Recently in Microsoft Category

It's an election year, and that means that in a few months, thousands will be looking for jobs, either in or out of government, depending on the fate of their side. 

I had the opportunity to meet someone who is trying to help out the venerable institution of resume writing by opening it up to the wisdom of crowds and professionals alike. Razumes calls itself a "social resume writing" service but I see much more potential for "crowdsourcing" (I hate that term, btw) of other things.

Why? My current employer has a wonderful policy that nothing goes out without being looked at by at least two, sometimes three other people. Perspective and distance allow objective critiques. More on these guys later, but probably not in this space.

The other is MetaNotes. Think of it as a huge sticky-note board for your browser. I had the opportunity to converse with their CEO at SxSW last March and I've been loving their product more and more. I use it as a virtual whiteboard so I can organize and prioritize my ideas and work schedule.

There's one thing I can't give up, however. Outlook. All my love to Google, but until you integrate messaging, calendaring and tasks into one screen, with push and sync on a device with a keyboard, you've lost me. I'm excited for Android, but I want to see exchange server integration.

Microsoft, if they were smart, would spin off Outlook/Exchange/Entourage/Messenger into a new connectivity company. The technology is good. Put more effort into the front end, maybe a surface email client. That's the job. Fix email. Exchange is good. I say this as a Linux loving Mac Fanboy. I Love. Exchange.

Now make it better.

Ever see a Billionaire play Purple Haze?

...is pretty creepy. The "Guardian Angel," described here in this Patent application, claims to be able to pretty much run your life.

For years, people have wondered if Microsoft has built in backdoors for law enforcement. China created their own Linux distribution for government use. There have been instances of police using off the shelf monitoring tools for investigations, installing them in court-sanctioned "black bag jobs."

Now, the good folks at Ars Technica reveal that Microsoft proudly crowing over their latest achievement, a (built-in) back door into Windows and the tools to open it!

 Microsoft revealed its development of a digital forensic analysis toolkit at a security conference yesterday as part of a wider discussion of how technology can be used to fight crime. The Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, or COFEE for short, is a USB thumb drive that contains software capable of executing approximately 150 separate commands. Once plugged in, COFEE can be ordered to decrypt system passwords, display a history of internet activity, and search the system for evidence.

That loud anguished crying sound you heard is a million IT managers' heads exploding. Why? This thing has been available "to law enforcement" since last June.

Here's a question, what company in their right mind that has any requirement for confidentiality would buy software from a software company that sells decryption and password cracking tools for its' own operating system? Isn't that almost advertising how poor your software's built-in security is? Security extends beyond malware protection. It also means that if you build doors and install locks, you should install a good lock. In this case, you're being sold a foam core with a skeleton key.

I would expect a surge in Apple enterprise sales. In their zeal to be helpful and combat computer crime, this may be a shocking case of corporate suicide. They thought people were reluctant to buy Vista now? They'll be shipping XP for a very, very long time, I believe.

I think that now, the morning after, just about everyone knows that Microsoft debuted Live Mesh last night.  To very briefly sum it up, Mesh let's you sync information and files to multiple devices (Windows-only for now) via the web so that you can have access to your information from any device.

 

Rather than try and break it down myself, here is a link to Robert Scoble's rundown.

Also included are the links that he mentions in his post to even more Live Mesh-y goodness.

 

Here is Robert's write-up on Live Mesh.

Here is the link to Mary Jo Foley's "10 Things You Need to Know About Mesh."

Here is the link to Mesh on TechMeme.

Here is the link to the Mesh Team blog.

The Clerk of the House wants to know who's paying for those trade associations lobbyists. The associations don't want to tell. Now they have to.

Last year's Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (aka the Lobbying Reform bill) requires coalitions and trade organizations that lobby to disclose who contributes at least $5,000 to their efforts per quarter. The National Association of Manufacturers was not too happy about this, since well...transparency would allow people to know who has been paying them to lobby against stuff like, the DTV transition and converter box subsidies.

Well, as CQ Politics reports, judges are just not buying the NAM's...bill of goods (sorry, I had to).

A federal judge Friday rejected the National Association of Manufacturers' request to delay enforcement of a new lobbying law requirement while the group appeals a decision last week upholding the mandate.

Under the 2007 law, umbrella lobbying groups such as NAM must file reports by April 21 that disclose every member that contributes at least $5,000 to lobbying efforts during a quarter and "actively participates in the planning, supervision or control of such lobbying activities."

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly upheld that requirement in an April 11 ruling against NAM.

Interesting note, Judge Kollar-Kotelly is rather prolific. She is also:

A) The judge that extended the Microsoft antitrust consent decree earlier this year, and

B) The chief judge of the secret FISA court that oversees secret wiretapping warrants. I guess her tolerance for secrets only goes so far.

Someone's getting a Christmas card.

IE 7 was loaded onto my machine at work last week.  Currently, when compared to both IE 6 and Firefox 2.x there are things that I like and dislike.

 

First, here are some nice new things that we have in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7

 

• Tabbed browsing!  Everyone ( I think) loves tabbed browsing and it is great to see it in Internet Explorer.  I do not like that you have to select a tab in order to close it.  Firefox has the ability to kill a tab regardless of whether or not it is the active tab.  I have, however, fallen head-over-heels in love with the Quick Tabs feature.  Either by clicking an icon or using Ctrl+Q you can pull up a thumbnails of all of your active tabs.  You can actually see what's going on on each tab and then click on the one you want.  It's pretty useful if you have a lot of tabs, causing the names to get truncated.  Also, it's just pretty darned cool.
• Favorites - There are 2 little stars to the left of your tabs. One is just a star, and this will open up your favorities list.  Once it's open there are a few new things.  First, you have a regular scroll bar on the side to move up and down through your list.  Second, there are more options than just your faves.  You can click on an icon to see all of your feeds and another for your history.  There's also a pin fnction that will create a frame off to the left to keep the content on display.  Next to the plain star is a star with a plus sign.  Not only will it give you the ability to add the active page as a favorite, but you can add the entire group of tabs that you have open as a favorite.  Really cool if you have a group of sites that you need open at all times, like for work.
• The feeds button is kind of cool.  It will scan the site and see if there are any feeds available.
• Placement of Refresh and Stop bug the heck out of me, but I think that's because I'm a robot and am terrified of change.  In older versions of IE you have, across the top Back, Forward, Refresh, Stop, Address Bar.  Now?  Back, Fowards, Address Bar, Refresh, Stop.  I'm still getting a little lost when I want to refresh the screen.

 

My only other concern is speed.  I'd like it if IE 7 were a little quicker.  I'm not going to lament any shortcomings too much, because IE 8 is close on its heels.  I'm looking forward to the mapping capability of IE 8 and would like to see if it addresses any other issues.  From the articles I've read, it seems like IE 8 is more of a "Here's what IE 7 should've been" as opposed to being an entirely different animal. 

Microsoft announced its new Clearflow technology.  Clearflow will allow for web-based driving directions that can create a route designed to avoid traffic.  That's great.  That's fantastic.

 

Here's my problem - It's accessed through their live.com website.  If you select Maps and then Traffic, a map of the U.S. will pop up with icons over the 72 cities currently supported.  Very cool.  But where's the mobile support?

 

On my BlackBerry, which handles the web pretty darned well, I couldn't pull up the traffic options.  I tried it with my browser emulation set to BlackBerry, Pocket IE and even regular Microsoft IE and none of them would display the traffic options.  The first 2 displayed the incredibly neutered mobile version of the live.com site and the last one displayed a fuller, albeit format-challenged, site that still didn't have the traffic option.

 

I think that being able to see traffic on a map or have it factored in when you get a set of directions is great.  Needing to access it from a computer as opposed to a mobile device neuters it.  Sure, I can pull up my directions and print them out before I go, but that isn't the same.  Traffic changes far too quickly for that to be effective.

 

Here's your route, determined to be the fastest based on traffic...from 20 minutes ago when you were getting ready to leave the house.

 

See the problem?  I'm not out to bash MS or anything, but at the same time, I'm not going to get excited about Clearflow until there's mobile compatibility.  And I won't be really excited if the only compatibility is for Pocket IE and no other browsers. 

 

Unless MS wants to send me a free HTC Touch.  Then I'll get over it.  Totally.

 

Details at Reuters.

So today is a big one for Yahoo!  Not only did they once again rebuff Miscrosoft's takeover bid as undervaluing their company (thanks to tumbling stock values the once $44.6 Billion offer is now valued at $42.2 Billion).  Additionally, perhaps in a move to show how strong it is as its own company, Yahoo! announced a new ad sales system.  The new system is called AMP! and will (hopefully) allow Yahoo! to compete with a post-DoubleClick Google and a post-aQuantive Miscrosoft.

 

So what makes AMP! so special?  It will allow customer who buy advertising from Yahoo! to spread those ads around over a variety of web sites and even newspapers.  AMP! makes sense to me, because we all know how much everyone loves bundled services.  Think about it in the consumer world as opposed to the corporate world for a second.  People love the Comcast Triple Play because it allows them to have TV, internet and telephone services all billed to the same account.

 

From the perspective of an ad purchaser, AMP! makes a ton of sense.  Do you want to (or are you able to) manage advertising buys across potentially hundreds of web sites and newspapers?  I'm no expert, but I think I'd lose it if I were tasked with that.  Additionally, AMP! will help companies reach customers they didn't know they had - AMP! can target much smaller, niche sites that might otherwise get missed.

 

In a way, Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! has helped the Sunnyvale internet phenom examine themselves and find ways to improve.  When your company is in trouble (or is at least perceived to be) it would be really tempting to say "$44.6 Billion?  Where do I sign, Ballmer?"  Instead, Yahoo! has been going crazy with innovations, AMP! being perhaps the biggest and best so far.

 

If the MS bid totally falls apart, the job situation may be better too.  We all know that ,ergers/buyouts lead to layoffs, especially at the top.  Would MicroHoo! really need, for example, 2 CFO's?  Anything that doesn't contribute to the number of unemployed is something I can get behind.

 

I know I've been saying it a lot, but once again I'm excited to see what happens next.

 

Details on the bid refusal at Reuters.

Details on AMP!, also at the Reuters.

Here's the scoop from the Reuters

 

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has won enough support to have its OOXML text and spreadsheet format certified as a global industry standard, Microsoft and the OpenDoc Society, which had opposed approval, said on Tuesday.

 

The ISO approved XML as an international standard after originally denying that status back in September of 2007.  A lot of Open Standards-ers are railing against the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) saying that having multiple international standards defeats the purpose of having standards in the first place.  Some people (myself included) don't really see a problem.  If anything, MS' format should probably be "the" standard just by virtue of the fact that so many people use it vs any one other format.  They even make MS Office for Macs and Open Office makes a point on its website of mentioning that it can read and save in MS formats.

 

Is there anyone out there who has a major problem with an already widely-used format being approved as an international standard?

 

Also, I wonder what Microsoft did to change the ISO's mind.

Maybe an energetic presentation from Ballmer.