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My first position at Microsoft back in January 1995 was a dev on the Encarta team, shipping Encarta 96.  I wrote features like the Timeline and some of the InterActivities.   I owned much of the overall app design because Enc96 was a rewrite from C to MFC/C++, and I had written a number of larger MFC apps.  I was also the multiplatform guy - I did the 16 to 32 bit port (Enc96 shipped for Win 3.1 and for Windows 95), as well as making the code run on Mac OS 9 via WLM (the Windows Libraries for Mac).   Only about 3% of the code was different between all three platforms.

After Encarta 96 I did various features on 97 including making the 32 bit version run on Win 3.1 via Win32s.  We had initially decided to abandon 16 bit development and Win 3.1 because they platforms had diverged too much; but then we didn't want to walk away from Win 3.1.  Thus I did a three week crash project to stand up Encarta 97 on Win32s and fix all the various issues like thunking the 32 bit media playback system to work on the underlying 16 bit system.

After that I became the lead of the newly consolidated tools team; we built a new in-house content management system for use by Bookshelf, Encarta, and Atlas.   This project was a lot of fun and new things for me - HTML front ends, SQL back ends, parsing, media management, content builds systems, etc.   I did that for a couple years, then went back to be the dev lead for the Encarta Reference Suite 2000 product; this combined Bookshelf, Encarta, and Atlas together on one DVD with shared content search.  

For 2001 we rewrote much of the product to stop using MediaView as the content rendering system and switch to Trident, and to combine the Encarta Encyclopedia and Encarta World Atlas codebases together, folding in a subset of the Bookshelf content.  The entire content pipeline (starting from the aformentioned content management system -> content build system -> on disk / DVD content stores -> runtime access -> rendering & layout) was written from scratch.  This was the last generational change for Encarta.

For 2002 I was the dev manager for the team; we shipped 2002 DVD products as well as redesigned / rewrote much of the online sites using ASP.NET.

Great people, great product, great times.  I feel pretty sad that it's coming to an end now.  Encarta had it day and now that day is past.  Truly all good things do come to an end.

IE8 asks if you want it to become the default browser on the First Run dialog page.  It's in the Express settings or on a page if you choose Custom.

There is no such command line switch as "nodefault".

Use the Skype 4.0 beta on Win7: http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/beta/

blowdart said:

BruceMorgan said:

*snip*

Tried both on and off. Problem was still there, when it was on, with valid autoproxy settings (corp net & home), detecting without a valid auto proxy and off altogether.

Shoot me an email brucemor@hotmail.com and I'll followup.

blowdart said:

BruceMorgan said:

*snip*

Missed me in your reply target.

So I click the quick launch. I see the beginnings of a window between 7-10 seconds later. Another 5 seconds before it's usable.

Even when hitting the quick launch icon when another instance is open took 5-10 seconds to open another window, or clicking a link inside outlook to it opening in a tab in an open instance,

Do you have "Automatically detect settings" checked in the LAN settings part of the Connections tab, Internet Options?

If so, uncheck it and see if the problem is resolved.

BlackTiger said:

BHpaddock said:

*snip*

IE8 RC1 starts quite quickly on my machine (<3 sec), but still "connecting" to something... somewhere... even if starts in "blank page" mode.
Not 3, just two letters... "M" and "S"...

When you say "15 seconds startup" time - what sequence is that? 

Does the initial frame paint then sit there with the Favorites bar partially painted for a while, then eventually it fills in and then the homepage renders immediately?

Or does the initial frame fully paint quickly (Favorites bar and everything else), then IE sits at "Connecting..." for a long time?

Or is it literally "15 seconds from clicking the blue 'e' to even the initial frame paint, and after that everything is fast (full frame paint, no long Connecting, home page draws immediately".

Most operations on the tab row respond to down events rather than up events for perceived performance reasons. It's quite literally half a click faster to switch tabs or close a tab on down. 

Yes, it means you can't cancel a tab switch or tab close action once you've started.  This is a case of optimizing UX for the vastly more common operation (switch or close a tab) by removing the uncommon operation (abort a switch or close tab operation by moving the mouse away and releasing).  For some operations it's still appropriate to allow cancellation so the action is performanced on mouse up.

UX guidelines evolve.  Rigid decades-old "always respond to mouse up so the user can cancel the operation" rules aren't correct for all circumstances.

And this isn't really rocket science, not even computer science.  To a lot of people, down feels "quicker" and "natural".  I recall that Firefox used to switch tabs on mouseup and somewhere along the way (2.0 I think) they switched to mousedown as well.

I've used a couple dozen keyboards over the years.

Currently I use a Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 keyboard at home and at work.   It's not too huge and it's not too thick and it's not too curved.

My work keyboard is fairly unique.  When I was poking around in our admin's equipment storage room looking for something else, I happened upon a completely blank version of the Comfort Curve 2000.   I grabbed it in an instant. 

It's like the Das Keyboard - no lettering.  Who needs 'em?  I know where the keys are...

evildictaitor wrote:



BruceMorgan wrote:  The laxness of HTML means anyone can make pages.  That makes HTML incredibly more approachable and powerful and ubiquitous than a rigid structured, "easy to parse" language.  It's why the web happened in the first place.

I know that's the usual response, and I'm sure the original intention of HTML, but I suspect that now-a-days it's simply untrue.

No, it's still totally true.   Myspace wouldn't be nearly so popular if modifying your page required "real" software development skills and knowledge.

HTML is still incredibly scalable.  A little kid can make a working webpage with only knowing a couple tags and angle brackets.   A professional web developer can do amazing web applications knowing the full spectrum of web technologies.  And most people can play in the middle.

Don't underestimate how powerful and important it is to keep both the high and low end of the scale working. 

Rossj wrote:

 ... but while we wait it would be great to know if I can spend more time looking at using CSS 3, or whether I can start looking at using the Canvas element more widely.  I doubt I'll ever be able to use SVG natively in IE ( ) but a note to that effect would be great.  I (personally) don't want deep detail right now, but just a blanket statement that "We're looking into improving our CSS implementation, and looking forwards towards HTML 5 - and no we won't be pushing silverlight integrated into the browser at installation".

IMHO, blanket statements are not effective communication tools.  They just beg more questions.  We make vague high level statements, then we have a chat session, then people ask detailed questions, we can't anwer them, and there is dissatifaction.  But they do satisfy a need.

Rossj wrote:



BruceMorgan wrote: Anyone with half an hour can find out that not only are we not dead, you can get all sorts of obvious clues as to what we're working on.  Just look at the job descriptions for the IE team on MS Careers.   Put some effort into it, and you shall be rewarded.  Otherwise, patience is required.

I'd rather have it from the horses mouth as it were, rather than guessing or jumping to conclusions. I'm not going to make plans on job adverts for people with experience of security and/or telemetry.

My point wasn't about making plans.  It was to respond to the hyperventilated blogosphere "Does the IE team even exist?" meme. 

That's self-evident to anyone who puts even a modicum of effort into their quest.