I spent three days this week with a rather intense migraine. Hovering between pain and vertigo, I had an idea for a blog post I wanted to write. I blathered into Dragon Dictation on my iPad, only to realize I was rambling on about a subject that needed simplicity. So I waited to write when I was cogent. I believe that Ken Segall’s upcoming book likely covers some of the same area I’m about to – albeit in more depth,…
Recently a peer and I were talking about the phrase in the title of this post. We both heard it at Microsoft, and I know I heard it at startups after I left too. If you haven’t heard it before, the idea is as follows. There are three properties of a product: Delivery date Key features Product quality Generally when building a product, one of them gets cut, so you wind up usually only delivering two: Features and quality, but…
I’ve asked repeatedly for more information on Windows for the ARM platform. Today, I got it. I still have a few questions, and I have some nagging concerns still. But they did answer a few key questions. In his blog post today, Steven Sinofsky discussed quite a bit, but you can break it down into roughly 6 areas: Windows on ARM (WoA) fundamentals (what it is, and what it isn’t). The Consumer Preview (and the role – or lack thereof…
For more than 10 years, I’ve used Microsoft’s 10 Immutable Laws of Security as a “debate ender”. The 10 Immutable Laws is an article that can help unlock some simple security fundamentals in a manner easily digested by those new to security. I’ve been getting more and more irritated with the people “running” my government lately. I say “running” because enough of us vote for these people to get them in to federal, state, and local offices. But once they…
I was able to find a customer on the Office 15 Technical Preview, and confidentially asked them 10 questions about the Technical Preview, based on just a few days of use. The results are below, and I think you’ll find them both surprising and informative. Q1: What are you most excited about in Office 15? “Without a doubt, we are most excited that Office 15 will run on both redacted and redacted“ Q2: Is there a feature that you think…
Last October, I noted on Twitter that an unusual (I mean highly unusual) number of spammers on Twitter used an avatar photo of a woman. But not just any woman. In addition, many spammers seemed to use a photo of a woman specifically with cleavage showing. Since I have been doing some research on criminal domains that involves a fair amount of REST querying anyway, it didn’t take much work for me to build a query engine where before reporting them…
Do the engineers who design the electrical supplies for electronic gadgets hate their customers? Am I wrong, or doesn’t it seem like this 20+ year passive/aggressive game of inconsistent sizes, voltages, wattages, and connectors , along with designing AC adapters that block AC wall outlets or take up two or more spaces on a surge suppressor has gone on too long? I’m cleaning my office today. At least I’m trying to. I’m getting rid of two old Netgear WiFi routers,…
While reading a friend’s Windows 8/ARM article on Forbes, I had what is often described as a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious). For a year now, we’ve all been theorizing (err… guessing?) what Windows 8 on ARM would look like. The biggest question has been the will they/won’t they of the Win32 desktop on ARM. Early on I thought it’d be there. Then later last year I thought maybe not. Now, I think, I’m all but certain it won’t…
I’ve mentioned before how much time I spend investigating spam. It’s allowed me to observe some pretty interesting, sometimes amusing, often annoying, criminal behavior. I also enjoy analyzing Twitter spam as well, and have built a pretty interesting collection of spammer examples. One of the most common things I see on Twitter, though, is spammers using shortlinks to try and pull off their crime. Shortlinks (goo.gl, bit.ly, etc) have made sharing links handy, especially on character limited communication mediums such…
From when I joined Microsoft in 1997 until I left in 2004, and even since then (but especially during the heady days of the DOJ lawsuit), accusations flew fast and furious accusing Microsoft of misusing the word “innovation”, that Microsoft couldn’t innovate, or didn’t innovate. To a large part, I don’t agree with that. Sure, you can say that Windows Phone 7 was a reaction to the iPhone and Android, but it wasn’t a clone, and it attempts to offer a…