Entries for Rory

Mike Nash: Windows Vista Status Report and Announcing SP1 Beta 1 [Mike Nash: Windows Vista Status Report and Announcing SP1 Beta 1]

Rory — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:20:12 GMT

Mike Nash is a corporate vice president in charge of Windows client operating systems product management. Previously, he ran the security team that created the new security systems and features in XPSP2. Charles got a chance to spend some time with him recently to have a very candid conversation about Windows Vista and to learn about Windows Vista SP1 (What’s in it? Will it contain lots of new features like XPSP2? Etc…). Of course, with Vista being out in the real world for several months, Charles wanted to get a sense of how the OS is doing in terms of adoption and, equally as interesting to an OS head, how are the new Vista subsystems doing (that is, is Vista proving to be as stable as we thought it was going to be, as secure? – the data from the Vista telemetry systems will answer these questions). So, sit back, relax and get and enjoy this Vista status report interview and learn a little bit about Vista SP1.

in reply to Mike Nash: Windows Vista Status Report and Announcing SP1 Beta 1

Alex Hinrichs and Jeff Woolsey: Announcing Windows Server 2008 RC0

Rory — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:13:19 GMT

Alex Hinrichs runs the Windows Server ship room (you’ve met him before, too). Today, we announce the release of Windows Server 2008 RC0. RC0? What does that mean, exactly? Well, Alex sure knows… There are many new innovations in Windows Server 2008 not the least of which is our new built-in virtualization system, Hypervisor. Jeff explains… Then there’s server core, a stripped down UI-less version of the OS for those who prefer to run only the bare minimum subset of features to serve whatever their serving… Tune in to find out more about our next server OS and meet some of the folks that spend all of their time helping to make it our best ever. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear some very interesting news… Enjoy.

So long, Adam Kinney... [So long, Adam Kinney...]

Rory — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:26:00 GMT

Just as you need someone behind the scenes to articulate the motions of a Muppet^TM for the screen, you also need someone to sit behind a web site and get it to do stuff.

Adam Kinney was such a man (for the web thing - he has not, to my knowledge, except possibly at a few parties, ever been in control of a Muppet^TM).

Adam toiled away for years in the Channel 9 boiler room, knocking pipes with his cyberwrench and other tools, all of which begin with "cyber" to indicate that I'm not really talking about a boiler room. It's a metaphor.

And now he's going. Not very far since his new job leaves him in the same building, in the same office, and so only about ten feet from where I sit, but now it feels like there's a great distance between us.

This is Adam's farewell.

We talked about life as a Channel 9 geek, life in his new shoes, his attempt at conducting business inside Second Life, and more.

For serious, we're going to miss Adam around here. That's going to be cheapened a bit by him still roaming the halls and waving, but we can still pretend he's gone.

Goodbye, Adam Kinney.

I'll see you tomorrow.

in reply to So long, Adam Kinney...

Tony Bernard on BizTalk [Tony Bernard on BizTalk]

Rory — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:23:54 GMT

For my first interview back from my little "vacation," I got to interview Tony Bernard about BizTalk.

This video focuses on EDI features of BizTalk, but in the process shows off a bit of what BizTalk can do.

Throughout my entire life as a geek, I've heard the name "BizTalk" spoken over and over, but I've never known what to think beyond the name. Sometimes another geek steps in and says something like, "BIZTALK IS AWESOME," but that doesn't tell me much about what it does.

During this interview, I learned about some of what it can do. I also learned about EDI - another term I had heard, but about which I knew nothing.

My verdict is that BizTalk has a lot of room to be interesting, and people who use EDI should count their lucky little stars that BizTalk exists.

in reply to Tony Bernard on BizTalk

Nabbing Scott Guthrie [Nabbing Scott Guthrie]

Rory — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:22:10 GMT

Scott Guthrie is in a meeting about five feet from my office.

I'm trying to rally support and excitement among the Channel 9 team, and the whole of DPE if I can, to steal him.

He's so close. It'd be so easy to just take Scott Guthrie. Then we could benefit from his smart.

There's a utility closet down the hall. I figure that would make a good temporary cell. I could cut a section out of the bottom and push microwaved burritos in.

In return for this kindness, he would regularly be smart at us.

I'll let you all know if we're successful.

in reply to Nabbing Scott Guthrie

Introducing the Team Foundation Server / Project Server 2007 Connector [Introducing the Team Foundation Server / Project Server 2007 Connector]

Rory — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:46:43 GMT

[Posted on behalf of Brian Keller.]

In this interview we asked Lenny Fenster of Microsoft Consulting Services to show us the recently released “Connector” for Team Foundation Server 2005 and Project Server 2007. This connector makes it easier for organizations to manage their development projects by providing a synchronization and workflow between Team Foundation Server and Project Server.

For more information and to download the Connector, visit http://www.codeplex.com/PSTFSConnector

in reply to Introducing the Team Foundation Server / Project Server 2007 Connector

Understanding the “offline database development” paradigm [Understanding the “offline database development” paradigm]

Rory — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:16:52 GMT

[Posted on behalf of Brian Keller.]

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals (or “DBPro”) introduced a new way of working with your database in an “offline” or “sandbox” mode. Understanding how this works exactly requires a new way of thinking about how you build, deploy, and manage changes to your database. We asked Sachin Rekhi of the DBPro team to explain the paradigm and talk about the updated MSF guidance which adds roles and activities for database professionals.

in reply to Understanding the “offline database development” paradigm

New Service Release and Power Tools for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals [New Service Release and Power Tools for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals]

Rory — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:59:31 GMT

[Posted on behalf of Brian Keller]

Dupe. I've been gone. Didn't know it had already been posted.

Carry on.

Carry on...

in reply to New Service Release and Power Tools for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals

I'm back [I'm back]

Rory — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:54:57 GMT

Hey, people -

Some of you may have noticed that I went missing for a few weeks. Coworkers sent links to threads and messages in which you pondered my disappearance.

It's all pretty simple. I had what I think was a nervous breakdown. I had always wondered what the term meant. I guess it's one of those things that you can't define until you've had one.

Since then, I've been diagnosed (for the fifth time) as being bipolar. I always ignored this diagnosis because I didn't want it to be true.

However, on the right meds (lithium and lamictal), I've come around a bit. Feeling much more stable than I think I've ever felt. No drugs in my system. Quitting one antidepressant that I don't need. After that, it'll just be the bipolar meds.

I'm now coming back to Microsoft on a partial medical leave of absence. That's the long version of "I'm going to work four hours a day until I'm not as crazy."

I feel like I'm starting over entirely. I've sort of forgotten how to do my job, and I almost went into the women's restroom today. It was the pink tile work that saved me from going any farther than the doorway.

So. Yeah.

That's where I've been.

I think it's good to be back, but it's too early to tell. I'm cautiously optimistic about things around here, but it might be that corporate life isn't for me (not this team specifically - these are the best people I've ever worked with).

OK. That's about it.

Tah.

- Rory

in reply to I'm back

Office Business Applications [Office Business Applications]

Rory — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:18:41 GMT

Something end users probably don't realize is that Office isn't just a suite of applications, but also a platform for development.

The idea behind building apps on top of Office is that you can provide users with apps in an environment with which they're already familiar and comfortable. Some of the plumbing is also already taken care of for devs, so you can rely on the strength of the platform rather than start entirely from scratch to build your apps.

To help devs get started, there are some reference apps that have been released.

Today, they're pushing out a reference app to show how OBAs can be used in the medical industry.

If you have users who prefer to work inside Office apps rather than leaving the familiar environment for an app built from the ground up, then you'll find this interview interesting...

(Thanks to Tim Sneath for lending us his office without his permission. Asking to use it would have resulted in all kinds of wasted time, so bypassing that step was a great convenience for us.)

in reply to Office Business Applications

The Challenges of Application Compatibility [The Challenges of Application Compatibility]

Rory — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:40:29 GMT

Time and time again, I've encountered online arguments in which Geek A is telling Geek B that Company C does a poor job of maintaining backward compatibility.

In these cases, I'm never quite sure what it is that Geek A means. Does Geek A have any idea how difficult it is to maintain app level compatibility over the years as the underlying OS changes and evolves?

Maybe Geek A should watch this video...

in reply to The Challenges of Application Compatibility

BlueHat - #3: Paid to Break Things [BlueHat - #3: Paid to Break Things]

Rory — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:57:00 GMT

Robert Graham and David Maynor head up a company called Errata Security.

These are the people you hear about when you hear about people who get paid to break things. They look for vulnerabilities, pore over disassembled binaries, and generally have all kinds of fun while being rewarded.

We also talk a little about the security of OS X, and what their thoughts were on whether or not open source makes software more or less secure.

in reply to BlueHat - #3: Paid to Break Things

DinnerNow - If it's an acronym, it's in DinnerNow [DinnerNow - If it's an acronym, it's in DinnerNow]

Rory — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:05:30 GMT

If you haven't heard about it, DinnerNow is a demo app that shows off... well, just about everything.

WPF, WCF, Powershell, and more.

If you like what you see here, head out to the DinnerNow site for links to the application and the source.

Fun group of people. Jason Olson was there, too - many of you probably know Jason from either the Coffeehouse or his site. He's been away from the office for a while now, though, as he recently became a father. Congrats, Jason :)

in reply to DinnerNow - If it's an acronym, it's in DinnerNow

Ricardo Mendes on Host Integration Server [Ricardo Mendes on Host Integration Server]

Rory — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:45:11 GMT

Filled in for Charles Torre at the last minute on this one, and had the usual good time.

I didn't know anything about Host Integration Server until this interview. Actually, I knew that it existed, but that's all.

One of the most interesting contracts I ever had put me in daily contact with an AS400 for a couple years. Not physically, of course, as the thing was the size of a Volkswagen, but in every other nerdily way.

It was fun. The challenges were very different from what I was used to. Worked with the devs to put together all sorts of Rube Goldberg type solutions.

We could have saved a little bit of time (like, a year) had we been able to use Host Integration Server for all the work that went on between our Windows machines and the AS400.

If you're in a similar situation now, then you want to watch this.

If you aren't in a similar situation, there's still a lot here for the curious onlooker :)

in reply to Ricardo Mendes on Host Integration Server

BlueHat - #2: Bluetooth Snipers [BlueHat - #2: Bluetooth Snipers]

Rory — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:58:23 GMT

You may have seen these guys on slashdot a couple years ago. They set out to prove that Bluetooth, despite its relatively short range, is a security hazard.

Turns out it is.

Watch.

in reply to BlueHat - #2: Bluetooth Snipers

Popfly [Popfly]

Rory — Fri, 18 May 2007 16:09:58 GMT

You probably haven't heard of it, but you're also probably going to start hearing a lot about it in the near future.

Popfly is being announced today - as I'm posting this, actually.

To keep it short and simple so you can get right to watching the video, Popfly makes it easy for non-devs to create web sites, mashups, and more.

Drag, drag, click - you've got a Flikr + Virtual Earth mashup.

You can even point and click your way to a Vista Gadget.

No kidding.

After watching our video, check out the overview here and there is also an article over on techcrunch.

in reply to Popfly

Popfly [Popfly]

Rory — Fri, 18 May 2007 16:04:37 GMT

You probably haven't heard of it, but you're also probably going to start hearing a lot about it in the near future.

Popfly is being announced today - as I'm posting this, actually.

To keep it short and simple so you can get right to watching the video, Popfly makes it easy for non-devs to create web sites, mashups, and more.

Drag, drag, click - you've got a Flikr + Virtual Earth mashup.

You can even point and click your way to a Vista Gadget.

No kidding.

The site's over here. Not really open for business yet, but keep your eyes peeled...

in reply to Popfly

BlueHat - #1: Robert Hansen on Phishing, the Bad Guys, and the Online Mafia [BlueHat - #1: Robert Hansen on Phishing, the Bad Guys, and the Online Mafia]

Rory — Wed, 16 May 2007 20:13:28 GMT

The BlueHat conference is an internal MS conference that's all about security. We ship a bunch of security experts from around the world to Redmond and then learn whatever we can from them.

This is the first video in the series. It's with Robert Hansen - a very interesting human being I'd like to interview again.

Interviews like this are my favorite. I've always seen security as drudgery. It's necessary, but it's not at all fun. At least not the way I was doing it.

I didn't expect much, to be honest. I thought I'd get in, hear a few stories about SQL injection, and then be done with it. What I got was, on a scale of 1 to 10, a chat that was infinity + 1 awesome.

I had no idea how far security goes. I had read books about people like Kevin Mitnik, Pengo, and more, but this was the first time I'd ever met someone who really does this stuff (well, at least since my BBSing days - I knew a few people back then who knew a thing or two about security :) ).

Enjoy, people. I bloody well did. There's some background noise, and I apologize for that - in the process of getting a proper mic setup for these videos - but you can still hear him.

Robert has a blog here, and you can find information about his security consulting firm here.

in reply to BlueHat - #1: Robert Hansen on Phishing, the Bad Guys, and the Online Mafia

TechEd 2007: Turn “doing your job” into “making your mark.” [TechEd 2007: Turn “doing your job” into “making your mark.”]

Rory — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:59:47 GMT

Next month, June 4th through the 8th, TechEd 2007 once again turns Orlando into the place-to-be.

In this video, Michael Lehman talks with Ryan Calafato and Sam Gazitt about what's hot at this years TechEd and why you should register today!

The full agenda for TechEd 2007 is available online as is a full list of TechEd Exhibitors.

in reply to TechEd 2007: Turn “doing your job” into “making your mark.”

Jesse Lewin on knowing Steve Jobs, working at Apple, and posing with Bono [Jesse Lewin on knowing Steve Jobs, working at Apple, and posing with Bono]

Rory — Wed, 09 May 2007 18:22:52 GMT

Things have changed a lot around Channel 9. As you may have noticed, some people have come and gone over the past year, and the team is very different from what it used to be.

Some would say it's much better. Others would say it's gone downhill, but those people are stupid, and they'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Along with changes to 9, we've also seen the rise of 10. We still aren't entirely sure what it is, but we've got some seriously talented people working over there.

One of those people is Jesse Lewin.

I've had many hallway conversations with the guy since starting here. We've talked shop, clothing, music - the normal stuff.

After several months, he started to tell me more and more about his life pre-Microsoft. I was surprised to learn that:

1. His father worked on the Mac "back in the day"

2. When he was a kid, he got to hang out with Steve Jobs with some regularity

3. He worked for Apple (always interesting to talk to people who've worked for Apple in some way)

4. He's met a bunch of uber famous people

5. He likes my shoes

He also worked for Engadget. The guy has quite the history, which is all the more surprising given how young he is.

Anyway, I love the man, and wanted to get him up on 9. While he isn't a dev, he is a geek, and he's my kind of geek. When you can go from chatting about Prada to Powerbooks, you're probably going to get along with me.

Hope you like the interview. It was certainly fun for me, and I plan on doing more interviews with the rest of the team. It's time all you people met the current generation of JeffSand evangelists...

in reply to Jesse Lewin on knowing Steve Jobs, working at Apple, and posing with Bono

Meet the Project Jasper Team [Meet the Project Jasper Team]

Rory — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:17:53 GMT

Project Jasper is geared toward iterative and agile development. You can start interacting with the data in your database without having to create mapping files or define classes. You can build user interfaces by naming controls according to your model without worrying about binding code. In this interview Shyam Pather, Carl Perry, Andrew Conrad and Jeff Derstadt, go deep whiteboarding and demoing Jasper.

in reply to Meet the Project Jasper Team

Windows Mobile 6.0 Things and Stuff [Windows Mobile 6.0 Things and Stuff]

Rory — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:53:59 GMT

The Mobile and Embedded Devices Conference (MEDC) is taking place in Vegas next week, and I thought I'd post a little fun here to get things going.

Mel Sampat stopped by to demo some fancy-schmancy stuff in Windows Mobile 6.0. There's more going on now for both devs and users.

One of the nicer things about 6.0, at least from a dev standpoint, is that the .NET CF 2.0 and SQL Server Compact Edition 2.0 both ship in ROM, meaning you can deploy your nice little apps without having to deploy the runtime as well. That made me happy :)

In the video, you'll get to see some of what's new with Pocket Outlook, an experimental managed implementation of voice recognition APIs, and more.

It's because of stuff like that (managed voice recognition APIs?)

in reply to Windows Mobile 6.0 Things and Stuff

MSDN Wiki Projects - #4 (last) - Internationalization [MSDN Wiki Projects - #4 (last) - Internationalization]

Rory — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:14:28 GMT

This is the final video in the MSDN Wiki interview series. In this segment, I talked with Fabrice and Molly about the MSDN Internationalization Wiki.

I love language - the living ones, the dead ones, the spoken ones, the ones nobody speaks anymore, C# - and I had a lot of questions in my head about how The MSDN Wiki people were going to accomplish the insanely difficult task of translating select bits of the MSDN library into Portuguese.

English, unless you're a native speaker, will probably never make total sense to you (and doesn't even make total sense to those of us born speaking it), while Portuguese, although not the sloppy mashup of languages English is, is still very complicated.

So, how do you take a bunch of English and translate it into a bunch of Portuguese?

Fabrice and team are accomplishing this mountainous task with a combination of some awesome MSR produced software and an army of contributors from around the world.

This video also marks the end of my first real attempt at splitting up one long video into a few smaller parts. Did you like it? Did it work for you? Aside from the sloppy edit points (something I know to look for now), is there anything about this approach that bothers you? I was thinking it would have been nice to have posted the parts over a longer period of time, hopping between a couple other "chunked" videos - there'd be more variety that way.

What do you think? We're listening, yo......

The Series:

- Video #1: How and Why

- Video #3: Internationalization

in reply to MSDN Wiki Projects - #4 (last) - Internationalization

MSDN Wiki Projects - #3 - A Huge Responsibility [MSDN Wiki Projects - #3 - A Huge Responsibility]

Rory — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:44:26 GMT

When you're in charge of something so large, so easily modified by the public, and so potentially impactful, how do you actually do it?

Accuracy, relevance, usefulness, language, abuse, and more - these are just a few things that might keep you up at night if you're one of the people overseeing a corporate wiki.

At Channel 9, for example, we're on a pretty long leash. The freedom we enjoy in content creation and community activities is astonishing. Along with that freedom, though, comes a lot of responsibility. Anytime we put content online or interact with customers, there's the possibility of really blowing it. Fortunately, we actually do all right, but the concern is always there. It's natural. It has to be.

The situation is even more interesting for wikis. Where Charles and I have control over the content we produce, a wiki takes a lot of the control away from the site owners.

So, what do you do? How do you even begin to think through all the things that could go wrong? What kind of editorial oversight is there? How do you choose what's to be documented? How do other people at Microsoft feel? What legal concerns are there? What's the hardest part about getting a wiki up and running here?

When you aren't responsible for a project like this, it's easy to forget just how much risk is in place, as well as how many technical and editorial issues there are.

This is the third part of the interview, and we tried to address some of these issues. The deeper we went, the more interested and impressed I was. I loved learning about Fabrice and Molly's jobs. There are so many angles to this Microsoft wiki stuff that I would have been happy to have talked to them for many hours more.

Such a unique and delightful challenge...

The Series:

- Video #1: How and Why

- Video #3: Internationalization

in reply to MSDN Wiki Projects - #3 - A Huge Responsibility

MSDN Wiki Projects - #2 - How and Why [MSDN Wiki Projects - #2 - How and Why]

Rory — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:40:38 GMT

[Note: Looks like I made a couple small mistakes while chunking the original interview up into smaller pieces. While it looked like they were ending at exactly the right time, it appears each video has an extra second or two of talking that I meant to cut off. The result is that the video stops right in the middle of a comment by Fabrice that's actually for the next video in the series. Simply put, there's nothing missing, and Fabrice will get to finish his comment in the next video - apologies :| ]

Whatever warm cuddly advances are made by large corporations toward community efforts and transparency, there are still serious and valid concerns about the ramifications of letting civilians produce content.

This is part two of the series on the MSDN dev and internationalization wikis.

In this one, we talk about some of the work Fabrice and team had to do to push these projects through, get them approved, and implemented.

Don't know about you people, but I look at community involvement as being a great thing for everybody. However, I'm not the one who has to take responsibility for opening up a site to modifications from the general public. When we see these projects, it's easy to forget the kind of risks that are being taken on behalf of the employees who drive the efforts.

This interview reminded me of what those risks can be...

The Series:

- Video #1: How and Why

- Video #3: Internationalization

in reply to MSDN Wiki Projects - #2 - How and Why