchers, access to top-notch hardware for exploring the future of the hot server-outsourcing technology. July 29, 2008
10 Worst Web glitches of 2008 (so far) -- It's a countdown of crashes, a timeline of terror. See what happens when the cloud rains on the likes of Amazon, Twitter, and Apple. August 15, 2008
Oracle's Ellison nails cloud computing -- Speaking at OracleWorld, CEO Larry Ellison says that the computer industry as fad-driven as fashion and that cloud computing is simply the latest fad. September 26, 2008
Report: Ballmer hints at Windows Cloud -- In a speech in London, the Microsoft chief executive reportedly talks about a coming cloud-based OS, as well as plans to allow light Office document editing over the Web. October 1, 2008
IBM puts Bluehouse tinge on cloud computing -- Company will challenge Internet-centric "cloud" pioneers by promoting a mix of cloud-based and on-premises services. October 6, 2008
Windows Azure: Blue skies ahead? Analysts praise Microsoft's ambition with its Azure cloud-computing effort but say that getting there will take some time. October 27, 2008
Google promises reliability for Docs, Calendar -- Overall, Gmail has been available 99.9 percent of the time. Now, Premier customers get a promise of that level of reliability for all of Google Apps. October 30, 2008
Tags: articles, what I read, news, CNET, blogs, cloud.
http://tinyurl.com/8crs3z
As I Tweeted today (no, really, I can stop any time) I saw a question today on the subject of the coming leap second, as noted in the MSN posted article, 2009 to arrive not a second too soon, from Space.com's Joe Rao:
"Wait a second.
"The start of next year will be delayed by circumstances beyond everyone's control. Time will stand still for one second on New Year's Eve, as we ring in the New Year on that Wednesday night. As a result, you'll have an extra second to celebrate because a "Leap Second" will be added to 2008 to let a lagging Earth catch up to super-accurate clocks.
"By international agreement, the world's timekeepers, in order to keep their official atomic clocks in step with the world's irregular but gradually slowing rotation, have decreed that a Leap Second be inserted between 2008 and 2009."
So I heard last night and saw this question today…
One Leap second will be added at the end of this year. I wonder whether it will have impact on Windows, SQL Server or other Microsoft System. It seems that our SystemTime structure will reject the 60 second, and FileTime will ignore the LeapSecond.
"KB article Q909614: How the Windows Time service treats a leap second and Blog "Please Look before you Leap a second" seems indicate we have not need to worry about Leap Second."
Great end of the year question.
Besides counting down "3, 2, 1, 1… Happy New Year!" to ring in 2009 in a couple of days, you'll find more documenting the impact of a leap second in Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 909614, How the Windows Time service treats a leap second (as Michael Kaplan noted in his most excellent post).
In short, W32Time does not account for a leap second being dependent on the NTP server. Most applications and services may be unaffected, but sysadmins and IT professionals should know that the leap second is not addressed until the next time sync following the official addition/ subtraction of the leap second. Consumers really have nothing to worry about save questioning whether or not the time is accurate as broadcast during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve when the crystal ball drops in Times Square.
Info on syncing clocks to absolute time, please see KB 816042, How to configure an authoritative time server in Windows Server 2003, and KB 884776, How to configure the Windows Time service against a large time offset.
General information on the Windows Time Service is also available in the team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/w32time/default.aspx. More articles/ information in which you may be interested:
(Of interest: The concept of a leap second is actually in question, and an ITU working group is evaluating whether or not the process of adding/subtracting leap seconds should be discontinued.)
Anyone else have additional information, guidance they'd like to offer? I'll add to this post as it comes in.
Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, leap second, DST.
http://tinyurl.com/9sjvre
As I Tweeted today (I can stop any time), Happy Boxing Day. I remember from my growing up in the great white north this as a holiday unto itself, usually associated with post-Christmas sales. But (according to the Wiki) it's "based on the tradition of giving gifts to the less fortunate members of society."
We'll be participating today on both levels. The snow is melting fast and the roads are a series of flowing slushy rivers. So much for our White Christmas.
But first, a quick post before we had out with the kids to burn off some of that post-holiday energy that children manage to store up over the holidays. Recovering from my holiday musings, a few too many snow days, school getting out early and unable to get to the office for most of the last week ('though I did make it in on Monday and Tuesday), here are some of my favourite / most interesting posts from MSDN over the last week or so from my delicious tags.
Keith Kinnan's Blog : Virtual Earth Santa Tracker "Check out the MSNBC Virtual Earth Santa Tracker. You can see Santa at his village in the North Pole and also track Santa as he travels around the world delivering presents. The Santa Tracker requires the Virtual Earth 3D plugin to be installed."
Paul Stubbs : Santa vs. Parents: Which has the best distribution model? Paul writes that he "thought it would be interesting on Christmas eve to compare the two models of distributing presents (content/services). I have put together a short list of features for each model." Worth a read.
Steve Rowe's Blog : 10 Programming Languages Worth Exploring -- Steve writes that as he "completed the final class toward my Masters Degree I have the time to explore some things of my own choosing. One thing I intend to do is to learn a new programming language. This article I discovered via Reddit is a good place to start. It lists 10 languages worth learning. These are the up-and-coming languages, not the current hot topics like Python or Ruby. Interesting items on the list include Squeak, Haskell, Clojure, and PLT Scheme." Published Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:45 PM
Brian Groth's Life at Microsoft : Microsoft Technologies Available for Licensing -- "Back in May of 2005, I created a blog entry that listed the 20 technologies that Microsoft licenses. I now see that Microsoft licenses 47 technologies (as of December 2008), which I think is pretty cool. Think about it: you can license Microsoft technologies (Microsoft Intellectual Property Licensing) that Microsoft is willing, and wanting, to have you include in your own solution." Published Wednesday, December 24, 2008 1:40 PM
Microsoft SMB Community Blog : Twas the night before Christmas - A holiday wish for you -- ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and here at the house We’re all snowed in, me, the kids, and my spouse; Can’t believe it’s been snowing, for so many days now, Who would ever have guessed, we’d need a snow plow?"
Brad Abrams : Resolution Randomizer -- "I have always found it is hard to make meaningful New Year's Resolutions. Lucky for me, I ran across this cool Silverlight Application that helps you find a truly meaningful resolution... if you don't like the one you get, just click "Randomize" and try again!"
Jeff Beehler's Blog : Updated Visual Studio Team System 2008 Trial VPC images available -- Jeff posted that "For those of you that want to try out Visual Studio Team System 2008 including Team Foundation Server, without having to go through the process of installing the product, we have recently released four VPC and HyperV images for your use. The “all-up” image includes Team Foundation Server, Team Build, Team Explorer, and Team Suite while the TFS “only” version has just Team Foundation Server, Team Build, and Team Explorer. "These images are set to expire on December 31, 2009 (over a year from now) and are a replacement for the original VPC images we released last year."
Carpe Datum : Quote of the Day - Stating the Obvious -- "I can't tell you how many times I've come into a troubleshooting or performance tuning project, only to find that "it isn't plugged in" type issues. It reminded me of this quote: "Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious. - George Orwell" Published 26 December 08
- steve clayton: geek in disguise : XBOX 360 Imitated Playstation Logo -- A story on the origin of the Xbox 360 name... "Hardly likely but funny all the same."
The Old New Thing : Why are all computers shown with a Printers folder even if printer sharing is disabled? Friday, December 26, 2008 7:00 AM Raymond writes: "When you visited a computer on the network by typing \\computername into the address bar, Explorer showed you a Printers folder if the computer had printer sharing enabled. But starting in Windows Vista, the Printers folder is shown regardless of whether the remote computer is sharing any printers. Why did this change?"
Strategy and Architecture Council : Does a Company Need a Chief Engineer / Chief Software Architect / Chief Anything? "Interesting post by Scott Bellware on Toyota's Chief Engineer and the impact of the role on Toyota's planning and production. With the recent talk of the new administration in the US appointing a CIO for the first time; it got me thinking about the importance of a single individual to the technical direction of an organization."
US ISV Developer Evangelism Team : Microsoft Code Name 'Geneva' Moves Identity to the Cloud "One of the hottest topic for ISVs is identity. The ability to identify a user and provide the correct details for that user is a challenge all ISVs face. ISVs need a federated identity, an identity that you can get from your customers. You need to be able to use that identity regardless of whether it comes from Active Directory or some other provider. A project Microsoft Code Name "Geneva" is an claims-based access model identity platform’s foundation is the claims-based access model. It is built on Security Token Service (STS) technology that we've been developing over the past few years as part of its industry effort to create a single identity system based on standard protocols."
TechLeaders : How do you develop your vision, drive it and keep it in line with the company’s? From the TechLeaders HR blog: Published 12 December 08 10:08 AM "Very interesting question and as a front line (M1) manager this can be challenging. I am a firm believe that everyone on the team needs to have a clear attachment to the Vision. I like to work both directions… from the bottom up and the top down."
Windows Mobile Development : Smart Device Development : MSDN Forums
David Sayed's Microsoft Blog : How to Force Expression Encoder 2 Express Mode "Expression Encoder Express is a free version of Expression Encoder. If you have the full version and want to force Express mode (for testing purposes perhaps), there are two ways to do so: Registry Key and the Object Model Method"
Tom Hollander's blog : Windows Live finally makes sense "Those who have followed my blog for a while should know that I’m not in the habit of using this space to blindly promote Microsoft products – although if I find something genuinely cool or useful I’ve been known to give it a quick plug. This is why I’ve never posted about Windows Live before. It’s not that the various sites and apps were bad – it’s just that they were obviously a random collection of rebranded MSN assets that didn’t make a lot of sense as a unit. "But thankfully this has all changed with the latest incarnation of Windows Live. This has been out for a couple of weeks now, but I’ve only started looking at it properly in the last few days – and so far I’m extremely impressed. While most of the old sites are there in some form, there is now a clear common theme: sharing and discovering information about your social network (which is built from your Messenger contacts)."
Media And Microcode : Media: xBox 360: 70 XNA Games in 24 Days -- James posts about he loves video games, "and I really love my xBox 360. I’ve had one since just after they first came out, and I’ve slowly but surely accumulated about 70 physical games for the 360 made by major producers. I remember seeing the total xBox 360 games climb past one hundred, and I remember losing count. But until now, it’s been rare to see more than a few games come out each month. But now there’s XNA."
Mike Ormond's Blog : MIX09 Special Offer: 40% Discount -- Mike notes that "there's a 40% discount available for the first 200 registrations using RSVP code MIXspecial1. Simply visit the registration page, click on "Register for the event using an RSVP Code" and, well you can figure out the rest... "Even in the current economic climate, $795 looks like a great deal."
Developer Webcasts This Week: Xbox, SharePoint, Web Dev, Mobility, WPF, Silverlight -- Scott Lum posted about "the upcoming Developer Webcasts for this week. All of these webcasts are free of charge. Topics include: Xbox Game development, SharePoint development, Testing Windows Mobile development, Benko Tips on Visual Studio, WPF and ADO & Silverlight development."
jkOnTheRun » Blog Archive Sideshow gadget turns WinMo smartphone into a full-featured Media Center remote « "The iPhone can already control iTunes and an AppleTV through Apple’s free Remote application and now Windows Mobile devices can claim a similar accomplishment In fact, after watching Ian Dixon demonstrate this feat, I think I’m more impressed with the WinMo solution because it offers far more than just remote control features. Ian shows off an early look at a Windows Sideshow Gadget for Windows Mobile that functions as a full-featured remote for a Windows Media Center system. Aside from the basic remote control functions for audio and video, Ian can set up DVR program recordings or view program guide information that offers information about what’s on television. It functions over Bluetooth and looks pretty slick… slick enough that I might dust off that ol’ HTC Dash and use it as a full-time remote once this gadget gets a little more stable."
The Official Netflix Blog: Changes in Customer Service -- Sunday, December 7, 2008 "Steve Swasey, VP of Corporate Communications, here to let you know about some changes in Customer Service. "For those of you who watch movies instantly on your PC or Mac, you may have noticed our player is much easier to install and use now with Silverlight. The good news is fewer problems for you. The bad news is that we are now overstaffed with technical specialists in our Customer Service (CS) group. "So last week we announced internally some changes in CS. 50 of our technical specialists will work through December, then be let go in early January after the holidays. 15 of our technical specialists will take new roles in the main CS group."
Related: a holiday favourite site: http://www.hackingnetflix.com/ J.D. Meier's Blog : Jason Taylor on The Zen of Results -- Jason shares how he "implements the Zen of Results workflow as well as a dialogue around some sticking points with his team. Jason's one of the most effective people I know and his insights are always crisp and actionable. Here's my key take aways: Free yourself from your tasks to focus on delivering real value. Be mindful of your results. Avoid becoming attached to your backlog. Time changes what's important. Use the weekly cycle and reflection to improve your ability to execute. Reprioritize, delegate, and defer. Watch out for common binds - randomization, poorly planned objectives, fuzzy priorities. Create a workflow that revolves around delivering value, not completing tasks. if you're not hitting your goals, figure out why - don't spiral into the pit of despair. Results build momentum."
SBSC Canada Blog : Why webcasts are important & this week’s schedule -- From the SBSC Canada Blog: "There are webcasts taking place all the time in the Microsoft SMB technology world led by Microsoft, members of the community, and/or third-party associations. "It’s important for you to attend whenever you see topics that are of interest to you or even areas that you are already familiar with. Why? Because you never know what kind of ideas and opportunities you will walk away with – whether it’s something that you could add to your business or something you do today that you didn’t think you could actually do better."
Backstage at MED : Ever wanted to just disappear from the world for a while? Loke posted about how the guys at "Trinket software are cool! they keep on building and releasing simple yet useful applications that YOU WILL USE unlike apps that do nothing but let you watch swimming fish. "The latest app is called Do Not Disturb which is currently in beta, allows you to configure your Windows Mobile device to capture incoming calls even before the phone rings and perform custom behaviors based on how you’d want them handled."
Aaron Stebner's WebLog : Link to more information about Zune device reboots when exiting an XNA Game Studio 3.0 game -- Starting with the Zune 3.0 firmware, you can install and play a set of games on your Zune device. Texas Hold Em, Hexic, Checkers, Sudoku and Space Battle are available in the Zune firmware and software that is available at the time that I am writing this blog post. These in-box games are created with the XNA Framework, but they behave a bit differently than Zune games that you can create yourselves with XNA Game Studio 3.0. Specifically, many developers have asked on the forums why these games do not require a reboot of the Zune device when you exit them, whereas games created by other developers and deployed to the Zune device using XNA Game Studio 3.0 or via a .ccgame package do require a device reboot.
Live Framework and why should you care? From the Microsoft Health and Life Sciences Evangelism Team: "The Live Framework team recently published a short (but to the point) white paper entitled The Live Framework: What is it and Why Should I Care? “The Live Framework provides a platform-agnostic, HTTP-based, resource-oriented programming model for accessing data. This programming model abstracts away the details of the File System, Networking APIs (for P2P and P2C), caching/storage APIs, serialization technologies, etc. and provides a consistent way to access data on all devices – PC, Mac, Mobile as well as (Windows Live) cloud. “
Community and Influencers Blog : When the desktop meets social media -- Nestor writes that "Today I got excellent news about an alliance between Microsoft and one of the most popular social media sites for sharing presentations called SlideShare. This is another end user delivery of the Microsoft’s vision for Software plus Services! It gives users the flexibility to develop and share presentations from the desktop and share it with their social networks via the cloud. "You can download the ribbon... To install it, you will need to have PowerPoint 2007, Vista or Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1."
Dr. Z's Blog : Publish and Share Your Presentations in the Cloud -- "SlideShare provides several ways to share publically or privately your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations on the web. I tested 3 of them and included my quick comments highlighted in boldface fonts."
Community and Influencers Blog : Answers at your fingertips: A deep “Vista”(*) of the Microsoft Answers Support Site -- "Inside and outside Microsoft Vista is a conversation topic that with some frequency is present at technology discussions and conversations. At community level Vista is a conversation driver in forums, newsgroups and bulleting boards because the number of people that love it, doesn’t like it or simply hate it. One of the hot conversation topics is support and it is key for all Vista users and a special note is for the very end user who is not technology savvy at all (like my mom) but uses Vista on a daily basis for mail, chat or just internet browsing."
- Why Can’t I Change the Update Path when Redeploying VSTO Solutions? -- "The other day I was asked about the automatic Updates feature of VSTO 3.0 deployment. In this scenario, he used the Publish Wizard in VS 2008 to create a Word document solution and the install manifest. Then a bunch of people used the Word document, and kicked off the installer which then copied things to their ClickOnce cache. Everything worked fine. Then he needed to make changes to the code, recompile, and somehow get the solution to all of his customers. Instead of using the Publish Wizard to create the update in the same server, he chose to use a different server path. The customers were unable to install the updates. He tried editing the custom properties of the document to change the install path to the new server, but it still didn’t work. Then he tried testing with a new, clean computer, and on that computer he was able to install from the new path and use the new Word document. He asked us why were the “old” users unable to get the update?"
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- How To: Steps to create web services in MOSS 2007 -- "I followed the article http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms464040.aspx but still I had to do couple of more settings which I have covered here."
Tags: articles, what I read, Microsoft, MSDN, blogs.
http://tinyurl.com/7nr4el
The Day Before Christmas
(With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston)
'Twas the day before Christmas, when all down the street 
Not a single thing moved, no one made a peep;
The snow had blanketed the entire neighbourhood,
And we all knew that St. Nick soon would lighten the mood;
The boys were happy as school's out for the season,
As for running amok, they don't need a reason;
Mom was making the rounds looking for gifts at the mall
And Dad was getting snow sledding gear arranged in the hall,
When at the front door there arose such a clatter,
The whole family rushed downstairs to see what was the matter.
The boys left the Wii, to the front door still in their pajamas,
And looked all around liked two startled Peruvian llamas.
The air was quite cold and on the ground a foot of new snow
So the boys stayed inside as they weren't ready to go.
They looked down the driveway and stared at a sight
Of two looming new snowmen towering over their height,
Old Dad had shoveled the driveway and collected the snow,
A tonne and a half at the driveway below.
More rapid than llamas the boys quickly dressed,
Thinking that with a few snowballs they would make quite a mess;
"Now, c'mon CJ!" said Max, "Get on all your clothes,
"We'll surprise our poor daddy with a pile of wet snow."
To the top of the driveway crouched behind a white wall
And made dozens - no hundreds - of little snowballs.
As Dad came up they let the wild hurricane fly,
Throwing slushy and sopping projectiles into the sky,
And up, up in the air the weapons all flew,
When they hit, there'd be trouble, they certainly knew.
But Dad had prepared, and looked at the snow on the roof
And had set a small trap that he triggered with a "whoof."
As the snow picked up speed and made its way down,
The boys turned to see what was making the sound.
They looked up and all they could see was a sea of white fluff,
Too late to move, this was going to be rough.
They tried to duck and run for some cover,
And all they could do was scream for their mother!
The avalanche -- how it twinkled! The volume so scary!
This experience was going to be anything but merry!
So with a loud thump the snow was upon them,
It really did dump all over and cover them. 
And then there was Dad coming up from the street,
With a pile of fresh snow for another holiday treat.
He saw the two boys up to their necks in wet snow,
And said "Here's some more" with his eyes all aglow.
In a wink of an eye, the boys now full of dread,
As Dad piled on more snow 'til it covered their heads.
Dad didn't say a word, as he went straight to his work,
Dragging out both boys from the snow with a jerk,
And with his fingers in the shape of an 'L' on his forehead,
He taunted the boys one last time, undaunted.
Dad sprang for the door and slammed it up tight,
Whilst the boys pounded on the door with all their might.
Then I heard him exclaim, knowing it would be a long day,
"Happy Christmas to all, and remember to duck out of the way."
Tags: articles, what I write, humor, humour.
http://tinyurl.com/64uu5f
It's the day before the night before Christmas, and all through the home the boys are sledding after a downpour of snow. The schools were closed and the streets were all slick as many people awaited the jolly Saint Nick. With no chains for my tires and bundled up tight, I got in my car and made my way to my office.
OK, it doesn't exactly rhyme, but before I head into the office today, here's a quick post with a few of the things I've read over this snowy weekend. In all, it looks like we received about a foot and a half (nearly half a metre) of snow over the last few days and today is the first day I won't have to shovel the driveway. In all, I dug out our house four times, built two snowmen (each taller than the average ten year old boy), fielded a half dozen or so escalations emails from consumers, and dug out five cars, hopeful that good karma will be with me through the holidays... or at least avoiding any more snowfall when I head home from the office today.
Announcement: Microsoft Windows updates to daylight saving time and time zones now available on Automatic Update -- As I posted previously on the December Updates to Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones, we have released a cumulative DST update for Windows operating systems, KB article 955839, December 2008 cumulative time zone update for Microsoft Windows operating systems. This release replaces KB article 951072, and is now via Automatic Update (as of December 9, 2008), categorized as a roll-up and be included in the ITMU CAB. Additional time zone changes have been included since the previous cumulative update, including (in the form of Registry subkey name and (Display name): Argentina (Buenos Aires), Central Brazilian (Manaus), E. South America (Brasilia), Egypt (Cairo), Iran (Tehran), Israel (Jerusalem), Mauritius (Port Louis), Morocco (Casablanca), Pacific SA (Santiago) and Pakistan (Islamabad,Karachi).
"What kind of a computer should I buy?" with suggestions from Tony Hoffman of PC Magazine -- As per a previous Tweet, I recently updated my answer to a popular question around this time of year: "What kind of a computer should I buy?" I noted that there is something for everyone, at all price points. It seems that new PCs are high on many people's holiday shopping lists, and the price:performance is better than ever before.
Announcements: the kick-off of Microsoft Answers beta, courtesy of Chris Kilbourn -- A couple of new sites have hit Microsoft.com, in support of our customers: the new community on the Microsoft Answers Site, Microsoft’s first consumer-focused support community. Chris Kilbourn (the Lead Site Manager for TechNet) posted today about the launch... We also rece