User agent page modifications aren’t a new thing, but they are now getting the attention they deserve. C|Net is running a story @ News.Com about Greasemonkey and user scripts. So today, the folks on the Greasemonkey project have launced a blog about the tool and its use.
While I won’t talk about the “ethics” of altering other folks content, I will note that I love Greasemonkey. I’ve used it to help correct errors on websites. I also use it to “clean up” CNN.com (which is one of my primary news sources). A great source of user scripts can be found here.
Happy surfing!
-CyclingRoo-

If you want to know whether Microsoft “get’s it” or not, take a look at one of Robert Scoble’s entries from yesterday. He is excited that Microsoft is developing a “we” culture rather than a “they” culture. That was one of the biggest take-aways I had from last week’s trip into “the belly of the beast.” And now Scoble is highlighting this change in spades. I would note that Scoble is not the only voice at Microsoft, but he is one of the newest and most respected. There are folks at Microsoft that are still comfortable in the us/them patterns that have flourished for over a decade. But if you want to see some changes in the tone of the dialog, I would urge each of you to follow Scoble’s blog – if you can keep up with the volume that he processes each day!

-CyclingRoo-

If you want to know whether Microsoft “get’s it” or not, take a look at one of Robert Scoble’s entries from yesterday. He is excited that Microsoft is developing a “we” culture rather than a “they” culture. That was one of the biggest take-aways I had from last week’s trip into “the belly of the beast.” And now Scoble is highlighting this change in spades. I would note that Scoble is not the only voice at Microsoft, but he is one of the newest and most respected. There are folks at Microsoft that are still comfortable in the us/them patterns that have flourished for over a decade. But if you want to see some changes in the tone of the dialog, I would urge each of you to follow Scoble’s blog – if you can keep up with the volume that he processes each day!
-CyclingRoo-

Today is the closing day of the first annual Microsoft Technology Summit. And it has been a great week. While I have always kept my eyes open, it is nice to have them opened wider. When I arrived at the campus earlier this week, I kept thinking about the quote to “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” While I would not characterize Microsoft as an enemy, there are people I know that would make such bold assertions. As for me, I am here today writing about a nineteenth century quote applied to a twenty-first century situation.

Mark Twain once wrote that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And I am hearing the rhyme to IBM’s history of thirty (or was it forty?) years ago. As a company, IBM aggressively attacked the plug-compatible manufacturers (e.g., Amdahl). IBM raised barriers to competition wherever it thought it could. Their tactics were draconian and possibly illegal. And it took legal intervention for this to change. In the end, IBM found itself being labeled as an anti-competitive monopolist. And IBM was forced to “open” its mainframe playground to numerous competitiors.

The process of “opening up” was complex, lengthy and expensive. But today, IBM is more generally seen as a gracious participant in the “community” process. They are no longer seen as the angry, 800-lb gorilla that it once was. Microsoft is at the same point. They are an adjudged “poor sport” in the community of technologists.

And this assessment is both fair and unfair. There are hard-headed and ham-handed people at Microsoft just like there are the same kinds of people in the “community” (e.g., ESR v. RMS). But the community must act consistently in order to maintain historical credibility. Iif the community can modify its position towards IBM, then it must be open to modifying its position on Microsoft. Of course, it took IBM decades to repair its reputation in the industry. And for some aging technologists, IBM will always be a criminal suspect. I am sure the same will be true for Microsoft.

So for Microsoft to repair (or initially establish) its reputation, it must take steps that will not be appreciated as genuine. It must invest and expect venom as the reward. But if Microsoft can weather the initial response, then both Microsoft and the community can move forward to a more “engaged response.” I can’t wait for this rhyme to be completely recognizable.

Who knows? Maybe I can abuse this analogy further and relate it to a modern musical mashup!

-CyclingRoo-

Today is the closing day of the first annual Microsoft Technology Summit. And it has been a great week. While I have always kept my eyes open, it is nice to have them opened wider. When I arrived at the campus earlier this week, I kept thinking about the quote to “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” While I would not characterize Microsoft as an enemy, there are people I know that would make such bold assertions. As for me, I am here today writing about a nineteenth century quote applied to a twenty-first century situation.
Mark Twain once wrote that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And I am hearing the rhyme to IBM’s history of thirty (or was it forty?) years ago. As a company, IBM aggressively attacked the plug-compatible manufacturers (e.g., Amdahl). IBM raised barriers to competition wherever it thought it could. Their tactics were draconian and possibly illegal. And it took legal intervention for this to change. In the end, IBM found itself being labeled as an anti-competitive monopolist. And IBM was forced to “open” its mainframe playground to numerous competitiors.
The process of “opening up” was complex, lengthy and expensive. But today, IBM is more generally seen as a gracious participant in the “community” process. They are no longer seen as the angry, 800-lb gorilla that it once was. Microsoft is at the same point. They are an adjudged “poor sport” in the community of technologists.
And this assessment is both fair and unfair. There are hard-headed and ham-handed people at Microsoft just like there are the same kinds of people in the “community” (e.g., ESR v. RMS). But the community must act consistently in order to maintain historical credibility. Iif the community can modify its position towards IBM, then it must be open to modifying its position on Microsoft. Of course, it took IBM decades to repair its reputation in the industry. And for some aging technologists, IBM will always be a criminal suspect. I am sure the same will be true for Microsoft.
So for Microsoft to repair (or initially establish) its reputation, it must take steps that will not be appreciated as genuine. It must invest and expect venom as the reward. But if Microsoft can weather the initial response, then both Microsoft and the community can move forward to a more “engaged response.” I can’t wait for this rhyme to be completely recognizable.
Who knows? Maybe I can abuse this analogy further and relate it to a modern musical mashup!
-CyclingRoo-

Wow! I am in a session right now where Microsoft enterprise architects are discussing their support of a creative pattern repository at http://patternshare.org. I am so amazed that Microsoft is open and expressive about this effort. First, Microsoft is supporting patterns that are not always based upon Microsoft products and licensing. Second, Microsoft executives are allowing the patterns developed/articulated by this team to be released under the Creative Commons copyright framework. Third, Microsoft is releasing code fragments (not products or systems, mind you) under a very relaxed EULA. These three facts lend immense credibility to the participatory tone that Microsoft has taken throughout this conference. Way to go!
-CyclingRoo-

For the past few months, I have been using Doppler as my podcasting agent. It’s good. And it features the MS .Net Framework 1.1. So it’s got great support and a good feature set – for Windows only.
So I’ve been waiting for the latest iPodder from SourceForge. Well, that release is now available. So why iPodder v2.0? Here are some of the latest features:

• Total redefined, fully-featured GUI (user interface)
• New streamlined subscription process with an ability to check and uncheck items for download
• New cleanup section allowing quick cleanup
• History of downloads and click to play abilities
• Proxy support
• Threaded scans/downloads and resumable downloads
• Import and Export functionalities (OPML) to enable easy transport of data between other applications
• Many new smaller features including small add-ons like spotlight search, catch-up functionality, coralizing, and shortcuts enabled.

And, it’s freely available under the terms of the GPL. If you don’t have a podcasting client (to retrieve MP3 attachments from the RSS feeds), then try iPodder.
Our short break is now officially over!
-CyclingRoo-

St. Patrick’s Day

Martin Taylor, Morning Keynote

• There was an honest discussion about blog commentary. In particular, most comments were cautiously optimistic. Martin noted that he thinks people are serving judgment so that they won’t lose their wine ration! 😉
• “I wish people could see our internal discussion” “We talk about cross-plat all the time.” The decision to deliver “cross-plat” .Net is based upon simple economics – esp. the increased R&D required for such a port.
• Microsoft is not “anti-open source.” We believe that Windows is better than Linux.
• The discussion spiraled off to a heated thrust/parry on open source politics and value props. Fortunately, members of the audience re-directed the discussion.
• The discussion re-surfaced to discuss .Net on other platforms – including Mono on Linux and then fell back into the pit!
• The kick-off/keynote session always sets the tone for the entire day. So Microsoft missed an opportunity to highlight expansive and cooperative opportunities. Unfortunately, Martin missed the opportunity and got caught into a confrontational trap.
• One of the participants asked, “Wouldn’t it rock if Microsoft took its developers and made JDK rock on Windows.” But there was marked hesitancy and hedging by Microsoft on this point. I respect the ambivalence of their response. They must embrace enterprise developers who are not using .Net. But they must also embrace their shareholders who have invested financial resources and expect a return on that investment. So the cautious response is understandable. Nevertheless, there is a second reason to consider this option: as developers are able to use Windows (because of a supported JVM), they will be exposed to the richness of the .Net framework.
• This was a rousing session. I sure hope that it does not inspire a confrontational tone throughout the day.

Jason Zander, Net CLR Architecture

• Jason spent a few minutes discussing history.
• Jason embarked on a “geek-out” frenzy by spewing forth numerous important TLA’s. But this had a great effect on the audience. It allowed everyone to focus on what alpha geeks love: techno wizardry. At the same time, the business architects were lulled into a semi-comatose state! For now, the zeitgeist from the previous session has been washed away – or droned away.
• Jason did spend some time talking about the advantages of JIT compilation in CLI. While I appreciate the advantages (esp. for exploiting dynamic code interpretation and code generation), the full advantage of platform portability is diminished. The only real portability is between W2K, WXP, WLH and various SP iterations of each (plus W64). While this is important for enterprises with multiple instances of Windows, this is probably not as expansive as the conference attendees are accustomed to with Java portability. But it does highlight the fact that the infrastructure could be ported to “alien” platforms and still support complete (or nearly complete) application portability.
• There was a good discussion about the importance of the framework for new languages on Windows. Of particular note was the potential for Iron Python and Ruby. Maybe there will be hope for a Groovy deployment!
• One of the attendees noted the challenges with current Java development and memory management. In particular, developers must pre-state their heap needs. But no good tools are available to determine this. So this attendee was keenly interested in knowing how Microsoft lessens this challenge for .Net developers. Jason responded admirably. But my un-tuned ear heard the “wah, wah, wah” from Charlie Brown’s teacher. Now I’m a geek, but this was tremendously esoteric. But the presenter tailored his responses to the audience. Again, this was the perfect analgesic for the rancor from the previous session.

Scott Guthrie, ASP.NET 2.0

• New features and functionality were discussed. Of particular note were the security improvements – and the fact that Microsoft spoke of secure applications in addition to knobs/cranks for the developers.
• Scott discussed the provider framework and how they will defer to externally selected providers as part of the platform. For example, there are MySQL providers that are open source and readily available on the Net.
• There was a very practical discussion of SQL Express. The Roo sees this as one way that Microsoft is getting it right while Oracle can’t see the forest for the trees. Both database platforms are being challenged from below by PostgreSQL and MySQL. And Microsoft is countering that challenge by providing an alternative – and not the MS Access alternative. But Oracle still refuses to directly address the “challenge from below.”
• I had a very interesting side conversation regarding ASP.NET utility with Ted Hu. He asked a reasonable question about whether I saw utility in the ASP.NET package/framework. And I candidly told him that I had no immediate drive towards this platform. But the more I thought about it, the more an analogy came to mind. The first iteration of ASP.NET was very similar to Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki raft. It had the components and everything could be lashed together to make it “seaworthy.” But the platform has substantially matured since its introduction. It is no longer a bunch of logs lashed together with seasoned rope. But would I build “The Love Boat” for paying clients? Hard to say…
• Scott then began to present a site development example.
• The audience definitely broke into two camps: site developers were intently focused on the demo while the business architects seemed less engaged.
• There was a good discussion of Beta 2 deployment and the “Go Live” licenses already in use. The expectation is that several thousand sites will be v2 at launch of the product.
• Scott was extraordinarily impressive. As he discussed client experience models, he effortlessly uttered the name of Firefox, Mozilla and Opera. While this is quite expected from his position as the Product Manager for ASP.NET, it was, nonetheless, quite disarming.

VS.NET 2005

• There was a brief discussion of VS.NET’s new features.
• The team then had an excellent demo.
• Of particular interests was a demonstration of SVG browsing/display through VS.NET. This is purely demonstration-ware, but it’s inclusion is encouraging because VS.NET will work with the Internet’s default vector graphics engine. Of course, this is not a statement about product or corporate support but a demonstration of the extensibility of VS.NET. Very cool.

Smart Client Futures

• Smart client designer is integrated (and consistent) with VS.NET designer.
• Whidbey will bring “click once” advantages to smart device deployments.
• Windows Forms 2.0 was overviewed as a basis for discussion.
• A demonstration of development and deployment was offered for the group’s consideration. The most curious demo was a UI that looked damned near identical to Outlook. There was little exploration of the buttons, widgets and decorations. So for all I know, this was a bitmap only. But if it is a moderately functional UI, this would be amazing! Man, UI development and deployment is moving at an every increasing pace!

Guidance through Patterns and Practices

• The presenters emphasized “scenario-based” guidance.
• There was an excellent discussion about how the MCS field staff should be engaged in the use of these patterns and deliverables.
• Success is measured via proof-point analysis. Success is not measured by unit sales of Microsoft products.
• They are shipping patterns and codes under an expansive EULA while the patterns themselves are licensed under the Creative Commons. This work is available at http://patternshare.org.
• Enterprise Library was demonstrated and discussed. What is keenly interesting is that these tools would work well with almost any framework (Zachman, TOGAF, FEAF, etc).

Bill Hilf, Open Source and Microsoft

• Perceptions vs. Reality
• P: Microsoft is against open source; R: Microsoft is not against the model. But Microsoft does compete with products developed under the open source model.
• P: Open source equals open standards; R; No
• P: Linux is Unix; R: No
• P: All open source software is free; R: No
• P: Developers like to ride early-morning shuttle buses; R: No
• Microsoft tracks kernel development trends to understand development speed and the community development model
• Bill Hill discussed his own credentials on Apache (mod_proxy)
• Three lessons: a) community involvement is good, b) the more transparent you are, the more trust you engender, and c)
• Microsoft has offered “shared source” program as an alternative to open source. Twelve “shared source” options (out of seventeen) allow code modification. Of even more importance is the fact that many of the “17” license instruments are existing, OSI-approved licenses. For example, WIX (app installer) is licensed under the CPL. MySQL now uses the WIX installer.
• Learning: You just don’t get a community by giving away the code. You need to have project owners/maintainers and you must nurture the development team.
• Reality: There are no Croatian hackers employed by Bill that are working on new generations of Linux virii! 😉 (The crowd roared)
• Monad/MSH: A Microsoft command line interface that looks/acts like a typical *nix shell.

-CyclingRoo-