Boom shaka laka! According to this press release, Microsoft is releasing SP1 for Office 2008 at noon PDT today. It should be up on Mactopia shortly.
Category Archives: General Tech Stuff
Office 2008 Service Pack 1 released
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Filed under General Tech Stuff, UC&C
What’s on my Kindle?
Well, nothing yet, because it doesn’t get here until tomorrow. Amazon sent me a mail telling me that I can start ordering content, though, and it will be automatically delivered as soon as I unbox and boot the Kindle. With that in mind, here’s what I’m putting on it:
- Snow Crash
: I’ve been wanting a copy of this for a while because I no longer have one
- A Fighter’s Heart
: looks like a really interesting tour of the MMA circuit
- Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
: I can’t wait to have a searchable electronic copy of this!
- All of Cory Doctorow’s fiction
- The two books of the Lost Fleet series that I haven’t yet read: Courageous and Dauntless
- Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal: hey, it’s free, and the boys will enjoy reading it.
- Count Zero: another oldie-but-goodie. I had my hand on this the other day at Books-a-Million.
That’s enough to get me started, I reckon.
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Taking the Kindle plunge
Heaven help me. I just ordered an Amazon Kindle, the electronic book device. Given how much I travel, and how much everyone in the family reads, it seems like it would be a really good deal. I have some qualms, though, like the fact that I can’t resell (or loan) books once they’re bought. However, I routinely spend $15-30 per trip on paperbacks to read, and I love the idea of being able to grab a new book on demand. I’ll give it a try. Expect a full review once I’ve had a chance to play with it some.
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Famous by association
My friend Jason Buffington (XBL: DarkJediHunter) is now famous after writing this review of SceneIt! for Xbox.com. We loves us some SceneIt here, and I encourage you to check it out if you like family games or movies.
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Filed under Friends & Family, General Tech Stuff
MVP Summit wrap-up
One of the tough things about the MVP Summit is that practically everything there is covered under NDA. That makes it hard to adequately convey how cool some of the stuff we saw and learned was. Suffice it to say that it’s going to be an exciting year in the unified communications world, and I’ve got lots of article topics queued up for the future!
My summit attendance pattern is a little atypical: I usually skip all of the executive keynotes, so this year’s organization was perfect– the keynotes were on the last day instead of the first. Monday had some open/birds-of-a-feather sessions, so I used that time to fly in and hit the office, where I spent some time planning the details of how we’re using (and customizing) Microsoft CRM. CRM makes me frustrated because I know so little about how to use it, and I’m not a professional salesman. However, I’m excited about better automating our sales process, as well as some of the UC integration features that we can deliver.
Tuesday and Wednesday were all deep technical days. I can’t say much about those, except that they were awesome. Thanks to the Exchange and OCS product teams for coming to talk to us!
Thursday was executive keynote day. I skipped the keynotes and flew home on the Wednesday red-eye, but after reading the transcript of Steve Ballmer’s talk it doesn’t look like I missed anything.
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At the MVP Summit
Wow.
My mind is being blown by some of the things the Exchange team is showing us. One of the best things about being an Exchange MVP is that we have a really good rapport with the product group. Some groups have bad intra-group relationships, and others have friction between the product group and the MVPs. In this case, though, the product team does a stellar job of soliciting and accepting feedback, and it’s been to both our benefits. Can’t wait to talk about some of the things they’re showing!
(and funny side note: the space bar on my MacBook Pro is sticking, so I keep typing compound words like “keeptyping” and “productplan”. This makes me feel vaguely German.)
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Filed under General Tech Stuff, Travel, UC&C
Nintendo: great customer experience
David managed to break his Nintendo DS Lite; he snapped off part of the headphone plug fairly deep inside the jack. I didn’t want to tackle taking it apart, and I’d heard rumors on the intertubes that Nintendo offered drop-off service. Because Nintendo customer service center. It’s conveniently located a few blocks away from Microsoft’s campus, so I took the broken DS with me and drove over there yesterday afternoon. It took less than 10 minutes for me to walk in, show the busticated DS to the friendly guy behind the counter, and get a refurb unit with a fresh 1-year warranty. David is now back in business. This is the best customer service experience I’ve ever had at a store– I wish Microsoft would take some lessons from this and apply them to the Xbox 360 service process.
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Filed under General Stuff, General Tech Stuff
So what’s the other 30% made of?
I’m in coach on a Delta flight from Cincinnati to Seattle. Delta recently started a new food-for-sale program called EATS. The folks over at FlyerTalk seem to like it pretty well. I had Chik-Fil-A in CVG, and I’m headed to a lunch meeting, so I didn’t want a full meal, but I did buy a Clif Mojo bar. It’s pretty good– sort of like a light pretzel with some peanut chunks. However, I’m a little disconcerted by the label, which has a blazon proclaiming “70% organic”. What does that mean? Is the other 30% inorganic? Did I just get my RDA of aluminum and silicon? Should I have only eaten the first 2/3rds of the bar and left the remaining 33% behind to make sure I didn’t eat anything unhealthy?
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Filed under General Tech Stuff, Musings
Live from INTERACT: It’s Mac Messenger 7.0
Eileen Brown of Microsoft was kind enough to organize a bloggers’ lunch at INTERACT 2008 today. There was a good crowd, including some folks I knew and many that I hadn’t previously met. I got there late and had to leave early, but in between, we got a great presentation on the inner workings of the Exchange team blog, plus a panel discussion with several senior Microsoft folks from the Unified Communications Group. As a closing surprise, we got permission to talk about a previously unannounced product that has heretofore been under deep NDA: the Mac business unit at Microsoft is close to releasing a new version of Mac Messenger, version 7.0, that adds some impressive new functionality.
Like earlier versions, the new Messenger release can simultaneously connect to the Windows Live Messenger service and corporate IM networks. In this case, Messenger adds support for OCS 2007 using the same enhanced presence model that Office Communicator uses. Better yet, it supports voice and video with other OCS users! I’ve been using this feature for a while and it rocks. Combine it with OCS’ ability to federate contacts across multiple organizations, and it rocks even more. Voice and video quality in my tests has been excellent, and the OCS support carries on Messenger’s tradition of providing a very Mac-ish user experience. I hope to get permission to post some screenshots in the next day or two; more news when there is news.
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Getting ready for INTERACT2008
This week, I’m getting ready to attend INTERACT2008, Microsoft’s new community event for unified communications. I think of it as a replacement for the long-departed and much-missed Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC), but it’s not really the same thing. INTERACT is more focused, with a much higher technical session level. Press aren’t invited, but MVPs and other community influencers are. There should be a large presence from Microsoft’s engineering teams, which is always good. The whole event is structured around trying to reinforce the growing MS UC&C community and help it grow– a worthwhile goal.
I’m presenting two sessions and proctoring a hands-on lab. The sessions are both on UC development: one on the APIs you can use across various parts of Microsoft’s UC product line, and one on Exchange Web Services. The hands-on lab is really cool: it’s a distillation of the two days’ worth of labs that 3Sharp built as part of the UC Metro project for Microsoft. If you come do the labs, you’ll be getting the same training that Microsoft provides its ISV partners. If you’re going to be at INTERACT, drop me a line and let me know.
Technorati Tags: 3sharp, Exchange 2007, Unified Communications, Unified Messaging
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Filed under General Tech Stuff, Travel, UC&C
Windows Mobile 6.1 announced
I knew it was coming, but I missed the formal announcement. Microsoft has the details here, along with this handy feature comparison chart. Notable improvements in 6.1 include support for System Center Mobile Device Manager, cut-and-paste support for non-touchscreen devices, Exchange account auto-discovery, and a revamped home screen interface for non-touchscreen devices. There’s a list of devices that will receive the upgrade. Sadly, my Treo 750 isn’t on it, so no SCMDM love for me.
Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile
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IBM suspended from federal government contracts
Apparently IBM has been suspended from participation in any contracts with the US federal government. Declan McCullough has the story here. It appears that the suspension is unusual in that IBM hasn’t had a chance to respond to the original charges. More news as it develops.
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“Hello World” with iPhone Interface Builder
The latest release of the iPhone SDK includes a version of Interface Builder that understands Cocoa Touch objects.
Fortunately, Muthu Arumugam has a solution. It didn’t work at first because I had created my first nib as a view, not as a window. (I understand that it was also in the release notes for IB, which I will go back and read as penance.)
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Certificate Use in Exchange 2007 Server
Microsoft has posted a very useful document called “Certificate Use in Exchange 2007 Server” that outlines pretty much everything you need to know about how Exchange 2007 uses certificates. In particular, it nicely explains the use of subject alternative name (SAN) certificates. Check it out.
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Tech Toy of the Week (3/27/08): GN 9350 headset
Here’s how much I like the GN 9350
The 9350 is a lightweight wireless headset that features two connections: a USB plug that enables it to work with Communicator or other computer applications, plus a conventional headset connector. Two buttons on the headset base let you switch back and forth between modes. This allows you to quickly switch between a regular desk phone and applications like Skype, Mac Messenger, or Office Communicator.
Audio quality is excellent, as is range. My base unit is on my desk, in the northeast corner of the second floor. I can talk on the phone from anywhere in the yard, or even in the southwest corner of the basement. I particularly like this feature for long phone calls, as it means I can grab a diet Coke when I need one. (Sadly, there’s no mute button on the headset itself, so ix-nay on wearing it into the athroom-bay.) I easily get a full 9 hours of battery life, and the battery is replaceable so you can keep a spare on hand.
The 9350 features two headbands: one goes over the top of the head, and the other wraps around the back. I prefer the wraparound, but I appreciate that I got to make the choice. There’s also an optional remote handset lifter, the RHL-1000. I haven’t bought one because it’s only useful if you’re close enough to the phone to hear it ring, which generally I’m not.
At an MSRP of $299, this is an expensive piece of equipment (though you can find refurb units at Hello Direct for $199 or so). However, it’s made a huge difference in my ability to talk for long periods on the phone, which has ultimately made me quite a bit more productive. I give it two thumbs up.
Filed under General Tech Stuff, Reviews
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