Update on Skype - positive traction

Reading the article here, it looks like my previous post is indeed the intended direction. Could it really be so?

Microsoft pledged to keep Skype in all the places it is currently available, including mobile devices that run of the software of two major rivals, Apple and Google. Skype users don't have to pay to install the software on Apple's iPhone, iPad computer tablet or devices running on Google's Android system.
...
The partnership would also bring Skype to the Xbox video game console and has sold 50 million copies, making it the world's No. 2 video game system behind the Nintendo Wii.

Of course, it's all pending regulatory approval and such. One line at the end of the article really tells an interesting story. Regarding the approval, here is the quote. MF Global analyst Paul Gallant said regulators might even view the deal as good for consumers by helping Microsoft compete with Google. Now tell me something, does it strike you as a sign of the times that Microsoft growing is considered a boon for consumers as it helps balance (wait for it) GOOGLE? The empires are shifting. Good times.

Microsoft buys Skype for 8.5 billion

I'm trying to figure out if this is a good or bad thing. Right now, I use skype on my apple, linux, android and windows platforms. Will this go away or is this a part of Microsoft embracing the multi platform world of social media and collaboration?

I want to believe that Microsoft has embraced the new world of multiple platforms and technologies coming together to create seamless collaborative experiences for the world. Am I dreaming of a utopia that cannot exist? So - my thought is that "They" are getting it, and this will be part of the foray into connective technologies across MS boundaries. (Picture background music playing - when you wish, upon a star...)

Office 2010 Spell Check

I use office 2010 and rely on spell check to catch any spelling errors in my documents. I realized recently that the feature was not working since I upgraded and no matter what I tried, it would not turn on correctly. I had all the settings correct, but it turns out it was a rouge registry entry. I found the solution here: http://forums.techarena.in/ms-office-support/877476.htm.

I had to delete the registry key located at: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0\Override and like magic - the spell check started working again. Why on earth would that happen? Does anyone really not want spell check enabled?

Chemistry Add-in for Word

So as promised, here is the blurb on the Chemistry add in for Word. Very cool idea and I hope they include it in PowerPoint as well since so much of the work ends up there for presentation.

The Chemistry Add-in for Word makes it easier for students, chemists, and researchers to insert and modify chemical information, such as labels, formulas and 2-D depictions, from within Microsoft Office Word. In addition to authoring functionality, Chem4Word enables user denotation of inline “chemical zones,” the rendering of high-quality and print-ready visual depictions of chemical structures, and the ability to store and expose semantic-rich chemical information in a semantically rich manner.

You can head over to the MSR site and grab it here.

Office 2010 impressions

I just went through the upgrade to Office 2010 - what a journey but it seems worth it so far.

• Downloaded x86 and 64 versions last night
• looking forward to install!
• Tried to set restore point on work machine - policy lock out! (Really???)
• Start install and wait... stopped and told need SP3
• Mad hunt on M$ site for SP3 (really about 1 minute) since not a corp distro
• found and downloading.......... still downloading .........
• now extracting.............................................
• Now installing.............................................
• REALLY!!! ok - I'm patient and I can multi task to get my mind on something useful
• So the install of SP3 took a very long time and I picked up the rest of the install the following day in the office while I went to another meeting - I did a full upgrade install.
• Install completed (finally!!)

The result is a nice office experience that seems to work well. I a very pleased with Outlook and the search / threaded discussion capability. The other apps work as expected with tweaks here and there. I am going to upgrade my home machine next and that's a 64 bit machine with 6G of ram so it will be a good comparison to the 32 bit laptop install.

BioCoder - code for Biologists

While trolling through some Microsoft research projects recently I ran across two of particular interest in my current area - BioCoder, described below, and Chemistry for Word which I will cover in a later post. The BioCode concept applies programming constructs to the protocol definition process. The idea is interesting and worth exploring. The blurb below from the site summarizes it nicely and you can read more by downloading the package here.

BioCoder is a high-level programming language that enables standardization and automation of biology protocols. Our vision is to change the way that experimental methods are communicated: rather than publishing a written account of the protocols used, researchers will simply publish the code. The code can be automatically converted to human-readable steps for manual execution in the laboratory. When written as a computer program, biology protocols can be parameterized to facilitate reuse in different contexts. They can also be mapped automatically to the setup of a given laboratory, taking into account the equipment and reagents that are available.

MS Office "Save as PDF"

If you use Microsoft Office 2007, you need this add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS

This download allows you to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows you to send as e-mail attachment in the PDF and XPS formats in a subset of these programs. It was a part of the standard functionality until Adobe got a little tweaked with Microsoft stepping on their toes. Even with it a separate download, it's still pretty painless except the Windows Genuine Annoyance confirmation.

Get it now

Dev Links

I have a few links to some good blogs and resources that I got from MS Devs or from my own research so I figured I would post them here to share and keep as a reference.

• Sijin Joseph's blog - Dev Resources


• Scott Guthries blog - an MS Dev


• MSDN Blogs


• Brian Goldfarb's Blog


• JrzyShr Dev Guy
  Peter Laudati's bits + bytes from exit 117...


• .net DEvHammer
  Just what IS a Developer Evangelist, anyway?

Microsofts open source projects

While attending the HLS Devcon today, I heard one of the sweetest sounds I have yet heard from a Microsoft conference... In a session on Ajax, the presenter spoke about the technology, what it could do and how it worked. Then came the punchline... by the way, it works with PHP, Java, on Apache, whatever you want. Not the party line about the language of your choice being available in the VS IDE, rather this was talking about using a Microsoft technology to help devs build their php sites. Well done Microsoft.

Also a topic of conversation was the codeplex resource. This is a Microsoft repository for open source projects. In their own words, "CodePlex is Microsoft's open source project hosting web site. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback."

FileWatcher Object and Novell

So, I'm not sure how many of you have ran into this problem, but I discovered that the FileWatcher Object does not perform correctly in a Novell environment. Wow - what a shock eh? I wrote this nice little app that monitors for file activity and sends alerts and so on based on a config file only to discover the Novell issues on a dev deployment. I have since learned to build a test harness to verify ALL functionality in our "Corporate Environment"
I did re-build the application with a new approach using the last modified information and a pre-defined scan frequency to check for new files.