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Microsoft Launches 'Channel 9' Blog

Posted by michael on from the let's-all-fly-the-plane dept.

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported by News.com, Microsoft quietly launched Channel 9, a blog/discussion forum aimed at improving communication with outside developers, on Tuesday. Named for the audio channel that many airlines use to let passengers listen in on crew conversations during flight, Channel 9's creators state the following in a welcoming message: 'Five of us in Redmond are crazy enough to think we just might learn something from getting to know each other...Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane.'"

5 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Common practice? by Neil+Blender · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I thought it was common practice not to release the transcripts of disasters to the public.

  2. WTF!!!! OFF TOPIC????!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    HOW is the above comment off topic? We're talking about Micro$oft. The assholes who claim to know how people like to compute. The above post is very clear about how Microsoft fails in so many ways when it comes to simple concepts like filing data. God the mods are really on a crack binge lately. Get your fucking heads clear before you moderate you fucking bitches!!!

    1. Re:WTF!!!! OFF TOPIC????!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      Although the person above was moderated as off topic. I tend to disagree. It was a well thought out comment and well placed because if Microsoft is ever going to give the users what they want, the organization of programs, data and configurations, is going to have to be sorted out. After all, the way that data is filed away on a computer is pretty much the same thing as the way a city is planned. You wouldn't plan a city with nice street names that have no real buildings on them would you? This is pretty much what Microsoft has done with thier current layout of files. The first thing they need to do is lose the drive letter. Drive letters, being device dependent in the case of DOS and being just an ugly piece of legacy workaround in modern Windows are confusing. It forces you to think abut where your files PHYSICALLY are. You shouldn't have to. Instead, the way files are represented on a computer should completely abstract the hardware. All you should see when you look at the files on your computer is just a big box of files with everything in a standard location. Next, they need to get with the times and accept the fact that the proper directory separator is '/' and not '\'. '\' is an escape character. The number of systems that use '/' to separate directories far outnumbers the Windows user base. Think about it... you have web sites, unix boxes and even these days you have Mac OS X. The only people using '\' as a direcotry separator are the trogs who use DOS/Windows. Heathens. Finally, Microsoft should really lose the whole fake idea of "user friendliness". The Mac did it better and Microsoft just can't compete. Thing like "My Documents" and "My Pitcures" are for babies who can't type. The above posting recommends using a numeric structure. This makes all the sense in the world. Users shouldn't even need to know where their data is. After all, what's a computer good for if it can't automate this stuff. A user should just be able to say, "get me the letter I wrote to mom yesterday afternoon. Final edit." and the machine should retrieve it for them. This is only going to happen once numeric file system layouts are accepted as common place. Besies, it's not like it's THAT hard to remember simple paths like /00/01/00001DDD01FFF11D.text_file a beig the letter you were writing to mom last night. So... I hve to agree with the above poster. The Microsoft way of laying out files is stupid and only for retards. A real file system is based on the Unix tradition but steeped in memorization and numeric file and directory names.

  3. Re:Top 5 things you don't want to hear on channel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait


    What about that clownpunching asshat who hijacked the White House?

    1. Bring it on
    2. We have proof of WMD; we just can't tell you what it is
    3. Major combat operations have ceased
    4. Tax cuts are good for job growth
    5. The world is now a safer place.

  4. Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox by I'm+Don+Giovanni · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    It couldn't possibly be that Firefox sucks, could it?

    --
    -- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000