Pownce, send stuff to your friends

 

 

Well, i’ve just found out about this cool new site from TechCruch, Pownce, which allows the sharing of stuff like messages, files, links, and events amongst people online, pretty similar to twitter (or more like a direct competitor). Some further description of what you can do with Pownce:

You might send an event out to a dozen of your friends letting them know you’re hosting a party this Friday. They could easily get the event details you entered, respond with questions or comments and then quickly rsvp.

Say you had a great photo you wanted to share with all of your friends. Just add the file and all of your friends will get it right away. They’ll be able to reply and tell you if it’s cool. You could even post songs you recorded in your home studio to share with your friends.

(Taken from Pownce.com)

It’s currently in closed alpha, so you would have to enter your email at Pownce.com and wait for the next round of invites if you’re interested to join alpha testing.

There are not two, but three things that interest me the most about Pownce, which are…

Life working for Google and Microsoft?

This is currently one of the hottest posts on the net, and the funny thing is, this blog only has one post! And one of the most controversial posts ever! Check it out, definitely interesting 

The following has been making the rounds on just about every internal email list I belong to in Microsoft. Here it is to share a little insight with the rest of the world. Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. Any peek is a good peek.

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Many of you were asking for the feedback I received from my interview with the former Google employee I hired into ABC Development as a Sr.SDE. Here it is. This candidate is also a former MS employee who left the company and founded a “Start-up” called XYZ. XYZ was purchased by Google and he was hired on as a Senior Software Engineer II / Technical Lead. Here is his take on Google’s environment as well as areas Microsoft should consider improving in order to be more competitive.

Enjoy

(Taken from Life at Google – the Microsoftie Perspective, June 24th 2007)

Check it out here!

iPhone, it can do wonders

The iPhone can indeed do wonders, check out this ”advertisement” that I got from Youtube, enjoy

Well, its gonna be released soon, very soon….and the great thing is that it has opened a new job opportunity! Say hello to waiters, I mean “iPhone waiters”, whose sole responsiblity is to queue up for up to 60 hours, get the person an iPhone, and get paid….this is just sick! 

Ms. Dewey (She keeps pestering me to search stuff!)

 

I just found this interesting search engine, powered by Live Search, which could very well be what search engines would be like in the future, with a person guiding the users in searching their information, interactively interacting (Ouch, that sounds so…wrong?) with the user. It’s fully developed using flash (Why not Silverlight you ask, but hey, it was launched, very very quietly, last year! When Silverlight hasn’t even been released), and it’s pretty cool, and it’ll definitely give a laugh to those of you who are having a boring day (Oops, am I not talking about myself?)

Well, MS Dewey, or Microsoft Dewey, or more like Ms. Dewey, is pretty…funny and humorous, cracking jokes at times, and sometimes pretty straight (the way she glared at me when I type “how are you?”), sometimes pretty confused (when I’m not sure what to search myself), sometimes pretty annoying (when I don’t type anything at all), sometimes keen(when I’ve typed something to search), loves to act busy (yet she’s actually pretty bored), isn’t really a fast thinker (she needs to think long when I search something), and she loves Halo(Awesome……….), and actually plans to rule the world (YES she does, with all the information you enter! Scary eh?)

She’s crazy! Do check it/her out at msdewey.com

PS: Maybe Microsoft’s monster search engine to rival Google would be based on this?

Vista SP1 coming soon….thanks to Google?

 

(Taken from shuzak.com)

Just saw this interesting bit from the PC World newsletters, and in fact it’s pretty interesting news, where Microsoft was not the one announcing their SP1, but from the U.S. Department of Justice, mainly because of accusations of monopolization (ahem..ahem, isn’t that what they are heading towards?) of not only the operating system market, but further branching out to other markets, threatening other  (Face the facts people, this is the real world!) Well, do expect its release around the end of this year. (Hopefully they’ll include a more customizable UAC, which currently doesn’t allow me to open Visual Studio with Expression Blend!)

Game Addiction? NOT!

 

“If you’ve been thinking lately that your video game habit is getting a bit excessive, don’t worry. According to reports this week, doctors backed away from a proposal that would have designated certain types of video gaming as a mental disorder (similar to alcoholism or gambling addiction) — so you can rest easy knowing that whatever it is that you’re doing to yourself probably isn’t that big of a deal. We attempted to speak to two avid gamers concerning the decision, but one was busy fighting Razorgore the Untamed in WoW, and the other claimed that he didn’t have a problem and could quit whenever he wanted.”

(Taken from Video game addiction “not a mental disorder”, endgadget.com)

Just saw this article form the endgadget gadget blog, for you avid games out there, THANK GOD, we are NOT mentally disturbed!

Silverlight Rocks!!

 

Microsoft Silverlight (It has one of the coolest names ever!), for those who do not know what it is… (You’re officially outdated!!!! Though you know now thanks to me J)

 

“Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows. “

            (Taken from Silverlight.net)

As for those of you that are confused (bet you aren’t), think of Silverlight as…

 (flash) an animation technology for the web, which is currently still under development, but is currently being applied by many major companies, like BBC, Netflix, Fox Movies, and many more! The great thing is, .NET developers can now use their .NET development skills to actually create awesome-user-experience-based-applications, for the Web, using tools developers are more than familiar with: Visual Studio 2005 for coding, and a new tool, Expression Blend, could be used to create all the animations and stuff.

There are currently two versions of the Silverlight, Silverlight Alpha 1.1 (supports .NET managed code like C# and VB.NET), and Silverlight Beta 1.0 (supports only Javascript), but later on both will be combined into a single plug-in, so do test out them! You can download them here.

As for learning Silverlight, there are many cool sites to learn it from, but the one that catches my eye the most is Nibbles, a site created fully using Silverlight, and the thing is, ITS SOOOO NICE!!!!!!!

 

“Celso Gomes is an amazing interactive designer working at Microsoft who is responsible for the beautiful sample applications that ship with Expression Blend and did some of the earliest design explorations for Silverlight. Now he’s come up with Nibbles: a series of “snack tutorials for hungry designers” that cover the use of Expression Blend to build WPF and Silverlight content. The site itself is a stunning example of Silverlight, with faded animations and transitions and accordion bars: it makes my own work seem feeble by comparison. Make sure you check it out – it’s inspiring…”

            (Taken from Tim Sneath’s Blog)

Well, since I’m doing a seminar on Silverlight, I’ll be posting the info I found here, so stay tuned!

Microsoft Surface Teaser

This is soooo cool, i’ve seen in all around the web, and I just had to post it here and share it with you guys (in case you didn’t see it )  

 Enjoy!!

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 WARNING: this is abit anti-Microsoft. (But lets try look from a neutral perspective, and appreciate humour shall we!)

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Invited to join Microsoft Popfly!

I’ve just been invited to join the testing of Popfly! By dear Suzanne from the Popfly team, thank you so much Suzanne! (Though I dunno who you really are J)

(Say Hi to Suzanne)

Soooo, just what is Popfly, the name sounds abit funky…hmm, picture something, “Pop”’ing out of nowhere, “fly”ing around…Lookie here! Its a bird, Its a plane, NO! Its Superman? NO AGAIN, Its Popfly!

(Taken from the official Microsoft Popfly site)

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(Sidenote: Do you like ducks? Ducks are cute, and just way too cool, but definitely not related to Popfly…or are they? And its not ducks we’re talking about here, well, its rubber duckies! ON top of that,  seeing them stand nicely in a row, neat huh!)

(Taken from the official Microsoft Popfly site)

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Well, talking about Popfly,  it’s basically a website by Microsoft, released around last month (May 2007), that is built on Microsoft Silverlight, that allows users, including those who don’t know programming, to create web pages and mashups, even without dealing with a single line of code (though there is still the need to do some coding when it comes to creating certain blocks, mashups, etc though), this means, even those that do not know programming could make websites, mashups, and share their stuff online!

Acropolis

Acropolis? Nope, never really heard about it, but it seems it the code-name of a set of tools that allows developers to very very quickly come up with WPF applications, with reusable modular structuring, targeted at developing business applications.

“The Microsoft code name “Acropolis” Community Technology Preview 1 is a set of components and tools that make it easier for developers to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. Acropolis is part of the “.NET Client Futures” wave of releases, our preview of upcoming technologies for Windows client development. 

Acropolis builds on the rich capabilities of Microsoft Windows and the .NET Framework, including Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), by providing tools and pre-built components that help developers quickly assemble applications from loosely-coupled parts and services. With Acropolis you will be able to:

• Quickly create WPF enabled user experiences for your client applications.
• Build client applications from reusable, connectable, modules that allow you to easily create complex, business-focused applications in less time.
• Integrate and host your modules in applications such as Microsoft Office, or quickly build stand-alone client interfaces.
• Change the look and feel of your application quickly using built-in themes, or custom designs using XAML. ·         Add features such as workflow navigation and user-specific views with minimal coding.
• Manage, update, and deploy your application modules quickly and easily.”

(Taken from the Official Acropolis Site)

Cool huh!? You could also download its CTP in the Microsoft code name “Acropolis” website.