I really liked Angus’ recent post on User Stories (Wikipedia link about User Stories here) and how he grapples with question of whether they are even needed. User Stories feature prominently in the upcoming Visual Studio 2010 releases, so you’re sure to hear more about them (in the Microsoft space that is). The value in Angus’ post is how he outlines the issues (and thoughts from a variety...
I’m looking forward to the upcoming Azure launch in Australia, if for no other reason than finally learning what the proper pronunciation is :-) Is it a-zue-er or is it azsh-or ? Tuesday Feb 23 in Sydney is the official launch. Mark your calendars! But for added goodness, get along to a user group and hear David Lemphers talk about it non-stop (that’s right he scales!). Andrew Coates has all...
Good to see that the new dates for the Australian ALM Conference have been confirmed (as per organizer Anthony Borton’s blog post on Monday). It’s now set for 13-14 April 2010 at Luna Park (in Sydney). The conference has a great line up of sessions and speakers, and will be the official Australian launch of Visual Studio 2010. There’s also training and stuff after the event. The cost is...
Yes, it’s a little early, but I thought I’d get in with my blogging resolution for next year. I’m going to link more. I used to write a lot of shorter link posts here pointing to sites, news and blogs I thought useful. But with social networking popularity and Twitter in particular most of my linking over the last year has been via those channels. This is easier for me, more consumable by...
The true test of any company, product or service is in their Christmas message right? (I’m joking). So let’s consider how Microsoft adCenter and Google AdWords stack up against each other. I spend a fair bit of money with each, so it’s reasonable to expect something useful in the Inbox at Christmas time. Microsoft AdCenter First up, Microsoft adCenter. Here’s the message I received a few...
I can’t be any clearer: You must listen to this podcast. Frankly Speaking is the new weekly (kinda) podcast from Andrew Coates and Michael Kordahi. The guys have hit their 6th podcast (in less than 6 weeks!) so they are definitely on a roll. They cover technology news, Microsoft news and conduct interviews with all kinds of crazy people. If I were a software manager, here’s what I’d be...
I was pleased to see Somasegar’s blog post last week announcing that the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 release is being delayed. The reason: quality. The Beta 2, whilst good, isn’t up to the standard they wanted in order to meet the current release schedule. Thus, they’re going to extend the beta period in order to get it right. In fact they’re going add an additional release in Feb to...
After watching the second keynote from PDC last week, I’m now puzzled by Microsoft. In the first keynote, they seemed to get everything right. Embrace open source. Embrace cloud. Embrace what their customers want and need. Embrace strategic change. In the second keynote they seemed to do the opposite. Steven Sinofsky, in a somewhat self-congratulatory ‘review’ of the ‘lessons...
WordPress running on Windows Azure. You can see it announced, discussed and showcased from the 23:56 minute mark in Ray Ozzie’s opening keynote at Microsoft PDC this week: The reason this is so significant is because it represents an important strategic shift in the ‘yes we do support open source’ talk that Microsoft has been peddling pushing. This announcement is much more than Microsoft...
UPDATE: I’ve been using the AquaNotes Aqua Notepad for the last few weeks, and highly recommend it! I think best when I’m standing. And particularly well when I’m having a shower. In fact – but don’t picture this – some of my best ideas have been captured only as a result of me rushing out of the shower to excitedly explain a thought to my wife before they were...