Expert Texture
The blogged wandering of Robert W. Anderson
Archive for January, 2007
January 30, 2007 at 6:21 pm · Filed under .NET
Some thoughts I had during the keynote at the SF launch today:
Much different than the last big launch event: VS2005/SQL Server/Biz Talk. No Cheap Trick, but the CEO of Sierra Nevada Brewery spoke. That was cool: their Pale Ale is a real winner.
Things I like about Vista:
- User Account Control (UAC).
- I like the new UI and search capabilities.
- Microsoft Application Compatibility Manager.
- Reliability Manager
I am excited about this upgrade, but I’m still waiting for the final VS2005SP1 for Vista patch and the Netgear VPN driver upgrade.
About Office
Office looks cool and certainly offers the enterprise real benefits, but I’m just not personally excited about the upgrade. The main reason, compatibility: I just don’t want to be bothered with making sure my files are compatible with co-workers, partners, family members, etc.
I left the launch a bit early — too much actual work to do.
Tags: Launch, Microsoft, office, office12, Vista, vs2005
January 30, 2007 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous
Reading the title of Savas’ blog I thought Jim must be late for a meeting, but apparently he has gone missing while sailing to the Farallons.
“Coast Guard searches for missing Microsoft researcher”
I hope he is found soon; best wishes to Jim and his family.
January 29, 2007 at 9:12 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
For some time I have wanted a new smart phone, but I have been lazy about it — as a gadget-user I am not easy to please. Choosing a smart phone is an exercise in compromise. And the few minutes of time with one in a store isn’t sufficient. My musts are:
- For me it needs to have a pen (for writing w/Graffiti 2);
- email / calendar sync (push);
- extendable (tweakable);
- and, of course, be a usable phone.
David Sugarman* of Microsoft gave a Treo 700w to my business partner Nathan — this gave me the chance to take a hard look at a phone. I’ve played with other phones extensively too (some Blackberry models — they’re all right, but they smack of proprietary platform).
Anyway, the 700w is a solid piece of hardware. I have really liked the Palm hardware since their Tungsten line. (I was a user of the Palm OS too, but abandoned that when Palm Source was sold). I still have a T3 in excellent shape. I should have sold that the minute I stopped using it, but I have a hard time parting with gadgets (any one want an Apple MessagePad 100?).
Anyway, I didn’t act on my lust for a new gadget. As much as I wanted one, I have far too often bought something because I thought it would make my life easier only to find that I did not.
Then the hinge broke on my cell phone. It still worked. It just had the annoying habit of hanging up on people when I flipped it open.
So David offered me a Motorola Q. No pen, but I thought I’d give it a try. After all, the penless UI (i.e., for WM Smart Phone) has some advantages over the Pocket PC UI.
I explained the advantages of the penless UI to Nathan – a light bulb went off in his head. He had thought that WM5 was just a little harder to use than WM-2003 (his old phone), but he realized that he was comparing an older penless model with a new penful (?) model. It was the pen that was an impediment to his 700w experience; not the version of the OS.
So . . .
Nathan has the new Q and I have the (pretty new) Treo 700w. I am pretty happy with it. It has some shortcomings, but all in all it works great. The best thing about this phone is the push synchronization of contacts / calendar entries through Exchange. The thing I would most like to change is that there is no good push e-mail solution outside of Exchange (or across multiple Exchange servers, for that matter).
Thanks, David!
*Industry Partner Manager and Mobility Lead, Capital Markets, Financial Services Group.
Tags: 700w, Graffiti, Microsoft, Palm, Q, Treo, WM2003, WM5
January 19, 2007 at 3:28 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
Andrew Hilton recently commented on WinFx is Dead Part 2. I am promoting it to a post so I can better comment on the comments.
Andrew says:
I’m of the opinion that it is not yet the official windows API because it simply wasn’t ready, and using .NET 2 with WinForms would have been too restrictive and no doubt would not have integrated with the subsystems of Vista (such as graphics). The .NET framework 3.0 was not released until almost the final release of Vista. The risk of developing the windows front end under the managed API and still ship on time would have been too great.
I think you are correct regarding the .NET 3.0 components of WinFx: there was an early plan that Vista and Office would take advantage of these technologies, but of course, everything was late. Using .NET the .NET 2 WinForms really didn’t make sense either.
From what I’ve heard early versions of Vista and Office 2007 did use the managed API (or at least an early version of WPF). My feeling is that the dev teams simply couldn’t cope with a large framework like that shifting beneath their feet causing all manner of chaos. Hence the move by both Vista and Office 2007 back to COM, which also gave leeway to the WinFX teams to change stuff radically if they needed to. My assumption is that given the large technical leap of WPF, WCF etc there would have been many back steps as they were trying to go forward.
Yeah, but I’ll bet the delays of .NET 2 had a bigger impact on the likelihood of managed APIs in Vista than, let’s say, WPF or WCF.
I’ll be very suprised if the consumer version of Vista does not include some managed code WPF apps. All the indications are that WPF will do very well (for example see the recent video of the WPF version of Yahoo messenger), . . .
Yes, I think this is all true, but hold on.
My post wasn’t about .NET 3.0 (or what they were calling WinFx), but of the original idea for WinFx: a full (or fairly full) Windows API.
WPF and WCF have little to do with that, certainly WF has nothing to do with it, and Info Cards, not really either. Of course, this last one is a part of Vista though as kind of an add on.
All of this stuff is very cool, but WinFx was supposed to push managed APIs deeper down into the OS, not to be extra layers on top of it. The internalization of these APIs were to supply a more robust and secure OS.
And it is that WinFx that appears to be dead.
Tags: .NET, .NET3, InfoCards, Microsoft, WCF, WF, Windows, WinFx, WPF
January 16, 2007 at 8:59 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous
Recently I have been helping my wife and her business partner get their Web site up (
). I signed up for helping them navigate their eCommerce choices and have ended up doing a little more.
Anyway, this is quite a departure from the businesses I’ve been involved with before. No tech at all, just physical, non-electronic wares for children’s rooms. Right now they have four really cool themes of children’s bedding and art work:
They plan to expand to other products too. Anyway, we put up the site yesterday: kukunest.com — kid inspired design.
I don’t know how many of you readers have kids (or neices and nephews, etc); but if you do, check out the site.
Get ‘em for all the kids in your life! They have a presale going on until the end of January.
Tags: kukunest
January 11, 2007 at 10:02 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
John and I spent too much time this morning talking about what actually happened regarding the iPhone mark. The Cisco PR blog states their part, though we’ll have to wait and see the whole truth when it all comes to light.
Here are a few possibilities in the wild conjecture category:
Big publicity stunt
Under this theory, they have agreed to something already, but want the publicity surrounding a possible dispute.
John favors this one. I don’t. Apple doesn’t need this kind of publicity and (I don’t think) would go for it even if Cisco insisted. I don’t really think either company would behave so disingenuously.
Cisco changed the terms at the last minute
In this scenario, Apple and Cisco work together (in good faith or not) to come to terms, but Cisco overreaches at the last minute. By this point, Jobs has to make a decision: put off the announcement of the product (as there is on way to change the collateral at such a late date) or run with it and let the chips fall where they may. If / when Cisco protects their mark with a suit (which of course, they did), Apple makes a case for damage done to Apple by Cisco pulling out at the last minute.
This scenario is not supported by Cisco’s blog.
Apple thinks the trademark doesn’t apply
They try to work with Cisco on this, but ultimately don’t think the mark applies. So, they decide to go with it. The only way to resolve such a trademark dispute (without an agreement between the parties) is to use the mark and see what happens next. Lawsuit? OK, deal with it in court.
This seems the most likely considering given Apple Spokesman Alan Hely comment: “We think Cisco’s trademark lawsuit is silly” (from here).
I want to say again that this is all wild conjecture. I am not claiming either Apple or Cisco is at fault here, though it looks like one of them is.
My guess is the next thing we’ll see is Apple Corps suing Apple over their name change (from Apple Computer to Apple).
Tags: Apple, Beatles, Cisco, iPhone, Jobs, Trademark
January 9, 2007 at 10:51 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
In addition to giving MacWorld a skip, I also generally give it a big yawn. I’m not too interested in the hype, the iPod, nor the Macintosh. I’m not saying their products aren’t cool — I’m just not interested.
But the iPhone looks really cool. Check out the series of pics on Engadget (via Jason Calacanis).
Of course, it is probably iTunes’d and .mac’ed to death. So I’ll still skip it.
Tags: Apple, iPhone, iTunes, MacWorld
January 7, 2007 at 10:17 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous
I saw this on Nima’s blog, Windows Home Server is coming. Bill Gates announced this today (see Bill Gates keynote - Engadget).
I can see the niche for this product, except I don’t really want servers in my house anymore.
It seems like most of the market for this product will be covered by LiveDrive. Instead of Windows Home Server, I would have loved to see:
- LiveDrive announced ready for the Vista launch.
- LiveDrive free with Vista. Of course, maybe it’ll be free for everyone.
Not to bash Home Server. It is probably cool, but I don’t actually want more hardware and OSes in my house. I want fewer.
Tags: LiveDrive, Microsoft, Vista
January 1, 2007 at 9:15 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
It is going to be a great one.
Backdating blog posts is even easier than backdating options.
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