Microsoft Launches 'Channel 9' Blog

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.'"

Comments

Outer space strikes back

[Space cowboy]

Microsoft are going to ditch the NT mega-kernel and use Plan 9 instead. These are the first tentative steps in the migration from the huge monolithic NT ring-main to the elegance that is Plan 9. [deep voice] From the people who brought you Unix, PLAN 9 [/voice] Da da daaaaaaah bom-bom bom-bom bom-booom

Simon :-)

Re:Outer space strikes back

[inertia187]

On the site: Just to warn you, this site will be on /. very shortly. Prepare for the flames that are sure to follow. Too bad the place will likely suck for a couple days, as I think this site might be a good idea.

How cute, they think it will only suck for a couple days.

Re:Outer space strikes back

[AbbyNormal]

"Microsoft needs women. I repeat, Microsoft needs women!".

Re:Outer space strikes back

[ATomkins]

In the UK (at least), corporations are referred to in the plural sense. It's perfectly acceptable to say "Microsoft are...". If you think that's wrong, remember, they invented the language.

Re:Outer space strikes back

[hdparm]

That's probably correct. I reckon we'll need couple of days to logon in significant numbers, to make it cool site.

Re:Outer space strikes back

[Elbow Macaroni]

No it doesn't it needs borgs. Because if that forum gets going which I know it won't, they are going to have tons of email about all their stupid bugs in all the programs they make and the idiotic limitations built in to some of their stupid programs.

This forum is going to go the way of BOB. (If anyone actually remembers that...)

Ladies and Gentlemen

[Lasuuco Tulkas]

I give you 7 of 9

Re:Ladies and Gentlemen

[Space cowboy]

Damn, she's definitely gained a few pounds...

Simon.

Re:Ladies and Gentlemen

[irokitt]

Why am I not surprised that the page you linked to didn't look right in Firefox?

Re:Ladies and Gentlemen

[Da Masta]

So that's the guy standing up in this picture! (note the url)

Re:Ladies and Gentlemen

[beuges]

i honestly dont know wtf you're talking about, the page looks perfect in fireBIRD... in fact i've just compared firebirds rendition with IE6's and they're exactly the same unless the mozilla team is adding bugs as they release new versions? how ironic

Re:Ladies and Gentlemen

[WeblionX]

It looks fine in Mozilla 1.7.

Quietly launched, huh?

[MukiMuki]

Not sure just how quiet it can be now that it's being seen by MILLIONS OF USERS EVERY MINUTE.

Tora! Tora! Tora!

[Rexburg]

Does registration require removing my shoes?

Thank you

[Maljin Jolt]

Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane.'

I would not fly a constantly crashing plane anymore.

Re:Thank you

[xlyz]

Blue Sky of Death?

Re:Thank you

[neko9]

just turn off autopilot! no wait... or turn on?

First Headline

[Bobdoer]

The most important operating system is not Windows.
Finally Microsoft figured it out.

Re:First Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

They claim it isn't a marketting ploy, but right here, they paraphrase The Cluetrain Manifesto calling it the Channel 9 Doctrine. What a transparent grab for positive press. If they really wanted to "Learn by listening. When our customers speak, learn from them. Don't get defensive, don't argue for the sake of argument. Listen and take what benefits you to heart." Microsoft would have fixed the glaring security holes that the open source community has been pointing out for years a very long time ago. Instead, they keep opening up new ones.

Re:First Headline

[Frizzle Fry]

If they really wanted to... Microsoft would have fixed the glaring security holes that the open source community has been pointing out for years a very long time ago

Which is funny because at the same time they are talking about listening, they are also working on the next service pack for their flagship product, and the whole service pack is focussed on nothing but security. But of course, you won't count that since it would get in the way of your complaining.

Re:First Headline

[Frizzle Fry]

And, of course, ripping off tabbed browsing and pop up blockers.

Is referring to me as a "troll" supposed to make it less obvious that you're trolling? In particular, that your claiming that it includes tabbed browsing, which isn't even true.

Re:First Headline

[doublem]

Which Opera was the first to implment I might add.

Same with Mouse Gestures.

Now you know how the Opera users felt when Mozilla stole the idea of tabbed browsing.

Re:First Headline

[dave1212]

And, of course, ripping off tabbed browsing and pop up blockers.

How fucking innovative.

You're kidding, IE now has tabs and popup blocking? I thought popup blocking ran counter to their ideas about marketing and ads..?

Re:First Headline

[Geoff-with-a-G]

If they really wanted to "Learn by listening. When our customers speak, learn from them. Don't get defensive, don't argue for the sake of argument. Listen and take what benefits you to heart." Microsoft would have fixed the glaring security holes that the open source community has been pointing out for years a very long time ago.

Little mental exercise, Venn diagram:
Draw "Microsoft customers"
Now draw "the open source community"

The (really, really small) size of that overlap represents the degree to which your comment relates to their quote.

Re:First Headline

[Geoff-with-a-G]

And, of course, ripping off tabbed browsing and pop up blockers.

If they didn't do this, you'd be bitching about how stupid they were for not having incorporated these great features that the open-source-community has.

There are plenty of legitimate complaints you could make about Microsoft. This is not one of them.

As if I don't have enough to read up on

[The_Rippa]

I spend enough of the day on slashdot and fark.

I don't have time to listen to Codekeeper Willie talk about typesetting and anthropology.

Uh-oh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane

Cue 'If Microsoft ran an airline' jokes in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Re:Uh-oh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue 'If Microsoft ran an airline' jokes in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Glad to oblige...

UNIX Airways
Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when the come to the
airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece
by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to
be building.

Air DOS
Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on
and let the plane coast untill it hits the ground again. They the push
again, jump on again, and so on...

Mac Airlines
All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents
look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details,
you are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to
know, and everything will be done for you without your ever haveing to
know, so just shut up.

Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards, easy
baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes
in the air, the plane explodes with no waring whatsoever.

WindowsNT Air Just like Windows Air, but costs
more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within
a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

Linux Air
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start
their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the
runways themselve. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing
the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When
you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy
of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very
comfortable, the plan leaves and arrives on time without a single problem,
the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other
airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is "You had to do what
with the seat?"

Re:Uh-oh..

[zero_offset]

(Golf clap.)

Re:Whoa.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clicky.

I love how he says "typewriters".

Re:What Happens..

[mtenhagen]

Yes we do, everything microsoft does has a bad side.

So: "This is all marketing fud, microsoft is trying to look like a good guy so they can take over the world"

The good side should'nt be mentioned ofcourse.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Balmer speaking:

[st964p62]

Proceed to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye...

Not surprising...

[thesolo]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not trying to sound snide or rude. That said, there are several things on the page that don't display properly in browsers other than WinIE, like Opera & Firefox, such as the top bar of the poll on the right. Fix that, and maybe I'll consider going back. Until then, not worth my time.

Re:Not surprising...

[codemachine]

Since it is running on IIS they have to use .asp and probably some custom software. If it were any other company, they could've used an already existing php forum to do this, but I'm betting that wasn't an option for their web admins.

Regardless, this could actually be a useful site. I hope people don't flame it into submission after this slashdot posting.

Re:Not surprising...

[estes_grover]

That said, there are several things on the page that don't display properly in browsers other than WinIE, like Opera & Firefox...
That's right. I just went to the site with Firefox and firewall mentions that WMP wants to load. I say no thank you at which point browswer locks up solid. Not nice.

Re:Not surprising...

[thesolo]

Since it is running on IIS they have to use .asp and probably some custom software.

The back-end language & web server shouldn't matter. You should still be able to generate a standards-compliant page that looks great in modern browsers. Instead, their front page has 366 errors on it.

Now, I'm not one of those people who insists every page has to validate, but this is just sloppy. MSDN, not just Channel 9, reeks of it, too. I suppose one could argue that you can't blame them, as they are Microsoft, so of course they're going to code to their browser, but I don't buy that argument.

Re:Not surprising...

[cb8100]

Odd. My Firefox 0.8 didn't lock up when I said not to install the crap.

On an "on-topic" note, perhaps we should register and meet with Microsoft's web developers so we can "understand" why they made their "blog" as inaccessible as it is.

Re:Not surprising...

[thesolo]

Very odd, my copy of Firefox didn't lock up at all. It's even funnier when I try visiting that page with Firefox in Linux; clicking on any of those embedded videos takes me to Microsoft's WMP download page. :)

Re:Not surprising...

[el-spectre]

That's some fugly HTML. I like the nested P, DIV and TABLE tags... eww.

There are a lot of errors (not just MSIE specific attributes,which I can't expect MS not to use), but quite a bit of those validation errors are "rules" that are not really necessary.

For example, while ALT tags are good, they are really not necessary for spacer images, purely eye candy elements, etc. I'm big on HTML standards, but you just don't need ALT tags on every image...

Re:Not surprising...

[Wyatt Earp]

Safari just zapped me with 9 error windows about WMP, even through I have WMP installed and configured.

Why does a blog need WMP plug-ins?

Re:Not surprising...

[codemachine]

As others have pointed out, Slashdot has over 500 errors on the current frontpage. However it does look good in any browser, unlike this site.

Still, Slashdot's HTML is pretty aweful. They are coding to the browsers instead of the standards just as much as MS is - they've just chosen more than one browser.

Re:Not surprising...

[MoronGames]

"Instead, their front page has 366 errors [w3.org] on it."

They probably use FontPage. Coincidence? I think not!

Re:Not surprising...

[thesolo]

You're absolutely right, but please note that I never said anything about slashdot having well-formed HTML :)

Re:Not surprising...

[PalmerEldritch42]

I love when you try to start a movie (using FireWhatever of course), it asks if you want to install and run the controls. If has the most deliciously ironic sentence:

Caution: Microsoft Corporation asserts that this content is safe. You should only install/view this content if you trust Microsoft Corporation to make that assertion

OK- who among you really answered Yes to that? I mean, if Microsoft said it's safe then it must be, right?

Re:Not surprising...

[gorre]

In Firefox with the mplayer plugin I get three videos playing at once when I load the page, and it's just a babble. I wonder if I can set it up to play videos when I click them or something...

Re:Not surprising...

[t1m0r4n]

> Since it is running on IIS they have to use .asp
> and probably some custom software.

Channel 9

Re:Not surprising...

[t1m0r4n]

Oops, should have used Preview.

Anyway, peek at the HTML source of the page and all your questions will be answered.

name="GENERATOR" Content="Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1

name="CODE_LANGUAGE" Content="C#"

MS_POSITIONING="GridLayout"

ect...

Re:Not surprising...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem:

I'm not able to use Channel9 to communicate because I'm getting the following error:

"The file "wmpplugin.exe" is of type
application/x-msdownload (Binare Executable), and
Mozilla does not know how to handle this file type.
This file is located at:
http://download.microsoft.com/..... etc.

I'm running SuSE Linux 8.1 with Mozilla as my browser.

No, I'm not trying to be smart-alecky, nor do I have an 'agenda', I'm just hoping to converse and I'm prevented from doing so by the site.

Just wondering whether they can handle this problem...

Re:Not surprising...

[el-spectre]

I learned to do web development on dialup, actually. If I have to use some 1 pixel gif as a spacer, what benefit (either for a slow browser or a blind person) is an alt tag? None.

Re:Not surprising...

[red floyd]

Slashdot has over 500 errors on the current frontpage. However it does look good in any browser, unlike this site.

Oh really?

Re:Not surprising...

[zmonteca]

couldn't agree more. I can't deal with it when developers think IE is the only browser out there.

Re:Not surprising...

[werve]

For example, while ALT tags are good, they are really not necessary for spacer images, purely eye candy elements, etc. I'm big on HTML standards, but you just don't need ALT tags on every image...

Alt tags are required by certain HTML standards, such as XHTML 1.0 - so if you are being compliant then you don't have a choice. One of the reasons ALT tags are important, even on spacers, is that visually impaired users may rely on them because they can't see the images themselves.

Re:Not surprising...

[4of12]

It's indicative of how preconceived notions will set the audience you select and what you will end up hearing.

It reminds me of management choosing employee feedback teams comprised of the sweetest smiling sheep in the organization. They never select the hairy old ogres complaining by the watercooler with blood-stained axes to grind? No, no, no....

Re:Not surprising...

[Atzanteol]

I'll agree that Slashdot's HTML is aweful, but some of the errors on Channel 9 are *very* obviously browser specific:

Line 14, column 22: there is no attribute "MS_POSITIONING" (explain...).

<body MS_POSITIONING="GridLayout">

Re:Not surprising...

[merlin_jim]

The grandparent was complaining about non-viewable pages in browsers other than WinIE

Since it is running on IIS they have to use .asp and probably some custom software.

Lots of factual errors with the above statement and what it implies:

• IIS does not require .asp; that just happens to be the built in scripting language. I'm running JRUN (jsp / servlet container) on IIS on my laptop right now.
  
• ASP does not automatically mean custom software. There's lots of great stuff out there for the diligent googler.
  
• ASP does not force WinIE compliance. Nowhere anywhere in the ASP language is there any mechanism for outputting HTML tags as seperate from other output; therefore the HTML compliance is completely the responsibility of the programmer. Platform has nothing to do with it.
  

Just because it runs on IIS doesn't mean its not viewable in other browsers. There is nothing special in IIS to prevent other users from using the website; there are some peculiarities in their implementation of the HTTP/1.1 protocol which allow websites to load faster in WinIE because they broke the protocol for that special case, but the HTML is not forced into any particular mode.

Now, ASP.NET utilizing server-side controls is a bit different; but even there, it's supposed to degrade gracefully. That is, controls that render to the client as javascript in WinIE may require a round trip to the server in other browsers, but their behaviour will remain the same.

Re:Not surprising...

[katarac]

hairy old ogres

Hey, not all Linux users are that old.

Re:Not surprising...

[el-spectre]

If you were doing precise HTML layouts in 1997 without ever pulling this trick, then I am rather impressed, troll.

Even now, CSS isn't perfect if you need to be cross browser/platform. Shaddup.

Hey Peter!

[Mr Z]

Ok, someome please tell me I'm not the only one who heard Lawrence's voice from Office Space, yelling "Hey Peter! Check out Channel 9! Breast exam!"

--Joe

Re:Hey Peter!

[ENOENT]

I heard it, too.

I'm sure that this is part of MSFT's bid to dominate the online pr0n field.

Re:Hey Peter!

[arglesnaf]

Hey Mr. Z, check out this developer profile on Channel 9!

Fly the Plane, huh...

[rawbytes]

"Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane."

sounds like an invitation for more terrorist attacks.

BeOS icon!

[oscast]

What's with the BeOS person icon in the upper left hand corner?

The top video

[Zegnar]

That 'Bill Hill' guy is very charismatic...

Two points: 1: I really like to see this sorta thing from big companies, gives them a personal touch. That's why Google is so good - not afraid to be more personal and real.

Also, M$ must be sucking bandwidth streaming those videos to every slashprole. :) Every byte helps up their server bill (Anyone got any info on how much bandwidth microsoft/msdn.com uses? And what it's hosted on?)

Re:The top video

[Anonymous Coward]

it's hosted on a distributed network of zombie windows machines

Use of weblogs as a collaborative technology

[hyperherod]

With two weeks to go until the deadline of my dissertation, finally I find proof that weblogs actually do have a use for professional organisations. The last place I thought I'd find it was from Microsoft!

the irony of this

[dr]

When listening to Channel 9 on United, you aren't actually listening to the internal cockpit communications you are listening to the cockpit's communications with the terminal and centre controllers. And that's where the irony is; the controllers are telling the pilot(s) where to go and what altitude to fly at, etc, that is, ATC has the real control of how things pan out. So while you might be helping to fly the plane [into the ground] you really have no say in how the plane gets to it's destination. And, furthermore, the real irony is that all this communication and procedures that the passenger is listening to is something that basically hasn't changed in the past several decades.

Maybe you have to be a pilot to fully understand what I mean.
-dr

Re:the irony of this

[spectecjr]

Maybe you have to be a pilot to fully understand what I mean.

No, I'm willing to bet that being a pilot in this case merely serves to overanalyze throwaway lines to the point of them not meaning anything any more.

Re:the irony of this

[jubitzu]

you must be a vfr pilot

Re:the irony of this

[doublem]

So while you might be helping to fly the plane [into the ground] you really have no say in how the plane gets to it's destination

You know, this makes perfect sense.

Because Microsoft does want to tell Linux users where to go and what to do.

Improve communication?

[Bitseeker]

a blog/discussion forum aimed at improving communication with outside developers

What they're really saying: "Hey guys, we need to innovate. Come on in and help us innovate something. If you tell us what to do, then you'll better like what we license and charge you for."

They're all "technical evangelists"

[Mr. Darl McBride]

More than half the guys list their positions as "technical evangelist."

If you want to reach more folks: Can we instead talk to a developer who wants to talk about the best way of doing things, rather than someone whose job is to come up with problems where MS is the solution?

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[m_pll]

If you want to reach more folks: Can we instead talk to a developer who wants to talk about the best way of doing things, rather than someone whose job is to come up with problems where MS is the solution?

http://blogs.msdn.com. Here you can find blogs from developers, tester, program managers, even MS job recruiters.

90% of these blogs are mostly junk (in my opinion) but a few are worth reading.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[Myko]

Have you been through the site? When did Bill Hill turn into an evangelist? Just because the site is run by evangelists does not mean its sole purpose is to market MS solutions. Developers on the whole are not as expressive or inventive at communicating as evangelist types are. There are exceptions, but those developers are too good of coders and I want them spending their time coding MS software instead of running a web site.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[acousticiris]

More than half the guys list their positions as "technical evangelist."

At what point did Microsoft become a religeon? I have never liked their usage of the word "evangelist" in job titles. At some point they're going to cross the line and send someone to my house to knock on my door with something they call a "bible" (it'll probably be blue, cryptic and the book won't open properly). But all kidding aside, IMO, that's kinda wierd. I always laughed at those web sites about how Bill Gates was the devil. But they chose the words, not me!

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[killjoe]

Microsoft IS a religion. Talk to any MS employee and sooner or later you realize that. They all have that cult mentality.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[m00nun1t]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the term evangelist was first invented by Apple. It's now standard across the industry, virtually all big tech companies have "evangelists". If you want to accuse Microsoft of being a religion, you need to look to the whole industry.

Microsoft bashers: your prompt for comments about copying Apple above.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[Frizzle Fry]

but a few are worth reading

Especially Raymond Chen's. Not only is it interesting, but it fits quite well the original request for "a developer who wants to talk about the best way of doing things".

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[jcwynholds]

The sad fact surrounding this post is that MS is not trying to reach folks, it's probably a site devoted to try to pull the linux on desktop people back to windows. See the fancy Wiki? See the link to developers? A clever impersonation of the open development model, when in fact it's the same bottom line.

The funny part about channel9.msdn.com is that it outlines why security will never be M$'s forte. The development cycle (which they partially outline) doesn't give enough freedom for fixing of bugs and complete testing before release, which is why security holes will continue to haunt M$ like a raging case of herpes. No OS is free from security holes, but when live systems are at risk for months with no patches, the opportunity cost of loss becomes a real factor.

Which comes back to the 'technical evangelists.' The site is aimed at providing 'customer satisfaction,' obviously. Their hoping that pissed customers will watch some movies and forget that the latest virus/worm/trojan/malware is crippling their network. So M$ has hired some evangilists to talk people down (after reinstall after reinstall) and convince everyone that M$ has a real commitment to making good software. Ha ha.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[GlassHeart]

Can we instead talk to a developer who wants to talk about the best way of doing things, rather than someone whose job is to come up with problems where MS is the solution?

Are you actually familiar with the job description of the title? It might be a position of advocating external standards (i.e., HTML) internally, thinking all day of Microsoft products that can be improved with it. If so, they would be the right people to talk to.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[Mekkis]

Way-ell, PRAISE THE LOWERED!! It's about tahm that them nerds up at Mahcro$oft done learned about the WORD OF THE LOWERED!! (canigettahalleluja?) In all seriousness, I find this pretty disturbing on any front on which one would care to address this. If this signifies that Micro$oft is giving up the pretense that it hasn't become part of American mass media by now openly espousing "Christian Values" that American mass media rams so forcibly down the world's collective gullets- so much so that Micro$oft is willing to put the term "evangelist" into its job title... Either that or Micro$oft EULAs have now attained the status of religious texts, and the lawyers in charge of maintaining them are now considered classes of priests who enforce said canons. I: In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was Gates. Then on the First Day, Gates moved upon the face of the monitors and said: "Let there be OS!", and saw that the MS-DOS was good. II: On the second day, Gates created the GUI and said "There are no other GUIs but mine (and that bastard Steve Jobs is nothing but a cut-rate deity not worthy of worship - any who believe in him are to be cast down and forgotten. And don't get me started on that Linus guy...)" and saw that the GUI was good. ...and so on it goes until Gates gives Moses the EULA upon Mount Sinai, saying: I: THOU SHALT NOT HAVE ANY OS BUT THAT MADE BY MICRO$OFT, AND THOU SHALT PAY FOR THAT WHICH YOU USE. II: THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE ANY UNAUTHORIZED COPIES OF MICRO$OFT PRODUCTS, OR LIKENESS OF THE PRODUCTS ON HARD COPIES OR DIGITALLY, OR LOAN THEM TO THY NEIGHBORS, OR PROVIDE MICRO$OFT PRODUCTS FREELY TO THE MASSES UPON THE INTERNET. III: THOU SHALT NOT BOW THYSELF DOWN TO OTHER OPERATING SYSTEMS, NOR USE THEM, FOR I, THE LORD THY GATES AM A JEALOUS GOD VISITING THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHERS ON THE CHILDREN UNTO THE THIRD GENERATION OF THOSE WHO USE ANYTHING BUT MICRO$OFT PRODUCTS. IV: THOU SHALT NOT COPY, THOU MUST PAY! V: DID YOU HEAR ME NOT? THOU SHALT N O T C O P Y! VI: *snarl grumble* I AM THE LORD, THY GATES! HARKEN UNTO ME! I SAID: THOU SHALT NOT COPY, THOU MUST PAY! VII: THOU SHALT STRIKE DOWN THE UNHOLY, THEM THAT USE THE LINUX OR THE MACINTOSH, FOR THEY MOCK THE LORD THY GATES AND COST HIM HIS HOLY FINANCE. And so on and so on, until the Lord Gates did force upon the masses the Holy Lawsuit, and the Sacred Digital Signature, and all was good, and the masses did worship. *sigh*

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[Mr. Darl McBride]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the term evangelist was first invented by Apple

Actually, I think that's a term IBM was using in the OS/2 2.x days, before external evangelists became "Team OS/2."

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[spongman]

there are many more interesting blogs from technical people at microsoft. most of the ones I read are members of the Longhorn, .NET or Visual Studio teams:

• Don Box, Indigo
• Chris Anderson, Avalon
• Rico Mariani, Performance
• Brad Abrams, Class Libraries
• Chris Brumme, CLR
• Raymond Chen, win32 guru
• Chris Sells, MSDN strategist
• Andy Pennell, Debugger

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[Jeremy Wright]

You guys do realise that many, many Tech companies use the term Evangelist, right? Even MySQL AB has an Evangelist on staff. It was started by Apple back in the 80s.

See: http://jobsearch.monster.com/jobsearch.asp?q=evang elist&sort=rv&vw=b&cy=US&re=14&brd=1%2C1862%2C1863

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[merlin_jim]

More than half the guys list their positions as "technical evangelist."

If you want to reach more folks: Can we instead talk to a developer who wants to talk about the best way of doing things, rather than someone whose job is to come up with problems where MS is the solution?

I've met lots of Microsoft evangelists in the past. My company is a gold partner and EAP so we get tons of opportunities to do so. They are developers, and they are concerned with the best way of doing things. Their job seems to be more about vendor-unspecific wide technology adoption than particular Microsoft slanted adoption.

It goes without saying that these people got their positions by being very passionate about Microsoft products and technologies; I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is that their passion is not limited to Microsoft products and technologies, and it would be uncharitable to assume that they have the rather unethical position of inventing problems for Microsoft products.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[killjoe]

" Not at all like Slashdot or Linux in general then?"

Actually it's not. The crucial difference is that MS is a corporation whereas OSS is a movement. Most movements are cult like in the sense that they are based on shared ideals and values.

I find it odd that a corporation has cult like following while I don't find anything odd about the open source movement having cult like qualities.

Bill Gates is apparently a very prophetic figure to inspire such a cult of personality.

Re:They're all "technical evangelists"

[dustmite]

So this is your last post then, is it? I mean, obviously you won't be hanging around this site anymore if you think it isn't good.

I hate this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

'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.'

This sort of "gee whiz we're just regular guys, we're going to let you peek under the tent" sort or pr-marketing speak rings so false and just raises my BS detectors to max.

I spent years dealing with Apple's evangelists and while they'd do this sort of thing occasionally usually they were smart enough enough to treat their developers as being vaguely intelligent

Re:I hate this ...

[Openstandards.net]

'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.'

PULL THE NOSE UP! PULL THE NOSE UP! WE'RE GONNA CRASH!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Segment fault at <a very personal memory address>

Re:I hate this ...

[Queuetue]

Did you notice #s 6 and 7 on thier "channel 9 doctrine"?

6. Don't shock the system. Lasting change only happens in baby steps.
7. Know when to turn the mic off. There are some topics which will only result in problems when you discuss them. This has nothing to do with censorship, but with working within the reality of the system that exists in our world today. You will not change anything by taking on legal or financial issues, you will only shock the system, spook the passengers, and create a negative situation.

Re:I hate this ...

[mhotas]

Yeah, at first glance, this "site" is far more about soft-selling .NET and Longhorn rather than responding to users.

Re:I hate this ...

[0x0d0a]

That's what I thought at first, too -- an orchestrated PR effort -- but honestly, that site is too badly done. There's no way this is an official MS project.

Technical evangelist ?

[Ploum]

Someone can explain what is a "Technical evangelist" or a "longhorn evangelist" ?

Are they really paid to sing all the day : "Microsoft is good and they are friendly" ?

Re:Technical evangelist ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't a longhorn evangelist be a lady who enjoys large equipment?

Re:Technical evangelist ?

[Jonathan]

Are they really paid to sing all the day : "Microsoft is good and they are friendly" ?

Yes, that's basically what they do. Plus they try to convince people that their platform is cool and cutting-edge. Basically what every Linux user does for free (although often not very well). But to be fair, Apple's the one that started it as a paid position, and others besides (such as Be) did the same thing, so it isn't like Microsoft is doing something singularly evil in this regard.

Re:Technical evangelist ?

[gglaze]

I have not worked for Microsoft, but here is my understanding:

The Technical Evangelist role essentially involves two major parts - one is kind of what you are describing - reaching out to the developer and IT communities through training and public announcement events, such as PDC, MSDN local events, etc.;

the other is working directly with paying customers (small to large business) to implement custom systems on Microsoft technology, often including a lot of study and/or small-group training on how to apply best practices of MS development to those projects;

Re:Technical evangelist ?

[Jeremy Wright]

What a TE does: 1. "Evangelize" what the world wants to developers. World wants standards in browsers? You can bet the TE's know this (I know many of them, they do). You can bet they're telling the teams (they are). You can bet the teams are listening (they are). The IE Dev Lead actually blogs, you might want to read it. 2. Communicate with the world. This is what Channel9 is. The realization that current communication is too canned. They're trying to be honest here by just having sit-downs with folk. You dont' have to like it, but it's 100 times better than anything MS has done before. 3. Communicate with partners and ISV's. Very little of this has anything to do with religion, 'trying to convince people', etc.

Great idea!

[cpu_fusion]

... worked for Nixon!

Scorchio!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallejeha fallejehe fallejehe, Chris Waddle

Boutros boutros ghali

(Or do you mean a different Channel 9?)

Re:Scorchio!

[Captain Large Face]

Best. Fast Show Reference. Ever.

Re:Scorchio!

[Scorchio]

Wha? Meteorologicos exterior! Sminky pinky...

Orkut?

[goMac2500]

This looks a lot like some internal Orkut knockoff. Sad.

Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[lazuli42]

Here's a few things I noticed after spending about three minutes on the site.

1. The site doesn't present well in Firebird 0.8. The fonts are tiny and distorted.
   
2. Many of the quotes on the page are, at best, sycophantic. "Great job Bill!" gushes one 'impartial developer'.
   
3. Voting for the third option in the poll (this site sucks, but I'll be back later to see how it develops) causes Firebird 0.8. to immediately exit.
   
   Bleagh...

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[Zegnar]

1.Works fine here in Firefox.
2.That quote refers to Bill Hill, not Gates.
3.And no, it doesn't. Update to a decent build.

If there's one thing people hate, it's when you solve their problems, eh.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[irokitt]

I'm using FireFox, and it was screwy for me too. Are you using a nightly?

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[rah1420]

I wouldn't call it 'screwy' but the fonts definitely need some work to be visible. I'm using Moz 1.7 and it's barely readable.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[gl4ss]

1. looks horrible(well, nice if you don't try to do any READING of the tiny fonts).

and the site seems geared more towards "hey look at our faces" than anything else.

It's not like even the pilot in an airplane has any say on in where the plane is headed and if some passanger tries to make a change of plans his a criminal.
.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[PTDC]

It mostly works in firefox here, I'm unable to edit the wiki. Well I can edit it, I just can't save any changes.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[hetairoi]

Firefox .8, no nightly, just the last big release on winxp pro. If I right-click the Channel 9 link and choose 'open link in new tab' firefox dies. I get 'not responding' from task mgr and my only choice is to kill firefox.

I can't get far enough to figure out what's happening, but it appears to try to open another browser window, like one of those horrible full-screen flash ads, but I don't have flash installed.

I give up, maybe it's slashdotted.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[lazuli42]

1. You must be very forgiving. It looks like crap in my 0.8 Firefox browser on Windows 2000.
2. My mistake, I was assuming it was directed towards You Know Who.
3. Well, it's good that it works in Firefox for you, but I tried visiting the site again and I had a lockup issue.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[hetairoi]

opening a new tab and typing the url in manually sorta works. The site will open, but firefox seems to choke on the video's for a little bit. It does load that way, but then I get to see all the other errors, great.

That online users avatar list is going to get REAL big REAL soon. Do you think a few thousand /.'ers logging in at the same time might cause a problem? We should test it out for them.

And yes, I am talking to myself.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[Keeper]

1. It looks almost exactly the same in Firebird for me as it does for IE. Which is to say it looks like crap. But to be fair, it looks like crap in both browsers and not just Firebird.

3. No crash here. Though I find it interesting that you would blame the site for crashing the browser instead of a bug in the browser...

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[skraps]

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox (Score:-1, Flamebait)
by I'm Don Giovanni (598558) on Tuesday April 06, @09:35PM (#8788210)
It couldn't possibly be that Firefox sucks, could it?

How exactly is this flamebait? Seems like a reasonable question to me.
If Firefox was a decent browser, it wouldn't "immediately exit" regardless of what content it was served. At least IE has the courtesy of presenting a box with error info.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[stephanruby]

I have Firebird 0.7. The fonts work fine for me. You know you can adjust them with mouse gestures.

In any case, I didn't go any further in the site. I didn't have the right plugins. For some reason I was expecting a blog, what I got instead was a colorful MTV-wannabe multimedia web site. I guess it's technically a blog, but it's certainly not my idea of a blog.

Re:Don't bother visiting with Firefox

[BigGerman]

Was the third option: "Close Firebird"?

This might be sincere...

[Spoing]

...though, it's just as likely a marketing ploy. After all, Microsoft is not a young company anymore;

1. "Fellas, we've been looking over your TPS reports, and it's obvious that someone has to deal with the customer -- you know, the folks that aren't us. A few of them have this funny idea they can make software without us. We've decided that someone is you...over here...should do something, something important and somehow sensitive. You are sensitive, aren't you? Do something with this 'hip' [fingers quoting in air] 'baloaagging' [fingers in air again] we've heard about and show the human side of us, OK? Thanks! Is Tuesday too soon?"

Who can tell with Microsoft?

Spooky.

[Trejkaz]

Channel 9? The funny thing is Channel 9 television in Australia merged with MSN to become NineMSN. It seems that Microsoft have this weird nine fetish.

Re:Spooky.

[irokitt]

There were 9 ring-wraiths. Anyone else got some evil references to the number 9?

Video Blog

[niai]

The videos are much more interested to watch than the text is to read. I get a much better feel about what the person is saying through expression, tone, etc. It's obviously more natural to get information from someone in this way than through text.

Re:Video Blog

[niai]

You also cannot spell words wrong on video, but can look much more like an idiot.

Re:Video Blog

[Ploum]

you are very lucky... There's no way for me to see the video under Linux.

(but it's normal.. The page itself doesn't render perfectly. Just take a very brief look at the code :

body MS_POSITIONING="GridLayout"
form name="Form1" method="post" action="Default.aspx" id="Form1"
input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" value="dDw4ODMzMTM3NjU7dDw7bDxpPDM+Oz47bDx0PDtsPGk 8MT47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwwPjs+O2w8dDw7bDxpPDM+Oz47bDx0P DtsPGk8MD47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwwPjtpPDQ+O2k8OD47aTwxMD4 7aTwxND47aTwyMD47PjtsPHQ8cDxsPGhyZWY7aW5uZXJodG1sO
z47bDwvO0hvbWUgOz4+Ozs+O3Q8cDxsPGhyZWY7aW5uZXJod G1
sOz47bDwvbG9naW4uYXNweD9SZXR1cm5Vcmw9L0RlZmF1bHQ uY
XNweDtMb2dpbiA7Pj47Oz47dDxwPGw8aHJlZjtpbm5lcmh0b Ww
7PjtsPC9Vc2VyL0NyZWF0ZVVzZXIuYXNweD9SZXR1cm5Vcmw 9L
0RlZmF1bHQuYXNweDtSZWdpc3RlciA7Pj47Oz47dDxwPGw8a HJ
lZjtpbm5lcmh0bWw7PjtsPC9Vc2VyL0ZvcnVtTWVtYmVycy5 hc
3B4O01lbWJlciBMaXN0IDs+Pjs7Pjt0PHA8bDxocmVmO2lub mV
yaHRtbDs+O2w8L2xhbmd1YWdlcy9lbi1lbi9kb2NzL2ZhcS5 hc
3B4O0ZhcSA7Pj47Oz47dDxwPGw8aHJlZjtpbm5lcmh0bWw7P jt
sPC9yc3MuYXNweDtcPGltZyBib3JkZXI9IjAiIHNyYz0iL1R oZ
W1lcy9kZWZhdWx0L2ltYWdlcy94bWwuZ2lmIlw+Oz4+Ozs+O z4
+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+Oz55AAmDo19e1NZP3aqW4orTLKp cA
g=="

Mmmm.... this is so cute ! With standards attributes like "MS_POSITIONING"

Re:Video Blog

[pacman on prozac]

you are very lucky... There's no way for me to see the video under Linux.

Try mplayerplug-in or konqueror.

The whole thing works fine in moz here. Vids and all.

Re:Video Blog

[Joe MacDonald]

Except that the required codec to view them is Microsoft's own and even using it on Linux (without being the proud owner of some version of Windows too) is legally questionable, is it not? Hell, maybe it's legally questionable to use it on Linux even if you do own Windows and have a reasonable reason to already have the required dll because the ones mplayer uses are modified.

It seems to me that whether you can see the videos or not is irrelevant. The issue is whether you're legally allowed to see the videos, and it seems to me that you're not.

Re:Video Blog

[ynohoo]

I suspect your problem is whether you are philosphically allowed to view this site. Removing your Linux zealot goggles might help.

Re:Video Blog

[Joe MacDonald]

:-)

I'm hardly a linux zealot, I'm just saying that it's best to not think too hard about what's going on over at Channel9 since it's obvious right from the get-go that there's either (a) an overabundance of cluelessness (they've chosen a presentation format they aren't aware isn't available to everyone) or (b) there's a low-grade hostility already present toward anyone who isn't already a windows user. (Meaning they really don't want to hear from anyone who isn't using windows by making a website that can only be viewed properly while using Windows).

Okay, I'll be fair. Maybe I am a zealot. After all, I took one look at the site, saw huge empty squares all over it that were meant to be the content, realized that I'd need to go get a different operating system to properly view the content and decided they probably weren't interested in what I had to say. Yep, that probably makes me a fanatically committed person.

Re:Video Blog

[ynohoo]

Heh, I viewed it on Windows box with no soundcard, had to tell it "no, I don't want a Media Player download". I think the videos are overkill, simple text would suffice, or at least offer it as an alternative to the video. Still it's an interesting development for a normally uncommunicative corporation...

My favorite part

[mrlpz]

Is the disclaimer listed as a "doctrine"...."this is not a marketing or lead generation tool".....yeah, right...

That site is crap!

[AstroDrabb]

What a crappy site. It doesn't render properly with Mozilla/Firefox and as soon I went to the page, I was hit with a bunch of ActiveX controls trying to run. No thanks. Maybe if they want to try to interest other developers in MS, they should NOT REQUIRE MS stuff. The main page has more then 300 HTML errors according to W3C. Come on now. It is not hard to make a little HTML, honest! There is no coding involved. Oh, and this site is .Net. You can see what great standards compliant HTML MS's Web Forms spit out.

Re:That site is crap!

[Anonymous Coward]

you're complaining about a site's html validation on slashdot???

talk about throwing stones in glass houses.

Re:That site is crap!

[estes_grover]

What a crappy site. It doesn't render properly with Mozilla/Firefox and as soon I went to the page, I was hit with a bunch of ActiveX controls trying to run. No thanks.

Same here....this stuff tried to load:
The new DLLs have been loaded:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\STRMDLL.DLL
C:\WINDOWS \SYSTEM\DRMCLIEN.DLL
C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER\NPDSPLAY.DLL
I said no thanks and Firefox locked up real good.

Re:That site is crap!

[codemachine]

The slashdot frontpage has 510 when I ran it through there.

Of course slashdot doesn't look like ass when viewed in any major browser, whereas msdn looks pretty aweful in anything but IE.

Re:That site is crap!

[santos_douglas]

378 by my count, although Slashdot (520) doesn't seem to have much to brag about either.

Re:That site is crap!

[0x0d0a]

I gotta agree.

The idea is nice -- allow feedback from gurus directly to your dev people. Damn good idea, one of the nicest things about open source.

That site, however, is *awful*. I don't think I've been on a website that is quite that atrocious for a long time.

I'm using FireSomething with the font size jacked up, and believe me, that site does not cope well.

Re:That site is crap!

[easyfrag]

Totally agree. I middle-clicked the link in Firefox to open it up in a new tab and the browser crashed. Now I know Firefox is still beta but I have never seen it choke on a webpage before, kinda fitting that it would be from a MS site aimed at developers. I guess I'll wait until Channel 9.3

Re:That site is crap!

[kylef]

I middle-clicked the link in Firefox to open it up in a new tab and the browser crashed.

Hmm... and this is the web site's fault? Sounds like your browser might not be very robust to me...

Boutrous boutrous gali

[Timbo]

Daviid: Quando es il dejeuner que la nyktos?
La Rutha: O no. Aga non es functivo, ma microsoftos destructivos la dejeuner.
Daviid: De nada. Mater que pater beefsteak cuisinarti tel para.
Lizabet: El parenticos favoritos!
Alberto: Scorchio!

Help them fly the plane?

[nysus]

Who does Microsoft thing they are appealing to? A bunch of 10 year olds? I'd be a little concerned about the conversation going on inside the cockpit. "Ever seen a grown man naked?"

Re:Help them fly the plane?

[Elbow Macaroni]

Ha Ha Ha!

Yeah what's with that idiotic robot lego toy guy in the corner? LOL

EULA requires neural implant DRM dongle

[StefanJ]

I would try to come up with a name for it that is an acronym for "Borg," but I'm feeling really tired this afternoon.

Re:EULA requires neural implant DRM dongle

[shadowbearer]

Bineural Ocular Rights Gizmo.

SB

Watch out!

[lawpoop]

"...have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane."

AAAAHHHHHHH! Watch out for that giant freaking penguin that's about to eat the plane!!!!

Aw, hell. It's too late anyway.

Named for

[iminplaya]

the audio channel that many airlines use to let passengers listen in on crew conversations during flight, Channel 9's creators state the following...

Damn...Here I was thinking I'll get to see some Cubs games on MSN.

wiki error

[primus_sucks]

Man I was just going to valdalize the wiki but it gave me this error:

We apologize, but an unknown error has occured in the forums. This error has been logged.

Re:wiki error

[sharph]

Don't vandalize wikis. I know microsoft is evil and plan 9 sounds like the dumbest thing ever, but hey, if they want to hang out and play developer involvement, why not let em?

stupid required subject

[codefungus]

HAHAHA
Microsoft is so stupid. Video? What kind of...

"Hey uh. Those linux guys..."
"Community?"
"Yeah boss. See they talk and ..."
"Let's get one of those. We still have those video guys around?"
"Yeah boss. I think they got moved to the ..."
"Ok. Have them make a community."
"Ok boss"

The Other Channel 9

[mercuryresearch]

I realize the the CB craze pre-dates most slashdot subscribers (and perhaps technical evangelists)...

On CB radios, channel 9 is the channel used for emergencies. Pretty interesting double entendre.

Re:The Other Channel 9

[TonyZahn]

I'm somewhat shocked that I had to scroll this far down before someone pointed this out. Slashdotters these days, I tell ya....

Good work pointing this out Mercury, it was the first thing the popped into my head when I read this.

Top 5 things you don't want to hear on channel 9

[craXORjack]

Named for the audio channel that many airlines use to let passengers listen in on crew conversations during flight, Channel 9

I don't know if I would want to listen in on the crew.

5. Hey dude, got anything to eat? I've really got the muchies right now.
4. Do you smell that? <sniff> <sniff> It's like a burning smell...
3. Dallas Tower, we have a flameout on starboard engine 2.
2. Jesus H. Cripes, Climb! Climb!
And the number one thing you don't want to hear on channel 9:
1. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name...

Recommended Flight Plan

[psbrogna]

"Flight MSFT0009, this is the tower speaking. You are instructed to land the plane at Terminal G, have your passengers deplane and allow them to transfer to an alternate flight. The FAA has deemed your aircraft a threat to public safety and grounded till futher notice. Tower out."

But that's their trademark

[Nuclear Elephant]

...just like you can't view MSNBC material unless you are running Windows or Macintosh - even if your browser is streamlined, and uses the MPlayer plugin that lets you view WMP. A subtle little marketing ploy that I hope will eventually make it into another anti-trust suit.

Free Long Distance to India?

[twitter]

We get to listen to the developers? Hopefully, we will get to listen to the guys who are really writing the software these days. That means my classmates will be able to talk to their classmates in Hyderabad, India, who are busy replacing workers in Redmond. Five years and growning. Use Microsoft and help Bill make money for these guys, but mostly himself. It's the American thing to do!

Or you could do the evil commie thing and keep your money to yourself and help people all around the world by using free software. Hire that uneployed IT guy on your block and help a programmer make a living. You won't be sorry you did.

Yep, that business about closed source helping programmers make money WAS A LIE. If 70 billion dollars in the bank, pema-temps and H1B slaves were not evidence enough of where this "Intelectual Property" BS was going, Hyperbad should be.

Re:Free Long Distance to India?

[merlin_jim]

That means my classmates will be able to talk to their classmates in Hyderabad, India, who are busy replacing workers in Redmond. Five years and growning. Use Microsoft and help Bill make money for these guys, but mostly himself. It's the American thing to do!

Or you could do the evil commie thing and keep your money to yourself and help people all around the world by using free software. Hire that uneployed IT guy on your block and help a programmer make a living. You won't be sorry you did.

Sir, had I not already posted in this discussion I would mod you a troll.

Outsourcing and free software have nothing to do with each other.

There are outsourcing shops for both open source and closed source projects. AFAIK, there's no conclusive evidence that one is more prevalent than the other. It may shock you to learn however that Linux was developped by a European! Maybe we should all stop using it, we wouldn't want them to be succesful.

It may also shock you to learn that China, an "evil commie" nation, is considering a country-wide open source operating system rather than Microsoft. Considering this information, would it then be more ethical to use Windows for everything?

Or maybe, just maybe, I should choose the right tool for the right job, and as long as my decision doesn't help anyone actually murder anyone else, I should consider it an ethical decision?

Re:Free Long Distance to India?

[pballsim]

Not sure how you got interesting.

1. Bill Gates has been losing money. He is only worth 47 billion. If anybody remembers he was worth almost 90 billion a few years ago. He donates his money to his foundation, which frankly, is one of the best foundations.

2. Microsoft is hiring in the US, and aren't out-sourcing. However, IBM is laying off people left and right in the US to be replaced by Indian developers. But that's okay.

3. Microsoft hires a lot of Indian people and brings them to the US, along with people from Japan and China. A lot of them get their green cards and all of the US works pay taxes to the US government.

3. 70 billion? Actually less than that.

4. If you want to talk to the developers you can send them e-mails. Heck I'll respond =) but I won't be of any use for Windows.

xpunkx

[Compact Dick]

Check out the avatar for xpunkx. How long before Ashcroft scrambles to cover it up?

Who's writing the transcript for the video?

[jrutley]

(for those of us who are not running Windows, Mac, or Solaris?) Maybe I'll see if WMP works through Wine.

Wow. Windows developers have got no soul...

[Queuetue]

I'm reading these people's posts, and ... I know that slashdotters can be pretty dumb, and many of us are the type to get wedgies in high school, but we don't project a face that's that lame, do we? Geeks without the rebel in them are just ... dorks.

Even our windows supporters are way more hardcore than those dweebs.

Re:Wow. Windows developers have got no soul...

[HarryCaul]

And geeks with "rebel" in them are fooling noone but themselves.

Re:Wow. Windows developers have got no soul...

[dave1212]

And geeks with "rebel" in them are fooling noone but themselves

interesting. open question.. does it have to be the extreme?

rebel or sheep?

I think it does. grandparent is closer to torvalds/jobs (rebel), parent seems to be closer to a closed-minded office drone (sheep).

Me, I like the ones who get stuff done in a new way. Not by rehashing others' ideas a la Gates, but those who truly pull something out of their *ss and make it shine.

Re:Wow. Windows developers have got no soul...

[Geoff-with-a-G]

I'm reading these people's posts, and ... I know that slashdotters can be pretty dumb, and many of us are the type to get wedgies in high school, but we don't project a face that's that lame, do we?

"Lame" feels like a soothing balm after a bunch of posts complaining the the Microsoft weblog on MSDN doesn't render correctly in Firebird/Firefox* version 0.something, or that it's not Standards Compliant, or that it uses ActiveX, modded up to 5. Wow, that's pretty Interesting. A Microsoft site that blatantly caters to ninety-something-percent of people, who use a Microsoft browser. How horrible.

Some days I feel like I only read Slashdot comments to remind myself that being a geek does not mean you're smart.

* - As a sidenote, I'm using Mozilla 1.5 right now, and the page looks fine to me.

Re:Wow. Windows developers have got no soul...

[Queuetue]

I agree with you about rendering, btw - the problems viewing with gecko were fixed that first night that the slashdot post went up - there were problems, but I think they fixed them fairly quickly.

Now, the site is still ugly as sin, but I think that was intentional, and most of my sites are, too. :)

Inspiration from comedy?

[darth_silliarse]

I hope Microsoft aren't taking inspiration from the British comedy show "The Fast Show"'s 'Channel 9' sketches.... :o)

For those of you who are wondering what I'm on about... see here, and here, and here, and here, and here....... Scorchio!

Huh?

[M.C. Hampster]

Huh? Is this a joke or something? Well, if it is a joke, I just don't get it. Oh.. wait, is this a joke about Microsoft? Perhaps about Windows? Wait, that might be it. Windows crashing right? Is that the joke? Are you saying Windows crashes a lot and making a joke about that? Oh, yeah, wow. That is funny. Wow. Good stuff. I'd mod you up if I could because I wouldn't have thought of something that funny. No, my humor is much more dull than jokes about Microsoft Windows crashing. Heh. I probably would have made some dumb joke about a blue screen. Not very original. But, wow, a joke about it crashing is much funnier.

Thank you so much.

Re:Huh?

[tunabomber]

Principal Skinner: Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?
Professor Frinke: Are you kidding? ! This sarcasm detector is off the charts!
CBG: Oh, a sarcasm detector- that's a *real* useful invention.

device explodes

Re:Top 5 things you don't want to hear on channel

[Archangel Michael]

My top five:

5) I am Mohamed, we are hijacking the plane
4) I am Marwan, we are hijacking the plane
3) I am Hani, we are hijacking the plane
2) I am Ziad, we are hijacking the plane
1) Allah Ahkbar

For those who don't know, these are the four ring leaders on each flight. Never forget what they have done. Never again!

Channneel Naaaain!

[Turmio]

-Bono Estente
-Bono Estente
-Hetthethethetettethehehtehtehtehte Microsoft owns you.
-Sminkkipinkkibangbang Bill Gates.

(Hey, it's British humour!)

Reel cool guys.

[sharph]

Wow, they are reel cool.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID= 13

I recognize half those things (perticularly the CPU fan and the soda can "graveyard") as part of my life at some point in time, and I'm sure other /.ers can as well. Like I said, these guys are reel cool.

Five of us in Redmond...

[multi io]

...don't know NNTP :)

Seriously, couldn't this have been handled by an additional group in the microsoft.* usenet hierarchy? Including automatic replication to servers all over the world -- for free...

Re:Five of us in Redmond...

[samael]

Because NNTP _is_ the most common way of communicating nowadays.

Re:Five of us in Redmond...

[Jeremy Wright]

Yeah, that's just what NNTP is for. Video blogging. Gotcha. Go home. All blogs, all of /. and most websites could also be disseminated via NNTP. Hell, they could be distributed by carrier pigeon. That'd be fun. "You've got mail, *squawk*"

I haven't been on plane with "Channel 9" in years

[wsanders]

It's been years since I've been on a plane that allowed ATC on the inflight audio system. Although in some airlines it's at the discretion of the pilot nobody does it anymore for "security" reasons.

I smell a problem with this...

[krray]

Being from Chicago -- and happy that I can typically watch Chicago's very own ... Channel 9 (WGN) ... I have to say the first thing that I thought of was what is Microsoft doing with WGN? ...yeah, this note has been sent off to their legal department... :)

Re:I smell a problem with this...

[frank_adrian314159]

happy that I can typically watch Chicago's very own ... Channel 9 (WGN)

And you can see it in many other areas of the country where WGN is carried on the local cable, ala Ted Turner's "SuperStation" format. But while Ted might have the Braves, he'll never have the Cubs!!!

Go WGN!!! Go Cubbies!!!!

Reminds me of a cartoon (A Far Side one?)...

[patmc]

"...have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane."

Member: Wow, we sure are way up high, how come all we can see is white?

Pilot: Sonny, that is because we are flying so high we are inside the clouds.

Member: Hey, what is that little black speck, I think it looks like a penguin.

Pilot: Don't be silly, for one, penguins don't fly, and there certainly aren't any penguins where we are...entire mountain side of penguins completely fills cockpit window...oh shit...

Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (A Far Side one?)...

[patmc]

found it: Famous Last Words

Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (A Far Side one?)...

[TheTomcat]

Gary Larson signed the top-right corner, so yes, it's a Farside.

S

I think it's a good idea.

[killjoe]

Now all those MS fanboys here have a place to go to worship their favorite corporation and to talk shit about slashdot. Not that there is any shortage of web sites for MS fanboys congratate but this was has the patina of official corporate backing.

If this web site reduces the "why is slashdot always bashing poor old MS" posts by 10% I'd say it's a good thing.

User IDs

[The Monster]

I give you 7 of 9

I don't know. 939 might be even funnier

Re:User IDs

[irokitt]

"a Working Stiff located in the Channel9 Witness Protection Program."

Wait, is that a pro-Linux or pro-Microsoft statement? If Channel9 is doing the protecting, that goes to say they are protecting this person from, um, us?

In other words, I'm thinking maybe this guy went to the dark side....

oh I don't know ....

[taniwha]

but honestly, that site is too badly done. There's no way this is an official MS project.

It just takes someone finding one of those guy's photos in a stock photo album somewhere ....

Wrong Analogy

[Mister Liberty]

They got their analogy wrong. Aircraft engineers/mechanics would be more like it.

Re:I haven't been on plane with "Channel 9" in yea

[hawaiian717]

Actually, it's just one airline that offers it, United Airlines. It is at pilot's discretion.

I'll stick with

[xenocide2]

I'll stick with planet.debian.net. The people aggregated there have to deal with the the public and software at the same time. There's people working on the installer, the GUI people, and an embedded guy. Every one of these people actually maintains software for the Debian project, not just someone who's paid to be a "Technical Evangelist."

Next News Item...

[holzp]

M$oft sues /. over a DoS attack.

What are the black squares supposed to be?

[chickenrob]

in opera all I see where it looks like the articles are supposed to be is a black square that does nothing when clicked... I gues if they limit the article viewing to people content with their product already, they don't have to worry about any negative opinions on the articles...

Re:What are the black squares supposed to be?

[AstroDrabb]

Those black squares are actually MS Windows Media players. The site tries to loaded DRM ActiveX crap, if you let it load, they you can click play on the little MS "media" players button to hear some dude talk

Ha!

[SeaDour]

How funny that they chose a commercial airliner as an analogy to their new "outreach" program -- I mean, you certainly wouldn't expect the pilots of an aircraft to be taking input from the passengers on how to fly the plane, would you? Exactly. Neither does Microsoft.

Into the Nearest Building, No Doubt

[Master of Transhuman]

> Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and
> help us fly the plane.

Firefox crashed

[Fnyar]

Splendid. Firefox crashed immediately after loading the site. Maybe they shouldn't have so many media player plugins running on their front page.

Re:Firefox crashed

[xortw]

It is some kind of protection form firefox. /me also can't get to this site ;-)

Didn't work in Safari...Go Figure

[eroyce]

So I thought I'd try viewing page with a real standards based browser (as opposed to IE, yes Firefox is great, but someone already mentioned the troubles with that so I'm trying something else), and guess what, site locked down with some message about WMP having issues and crashing. Just great, I use an Apple browser and MS still does their best to crash my system. I should have expected as much from M$.

woot!

[bprime]

Finally, I've got a low user ID at a respected Tech site! wait...

Its a trick

[Anonymous Coward]

::click a dee click click::

"I find microsoft products to be less robust and not as flexable as unix based systems. Even apple has moved to such a platform. Why can't microsoft provide analogues to these tools and systems?" (post) ::Jack booted thugs storm a small apartment and a man is drug kicking and screaming into the night.::

Please tell me the airline...

[bergeron76]

So I can pick another. For some strange reason I just don't want my flight from Atlanta to Phoenix "blue-screening".

Uhm, ok so my reasoning isn't so strange.

Why the hell do I Need WMP for?

[Pepebuho]

I do not have Windows Media Player installed because I hate its DRM. I do not agree to have a program that can erase my files if it wants to, therefore I do not install sucky WMP. Therefore, why is Channel 9 FORCING ME to install WMP?

Wow, Microsoft discovered blogs

[R3]

Questions that arose after a brief visit to Ch.9:

1. Why would I "help them fly the plane?"
2. Why would I contribute *anything* to Microsoft(positive/negative comment, let alone code) - so they could turn around and eihter sell it or maybe even use it against me?
3. How much are Bill Hill and the rest of Microsoft alumni paid for their blog appearances and patronizing comments like "The most important operating system is not Windows"? (coming from a guy on Microsoft's payroll, this comes across as almost hypocritical)
4. What's up with dorky one-size-too small gray golf shirts?

Seriously, what is the point of Channel 9?

Oh yeah, and BeOS called and it wants its color scheme back.

Channel 9 for EMERGENCIES ;)

[MrChuck]

So on CB radio, channel 9 is reserved for emergencies only. Such as:
There are hordes of people and reports that more are about start using Open Source!!

Man the catapults! Gather the pitchforks! The hords are coming!

Chanel 9? Scorchio!

[vherva]

Fast Show anyone?

For those who do not know: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/fastshow/characters/ch anel9.shtml

Re:Chanel 9? Scorchio!

[turgid]

Apologista terrorista!

Except that MS isn't laying people off

[melted]

They're even hiring, right now, here in the US. If you're good you can apply, too. India is mainly for expansion and sustained engineering so far. I know of only two moderately large pieces of code that are being developed by MS India, but then again, MS has done this since fuck knows when. These two pieces of code weren't technically "outsourced", because they were _started_ over there. Do you know that the first versions of DirectX were developed in Israel? There's also MS Research division in China. You sure can pick a few REALLY bright folks out of 1.5 billion people, and you'd be stupid if you didn't. And MS is not stupid. Arrogant? Yes. Heavy? Yes. Relentless? Yes. Stupid? No.

It's not like I support mindless outsourcing, either. But Microsoft is one of the few companies that are doing this the right way, without fucking their employees or treating them like dirt. Why? I think they recognize the fact that software development is HARD and they can't afford shooting themselves in the foot by sacrificing this country's IT talent for some abstract "shareholder value". After all, a significant percent of those shareholders are MS employees.

And let me remind you folks. They're hiring. If you're GOOD, send them a resume. Get free coke, good job and more freedom than you know what to do with.

Re:Except that MS isn't laying people off

[10am-bedtime]

freedom to oppress others is a wasted freedom, no matter how much sugar/caffeine is included in the mix.

What is going on ?

[dunstan]

I have Firefox configured to go out on port 80 via proxomitron - and my laptop is configured with a personal firewall which alerts whenever connections are being made outside its ruleset.

For some reason browsing this site causes Firefox to go out directly on port 80 rather than honouring the proxy configured in it. What on earth could be causing this?

Dunstan

Re:MOD PARENT -1, MENTALLY DISABLED

[Zegnar]

Haha, yes, I concede. I spelled it 'M$' in a moment of idiocy.

If I could mod discussions I had posted in I'd mod ya up...

Ugh, look at the rss feed:

[duncangough]

wrong, wrong, wrong:

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Console'"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></SPAN>

"Named for the audio channel...." I'm sorry?

[quakeroatz]

David Becker is another clueless reporter. Channel 9 is a signalling and emergency channel used by all users of VHF/UHF/CB. It has nothing specific to do with planes or airlines. -SIGH- It's a channel anyone can use, so it assumes open use, possibly collaboration.

Do reporters actually check on facts there days? Or just write the first thing that comes to their head after leaving the airport.

Scary

[sbrown123]

'Five of us in Redmond are crazy enough to think ...Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane.'"


The Fav Five want me to join them in their cock pit? No, I wont do it!!!

Firefox Works Fine

[Jeremy Wright]

Firefox works just fine. Sure, some minor bugs (font size on the left, and videos autoplay), but the devs are working on it. This is day 1 of the site (well, 2 now). I love the "it's not hard to make HTML, there is no coding involved" statement. Classic.

Re:Firefox Works Fine

[AstroDrabb]

Since when did ActiveX work under Linux and Mac? The fonts are unreadably small under Firfox even under MS Windows, and some of the tables on the left are garbaled. I don't understand how someone can not even make a simple HTML document and check it in two browsers. It takes all of 3 seconds to fire up Firefox and see if it works. Oh, and if someone is thinking of puting ActiveX on their site, just don't. There is no need for that single platform crap. Use Macromedia Flash(tm) if you have the urge to put something "exciting" on the page.

Clue for you.

[twitter]

Outsourcing and free software have nothing to do with each other.

I agree. "Outsourcing" where you ship the work someplace else and tell others that they can't do what you do is a closed source thing. It's the logical extension of the NDA mindset but it is meaningless in the free software world.

It may shock you to learn however that Linux was developped by a European! Maybe we should all stop using it, we wouldn't want them to be succesful.

No, you'd have to live in a cave to not know that Linux is from Finland. That's great, as are contributions from everywhere else.

What's not so great and what's very unAmerican is the business model that some US software makers have adopted. They promoted themselves by promissing money in exchange for software rights. "Work for me, promise not to help anyone else, sign this NDA and I'll pay you like no one else will," they told developers. It was a lie and outsourcing of those jobs shows how big a lie it was. Where's the money now? More importantly, the secrecy and assinine attitude of "you can't do what I can and must do as I say," is very unAmerican. The USA is supposed to be about limitless opportunity and the liberation that brings. Ousourcing will not bring sucess abroad, it will bring control and slavery. Anyone who signs up with Microsoft and other NDA pushers, loses.

Re:Clue for you.

[merlin_jim]

I disagree that the USA is supposed to be about limitless opportunity and the liberation that brings.

America is about free, open markets, free speech, and self-regulated rulership. Unfortunately, in an age of globalization, for as long as there is a significant part of the world that is economically poor, where the standard of living that the American dollar (and the economy powering it) is significantly higher than is available locally, a completely open market is devastating to the American workforce. I do not believe that Microsoft, or indeed anyone operating under an NDA, is necessarily driving this; had the IT industry started and stayed open, the situation would still be the same.

The problem is that skilled labor from the international market is significantly cheaper than from the American market. The cause is uneven economic playing fields, not NDAs. The solution is to even the playing field; unfortunately, the best way to do that is to allow the outsourcing to continue. We pour enough money and knowledge into these economies and they'll bootstrap themselves up to a fair level, and the problem will take care of itself.

In the meantime, however, it's going to suck to be a skilled worker in America.

MS isn't laying people off?

[twitter]

No? Ask the people who developed M$ Office for Mac. The layoffs will come, if they are not already here. Asside from standard abuse, forcing you to surrenderyour ideas and promise to not help anyone else ever again, Microsoft has abused it's "non-core" workforce relentlessly. Read up some about perma-temps, a practice Microsoft helped to invent. These are people who make things work for Microsoft, and they get to live off unemployment for a good part of the year. A company that would create a whole subclass of employees rather than simply grow and hire more people is abusive enough to fire current employees the second they realize it's cheaper to get the work done abroad.

In the end, I expect Microsoft to look like SCO.

Re:MS isn't laying people off?

[melted]

Mac Office folks have just released a new version. What should I ask them again? And yeah, non-core workforce ("contingent staff") is hired and fired when necessary. That's why it's "non-core". When there's not enough resources to do things on their own, MS hires contractors. Some of them end up working for MS for more than a year, some get hired after a year long employment, most get fired when they're done with the work assigned to them though. This is nothing new or "evil" for that matter. Heck, MS still employs US contractors even though they're a heck of a lot more expensive than a regular permanent employee. I'd expect all the contractors to be gone before layoffs begin (and IF they begin).

Re:MS isn't laying people off?

[pod]

Contractors are not 'more expensive' than regular employees. If they were MS would hire employees. MS (and other companies) use contractors because they cost pretty much the same as an employee (after a 12 month contract they most certainly do), they get laid off with no consequences (contract over, you're gone), they bring in new ideas and work ethic (most contractors _I_ know work pretty damn hard during their billable hours), and they're a nice flexible workforce. Remember, as an employee you only see a portion of your cost reflected in the monthly paycheque.

Yeah, right

[melted]

I KNOW they cost more. Yes, they work hard, but they cost about 15-20% more of what an employee would cost, all things considered.

Sanitation expert, and a maintenance engineer...

[mojoNYC]

Garbageman, a janitor, and you my dear,

A software evangelist, my oh my,

you ain't nuthin' but a waitress in the sky!

-(unauthorized riff on) the Replacements