Archive for Projects
July 6, 2007 at 3:45 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, Projects, Community, Technology
So, two days ago I gave a Popfly demo in Brussels, in the house of the future - aka ‘Living Tomorrow’. The event itself was called ‘Circle of Media’ and it’s in fact an initiative to interact with reps from interactive marketing agencies, key influencers, bloggers and journalists. The idea is to do this in an informal context to present our latest products and technologies. The event is closed by a networking moment where everyone can ask employees anything about the topics (or related products/services). As long as it’s not under NDA, we can talk about it :-)
Objectives :
- Perception change : Microsoft is an open, innovative company
- Increase our circle of influence
- NO top story nor Revenue target.
The Circle of Media intends to prepare Tomorrow
Agenda :
- Visit of the House of the Future
(Living Tomorrow sponsored by Microsoft)
- Internet Zeitgeist, Sylvie Irzi, Country manager OSB & Philippe Deltenre, Business Development Manager, OSB, Microsoft Belux
- Silverlight, Florent Pajani, Designer Marketing Manager, Microsoft EMEA & Luc Van de Velde, DPE Director, Microsoft Belux
- Popfly, Miel Van Opstal, Enthusiast evangelist, Microsoft Corp.
- Surface, Niels Famaey, Consumer Marketing Manager, Microsoft BeLux
- Drink and Barbecue
Maarten Schenk from SixApart was there too and captured my little demo. The demo is in Dutch, so I’m sorry if you can’t understand it. Should you have any questions related to PopFly, just drop ‘m in the comments and I’ll get you an answer!
Pictures are online as well - click here to check them out.
May 9, 2007 at 3:14 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Projects, Community
As mentioned on the 3pointD blog, we’re launching an island dedicated to Visual Studio in SecondLife. The MillionsOfUs team blogged about it yesterday, and it’s on TechMeMe today too. Although it is closely related to the secret project I’m working on, I didn’t contribute to this one. Pretty cool how they had a teaser trailer posted for it. Here’s the SoapBox edition of the movie:
So, what’s up with this island? It’s not the first island we, as Microsoft, own. As far as I know it’s the second one. The first one has been around for quite some time already, and the project I’m working on will be kicked off there pretty soon. This Visual Studio Island, however, has a special purpose. Over and above some truly unreal events, the island also contains a series of hidden logic puzzles. If you solve them all, you’ll get into Second Life’s top VIP room where the grand prize awaits.
What you need is a break from arguing over your favorite Star Trek captain, the doldrums of watching Frodo defeat Sauron…again, and re-enacting those classic Snake Eyes vs. Destro battles. (Please, no Ewoks.)
You KNOW you want to join in the fun. [..] we’ll have an island full of mystery eggs and a giant blimp. What’s not to love?
WHEN: Thursday, May 10th, 6pm PST / 6pm Second Life time
WHERE: Visual Studio Island in Second Life
DRESS CODE: PJs, jeans or your favorite sweats
SNACKS: Whatever’s in your fridge
Register for the Event:
To get access to the Island and attend the event, please visit the Visual Studio Island registration page. If you’re already a member of Second Life, you’ll be able to teleport directly to the Visual Studio Island and you’re on your way. If you’re a newbie, we’ll help guide you through the Second Life registration process and help you set up your Avatar. Registration Zone - Click here
SLURL (direct link in the game)
April 23, 2007 at 11:27 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Projects, Mix Event
Mix07 is coming closer. I’ll be leaving on the 28th in the early morning to arrive around 4.30 PM in Vegas after a small stop in Chicago. It’s going to be an awesome adventure with lots of great sessions, keynotes and panel discussions. From Europe, around 150 influentials will be sent over to the event, and I kind of have to help out to welcome all those people and create digital memories (movies, pictures) around the entire experience.
In the light of that event, I’ve been busy all day today creating a mobile site with some handy content for during the event. More info about that can only be revealed at the event itself, but I’ve put the microsite online here, so you can have a look. It’s nothing awesome, just tried to create a nice design around it.
MIX is Microsoft’s conference for Web designers, developers and decision-makers who make their living at the forefront of the consumer Web. Join the conversation with Microsoft and others on how to harness the latest technologies, unlock new revenue opportunities, reduce development costs and improve customer experience. MIX is for cutting-edge Web professionals designing and building next-generation experiences.
Mix is THE networking event… it’s like ‘information gallore’. Plus, I finally get to meet Tom Raftery, and if he doesn’t punch me in the face in the first 5 seconds, I’ll buy him a beer.
Things I want to attend, if possible (the list is very extended):
- “Family.Show”: I See Dead People, with Windows Presentation Foundation
Speaker(s): Scott Stanfield - Vertigo
Audience(s): Designer, Developer
For a hobby that revolves around dead people, genealogy is remarkably popular: it’s the fastest-growing scene in North America. And a perfect study for Vertigo’s next Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) reference application for Microsoft. Our designers employed every trick in the WPF book (styles, resources, templates, data binding, animation, transforms) to present an innovative visualization of the classic family tree, freeing our developers to concentrate on behind-the-scenes features like XPS, printing, PInvoke wrapper for Windows Vista common dialogs, and Click-Once for WPF. See all of this with hands-on demos and our top-10 list of stuff to know about WPF and Microsoft Expression Blend. And, unlike the real-world case studies, you get the source code.
- “ZAP!, WHAM!, KAPOW!”: Windows Presentation Foundation and the Next Generation of Online Comic Book Reading
Speaker(s): Nathan Dunlap - IdentityMine, Robby Ingebretsen - IdentityMine
Audience(s): Business Decision Maker, Designer
Come see us demonstrate the development of the comic reading experience using the Microsoft Expression suite of design tools. Just as the NY Times Reader project dramatically improves the newspaper reading experience, our Windows Presentation Foundation-based approach to comic reading does the same thing for traditional print-based comic books.
- Build a Media Player
Audience(s): Designer, Developer
Build a WMV file and media player with Microsoft Expression Media Encoder, and edit with Expression Blend. Within this exercise, you’ll create chapters, a chapter view with thumbnails, and an overlay.
- Create Your Own Windows Presentation Foundation RSS Reader
Audience(s): Developer
In this Mini-Lab, you will build your own RSS reader using WPF. You will be introduced to the concepts of data binding and data templating. In addition, you will style your RSS reader using Expression Blend.
- Fumbling towards AGENCY 2.0
Speaker(s): Clement Mok
Audience(s): Business Decision Maker, Designer, Developer
Marketing organizations are broken. Three out of four marketing departments have reorganized in the past two years. Almost 80% of marketers don’t influence a critical customer interaction, and 85% don’t even own the “four Ps” of marketing anymore (product, placement, promotion and price). In this session, learn about approaches that make it easier for marketing organizations to succeed in today’s complex environment.
- IE7 Past, Present, and Future
Speaker(s): Chris Wilson - Microsoft
Audience(s): Business Decision Maker, Designer, Developer
Hear from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 team about the journey from mea culpa to broad market acceptance. Hear what went right, what had to be cut, and how development priorities are set. Also, understand what Microsoft’s browser investments mean to you, and make sure you get a voice in shaping the next version of Internet Explorer. Hear about what features and layout issues are being worked on, and let us know what causes you the most problems.
- Microsoft Expression Web Overview
Audience(s): Designer
In this lab, experience first-hand what Standards-based Web design is all about. Play with Microsoft Expression Web in different scenarios, gaining quick insight into this tool.
- Thinking in CSS: How to Build Great Looking Sites
Speaker(s): Molly Holzschlag - Digital One Corporation
Audience(s): Designer
Delve into CSS with Molly Holzschlag, and look at the power CSS offers to Web developers and designers. Hear Molly’s secrets about how to build stunning sites quickly and easily.
I’ll probably have to cut in the sessions and workshops, but at this time, these really seem to be the best ones for me, apart from the keynotes.
Obviously I’ll also be going to the Mix Party at the Pure Nightclub, the mythical club that hosted hundreds of famous parties already… Yeah, it’s going to be a great Mix. Find me there from April 28th til May 3rd!
April 23, 2007 at 10:36 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Projects, Vista, Vaio
Jeezes. I feel like a running helpdesk trying to get things all worked out. Apparently, from what I’ve learned up until today, there’s been an error in the image IT created from my original configuration. The error might have appeared while creating the image from the ‘mother’ laptop, or it might have occured whilst putting the image on the network, or while using the network boot to load the image on the other laptops. Whatever way it is, there’s something wrong and it’s somewhat my fault, I guess.
So, what have I been up to these last ten days? I installed and formatted the test-Vaio about 9 times from scratch, using the original Windows Vista Ultimate that came with every laptop, then I installed Office again, then all the drivers and utilities from the Sony site, then the sidebar. When it was all done, I tried every known issue, until it was unreproducable.
The there’s a tiny little small issue with OneCare. I can activate it, it’s added to my Live account, but it doesn’t seem to be able to communicate with the software on the laptop, because that seems to keep on believing I’m still running the trial however the serial key has been entered and accepted. Ugh. Luckily some people are on it, trying to fix it asap, so I can get the other bloggers to enjoy the same service and normally, in the end, everything will work smoothly.
That said, if there’s anyone out there who has issues with Vista and Vaio combined, I think in the meantime I qualify as a certified problem solver… This sooo reminds me of the time when I was working at an ISP and I spent my lunches laughing with the guys over at the helpdesk… with the people who called in. Karma always comes back to haunt you. Trust me.
Other than that, the good news is I finally actually got to help out Tom Raftery, and also Hans Mestrum who’re now able to run Second Life on Windows Vista, just like I am. And on the Vaio. Yeey.
So, before I head to Vegas I’ll fire off an email to all bloggers and describe the install procedure from scratch, should they have the need to reinstall. Sorry for the inconvenience guys. I didn’t really think it would be this tricky to do a sysprep and copy the image you created afterwards.
March 22, 2007 at 12:33 pm ·
Filed under Projects, Technology, Vista, Vaio
Man… this is going to be hard :-) As part of the Vaio Influencer Program, a laptop has been sent to Ireland to reside in the loving care and attention span of Tom Raftery. Hardly unpacked, Raftery already pointed out a few bugs, one of them kept me and a few colleagues busy for quite a few hours yesterday. Reproducing the error was quite easy, but fixing it… that was something else. Eventually we managed to find out what the bug was and what it was caused by.
Tom couldn’t ’send to documents’ by right-clicking a powerpoint file on his desktop. Explorer crashed, Vista recovered. That’s not really pleasant to experience, and I must say it’s not something I tried out before shipping the laptops. So, what was going on here? We’ve done uninstalls of OneCare and Office, reinstalled it, had it updated… the entire show. Nothing seemed to help. We switched from laptop to laptop to start from zero again with the clean install, but still no results. Then my colleague Tom Mertens came up with the solution.
It appears that if you prepare a laptop in full (install all programs, gadgets etc) and then sysprep it to erase all user data, it causes the ‘documents’ folder to be un-assigned to a profile on another laptop when you then take an image of the ‘cleaned’ laptop to install it on the others. Weird, but true.
So. We’ve fixed the issue on the remaining laptops that still need to be sent out, and here’s how it works (should you accidentally end up in the same situation): You open the ‘documents’ folder and leave it open, right-click the file to be sent and it’ll work fine. In the future, you’ll no longer have to keep the documents folder open, apparently it only needs to be done once, and only if you’ve installed the laptop with an image from a sysprepped device. After that, we’ve encountered no more issues alike with files from the desktop.
Some people ask me why on Earth you’d ask a guy like Tom Raftery to bash your products around. Well, this is exactly why. The guy sniffs bugs like it was fresh air, points them out so we can solve them. There’s no use in giving a laptop for a project like this to someone who nine-to-fives by using two or three applications. You’ve got to make the best of it, explore the boundaries and have this thing tested to the max. That’s exactly what I expect from someone like Tom. I think we’ll be cursing some more when Tom has a go on it, but in the end, it’ll benefit all users, and that’s exactly why we do this. Feedback, report, improve, update. A simple cycle to make life a little less hard.
Read Tom’s experiences at TomRafteryIT.net
March 15, 2007 at 5:44 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, Projects, Vista, Vaio
Today, the Vaio project I’ve been working on kicked off when I handed over the first laptop to the first blogger in the project. The setup of the project is rather simple. There are 10 laptops, and on all of them runs a Vista Ultimate. Besides the Vista, there’s also an Office Ultimate 2007 installed (the complete edition with OneNote, Grooves, and Outlook with Business Contact Manager). Those are the basic tools. The extras I installed are Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live OneCare (90 day trial, Microsoft points will be sent out later on to have a 12 month subscription) and Windows Live Writer beta.
Other than that I preinstalled the most common web tools like a recent Flash player, a Shockwave player, an Adobe Reader and a QuickTime standalone player without iTunes so that the laptops are really ready to use and the bloggers don’t have to start their experience with downloading all sorts of things.
As an extra, I downloaded all the original drivers and utilities that were installed on the laptop when I got them delivered with the Windows XP on, so that in case of a system problem, the orginal drivers are within reach. I also added all the released Vista compatiblity patches that Sony listed on their site. Everything is working fine, and I only had to install one XP driver, the one for the Mass Storage Controller. There wasn’t a Vista driver for that yet.
In the favorites folder of IE7, I added links to the Vaio Help Center, so the bloggers can check for theirselves if they want to update that driver, but like I said, everything is running smooth, normally there should be no need to reinstall or update the drivers. It’s just a service in the spirit of ‘precaution’.
For the sidebar, I added over 40 gadgets the bloggers can play with, going from Soapbox -, iStockPhoto - and Wikipedia search to a quick-play Media Player and Outlook alerts. The list of gadgets (gadget name + version / creator / description):
- Alarm Clock + 1.1 / link8506 / provides visual feedback when alarm rings
- BarCode Clock + 1.0.0.0 / Loke Uei / cool barcode clock
- Binsearch + 0.0.0.1 / Andrew Haigh / Find the binaries you want
- Bloglines Feeds + 1.0 / Jim Rogers / Keep track of bloglines feeds
- Bubble Wrap + 1.0.0.0 / Tim Blackshirt / Pop! Pop! Pop!
- Color Swatches + 1.0.0.0 / Tim Blackshirt / Slowly changing color combinations (copy RGB values)
- Contacts + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / See list of Windows contacts, search contacts etc
- CPU Meter + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / See current CPU and memory use
- Currency + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Convert from one currency to another
- Digital World Clock + 1.5 / Sanwar / place multiple clocks, edit the description and timezones
- Empty Space + 2.0.0.0 / All in One Computer Center / make empty space between gadgets
- Feng Shui Gadget + 1.0.1 / Techie Type Guy / Improve your energy flow, Feng Shui your desktop
- FTP Access + 1.0 / Rick Robey / easy to use FTP sever access gadget
- Future Clock + 1.0.0.0 / Mark Van Beek / Modern clock of the future
- Gmail checker + 1.1.0.0 / Jack Chapple / checks your Gmail account for new email periodically
- Gmail Inbox Reader + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Stay up to date on your Gmail inbox
- Gmail Quick Login + 1.0 / Justin Vaillancourt / Allows you to quickly login to Gmail
- Google Search Bar + 1.1.0.0 / Tijl Deneut / Search google for text or images
- IP Config + 1.0 / Vinod Unny / Displays your machine’s IP Address info
- iSee + 3.0 / Herman Amiune / Sidebar access to last YouTube, Google Videos and iTunes podcasts
- iStat Battery + 1.01 / iSlayer / Monitor battery usage
- iStockphoto Search + 1.0 / François Sachs / Search for stockphotos on istockphotos.com
- Live Messenger Gadget + 0.5 / Gary Zhao / Chat from the sidebar, see status of friends
- Live Search + 1.0.0.0 / Ross Dargan / Search the web using Live.com
- Live Search Maps + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Monitor Traffic Flow in your area (US)
- Magic 8-Ball + 0.5 / B. Rasmussen / Can’t decide or problems prediciting the future? The Magic Ball has it all!
- Memory Meter + 1.0 / SFkilla / Show memery stats (used, total, available), has 33 skins
- Notes + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Sticky notes – Post-its for the sidebar
- Outlook Info + 1.5.5 / Kelly Daamen / number of unread mail, upcoming appointments and tasks
- Outlook Tasks + 1.0.121.0 / Microsoft Corporation / See your daily tasks
- Phone Notify + 1.0.0.0 / CDYNE Corporation / Calls any phone in US + Canada and speaks the text you type
- Picture Puzzle + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Basic sliding puzzle
- Polaroid + 1.6.0.0 / Jonathan Abbott / place photos on your desktop, with some basic editing functions
- Run Program + 1.0.0.1 / Dima / type the name of a program, document, folder or internet resource and open it
- Say It! + 1.0.0.0 / LiveGadgets.net / Enjoy mindless fun listening to your computer swear
- Sidebar Pong + 1.0 / SJB / Sidebar Pong
- SlideShow 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / show a continuous slide of your pictures
- Soapbox on MSN Video Search + 1.0.0.0 / Todd Ostermeier / Search for videos on MSN Video
- Sphere Timer + 1.0.0.0 / Rogério Tomio Hirooka / Absolute TimeControl: clock-alarm-count-chrono
- Stocks + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Monitor your favorite stocks
- Systran Gadget + 1.0.7 / Systran / Translator and dictionary for 14 languages
- Terror Alert + 0.0.0.1 / Benjamin F. Beideman / Displays the current Homeland Security Advisory level
- TwentyFourClock + 0.1 / Rick Martinez / Tells the current time, 24 style (from the tv series)
- Unread Live Mail + 1.0 / Lawrence James / view unread mail items in Lever Messenger account
- Voodoo Doll + 1.0.0.0 / Team Blackshirt / Don’t get mad, get evil ! Mwahahahaha…
- Weather + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Weather from around the world
- Wikipedia + 1.0 / Eric Malamisura / Search Wikipedia for info
- Windows Media Player Gadget + 2.0 / David Thompson / Play files without opening WinMP
The purpose of this campaign is to collect feedback from bloggers with different social backgrounds, who also have different professional needs and different private needs when they use ‘our’ technology and software. Bloggers from all over Europe have been selected to participate, from Denmark, UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain… Obviously ‘we’ aimed for influential bloggers with a rather large audience in the hopes they would write about their experience with Vista, Office and the Live services. However, the bloggers are not committed to write anything. It’s not an exchange of goods for buzz or services. They are free to write what they want and if they want.
The big difference with the Ferarri campaign that ran in the US is that in this case, a personal line of communication is established between the bloggers and myself BEFORE the products are shipped, that I will ping them on a regular basis (every 2 or 3 weeks) for the coming months to help them out should anything happen or should they have questions. I will collect the feedback online through email and by following their blogs and offline as well, through meetings and phone calls, to stay in touch with them. I personally send out the laptops with my cell phone number and email address included, not some marketing agency with a call center or a ‘hold’ button, and the bloggers know exactly what ‘we’ (as Microsoft) expect when they sign up for the project. Only bloggers who have agreed to be part of this project will receive a laptop.
Starting next week on Monday, the shipping begins! I’m so excited! I really hope all goes well…
February 21, 2007 at 6:10 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, MicroLife, Projects
Sunny greetings from Switzerland. I’ve just finished interviewing Urs Muller, Matthias Rambold and Kalle Vänskä for a nice report for either Channel 9 or Channel 10, or wherever it fits in. The first interview was about the MWPSK, -my web pages starter kit - an ASP.NET Starter Kit application to build and manage websites online with all common pages types, forms, user management, rich text editor, html editor, events, news, downloads, guestbook and a ton of other features. I sat down with Urs Muller and Matthias Rambold and we discussed this fully functional Content Management System. Agreed, there are hundreds of CMS platforms out there already, but this one is a little bit special. As soon as the editing is done, I’ll publish the video here.
It doesn’t use a database, comes with a 1-2-3 easy setup, it’s open source AND it comes with 16 starter design templates out of the box. Reason enough to go have a little chat with the creators of this experiment.
Codeplex Link for the MWPSK
The other interview was with Urs Muller and Kalle Vänskä about UniveRSS, the three dimensional RSS reader that has been built as a showcase for WPF. UniveRSS leverages the Windows Presentation Foundation and provides a stunning way of visualizing RSS feeds and their content. It introduces a full-screen 3D universe where galaxies represent the folders of your RSS feed directory, and the stars are represented by the spinning cubes that hold the feed information. Size and position of the feed cubes indicate how many unread items they contain.
This cool thingy just got upgraded and now plays Flash movies that are embedded in blog posts, so for instance when you subscribe to a blog that posts DailyMotion or YouTube clips, you can play the content right away without leaving the application. In the demo (also online soon, when the editing is done) there’s also a part where Kalle shows the real-time integration by means of an earthquake tracker. The RSS lists all recent posts, and when you click on a post a small application is loaded inside UniveRSS which shows a globe with a pinpointer where the event took place. Clicking that pinpointer will load Virtual Earth in the application so you can easily see the map of the region. A click on an icon opens up an browser window where you can see more Virtual Earth details and use the navigation better.
Link to UniveRSS
After the video interviews I went to the Microsoft headquarters in Zurich to meet up with Christian Frei, and we talked a little about a future project of which I can’t say much but it’s going to be really cool to help set it up. It’s not really my project, but I’m very excited about it and I’ll help out wherever I can.
Then I went back to the hotel. I managed to reschedule my flight to tonight so I don’t have to leave tomorrow at noon, because I really have to finish the laptop project I’m working on. Damn, I love this job.
