I never would have imagined myself in an arm-wrestling match with the floppy disk drive. But sitting where I did in Windows setup, that’s exactly what happened. A few times. When I had started at Microsoft, a boot floppy was critical to setting up a new machine. Not by the time I was in setup. Since Remote Installation Services (RIS) could start with a completely blank machine, and you could now boot a system to WinPE using a CD, there…
The college I went to had very small cells… I mean dorm rooms. Two people to a small concrete walled-room, with a closet, bed, and desk that mounted to the walls. The RA on my floor (we’ll call him “Roy”) was a real stickler about making us obey the rules – no televisions or refrigerators unless they were rented from the overpriced facility in our dorm. After all, he didn’t want anybody creating a fire hazard. But in his room? A large…
This is a response to Steven Sinofsky’s blog post, “Why Sony’s Breach Matters”. While I agree with parts of his thesis – the parts about layers of complexity leaving us where we are, and secured, legacy-free mobile OS’s helping alleviate this on the client side, I’m not sure I agree with his points about the cloud being a path forward – at least in any near term, or to the degree of precision he alludes to. The bad news is that…
Recently, Michael Dell wrote about the after-effects of taking his company private. I think his words are quite telling: “I’d say we got it right. Privatization has unleashed the passion of our team members who have the freedom to focus first on innovating for customers in a way that was not always possible when striving to meet the quarterly demands of Wall Street.”, and “The single most important thing a company can do is invest and innovate to help customers succeed…” Early…
As soon as I saw today’s news, I thought that there would be confusion about what “Office for tablets and smartphones going free” would mean. There certainly has been. Office for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets is indeed free, within certain bounds. I’m going to attempt to succinctly delinate the cases under which it is, and is not, free. Office is free for you to use on your smartphone or tablet if, and only if: You are not using…
On my flight today, I rewatched the documentary Objectified. I’ve seen it a few times before, but it has been several years. While I don’t jibe with 100% of the sentiment of the documentary, it made me think a bit about design, as I was headed to Dallas. In particular, it made me consider Apple, Microsoft, and Google, and their dramatically different approaches to design – which are in fact a reflection of the end goal of each of the…
As I write this, I’m on a plane at 30,000+ feet, headed to Chicago. Seatmates include a couple from Toronto headed home from a cruise to Alaska. The husband and I talk technology a bit, and he mentions that his wife particularly enjoys sending letters as they travel. He and I both smile as we consider the novelty in 2014 of taking a piece of paper, writing thoughts to friends and family, and putting it in an envelope to travel…
When was the last time you paid to read a piece of content on the Web? Most likely, it’s been a while. The users of the Web have become used to the idea that Web content is (more or less) free. And outside of sites that put paywalls up, that indeed appears to be the case. But is the Web really free? I’ve had lots of conversations lately about personal privacy, cookies, tracking, and “getting scroogled“. Some with technical colleagues, some with…
I’m pretty lucky. For now, this is the view from my office window. You see all those boats? I get to look out at the water, and those boats, all the time (sun, rain, or snow). But those boats… honestly, I see most of those boats probably hundreds of days per year more than their owners do. I’d bet there’s a large number of them that haven’t moved in years. The old adage goes “The two happiest days in a…
About every two months, a colleague and I travel to various cities in the US (and sometimes abroad) to teach Microsoft customers how to license their software effectively over a rather intense two-day course. Almost none of these attendees want to game the system. Instead, most come (often repeatedly, sometimes with more people each time) to simply understand the ever-changing rules, how to apply them correctly, and how to (as I often hear it said) “do the right thing”. Doing…