These are exciting times for Microsoft consumers and developers.  Sometimes it is difficult to know the difference between Microsoft consumers and developers, but that’s a whole other story.  Just after the most comprehensive, confusing, exciting, and opaque Microsoft Professional Developers Conference ever, Microsoft began deploying a huge remake of Windows Live.  The fact that this remake is to be deployed over a period of months guarantees hiccups, bugs, and consumer disappointment.  The screenshots of the remake look great, but how does it all work together?  Since the announced remake includes partnership arrangements with lots of third party social websites, if it works at all it will be a miracle.  Yet another story to cover later after the remake is complete.

Today it seems as if the remake is not gaining traction for Microsoft in one critical area: calendars.  Remember that Ray Ozzie’s early demonstration of easy Web-based synch involved calendar synchronization?  I know, that was years ago.  But it was the genesis of the FeedSynch standards and Live Mesh.  Oddly, Microsoft’s Live Calendar application and its coordination with Microsoft Outlook have since both gone through a number of really bad implementations.  It seems like Microsoft could care less about their Calendar support, providing a number of similar functions and disconnected services such as Windows Live Events.  No doubt members of various Microsoft development teams could point out the wonderful aspects of their calendar-related services and functions.  I don’t think regular people attempting to use those things would share in the joy.

In fact, I am writing this today because Windows Live Calendar not only doesn’t get the events that I’ve placed in Outlook (as it was doing a few days ago), it is randomly showing events I’ve deleted and deleted events I’ve entered directly into Windows Live Calendar.  Keep in mind that Windows Live Calendar and Outlook have really screwy interfaces.  These products also don’t support common operations.  I only try them out so I’ll be able to know when they are fixed.

In the meantime, the paper calendar hanging on the wall of my office has been very reliable.  I think I’ll set up a Webcam hooked to Windows Home Server so I can check it remotely.  The tough part will be entering new events, but right now that’s pretty much feature parity with Windows Live Calendar.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 11-19-2008

I think 2008 will go down as the Year of Ignorance.  I hope this isn’t, broadly, the Millennium of Morons.  It is upsetting for me to recognize enormous acts of verbal illusion (lying) on the part of so-called experts in order to further somebody else’s greed.

The election is over, so you should realize that I am talking about something else.  And that is the wonderful bailout of the automotive industry that the American taxpayer will soon be financing.  To a great degree, a lot of the same nonsense is going on in the entire surge of handouts from Congress.

General Motors has been very vocal and clever presenting its case for handouts.  This effort started long before government started acting on the economic crisis.  Clearly, GM is pushing their agenda to the front with talking points about enormous cash burns, nonexistent revenue, and the impending doom of bankruptcy.  They say if we don’t send them money, a large segment of the economy will shut down and hundreds of thousands of people will be on the street.  They say you can’t turn the enormous auto industry on a dime, it takes a long time to adjust their supply and labor contracts, it takes years to deal with this sudden global economic disaster.

If you don’t realize everything “they say” in the previous paragraph is pure nonsense, it is time for you to wake up and start thinking about what you are hearing.  And no, tuning out critical observations like this doesn’t qualify as thinking.

Let’s look at a few critically deficient points from GM.  Bankruptcy is declared by companies that can’t meet their financial obligations.  This allows a company to avoid liquidation and get relief to continue operations until they can meet their financial obligations.  So somebody at GM wants you to think they will liquidate while they talk about bankruptcy.  Some large firms have gone through bankruptcy, survived, and thrived.  Some airlines have gone bankrupt multiple times.  While bankruptcy is a major thing, it doesn’t mean wholesale layoff, liquidation, or destruction of their supplier’s business.

What about that enormous cash burn?  Perhaps that is another way of saying that they can’t control their costs.  Majors costs for manufacturers are materials, labor, distribution, and advertising.  GM also has a large loan operation.  If you were to run your own small business, your main financial benchmark would be cash flow.  Do you have more money coming in than going out?  GM should not say one word about cash burn without providing numbers for income and cash flow, which are more important measures.  Steve Ballmer doesn’t care if Microsoft spends $2 billion a month while it is making $5 billion a month.  General Motors wants to exaggerate its problems (controlling expense) and skip the really important numbers.

Maybe GM is the Titanic, and it can’t turn quickly enough to avoid that glacier of economic doom dead ahead.  Or maybe the truth is that they saw how things would fall apart a long time ago.  Their loan business certainly started to implode in 2007 or earlier.  All the auto makers get the best economic projections available, they know every facet of automobile and truck sales.  They weren’t blindsided.  Good or bad, they are seriously working on strategies to stay in business and do better than their competition.  But there is one thing they can’t project until it is too late: when the economy will recover.  If government money is an option to get through the downturn, it is possible to keep all the suppliers and employees on the payroll as long as possible to get the maximum market share on the recovery.  With the taxpayer’s help, GM could possibly hold on through the collapse and remain large enough to seriously dent the dominant foreign competition and crush Chrysler in the Unites States.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

The real question is, does it make sense for you to contribute to the automaker bailout fund?  Maybe you’d like the Japanese automakers to take a hit at our expense.  Or maybe you think the Big Three are just big crybabies that should get their act together based on the money we give them for their cars, no additional handouts required.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 11-7-2008

Congratulations to Microsoft for pulling off another excellent developer conference!  Whatever gripes I or anyone else has about the company, they are unequaled in supporting their community.  While the Professional Developers Conference is just one (huge) aspect of that support, Microsoft has made sure that nobody has to miss out on the conference content.  I can only imagine the incredible amount of effort required to publish all those session videos in a few days, and the resources needed to deliver session material to potentially millions of developers worldwide, at no cost to us.

So while I miss the excitement, energy, and frustration with crowds that goes with attending the PDC, I am perfectly happy sitting in one of the cheap seats.  Actually, thanks to home networking, I can select from a number of very comfortable cheap seats.  Some seats in front of PDC sessions on the big screen.

The past few days I have gathered all the PDC session material available, mainly session videos and PowerPoint slide decks.  It’s a huge set of files and it took a long time to download over a fast broadband connection.  In the spirit of helping the local community, I would be happy to make these files available to anyone at one of the East Tennessee .NET User Group meetings over the next few months.  They’ll be on a USB hard drive, please contact me ahead of time if you are interested so I will know if we need to set up a network.

One of the fun sidelines to PDC was the NotAtPDC conference.  Somebody (Paul Mooney?) started the Twitter account “NotAtPDC”, then a website at NotAtPDC.com.  Virtual sessions were put together by well-known speakers via SharedView and Live Meeting.  Several vendors even donated door prizes.  It seems like all this stuff started up the weekend before PDC and has just about wrapped already.

Oddly, the NotAtPDC Website has a plug for the MSDN Developer Conference.  OK, maybe it’s not so odd to advertise a one-day, regional conference to highlight some of that exciting stuff that was covered at the big event.  I’ve already signed up for the $99 conference at Atlanta December 16, much as I detest driving to Atlanta.  I’ll try to get a motel the prior evening near one of the satellite subway terminals so I can avoid the downtown traffic.

Now that Microsoft PDC 2008 is over, even the attendees are in the cheap seats.  It will take some time to digest the material.  I am interested in about half the sessions, maybe crucially interested in about 20 to guide my training and development efforts.  I figure that we all have that level of review in mind.  It’s going to take a few weeks to really get at the important PDC stuff.

Back to my cheap seats.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 11-3-2008

Last year, I was jazzed about the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference.  I was going to move mountains to attend.  Then Microsoft cancelled it.

This year, I am really, really jazzed about the 2008 Microsoft Professional Developer Conference.  At this point it is hard to focus on simple coding tasks, the damn thing is so exciting.  And it is nearly started!

But there is no way, no how, I am going to spend $5,000 or more to attend.  First, I could sure use that money for groceries or updating the roof on our home before all the shingles fall off.  Second, I’m not even slightly connected with The Borg.  So the face-to-face aspect of this ginormous conference has no value.  That was proved when I attended the VSX Conference a few weeks ago.  Sorry, you guys aren’t really very social, even at parties on your own campus.  I would have thought you would focus on those paying VSX partners during their time the rest of the week, but I can understand why you might engage full time with the high rollers and ignore the bums like me.  It’s just business, right?  No hard feelings.

I think a lot of developers are staying home this time for similar reasons.  The PDC usually sells out months in advance.  Today the website warns “This is your last chance.  We’re getting close to selling out, so register now!”  With luck, we developers and Microsoft can have another chance in three years or so.

Microsoft has previously done an excellent job of getting their conference material out to their customers, even if they can’t attend the conference.  This is a really great service.  I can go to the Microsoft Event DVD Store and get recordings of presentations plus demo material from the big Microsoft conferences.  I’m still going through the Tech*Ed 2008 DVDs.  Great stuff.

I have been told that every effort will be made to put similar content out on the Web (possibly linked from Channel 9).  I was assured that the turnaround would be fast, so there wouldn’t be the three to six month delay associated with the DVD distribution.  Certainly the keynotes will be carried live.  Considering that the pre-con starts in two days (Sunday), I am a little frustrated that there is no central listing of online sessions, keynote or other, especially on the PDC website itself.  How can they devote pages to “social networking”, various open sessions, places where Microsofties hang out in the evening, and other crap for a few thousand developers, when the millions of developers out on the real network just want to learn how to use their products ASAP?  Throw us a bone, guys!  We’d like to know how to get the info and how to schedule our time to see it.

I almost feel like I’m going to put as much time into discovering PDC content on the Web as I would spend flying from Knoxville to LA.

Assuming that Microsoft gets the online distribution done (and I know that is a huge job), what about later?  It is really essential to have easy access to the session recordings and the bits without downloading gigabytes of stuff from all over the Internet.  Comcast might shut down my connection.  I am also a bit concerned because  Microsoft has foregone the DVD distribution at the conference in favor of providing content on 160 GB USB hard drives.  That’s a super idea for the conference.  But does that mean that the event DVD store will have to distribute 32 DVDs?  Will they sell conference material on 160 GB USB hard drives?  I’m voting for the hard drive.  Make it a 320 GB drive, the space will be needed for the session recordings!

--- Walter Lounsbery, 10-24-2008

I really, really enjoy my Zune.  I have to put that up front in this short expose of Zune idiocy.  It’s just too bad that the product team seems to have a hard time getting their product to work at a fundamental level.  Here are some cases that really make the point.

One of the things I enjoy about the Zune is the relatively new podcast support.  I subscribe to 16 podcasts out of the Zune Marketplace, some in audio and some in video.  While I find that the synching experience is terrible by design (it is assumed that your Zune only synchs on one computer, though you are allowed to install on up to three computers with your account), I have been beaten down by the Zune system so that I hardly notice the pain of manually refreshing the content of my Zune, including deleting podcasts that I’ve listened to one by one on my computer console (instead of deleting on the Zune right after I play the podcast).

Since I have a home computer network, with Windows Home Server, it is very natural to keep my Zune collection on that central Windows Home Server.  Of course, this totally messes up Media Player on each computer as it can’t detect changes to the library.  I’ve whined before about having to manually synch each computer to the central collection if there are any changes.

Similarly, the Zune client software on my three computers is unable to detect changes to the library of podcasts.  Now, podcasts can be very transitory.  Generally, only the last 3 podcasts in any series is kept (unless you set every client setting for a particular podcast to a different retention number….ugh!).  That’s right, one client computer might delete a few from the collection as time goes on, then the client on a different computer shows that more podcasts are available in the collection.  Even when that client gets an error because a particular podcast in not in the collection anymore, it still shows the podcast in your collection.  Now Microsoft regularly harasses me to verify this or that action in numerous programs, but in return their programs can’t even figure out that a file has been deleted, or work properly in Microsoft’s Networked Home of the Future (it’s in the Future because they haven’t provided it Today).

To top it off, as I was verifying this very stupid behavior, I discovered that Zune places podcasts into a Podcast folder that is in the Music folder.  This is another Stupid design.  Somebody has to code their applications to ignore the Podcast folder when listing the artists contained in the Music folder.  I guess that’s somewhere in the Windows SDK.  Also, the video and audio podcasts are not categorized by folder.  This is odd, since the Zune forces you to choose different podcast lists based on audio or video.  Experienced Microsoft Media experts will probably say that the Playlists are also kept in the Music folder, so they require special handling.  Yep, it is so special that the machines in my house have “lost” playlists many times over various silent operating system upgrades, requiring manual search and copy so that Media Center can find them again.

As I wrap up this short litany of dumb moments in Zune design, I have to wonder how the other 93% of the media market lives?  If Microsoft is providing good competition to Apple, for example, I ought to get at least 20 returns on a search for “dumb ipod design” for each Zune hit.  I actually got about 1.2 million hits for ipod vs. 250 thousand for Zune, which is barely OK until you learn that most of the ipod hits are for ipod accessories and the decision to build in the battery.  I guess you could also argue that most of the dumb Zune hits are written by rabid ipod fanboys and girls.  Se la vie.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 10-22-2008

On October 16, 2008, the EAA B-17 “Aluminum Overcast” flew to Lawrenceville, Georgia from McGhee Tyson Airport near Knoxville, Tennessee.   I took some video on the flight that shows some of the experience on this repositioning flight during the 2008 tour of the EAA “Aluminum Overcast” B-17.  The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) does a great service to aviation by maintaining a flying B-17 Flying Fortress and sending it around the United States each year.  This program allows people to see a key aircraft from World War II.  The B-17 is an impressive aircraft.  Even on the ground, the roar of four 1200 horsepower engines is totally impressive.

Here is my video:

It was fascinating to see all the sections of the aircraft (except for the ball turret and the tail gunner position).  The B-17 is of extremely light weight construction in order to achieve a very high altitude cruise.  I don’t know how the WWII crews made it through an entire mission, dealing with the noise, cold at high altitudes, lack of air pressure, the cramped quarters, and breathing dry oxygen.  Not to mention getting bombarded by flak from anti-aircraft guns and attacks by German fighter aircraft. 

I learned several things from one of the veteran B-17 bomber pilots that were given a ride on Monday.   They flew tight formations of hundreds of bombers over Europe.  The main reason for the tight formations (other than delivering bombs to the target) was to discourage enemy fighter from shooting down bombers as they flew through the bombers.

If you are interested in learning more about the Eighth Air Force in WWII, I highly recommend the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.  The displays really bring to life an important chapter in our history.  They also have a nice B-47 on a pedestal in front of the museum, which is just off of I-95.

And if you are interested in vintage aircraft or just about any segment of general aviation, I strongly encourage you to look into the Experimental Aircraft Association.  The central group provides many services for pilots and enthusiasts.  I’ve greatly enjoyed my membership in various local chapters.  You can meet some truly interesting and wonderful people at the local level.  The central office also supports the Air Venture fly in, an amazing annual event for aviation enthusiasts (check out the video here).

-- Walter Lounsbery, 10-17-2008

I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this post, since I’m heading out to the airport to help with the EAA operations for their “Aluminum Overcast” B-17 today.  I can say that the arrival of the B-17 yesterday at Tyson-McGhee Airport was an inspiration for a lot of people.  Yesterday the EAA pilots flew veteran WWII bomber pilots and the media.  Today and tomorrow they will be giving rides in the morning and ground tours in the afternoon.  The cost of the ground tours is nominal (about $5 as I recall).  If you are interested in riding in the B-17, check out the EAA B-17 Website.  This has all the details about the flights.  You can also go directly to the operations at McGhee-Tyson in the morning (9 AM or after), pay for the flight there, and enjoy a wonderful experience that same day.  The operations are just South of the TacAir center, exit #1 to the airport (just before the exit to the passenger terminal as you head South on the highway past the airport).

I took some video yesterday that shows what the experience is like from the outside of the B-17.  Here it is:

Walter Lounsbery, 10-14-2008

in October 2005 I wrote about the Mythical Rock Star Programmer.  This is a fad that will always carry weight and coverage in IT management publications.  What could be more macho for a competitive manager than “I hired more better rock star programmers than your department ever had!”  It is such an upbeat, proactive golden bullet for any staff issue or challenge.

Unfortunately, there is a huge gap between management theory and reality.  Even the popular fads like hiring rock stars may be news to most IT managers.  The vast majority of IT organizations promote internal cultures that are rarely documented and often interfere with the smooth working of development or support teams.  Lets inspect one attractive approach to staffing that few will admit to, yet most managers find extremely attractive. 

This is an inverse of the Rock Star staffing approach I like to call the Witch Doctor office.  Rather than hire an all-star team, get one Witch Doctor and several programmers that do not aspire to master the deployed technology or the business processes.  In fact, it is possible to hire people that are trainable for programming, yet don’t understand the principles or frameworks.  That’s why I call it the Witch Doctor office.  The Witch Doctor knows the secret spells of programming and getting things done in the organization.

At this point, you have a choice.  If you find the Witch Doctor office revolting and repulsive, go read some other blog post.  IT isn’t known for elegance, great customer service, or technical creativity.  That’s just how it is.  A lot of people go to work every day in those environments, not the Web startups, computer game companies, or research labs of big software companies.  If you know this reality, please post your ideas in the comments.

Why would anyone want a Witch Doctor office?  Basically it is cheaper thanks to lower rates or salaries for most of the staff, with the added bonus that the regular grunts will stay put.  Stability is enhanced so long as the Witch Doctor rules the roost.  The Witch Doctor does have incentives to stay.  They are continually mentoring the other staff and those relationships are socially valuable.  They enjoy protection against layoff or petty actions by management.  They generally get the better travel assignments and participation in fun technical conferences.  They can get away with things the rest of the staff would never dream of attempting.  Life is sweet.

This stable and cheap organization has serious drawbacks.  First, it is too stable.  Management becomes satisfied with lower output or ineffective delivery as the price of stability.  Management will become disengaged with delivery and regular staff.  Hiring will be controlled by the Alpha Programmer (the Witch Doctor) as is true in any staff, allowing the Witch Doctor to control competition.  Any quality control or improvement would destroy the status quo, which becomes more important than anything else.  Even if management gets a wild hair to do better, their bosses won’t understand what the budget increases are supposed to accomplish (why are you wasting our money?).

Perhaps some of you know of cases where the Witch Doctor office gets a meaningful makeover.  I can’t imagine anything short of a major catastrophe changing the situation.  Given the lack of ALM process in such an office, any makeover would create major pain for those that get to pick up the pieces.  Obviously, management gets an opportunity to improve the staff mix any time staff levels go up or down.  But what compelling arguments would make that happen?

-- Walter Lounsbery, 10-10-2008

I was an early enthusiast of Windows Home Server.  In fact, I was on the beta program.  It is important to realize that this beta program provided free software, but I got to buy a machine to run that beta software.  So this is a bit higher level of enthusiasm for a beta than usual.  Microsoft didn’t even cut any slack for the beta evaluators as we got to pay for the full release when it came out.

But I’m not bitter about any of that.  I am very glad that Microsoft followed through on this product.  Although the server has a lot of key benefits beyond backup, I can report that, once again, it has come through on the promise of an easy workstation restore.

Oddly, my latest episode began when my main workstation (the Blue Monster) failed to back up to Windows Home Server one night.  Manual backups also failed.  Some software installation or update destroyed a key COM component or setting in the Registry.  I was unable to resolve the problem, so I did the simple fix: a restore from Windows Home Server from that latest good backup.  Of course, I also spent a few hours backing up the workstation to a large USB hard drive before the restore.  WHS did a faster job on the restore and now my main workstation is humming along just fine.

My only concern about Windows Home Server is this: Microsoft has a track record of fouling up perfectly good products.  I think you can come up with your own list here.  WHS is darn near perfect and stable as it is.  It is perfectly fine on its particular operating system release.  There are certainly things to be added, tweaks to be done.  Just make sure that it gets easier, more stable, and cheaper.  I think $300 is a great price point.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 10-8-2008

I attended the Wings Over the Big South Fork Air Show (Tennessee) on September 13.  I had not been to the Big South Fork airport before, although it is not that far from my base in Oliver Springs.  The Knoxville Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter (Chapter 17) has a lot of connections to the air show.  The air boss is a member of the chapter and our chapter held a Young Eagles event prior to the air show at Big South Fork.

The EAA Young Eagles programs are a great, grass roots way to introduce kids to aviation.  Generally there is a short briefing or class for the kids and then they get rides in general aviation aircraft.  Chapter members fly the aircraft.  While I think the kids get a lot out of the program, the members seem very energized as well.

Although I couldn’t fly a plane in to Big South Fork to fly some kids for Young Eagles, I got to hitch a ride with Jim Roberts, the chapter President.  He rented a Cessna 172 at the Athens, Tennessee airport (McMinn County) and we flew to the air show.  It’s a lot more fun to fly to an air show than drive.  For one thing, you get the real VIP parking.  I had a great time with Jim, who let me get some Cessna piloting time on the way back, and then introduced me to some great folks at the Swift Museum at McMinn County airport.

Since I just got the new beta for Microsoft Windows Live Writer, I have to check out its ability to insert videos in my blog.  My last attempt, using the Soapbox beta service, did not work out very well.  For one thing, Microsoft decided to change URLs for the videos without redirecting from the old ones.  So this time if all goes well, you should see a link or something to my really cruddy video of the Young Eagles at the Wings over the Big South Fork Air Show.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 9-21-2008