24 blog posts tagged Microsoft

Working at Microsoft

What's it like working at Microsoft? Well, like all places there's good and bad and Microsoft is so large no two teams are quite alike...

Using your Xbox Kinect as a webcam for Skype on Windows

Thanks should go to ScottOrange on the MSDN forums however it’s along thread that has lots of pieces to pick out and try.

My one-year check-in with my Windows Phone 7

It’s been almost a year since I bit the Windows Phone 7 bullet and put my iPhone 3G away. As a long-time Mac fan (our house is nothing but Macs) I wasn’t sure I’d last…

Three weeks with Windows Phone 7 – a Mac users perspective

It’s been a few weeks since I took up Microsoft’s employee offer of a free Windows Phone 7 (when you renew a 2 year contract) and combined it with AT&T’s offer of buy-one-get-one-free for my wife.

Six great new features at Xbox.com

It’s been quite a while since xbox.com had a major update and today sees the launch of the new version with a clean new look and a whole host of new features that our teams here at LIVE engagement have been working on.

LINQ to SQL next steps

There has been a flurry of posts and comments in the last 24 hours over the future of LINQ to SQL so I thought it would be interesting to provide some information on what the LINQ to SQL team have been up to and what we’re working on for .NET Framework 4.0.

DLookup for Excel

I had to do a couple of ad-hoc Excel jobs today and found that whilst Excel has a VLookup function for spreadsheet/ranges it doesn’t have one for databases.

Microsoft opens Office binary file format specifications

Microsoft have released the binary file format specifications to their Office suite (the XML ones are already published) under their Open Specification Promise.

When SQL Server replication eats disk space

Part of my job involves revising our SQL Server architecture. My plan includes the addition of a read-only reporting SQL pair for non-critical inquiries and reports. This allows the heavy and unpredictable load from reporting away from from the primary SQL pair responsible for critical operations (shipping orders).

SQL Server replication blocking on cleanup job

For some time my primary workplace has been having a problem with SQL Server replication delaying for several minutes at a time which is surprising given the 12GB of RAM and quad processor hardware behind it.

Returned from Redmond

It’s been an overwhelming few days listening and interacting with bright people from the .NET community and within Microsoft itself (wish I could say more but I can’t). Here are just a few of those names, I wish I knew them all but I was so busy listening to what they had to say I often forgot to ask for a card:

Windows Mobile 6 on the HTC TyTN with a Mac

It’s been a while coming but HTC have announced Windows Mobile 6 for the TyTN (Hermes, Dopod 838Pro, iMate JASJAM , SoftBank X01HT).

My windows 64-bit experiences

Windows XP 64-bit has been on the market for some time and both Intel and AMD’s current processors are 64-bit. Even cheap office Dell boxes are coming equipped with the 64-bit Core 2 Duo. (This is the x64/x86-64/EM64T/AMD64 architecture which comprises of 64-bit extensions on top of the existing x86 32-bit architecture and not to be confused with Intel’s IA64 Itanium stuff or DEC’s Alpha 64)

Xbox 360 misleading advertising?

Microsoft have done many things right with this machine (Online, XNA, dashboard, media center, high-def). Sure, the hard disk should have been bigger especially now they are selling movies but my real complaint is that there STILL aren’t enough titles I want to play on it.

Office ribbon – patenting look and feel?

The ribbon is in effect a tabbed tool bar with large context-aware icons that show you more interactively what will happen when you use them and put the various options and selections right in there. It’s a concept I find that works very well indeed although some reviewers have been less enthusiastic.

Microsoft withdraws Sysinternals source code

Anyone involved in support or development on Windows platforms has almost certainly come across the excellent tools from Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, collectively known as SysInternals (free tools) and Winternals (pay tools).

Vista: no pretty picture for me

Reinstalling Windows XP on a 750GB monster

My first ever hard-disk was a whopping 2GB when 340MB was considered high-end.  £800 meant it was a steal – an end-of-line trade-only offer…

Icon and task-bar tools for Windows

A few things bug me about the Windows user interface and as I currently have no inclination to head over to Vista I thought it was about time I dug around and found some tools to address the job.

Office shortcuts for accented characters on Windows

Many years ago I came across, by accident, a way of entering foreign accented characters into Microsoft Office applications by way of a standard non-accented UK/US keyboard.

Microsoft adds embedded SQL Server Everywhere Edition to line-up

Microsoft have announced SQL Server Everywhere as part of their line-up for SQL Server.

Xbox 360 – first impressions

As previously blogged I got my hands on a Xbox 360 Core package just before Christmas – and yes I know the Premium is better and if one of those was available at the time I would have brought one. For now this must suffice…

Xbox 360 prices

Well the Xbox 360 prices are out, and while they are better than the current rumblings for the Sony PlayStation 3, once again UK and European customers are getting the short-end of the currency conversion stick.

Visual Styles and themes in Windows XP

One of the less-touted features of Windows XP is it’s ability to theme the user interface. Not to be confused with Windows 98 Plus pack’s themes, this support includes ‘Visual Styles’ which allows the actual appearance of the windows, buttons and various controls to take on a whole new look providing the application has been marked as being compatible with themes using a manifest.