Paul Mooney : October 2007

October 2007 - Posts

OpenSocial

OpenSocial: Led By Google, Social Networks Band To Take On Facebook

Widgets want to be free!

Great move by ex-Microsoft DPE Vic Gundotra to establish a standard platform where Widgets can live and prosper. This certainly was the subtext of the Web 2.0 Summit, it's a Widgets Web now and Facebook is just an incubator.

OpenSocial details coming out - Marc Cantor who knows this space better then anyone asks where's Yahoo?

The most popular Facebook Widgets - iLike, Slide, Frixter and RockYou, are hopping-on to OpenSocial.

Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web

I gota ask where's Microsoft? The DPE Group has spent the last year caring for Enthusiasts and Designers while losing touch with their core community of developers.

posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:46 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Microsoft Tester Center

Tester Center

The Microsoft Tester Center showcases the test discipline as an integral part of the application lifecycle, describes test roles and responsibilities, and promotes the test investments required to deliver high-quality software.

Launch Note

At the Tester Center, our goal is to provide a community where software testers can share knowledge and learn from each other about testing, our day-to-day job functions, processes, the tools we use, and the various roles we play. As you look around the site, you’ll see videos, articles, blogs, and other information. With your participation this site could be the start of many a conversation in our Software Testing Discussion Forum, where you can join other test professionals to exchange experiences and knowledge. Additionally, questions you ask at the Software Testing Discussion Forum will help guide the type of content we look to create over time. I hope you participate in this community and share your unique insights into the profession of software testing.
Launch Video. Regards, James Whittaker Security Architect, Microsoft

posted Monday, October 29, 2007 12:18 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Microsoft Security Response Blog

MSRC Blog: October 25th Update To Security Advisory 943521

There are some great bloggers at Microsoft, but Bill Sisk isn't one of them. Sure security is a serious subject and so is good communication. What we need to combat the bad guys is the right information early into the cycle of the exploit.

An authoritative blog with an RSS feed we can all subscribe to, containing links to fixes and information about what has happened and how we can all work together to nip it in the bud. Bill's blog has a disclaimer and doesn't encourage impute from the community or the hackers who can help us.

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Anonymous comments are disabled

posted Friday, October 26, 2007 11:05 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Live Search 1-800-225-5411

Announcing Live Search 411 (1-800-CALL-411)

A new service from Live Search was announced last week, but I just noticed it last night.

In a week when I heard Steve Ballmer speak twice, had dinner with Rupert Murdoch and partied with Sergei Brin, nothing was said about 1-800-225-5411.

Microsoft PR targets the tired old trade Press and they generally take a week to report a story. Last week at the Web 2.0 Summit I met an old PR hack working for Microsoft who has told so many lies that he's now deluding himself into believing that Silicon Valleys bloggers actually like Microsoft, but I think they just enjoy all the free stuff he gets them and all the page views they can get.

posted Friday, October 26, 2007 9:32 AM by paul with 0 Comments

About Face

Microsoft Reports 27% Revenue Growth; Fastest First Quarter Since 1999

MSFT share price is heading north after several years of stagnation.

Windows Vista, Microsoft Office system, Windows Server, and SQL Server all had a fantastic first quarter.

The Entertainment and Devices Division had $1.93 billion in revenue, up from $1.01 billion in the same quarter last year, I wonder how much was from sales of Halo 3? Windows Mobile is now found on many more phones around the world, that was Steve Ballmer's message at CTIA on Tuesday.

Microsoft PR has done an abysmal job this past year telling a better story then the FUDsters, shareholders deserve a more coherent voice coming from Microsoft.

posted Thursday, October 25, 2007 7:08 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Mobile Device Manager 2008

This morning at CTIA in sunny San Francisco Steve Ballmer announced Mobile Device Manager 2008 -

Mobile Device Manager 2008 is a solution that gives organizations enhanced on-device security and over-the-air policy enforcement. It allows IT professionals to more easily manage phones within the organization, and gives mobile employees access to confidential information on corporate networks with firewalls.

Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008

posted Tuesday, October 23, 2007 2:31 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Web 2.0 Summit Descent

Facebook is a Widget incubator and we live in Widget world now and can drag, drop and subscribe to what we want and need when we want and need it. Some Widgets will outgrow Facebook and find new homes and communities.

I talked to several other Web 2.0 alumnus and we all agreed there were too many talks from infrastructure vendors and not enough from content creators.

The photographers were obnoxious with complete disregard towards the participants and speakers, many of the photos taken by the attendees are of superior quality.

A tree now grows in Niger in my name thanks to the Summit organisers, but does it erase the carbon footprint caused by my trip from New York to San Francisco?

John and Tim were wonderful hosts, the atmosphere was fantastic, the food superb and the Palace Hotel truly is an historic venue. The people I met at breakfast, lunch and dinner were as engaging as anyone on the stage.

Web 2.0 has always been about participating and we will.

posted Monday, October 22, 2007 1:53 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Windows 7 Preview

Last week Microsoft’s distinguished engineer Eric Traut gave a talk at the University of Illinois about virtualization technology in Windows 7 - the next version of Windows.

The presentation was captured on video and is about an hour long.

posted Monday, October 22, 2007 1:23 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Web 2.0 Summit Peak

At the Web 2.0 Summit, John Doerr closed the show today with the optimistic message that entrepreneurs can solve the energy problem and ultimately stop our global climate catastrophe.

John was the man who first invested in a little Silicon Valley start-up called Google and he also helped the first Web 2.0 company Amazon get the capital needed to begin a revolution.

On the last day of the three day summit we learned about three great ideas for connecting our data in a coherent and clear manner, fulfilling the dream of the semantic web

Danny Hillis, Barney Pell of Powerset, Inc. and Radar Networks Nova Spivack announcing his amazing new platform Twine - check it out - sign-up for the beta and join together the semantic web.

posted Saturday, October 20, 2007 12:55 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Steve Scores in San Francisco

Steve Ballmer left 'em cheering in San Francisco after a masterful performance with Host John Battelle. See more Web 2.0 photos.

posted Thursday, October 18, 2007 11:26 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Live Maps 2.0

New Live Maps Hits the Streets

Virtual Earth Map Control v6 Released

The new version of Live Maps is being rolled out this week. Lots of new features. Check out the post from the Virtual Earth team for more details. In summary:

New & streamlined user interface
Party Maps! Formally known as 1-Click Directions
Route Around Traffic as part of directions
Import data from GeoRSS, GPX, and KML
Birds Eye View in 3D
3D Tours and Videos of Collections
3D Modeling
Search & Explore Collections
Enhanced Details Page for business listings

The VE team says there will be more information coming soon on their blog about other new features in this new version.

I saw the demo tonight at the Web 2.0 Summit, cool stuff!

I got an email from Steve Ballmer today - THX - after I wished him luck on his Keynote tomorrow morning in San Francisco.

posted Thursday, October 18, 2007 3:16 AM by paul with 0 Comments

NJ SQL Meeting

Tonight - Best development and deployment practices for SQL 2000 and 2005

Best DDL and Schema design
Understanding the SQL server DDL architecture
Design considerations for tables and view
Indexes, constraints, keys - when, where, and how to apply them best
Writing DDL in collaborative dev teams

DML, stored procedures, functions
Writing efficient SQL code
Clean and clear development practices
Do's and Dont's when writing SQL code
Security considerations

Best deployment practices
Database projects and releases
Moving code between Dev, QA, and Production
Writing good code to eliminate deployment issues

Presenter: Dr. Omri Bahat, CEO of SQL Farms, Inc.

posted Tuesday, October 16, 2007 11:08 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Web 2.0 Summit

The Web 2.0 meme celebrates it's forth anniversary this week in San Francisco at the stimulating Web 2.0 Summit.

Web 2.0 Summit focuses on emerging business and technology developments that utilize the Web as a platform and defines how the Web will drive business in the future. What began as a focused gathering on the implications of the Web becoming a platform has transformed into an industry event focused on the latest Internet innovations—the services, applications, businesses, and models—that are redefining the way companies do business and how people live.

I've been fortunate to again be invited and will be flying out to the west coast on Wednesday, over the years I've met some incredible people there. The first Web 2.0 conference is still the most memorable event I have ever attended. I like the one track, one room shared experience where the speakers and attendees all interact and exchange ideas.

Steve Ballmer is giving a Keynote this year, will he be making any big announcements? Nokia is a Platinum sponsor and they are expected to announce some sort of Web 2.0 phone just ahead of CTIA which I will also be attending next week. Paul is having dinner with Rupert Murdoch at the Plaice Hotel, what do you think he wants to tell me?

posted Monday, October 15, 2007 10:52 AM by paul with 0 Comments

CE 6.0 R2 Launch

CE 6.0 R2 Launch Event Nov 15th - Live on your Desktop PC.

The CE 6.0 R2 launch event is happening on November 15th and you don't have to travel to Yokohama for the live launch at the Embedded Technology Japan event.

posted Friday, October 12, 2007 1:56 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Windows Live Events

Windows Live Events has just been announced two days after we had our Eastern Region developer - designer event - Remix Boston.

What's really dumbfounding is that Catherine Heller a Windows Live Technical Evangelist was there giving two talks.

I got a chance to talk with Catherine and asked about blogging tools on Windows Live, she didn't know anything about that; it's not her group. She didn't ask for my email saying she'd get back to me. So if a Windows Live Technical Evangelist doesn't know about what's going on at Windows Live how are we going to understand what their trying to do?

posted Friday, October 12, 2007 10:19 AM by paul with 0 Comments

PhizzPop

PhizzPop a new community site for designers had it's offical Launch at ReMIX Boston. You can watch the video from the launch and they'll tell you all about the site and invite you to sign-up!

posted Thursday, October 11, 2007 3:01 PM by paul with 0 Comments

ReMIX Boston Rap-up

The ReMIX Boston site is still live with links to videos of the Keynotes and sessions.

Everyone had a good time at ReMIX Boston and I hope Microsoft Events uses this as a model for future conferences. Half a dozen young women ran this event flawlessly. At the Vegas MIX Event there were too many overbearing Security goons and an army of Christian door monitors all adding to the congestion in the men's rooms.

The food was fabulous and the Hotel extremely accommodating. Boston is a great town and New England has a very enthusiastic developer community. NY, NJ and PA were also well represented, now all the Keynotes and sessions captured on Silverlight are there for the whole world to see.

posted Thursday, October 11, 2007 10:37 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Fakebook

The Fakebook Generation

The Web is our Social Network, sites like Facebook are a throw back to the days of AOL. All the buzz about valuation and acquisition have come from the Silicon Valley money tree bloggers who wouldn't know innovation if it hit them in the face.

For our Web to succeed we need to work on three things; Identity, Tagging and Attention.

Sites like Facebook, MySpace and SecondLife might tell us they have a few million Users, but their not going to tell us their the same million people.

Digitally doodling within a gated community is just distracting us from what needs to be accomplished as a world wide web community.

posted Sunday, October 07, 2007 9:17 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Bungie Jumps

Bungie Studios Becomes Privately Held Independent Company

Bungie and Microsoft today announced a plan for Bungie Studios, the developers of Microsoft’s “Halo” franchise, to become a privately held independent company, Bungie, LLC, in which Microsoft will hold a minority equity interest. As part of this transaction, Bungie and Microsoft have forged a deep and long-term development and publishing relationship focused on the continued success of the “Halo” franchise. It is also the intent of both parties to expand their partnership to include new IP created and owned by Bungie.

The developers at Bungie like so many professional athletes are learning how the game is played.

posted Friday, October 05, 2007 12:22 PM by paul with 0 Comments