My team moved buildings late last year. This is the view from my office. See that part where it looks like my office overlooks a driveway? That's right: my office overlooks the driveway to our underground parking garage. Personally, I find it to be pretty sweet. I enjoy watching the...
I'm using VMs like crazy at work these days. The biggest advantage is keeping over a dozen different OS and software configurations handy on only three pieces of hardware. The key is memory. 8GB per (hardware) box is barely enough for the loads I'm running. Drive space and processors really...
I've been at home for the last two days with some sort of swine flu or something. I'm technically functional (and have been working) but decided not to go to the office out of respect for my coworker's health. I hate working from the house. I have a difficult time...
I lost my window office a while back during a building move. These things happen—seniority and all that. The most meaningful impact it had on me was that I had to bring all my neato plants home, since they can't really live on low levels of flourescent light. Well, I'm...
3 years went by pretty quickly....
I'm curious: does anyone else's workplace regularly use EOW as an abbreviation for end of week?...
I've commented before on how I use my email inbox. The inbox is for active discussions only and anything that isn't waiting for my attention gets immediately moved to a topic folder. This method incurs a bit of overhead but it's also one of the few ways to incur sanity...
Ever stuck in an unfamiliar office building early in the morning looking for a coffee machine? Unlike conference rooms and lobbies, they're sometimes not marked. Well, the trick is to find the restrooms—which usually are marked—and then walk around the hallway to find whichever room attaches to the back of...
Japanese culture consists of working late hours, having dinner and drinks with the people you work with, and then taking mass transit home. We don't really have very good mass transit in the US....
But, all is quiet on the western front as far as I can tell....
These days, I work on two big categories of things: code, and standards. On days where I work on code, I spend:About 80% of my time staring at vi The remainder staring at Outlook On days where I work on standardizing specifications, I spend:About 70% of my time staring at...
I got my window office today and celebrated with plants! Here I've got a big schefflera, some manner of leafy agave thing that apparently grows great with practically no light, and a teeny tiny bonsai of a variety that I can't recall at the moment. All three are stuff into...
40 hours in a conference room, 12 hours in dinners, and a few more at the bar. I'm done with the week and it's not even Friday....
I'm getting a window office in January. This is pretty hot stuff. I've been in a ... sortof solarium part of the building with a fractional window since we moved buildings six months ago, but I haven't actually had a full window yet. But now I will. No, it doesn't...
I'm headed back to silicon valley before the year ends. This is the second time in four months that I'll be down there, which is somewhat remarkable because prior to my visit in August, I think the last time I was in the bay area was sometime before Y2K. And...
I mentioned earlier that the specs I implement are entering standardization. I just finished the first of a 3-day meeting to try to improve the docs and it's ... not at all what I was expecting. The environment is positive and productive, and things are remarkably efficient. Color me surprised....
I'm totally sick of dealing with byte ordering. I'd be completely satisfied never having to deal with another byte ordering problem ever again....
Three specs I implement are entering standardization....
Earlier tonight I had to run, piss-ass drunk, nearly a mile to catch a ferry from the pub on yonder Bainbridge Island back to mainland Seattle. I estimate that I (and my four esteemed colleagues) caught the boat with about a minute to spare. We were the last passengers to...
I mentored an intern this summer. It was interesting stuff and I gained a good deal of perspective from it. One of the more mundane parts was the fact that my intern and I shared an office. The office isn't exactly cramped, but two people and eight continually running computers...
I've been taking the bus lately as I leave the Porsche parked in the garage pending diagnosis of a misfire at idle. Detangling a prior owner's mess of broken electrical connectors and freely vented vacuum hoses (???) has proven to be more time-consuming than originally anticipated. But anyway, the bus....
I had a 4-day weekend, but I'm glad to be back at work doing the things that I enjoy doing here....
Today was my first day in my new building. In fact, that's it in the photo to the right. Except that now it's like decades after this picture was taken. But the building is still two stories, and I'm on the ground floor in a part of the building that...
For the next 2 days I have to wear pants to the office. No shorts. This feels strange and wrong....
On June 6, I'm going to be moving offices. This is notable because I've been in my current office since I started work on June 6, 2005. It'll be a little weird moving. I'll be going from the highest-numbered office in the building (yes, the whole building) and on the...
There's been something of a brouhaha amongst the Microsoft technical bloggers in the last few days about this post by Eric Brechner, a director of engineering learning in the Engineering Excellence group at Microsoft1. The short version is that Eric asserts (hah—puns abound) that asserts in code aren't good ways...
Bluehat was held today on the Microsoft campus. The Bluehat conferences feature the best free shirts of any Microsoft events, and the talks are good, too....
I find this article on productivity and the night owls to be pretty true—it's 10pm and I'm at work tying up some loose ends, and the last three hours I've been here were more productive than the entire rest of the day. P.S. Clearly I haven't updated my blog's clock...
I had a conversation earlier today over email that went approximately like this: Them: Hi. You said X. We think you mean Y. You need to do Z because you said Y. Me: I said X. I didn't mean Y. If I meant Y I would have said Y. T:...
Usually it's because I'm lazy, or busy, or both. This time, it's ... just busy. In fact, it's nearly 10pm and I'm still at the office. Oddly, I didn't have this problem for the first year or two that I was working full time; in fact, I usually got home...
One part about working in the Windows product group is that you end up with mostly-operational operating systems littering every machine you own. I suppose it isn't required to toss development Windows builds on machines other than test machines—but I'm a giant nerd and Windows is typically stable enough to...
In the discussion following my post about the Rubber Room, Willy K brings up the point that it's difficult to fire government employees. I don't argue with this—in fact, one of my biggest complaints about most arms of the government has been that they aren't sufficiently empowered to slough off...
I've worked on both incubation projects (early R&D, etc.) and on products that are far more stable in their development cycle (Windows). The development cycle for incubation is heavily front-loaded, and I find that when you get stuck, you often get stuck on seemingly simple but endlessly frustrating problems. This...
I don't know exactly why, but Microsoft often arranges to brand Talking Rain sodas with whatever big product launch is coming up. This has happened three times since I started work: first for the Vista launch, then for ... something that I forgot, and now for the Heroes Happen Here...
Another month, another blog post about WSDAPI. Today's entry describes the most important base platform objects available in WSDAPI. In reality, I post a lot more than once a month over at my work blog, but I've got a personal commitment to posting one substantial article each month. So "monthly"...
I woke up this morning, turned on the television to catch the news, and was greeted by a live helicopter feed of my building with the voiceover that, "Microsoft is making a big announcement this morning." And that caught my attention because that was the first I'd heard anything about...
"Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music" at Microsoft support....
Again, I'm too pooped to write anything real here. But I did put together two posts this time over my my work blog—and both long articles, at that....
I read Raymond Chen's blog from time to time, somewhat because he's a really conversational writer, and somewhat because he's got lots of interesting things to say about the history of Windows. I was amused by this post about MS-DOS and Windows 95, in particular by the shenanigans Microsoft engineers...
You remember my plan to take Wednesdays off? Well, I took this last Wednesday off—but spent half the day answering email from home anyway, just to catch up. And yesterday I spent nearly 12 hours at work. And today? I topped 15 hours. So this vacation thing didn't happen exactly...
As you may have heard, the Zune 2 hardware and updated Zune software launched today. For me, the big news is that the updated firmware and desktop software all work seamlessly with my oh-so-last-year Zune 30. Highlights include wireless sync (supported by UPnP, the Vista implementation of which is owned...
I've finished my first real MSDN post and I'm out of words for the day. Enjoy...
I'm in the difficult position of having to burn some vacation time before the year ends. It's rough. The thing is that I've got a big backlog of non-work work I'd like to do, and don't really feel like splitting town without taking care of all of that first (nor...
I thought yesterday's post would be the last one about work for a while. It turns it isn't, because after nearly four1 three years at Microsoft, Layla will soon be getting a window office! This, much like the stock price, is a Big Deal™. It usually takes five or six...
10% may not seem like a huge amount in today's market, but Microsoft is a huge company with loads of value. Pushing the price up this much is a significant effort. Sweet....
I've launched a new blog. I may even launch some real content there, at some point. No really, it turns out that I've got loads of work-related stuff to post about, but /dev/null isn't exactly the most ... appropriate forum. So instead of trying to cram lots of Windows posts...
I keep my inbox fairly clean. When work is light, I've typically got around a dozen threads waiting for followup or action. Once any of them becomes stale enough that I'm not receiving updates daily, it gets filed into a topic folder where subsequent mails go. This week is different,...
There's this thing I've been working on lately1 that's been sucking up lots of my spare time and energy. It's a lot of work, but it's also a good time to be a developer. It also means I don't have a lot to post about. So here's a picture of...
SkyDrive is, as far as I know, the first free (or ad-supported) large-scale cloud storage system from a major software vendor—or at least, one that isn't hacked together from an email system and some third-party machinery. It doesn't suck. I'm really happy the Windows Live Folders name was dropped. Hoorah...
Saturday was yet another day of our annual company picnic. Our day essentially went like this:Arrive Drink beer Take this silly picture Leave P.S. The "take 3" part of the title refers to the fact that this is not the first com-pan-y pic-a-nic post....
Between all the time I have to spend at the gym and at home getting stuff done, it's been busy fitting in all the extra work I'm doing right now. And so, despite starting my morning at around 7am, I just got home a few minutes ago. P.S. Everybody go...
I spotted this last week and nearly peed myself with excitement. My clockwork orange clock arrived in the post today and tomorrow will be proudly adorning my office....
Shippy's question from yesterday is interesting enough to get my attention—enough attention to deserve a response in its own post1. Now, I could probably write an entire book on what WSD is and does, but I'm fairly confident you either know already or you're not all that interested. If you're...
The project I work on, Web Services on Devices API is being featured Windows Hardware Developer Central. Rock, rock on....
Now that it's gotten awfully cold, the cabana sandals I usually wear around the office aren't nearly as useful as they usually are. My toes are often really cold, and open toes aren't quite the solution. But I've found out that it's nearly impossible to find bunny slippers locally. I've...
Lately, I've been taking my work home with me. This weekend, I've built ... a chicken. With ... lazors. Note that the wheels on its toes serve to provide traction when the foot is in the "toe-down" position, which is both legitimate and non-lame...despite how it looks....
When I first met Freeman Dyson today, it was at a bank of urinals in a restroom in the building that houses a good chunk of Microsoft Research. Back in the meeting room, Dyson gave a fantastic lecture today about genetics and bioengineering and provided fantastic responses to the somewhat...
It's Decemberish, which means it's time for a slough of office holiday parties. Tonight's is hosted by a big chunk of the Windows organization, and it's out at the Benaroya concert hall in downtown Seattle. They held this same party last year and, although it appears it wasn't then notable...
Now that Layla is participating in the 20/20 program, she's busy. And since we usually carpool, that means that I get to be busy, too. Wednesdays, in particular, are busy enough that I get into work around 8:30am and stick around until 8:30pm. That's a really long time. And so,...
I've been spending quite a bit more time at the office recently, partly because I've got a lot more work to do lately, and partly because Layla has started her 20/20 program and it's convenient to stick around a few hours later and still carpool home. It's been really helpful...
I'm fed up enough at this point that I feel I need to help educate the world so other folks can be spared the idiocy with which I have to deal. I realize I can't save the everyone on this one—but I can try. So, the problem is set like...
The Microsoft and Boeing soccer teams had a game earlier today at the bigass Qwest Field out in the middle of Seattle. 90 minutes of game resulted in a 1-1 tie. I think I drunk $24 worth of beer during the game. What a ripoff....
There's something to be said for being able to assemble a team of a dozen willing volunteers to help out at a conference on 10 days notice and ending up with a genuinely functional and damned effective workforce. I haven't seen this happen anywhere outside of Microsoft and I certainly...
I've been on my feet working today from 6am through 8:30pm. 95% of that was dealing with customers and helping solve miscellaneous tech issues. Stick a fork in me. It was fun, but I'm done....
So it turns out that the Windows Mobile folks brought an Alfa 159 wagon to the conference as a showcase piece—Microsoft and Fiat (who owns Alfa) announced a parternership a while back and the Euro-only1 159 bears some of the fruits thereof. Oh, that's hot. 1 Damn, damn. Damn damn...
We've got a red-eye flight through DFW (hoorah) in our future, so this may be the last post here for a while. As usual, I'll be composing posts while I'm on the road and will upload what I can when I get the chance....
Ignore the "peaches" part of the title. Anyway, we're going to Orlando next week to help out with an internal MS event. I can't really say a whole lot more about the actual event (it involves Windows Vista) but we'll be working for about four days and partying for one....
I talked last night about getting a bit too used to the whole Windows Vista thing. Well, I went to a talk today about the Windows PowerShell (formerly Monad) and my interest has been re-sparked. PowerShell has been in the works for a really long time and now that I've...
I've been working for over a year now on Windows Vista. I've seen it transform from something completely unusable to a superbly stable and functional piece of machinery. It's exciting to do so much major work on something that will be used by so many people, and so forth and...
Tuesday (yes, the 6th) marked my one-year anniversary at Microsoft. I've learned a lot.You can learn as much on the job as you can in a class. I thought for a long time that academia was great because it allowed us to compress a lifetime's worth of learning into a...
It's not about writing software around a maze of requirements. It's about elegant design with all the right side effects....
The really big news for today was that we officially released Windows Vista Beta 2 to the masses. If you've been following the progress of Vista betas, you'll see just how far things have come from Vista Beta 1 (released in the middle of last year) and even the CTP...
I realize that this announcement came out earlier this week, but I've wanted to post about this since it came out and I haven't really had the chance until today. The news here is that Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now free. This is Microsoft's home-grown product that competes...
Late last week, Microsoft hosted the BlueHat security conference here at the MS campus. I watched almost all of the talks and haven't really said much about them because, well, I try not to comment on work outside of work whenever possible. Thankfully, someone else (actually, the talk promoter) has...
I've been working all evening on writing for work and, I have to admit, I'm sortof tired of writing now. This hasn't happened to me in quite a while—the last I can remember was when I was finishing up my senior projects around mid-April of last year. I guess actually...
Today was an exceedingly long one—I think I spent nearly 14 hours at work in total. This sort of thing comes up once every three or four months or so and it's nice to be able to put the time in when it's needed. At the same time, this is...
In general, I don't talk about my job here. The big reason is that I really like what I do and I don't want to have to, you know, quit doing it because I posted something idiotic here. I've got a category for all things work-related, but they tend to...
So right now I'm in Socorro (with very limited network access—so if 0xc0debabe doesn't get to make her post, it's because I'm hogging the wireless until it goes back down again) ... oh right, I'm in Socorro. The drivers here are idiots and the town is fucking dry as hell....
I'm giving a talk tomorrow at NMT about a somewhat techincal topic: Web Services. I think the technology behind Web Services is really cool stuff, although the presentation that I'm planning on giving provides enough of the background to really understand why Web Services are such neat things. That being...
Earlier today, I ran:A web service, on IIS, on Windows Server 2003, on Virtual Server, on Windows XP Pro Tablet edition, on my Motion ...without a keyboard. And yes, it worked....
The image at right is what I got when I searched for "jet lag." I don't think I'm going to be jetlagged by the end of tomorrow, but I'll sure as hell be damned tired. The plan is that after just over 2 hours of sleep, I'll be waking up...
The one complaint that I've always had about Microsoft's development tools (specifically, the Visual Studio family of products) is that they are largely inaccessible to students and other poor developers. It's really difficult to get people involved at the ground level when they can't get access to the tools. Traditionally,...
Yep, that's right. I'm headed to NM to give a talk and pick up resumes for Microsoft. This all came together as a last minute thing—a couple of other techies who were slated to go had to bail due to work schedules, and I stepped in to fill one of...
Ahem. Info after the jump....
This is dumb. I admit. But, I'm really tired and don't want to write about anything that requires brainpower. But, I want to talk about elevators. Again. I noticed today that if you walk into an elevator, push the floor button, watch the doors close, and then ... nothing happens....
Early this morning, feeling very hazy: I arrive at the elevator dude arrives at the elevator I press the "up" button dude asserts the "up" button again an elevator arrives, going down dude walks toward elevator dude turns around when he figures out it's a "down" elevator elevator doors close...
Despite initial speculation about my proposed ridiculously inebriated state at the Microsoft Company Picnic, I haven't followed up with a followup. So, it follows: I did, in fact, get completely wasted at the company picnic—but, not before taking a few pictures and falling off a mechanical bull. Pictures of me...
Today is the company picnic. It's in North Bend, WA, which is damned far away from here. There are charter buses to take me there, and then take me back. And because of this, I'm going to get pisass drunk while I'm there. Awesome....
...and I'm still at the office. I guess it's not quite so bad when you consider that I really didn't show up until like 10am, and that I jetted out for a bit for a dinner break. It's a good thing I like what I do. ...now all I need...
I admit, this is completely self-serving. But you should really check out sandbox.msn.com, a Beta for all the damned cool shit that we're developing. Specifically, start.com is something that I've wanted to do myself for years but never got around to; and Virtual Earth is just like That Other Toy,...
My employer offers free stuff every once in a while. Shirts, hats, beer, and of course, health screenings. I partook in one of the screenings today. As far as I can tell, the words, "health screening," are code words for "stand in a meeting room and be really confused." Because...
So, yeah. 12 hour workday. That was fun. Most of it was sitting in training. I would have stayed longer, too, if I felt like I had it in me....
I don't really like to post about my job. Mostly because I plan on keeping it. However, I would like to say that I'm enjoying it immensely. This last week, in particular, was fantastic, and I'm very much look forward to leapfrogging whatever expectations exist about my performance in the...
Although the thought has been in the back of my head for the last few months, it's just now occured to me explicitly:When I'm a student, I can run primarily on interrupts, but I have to run on interrupts all the time. When I have a job, my primarily responsibility...
I work pretty late nights. Part of this is because I'm a slacker and don't go to work at 8am. Most of this is because the people I work with are even bigger slackers and don't go to work until nearly noon. But whatever. The group that I'm in is...
My workplace does not allow photographs to be taken on company property. This isn't too unreasonable these days—I'm at a loss to think of employers (besides universities, I suppose) who would encourage shots of their productive workers cranking away on secrets of trade. The problem is that it's seriously stunted...
This is my fridge. Notice that despite being owned by a bachelor, it's surprisingly full of stuff. At least, I think it is. The thing is that it's really damned hard to get through stuff here. I've only recently started eating breakfast, and I'm usually so time-limited in the mornings...
I never really realized the cost of health care. Rather, good healthcare. I can see now why it's important to people who don't have—or are about to lose—their fulltime employment. It's damned expensive, and I'm sure that any of you can figure out exactly how much by hitting google the...
I really don't like the term, "business casual." Mostly because it's one of those overused business-speke terms that says so little that it's completely useless. It makes me think of words like, "integrated synergizing," which would be a fantastic name for a business-themed porno1. Like I said, it's got ridiculously...
In about 30 minutes, I'm going to leave the house for the last time as a post-university time-advantaged claimable tax exception. You know, a slacker. I'm still not worked up at all about it, although I figure I might be when I arrive at orientation. I think. And yes, orientation!...
The reason that I have titled this post as such is that I intend to quit writing about my job pretty quickly. It's important enough to me that I don't feel like compromising it, and there's enough else going on in my life that I don't think it's necessary to...
I emailed my recruiting coördinator over the weekend. My email went something like this: HE|_|_O PLEASE TO HAVE T0P |\|AME \/IAGRA F0R LOW LOW PR1CE5! SH0P WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM FOR CH34P \/IAGR4 C1ALIS AND MORE WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM No. Really, though, it went something like this: I remember we agreed on May...
My upcoming move is forcing two changes in my online connectivity: 1) temporary disconnection, until I set up permanent internet service at my new apartment, and 2) potentially permanent disconnection from things like AIM. I'm waffling a bit on the second point. AIM is a fantastic service for managing the...
Part of my Corporate Moving Experience™ involves loads of handy flyers and emails detailing what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. For the most part, this is a good thing—I suspect most people (myself included) would simply cruise on autopilot without considering that we needed to address most of...
Being relocated by professional movers has been exceedingly complicated. I've been in touch with, at last count, eight different people about various parts of the move. In most cases, it seems like the responsibilities are subcontracted downward three or four levels—it seems somewhat unnecessary to me, but then again, I'm...
I'm knee-deep in the relocation process at the moment. So far, I've had four or five ~20 minute discussions with representatives from each of the individual entities laundering the contract to move me, my stuff, and my recently deballed (but still flatulent) cat. As part of this whole mess, I've...
Today marks the 30-day point to graduation. And, I'm still not excited. I suspect I will be, at some point—but not yet. In other news, my relocation work has begun. I'm having a very difficult time organizing my schedule between graduation and my first day of work (which was agreed...
+/- 1 day. Results courtesy of Gallup Polls. I have to admit that I'm much less excited about graduating than I am about actually starting work. I guess I don't really see my academic involvement ending for a very long time, and graduation doesn't really indicate anything other than the...
I would like to congratulate my good friend Manuel on his recent defiance of the ever-rolling cogs of fate. Hopefully he'll be joining me (and all the other techies) in Seattle in May! Editor's note: Linking that image was a significant part of the motivation of this post....
...we will have replaced television with Smell-O-Vision. Or so I keep reading. I remember doing a creative writing assignment sometime earlier in my education. I can't recall exactly when I did it—I suppose anywhere between my 6th and 10th grade years seems about right—but the details are still with me...
When I interviewed for my new job*, I was told that everyone in that particular group had at least one of three things:Italian citizenship, an old, giant American SUV, or a terrible chain-smoking habit. Apparantely there's one guy with all three. So which is it, folks? 1978 Dodge Ramcharger or...
I've been thinking about what I've heard concerning the social culture in Redmond. Microsoft employees are guaranteed perks like gym memberships and free bus rides anywhere within the city thanks to corporate deals that the company has with these entities and the philanthropy of certain someones. I hadn't really ever...
I admit, I have a pet peeve. Some of you in TV land may be saying, what, just one? I admit, you may have a point—but that's really neither here nor there. Every day of my life, I'm surrounded by people who play video games, watch TV, sit through classes,...
