Doug Hodges: The history of Visual Studio Extensibility

In his first Channel9 interview, Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect sits down with Jon Udell to talk about Live Mesh, a new technology and platform that enables synchronization and storage "to the cloud." You'll hear about the history of Live
Mesh, how it has been influenced by Ray's previous work on products like Groove and Lotus Notes. Ray also discusses the core technology that forms the basis for Live Mesh including REST APIs, XML, and synchronization APIs that enable you sync your Mesh across
multiple devices.
Low Res version (Transcript)
For more information, go to Mesh.com
For more Live Mesh coverage:
- Watch the demo of the Live Mesh application on
Channel 10
- Watch an interview with Abolade Gbadegesin on Live Mesh Architecture
-
Read the transcript and grab the audio from
Jon Udell's perspective series.
Live Mesh really looks like a great product.
But it really only creates confusion since there are already a bunch of similar MS techs like FolderShare, Folder Sharing in Messenger, SkyDrive, Meeting Space, Remote Desktop, etc.
Same thing as on the communication front with a bunch of mail clients, IM clients etc.
Shame that these aren't integrated into a single offering so even inexperienced users could use it. Also even as a power user I getting fed up with having to install many similar apps for a single company just because neither has the full featureset I need.
From outside it really looks like Microsoft was some sort of sports league and each team inside is competing instead of cooperating.
MadRaven wrote:
But it really only creates confusion since there are already a bunch of similar MS techs like FolderShare, Folder Sharing in Messenger, SkyDrive, Meeting Space, Remote Desktop, etc.
Same thing as on the communication front with a bunch of mail clients, IM clients etc.
RichardRudek wrote:I don't know why Dan doesn't post the low res link, [but here it is] 131.6MB.
I right-click then choose save as file.
DukeNukem wrote:Can you add a Windows Live SkyDrive to be a device?
hampycapper wrote:The platform does support direct lan syncing. The user experience does not currently allow you to specify what files should go to the cloud and what should not. But it will.
MadRaven wrote:Live Mesh really looks like a great product.
But it really only creates confusion since there are already a bunch of similar MS techs like FolderShare, Folder Sharing in Messenger, SkyDrive, Meeting Space, Remote Desktop, etc.
Same thing as on the communication front with a bunch of mail clients, IM clients etc.
Shame that these aren't integrated into a single offering so even inexperienced users could use it.
Bas wrote:Here's a bunch of questions:
- The remote desktop through the browser thing. That's available on WHS right now, and while it works great if it works, it doesn't work quite as smoothly as one is led to believe. For instance, you need to install an RDP ActiveX control to be able to use the remote desktop feature in the WHS Remote Access website. When I'm at an internet cafe, I may not be able to install this control. When I'm at a friend's house, I may not wat to install stuff on his PC. Then what?
Bas wrote:
Also, I set my machines to sleep when I'm away. Most people power them down entirely. Then what? Will there be a way to wake them up remotely? Again, in WHS, I had to install a 3rd party wake-on-lan addon to even get WoL functionality, and then it's still a chore. I have to:
1. Use the remote access website to RDP to the WHS
2. Open the WHS Console on the server itself
3. Use the WoL addon in the Console to wake up one of my PC's
4. Log off of the WHS.
5. RDP to the computer I just woke.
That's not very smooth. How will Mesh's remote access features fix that? Will it, for instance, auto-attempt to wake any machine you RDP to?
Bas wrote:
- Can I 'meshify' my My Documents folder and automatically sync all my documents and application settings across PC's?
Bas wrote:
- Is there or will there be some way to sync my RSS feeds across devices? If I read an RSS feed, I want it to be marked as 'read' on all my devices, not just the one I read it on.
Bas wrote:
- What about email? Can I install Windows Live Mail on all my PC's and sync the message store across all PC's, so that I can check my email and read previously downloaded email on any PC? What will happen if I have my email client open on two PC's at the same time? Will it mess up the synch, or will I see emails appearing on my laptop when I download them on my desktop?
Bas wrote:
- The 5GB data limit. I understand why you guys are doing this, but I have a WHS that's available from anywhere in the world. I can get as much storage on it as money can buy. Can I choose to have Mesh store it on my WHS rather than in a Microsoft Data Center when it is storing stuff in 'the cloud', without any limits on what I can do? (In other words: can I set it up so that my Live Desktop is actually stored on my WHS rather than in a data center, so that I don't have to deal with the 5GB file limit?)
Bas wrote:
hampycapper wrote:
The platform does support direct lan syncing. The user experience does not currently allow you to specify what files should go to the cloud and what should not. But it will.
That sounds good, but rather than tell Mesh what files I want stored where, I think it'd be much better if I was able to tell Mesh that 'the Cloud' is actually 'this remotely accessible folder on my WHS here'. It'd make the thing more seamless, with the bonus of giving me 2TB of cloud storage space, if I want.
jmazner wrote:
Bas wrote:
- What about email? Can I install Windows Live Mail on all my PC's and sync the message store across all PC's, so that I can check my email and read previously downloaded email on any PC? What will happen if I have my email client open on two PC's at the same time? Will it mess up the synch, or will I see emails appearing on my laptop when I download them on my desktop?
Email is one of those file types that's hard to synch today when you're dealing with a monolithic PST or OST file. Apps can certainly write to Live Mesh platform to enable great roaming of your email experience, but that will happen over time (once the platform is available.)
jmazner wrote:Live Mesh also uses a control to display the RDP session in the browser. If someone has figured out how to parse and display RDP in JScript, I am all earsNot sure there's really any better solution here...
jmazner wrote:
We don't have wake-on-LAN as part of our client communications platform. I will make sure that's on the list of things to consider.
jmazner wrote:Well, I don't think app settings are usually in My Documents?
jmazner wrote:
Email is one of those file types that's hard to synch today when you're dealing with a monolithic PST or OST file. Apps can certainly write to Live Mesh platform to enable great roaming of your email experience, but that will happen over time (once the platform is available.)
jmazner wrote:
Yes, using WHS as your own personal cloud storage is a popular request, and one that we are looking into. The platform is certainly designed to support multiple, federated storage servcies.
Bas wrote:
jmazner wrote:
We don't have wake-on-LAN as part of our client communications platform. I will make sure that's on the list of things to consider.
That's the biggest omission from the WHS Console, IMHO. (And remote access website, by the way. I cannot stress the importance of being able to do it via a browser as well enough.)
It's easy to use an addon that allows for WOL functionality, but it's not exactly a smooth process in use. If the 'remotely connect to this PC' button (or whatever it is called) just automatically sent a WOL packet to the PC regardless of wether it supports WOL or not, you'd be there. It doesn't even have to be visible to the end user.
Thanks for considering it!
jmazner wrote:
The suggestion is now officialy filed
jmazner wrote:
This is not a trivial thing to get right, however.
j
Bas wrote:
jmazner wrote:
The suggestion is now officialy filed
w00t! God bless Channel 9.
jmazner wrote:
This is not a trivial thing to get right, however.
j
Yeah, I should probably point out that I used the words "just automatically send a WOL packet" with blatant disregard for or knowledge about the intricacies of how everything actually works.
But even if there was some awareness to the fact that the device may not always be on and might be able to be woken up, that would be great. Currently the remote access features of WHS just assume that all your PC's are on, and pretend tat WOL doesn't exist. I'm not expecting you guys to be able to power up my Zune at home while I'm on the other side of the Atlantic, but even if WOL-features were limited to just the local network, that would be incredibly convenient.
Maybe it'd even be possible to send just an HTTP request to a machine that is online (like my WHS), and have that machine send the WOL packet to the sleeping device. That way the WOL-packet-sending-magic would only need to happen inside the LAN. But again, I have no idea how everything works, just what I want to see happen.
Anyway, thanks again!