BillCan's Place : Miscellaneous

Coolest device of the show (so far?)

BillCan — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:32:00 GMT

On the way to lunch today, I was approached by someone with a small black device just a bit too large to fit in your shirt pocket. It turns out that it is an OQO, a device she billed as "the smallest Vista PC in the world". This thing was pretty amazing, featuring 1GB of RAM and a 60 GB hard drive, and a full keyboard in a really small package. I'm not sure how useful it would actually be to own and tote around, but it has pegged the Geek-Meter here at Tech Ed!

What's a PM do to unwind?

BillCan — Thu, 31 May 2007 09:36:00 GMT

I consider myself a pretty typical PM, and like most PMs at Microsoft, I like to unwind by playing bass drum in a bagpipe band. You can see me doing just that with my band, the Keith Highlanders Pipe Band, in this photo.

Wow! Microsoft Surface looks pretty cool!

BillCan — Thu, 31 May 2007 05:05:00 GMT

There's been a lot of buzz around Microsoft regarding the Microsoft Surface announcement today. I had seen this a while back at TechFest, the internal event put on by Microsoft Research every year. At the time I thought it was really cool. But I've got to say, checking out the videos at http://www.microsoft.com/surface, the production version looks like it's going to be way cooler than the prototype! Check it out!

The Joy of Hand Off

BillCan — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:55:00 GMT

There's nothing like handing off to the Release Manager and being "done" with your project. After many months and lots of twists and turns, I've handed the final pieces of the Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs off to Karina (our RM) who is taking what we created and getting "out there". We haven't shipped just yet, and there's still time for something to pop up (as happened yesterday), but (knock on wood) we will be releasing to web soon.

Today I had my first nearly stress-free day in a months. Note that not every day is a "high blood pressure" stress fest, but as a PM, you are always the butt on the line for the project, and so you always carry that responsibility. Now that I've handed everything off to Release, I was able to relax a bit and take care of some things I'd been putting off (reviewing a patent submission, looking into some online training, registering for sessions on PM Day, etc.) It was really nice!

Soon I will be starting Envisioning on my next project, but until then I'm enjoying a bit of a breather. This is the life!

Tech Ed Bound!

BillCan — Sat, 19 May 2007 07:41:00 GMT

I will be going to Tech Ed again this year. I'll be working at our "Security & Compliance" booth, and presenting a chalk talk on the first day of the show. I'm also conducting a side meeting to discuss problems related to secure collaboration that our customers are having.

I love going to Tech Ed because it gives me a chance to meet customers and understand their problems. I also get a chance to see what the other teams at Microsoft are doing all in one place.

Anyway, stop by and say hi at the "Security & Compliance" booth if you get a chance!

Do you IM? Make it count more!

BillCan — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:50:00 GMT

If you IM, you can make it count more by using Windows Live Messenger. Basically, Microsoft will share a portion of the advertising revenue with one of several major charities. Participating is a breeze, just change your display name in the Live Messenger client. Visit im.live.com to learn more about this exciting opportunity to give a little back.

Have you heard about CodePlex?

BillCan — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:40:00 GMT

If you are familiar with SourceForge, you might want to check out CodePlex. According to their website, CodePlex (www.codeplex.com) is "Microsoft's open source project hosting web site." It has a lot of the features that SourceForge provides (issue tracker, discussions, source code distribution, etc.), but has one really cool feature: it is based on Microsoft's Vistual Studio Team Foundation Server. This means that it can be tightly integrated into your Visual Studio development environment.

I'm no developer, but CodePlex seems like a really cool idea. In fact, a number of Microsoft project teams are actually participating in community development efforts using CodePlex. Check it out at www.CodePlex.com.

Patent Cubes

BillCan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 08:37:00 GMT

One of the cool things about working at Microsoft (a lot of my posts begin this way, don't they?) is that they encourage you to file patents on cool ideas that you've had. I've had lots of (I think) great ideas throughout my life (haven't we all), but since I've been at Microsoft, I've filed two of them with the US Patent and Trademark Office. There's no telling if either will actually be issued a patent, but I did receive two cool black marble cubes engraved with my name, the name of the invention, and the date of the patent filing. These black patent cubes are I nice way to be recognized for your good work creating intellectual property for the company.

The good news is that I had another idea accepted to be filed as a patent recently. That will make 3 patent cubes in 3 years. Not too shabby!!!

Not work related, but still cool...

BillCan — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 07:09:00 GMT

I am in training to run a marathon. I will (hopefully) be running the Spirit of St. Louis Marathon on April 15th of this year. I'm 9 weeks into my training program, and am blogging my program at http://2020program.blogspot.com.

Wow!

BillCan — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:27:00 GMT

I just sat in on a presentation about the launch plans for Windows Vista. All I can say is "Wow!" You should definitely plan to pick up your personal copy of Vista (I recommend Home Premium for most home users and Ultimate for the uber-geeks) on January 30th when the launch is in full swing...

Windows Vista just keeps getting better and better!

BillCan — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:28:00 GMT

I've been running more and more recent versions of Windows Vista, and each one just gets better and better. At this point they are putting in a lot of the fit and finish things that really make the system nice to use.

I suggest that you keep an eye on http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc1/en/download.html and install the RC1 build if you get a chance. I think you'll be impressed.

Bill's Xbox 360 Strategy

BillCan — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 20:46:00 GMT

Last year we got a really nice new hi-def TV. Unfortunately, we have an old non-progressive scan, non-up-converting DVD player. So, we need a new DVD player anyway, so how about getting an Xbox 360 to fill in as DVD player? In addition, the DVD player can also act as a media extender, and can:

Display images off the main family computer
Play music off the main family computer
Play DVDs (up-converting and progressive scan)
Play music and MP3 CDs
Allow chat, etc. on Xbox Live
(Oh, and it can play games too!)

I really think this is the way to go...

Visual Studio 2005: Wow!!!

BillCan — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 20:41:00 GMT

I am no developer, but I've been playing around with VS2005 and it rocks! I am not much of a programmer, but I've been able to create some pretty cool web pages using VS2005, with very little coding.

I strongly encourage you to check out the new Visual Studio, even if you aren't a hard-core developer. You can get your hands on a free version called Visual Studio Express at http://www.microsoft.com/vstudio. I think you will be impressed by what you see.

Old News: Microsoft Purchases Groove Networks

BillCan — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 01:36:00 GMT

This happened a few days ago. The announcement is on the homepage of Groove's website (http://www.groove.net/home/index.cfm).

One of the big pieces of this acquisition is that Ray Ozzie comes with it. Ray was the creator of Lotus Notes. I don't know too much about Groove Networks, but it looks like they have software that does some of the cool things that Notes does. How this shakes out in our product line remains to be seen.

It seems that Microsoft is on a buying binge, having recently purchased Giant Software, Sybari, and Groove since I've been here (5 months). Who knows where it will end???

New World Cup Blog

BillCan — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:56:00 GMT

Some guy is blogging about his planned trip to the World Cup next year...