The Wayward WebLog

I am going to tell you something that will disturb you. You might laugh, but it will be a cold uncertain laugh that will haunt you as you read on, because somewhere deep down you'll know it to be true. You might brush it off, get on with your day, yet sometime later, a week or a year, it will seep back in and unsettle you to the core. From that moment on you will be changed. You will think different, act different and will fundamentally be different. So take a moment to prepare yourself now, breath deeply, clear your mind and open up to the possibility that building software is hard. Read More...

It happened just the other day when I least expected it. No one would have expected it. Not me, not you, not your cousin, your grand-father or your grand-father’s cousin’s dog; no one. Because there was no warning, not even a hint, not a glint or glimmer Read More...

I wasn’t always a proponent of Agile development practices. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know what they were. Before I came to Microsoft I used to just do what I was told and simply worked the way everyone else worked. Read More...

Somewhere, out in the ether is a group think that judges just how transparent any given company is. Are the posts sincere or are they just market-speak? Read More...

Apparently Xena was not the only solar body renamed this week by the International Astronomical Union. In an attempt to align all planet and dwarf planet names along the Greek pantheon theme, a group of rather overzealous and somewhat tipsy astronomers Read More...

In the wake and fanfare of the disclosure of the LINQ technology preview at the PDC 2005 in Los Angeles this last week, a member of the LINQ design team was presented with a prestigious award for outstanding achievement above and beyond his peers. Erik Read More...

Now that the PDC announcement has been made revealing sessions covering the new C# 3.0 features causing speculation to run rampant, I figured it was time to go ahead and start outlining features of the next product. No reason to be stay focused on the Read More...

It was there today, again, waiting, watching, sitting idly by while I worked. Sinister. I try to ignore it, hoping it will go away, but it doesn't. It just stays there, flittering away, doing what it does, day in day out. It's anoying. I'd ask for an Read More...

Everything always happens when I'm on vacation. I can't take a few weeks off to go snorkelling in the tropics without whidbey beta 2 sneaking out the door and into the eager hands of thousands of awaiting customers, end-users, pointy-haired managers and Read More...

I thought I'd let you all know about the project I've been working on for the last few months that has unfortunately kept me away from what I like to do best. It's the eve of the MSN Search engine release and soon all the world will know what I've been Read More...

Now I'm not one to spread conspiracy theories, but I just can't get over the feeling that the people of the USA are being lied too. And its not just by the administration this time, its by a wide body of industrialists, economists, politicians and even Read More...

In our never ending quest to provide you with better, faster, more powerful products and tools, we some time find it necessary to redo a little of what was done before, to revamp it so-to-speak, to spruce it up, to splash on a new coat of paint and add Read More...

With the political 'hard-bloggers' getting all the press these days (or should I say 'making' the press), it high time we high-techers got our fair shake. I mean, really, who wants to hear anymore about this nonsense. It has become mind-numbingly repetetive. Read More...

There's been a lot of hubbub lately over which style of sales and marketing will prevail in the ever expanding hyperbole of internet music retail. With sites like Apple's and MSN's new music service offering individual downloads for mere pennies, it makes Read More...

It's been difficult to focus on work lately, let alone find the time to contemplate something worthy of a blog post. The distraction of the presidential race is too compelling. My wife and I are glued to the television, CNN, FOX, MSNBC. I'm starting to Read More...