We want to hear your stories
Jul 25, 2008
Hey folks, if you’ve built some cool project, the Non-Pro team wants to hear from you! Send them an email!
Fun Silverlight Game: Crayon Cannon
Jul 21, 2008
Kudos to the Popfly team for adding new features in their July update. My favorite features are the pre-loading of assets which will pre-load images, audio, video before a game starts so it doesn’t lag out and the **High Score **service. The full list of features can be found on the Popfly Team blog. Crayon Cannon If you haven’t played this game, stop what you’re doing and give it a try.…more
Bioware Knights of the Old Republic MMO Coming!
Jul 17, 2008
Woohoo! From Joystiq, Bioware has officially spilled the beans that they are building a MMO based on the Knights of the Old Republic game. The first KOTOR game was amazing, clearly one of the best Xbox games ever and an amazing twist at the end…in short, a masterpiece. Hotness! Here are the notes from the Future of MMO’s panel in February at GDC that included Ray Muyzka from Bioware
Goodbye to Bill Gates Links
Jun 28, 2008
Yes, it’s Bill’s last day, here’s a collection of videos for your viewing pleasure: Channel 9: Bill Gates: Transitioning into the Future * Channel 9: This Week on Channel 9 with Jeff Sandquist and Bill Gates stories * Channel 9: ‘Softies share their Bill Gates stories * MS PressPass: Bill Gates Looking Backing, Moving Ahead * CNN: Bill Gates Slideshow narrated by Bill Gates * MSNBC: Tom Brokaw interview with Bill Gates You should also check out the Bill Gates Retirement Party on Gizmodo and Bill Gates Day on Engadget…more
The Superficial Poll: Blonde or Brunette
Jun 23, 2008
Margaret Rouse from the Overheard blog calls me out for dying my hair blonde: _I'm a big Dan Fernandez fan -- but I had a hard time watching [this video](http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=cf82a3a9-d2b8-46f5-8e83-683c7d77c082) because I kept thinking "why did you bleach your hair?"_ Now Margaret has nice things to say about me (thank you!), but I was a bit taken back because I never thought my hair was a distraction.…more
Bill Gates Transition Interview on Channel 9
Jun 23, 2008
In case you haven’t heard, this week is BillG’s last week as a full-time Microsoft employee as he transitions to working full-time at his foundation. Sure, he’ll still be the Chairman of the board and there are some projects that he will work with directly, but it is still a bit weird to think about Microsoft without Bill Gates. In this 30 minute Channel 9 interview with Charles Torre, you’ll hear Bill talk about his transition, Ray Ozzie, competing against Google, improving Microsoft’s agility, what’s going to be important for our platform in the next decade and of course Bill’s role at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.…more
New Popfly Game Creator Features
Jun 18, 2008
Adam Nathan recently blogged about some of the new features they’ve added to Popfly Game Creator including the color swapper for skinning actors, guidelines and snapping for aligning characters, actor stamping for easier tiling, new events, and the ability to clone a level! All-in-all, this should make building games using Popfly even easier. Check out Adam’s post for the full details.
Coding4Fun Talk at TechEd
Jun 11, 2008
At TechEd this year, I gave what can only be described as an overly ambitious talk given I only had 45 minutes: **Coding4Fun: **The Secrets to Programming YouTube, iTunes, Microsoft Zune, Windows Vista Peer-to-Peer APIs, and Even World of Warcraft I say overly ambitious as YouTube, Vista P2P, and Warcraft could easily have been dedicated 75 minute sessions so covering all of them enough to be meaningful in 45 minutes was….…more
SQL Server Express 2008: Now in two flavors
Jun 10, 2008
As I blogged about on Channel 9 earlier (I love that we can have text and video posts now), SQL Server 2008 RC0 is now available for download. On the download page, you may have noticed that there are two versions of SQL Server Express SQL Server 2008 Express 2. SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services While the SQL Server 2008 Editions page doesn’t list the “Advanced Services” Express Edition, luckily Mike Wachal from the SQL Server Express team posted a detailed breakdown of the differences on the SQL Server Express blog.…more
Jeff Sandquist on Microspotting
May 16, 2008
Ariel interviews Jeff Sandquist, my manager on scary VPs and the dfiference between evangelists and apologists. Best quote: _"When I first started here, I was terrified of the higher ups. They were almost like Santa Claus -- these mythical figures running these billion dollar businesses."_