Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

If you’ve never seen the Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs comics, they’re pretty funny! Here’s an example of one:

Anyway, after looking at a bunch of them for the past day or so, I decided to cook one up of my own based on the one thing I think about the most when I get into debates with Apple bigots (no, I’m not saying that all people who use Apple products are bigots; I’m just talking about the Apple fans who act high-and-mighty). If you don’t understand what I’m referencing in the comic, then take a few minutes to watch the video clip I’ve posted just beneath it. It will all make sense then. Anyway, here is my spin on the Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs comics:

And that’s it! If you’re interested in cooking up your own, I’ve provided a template below. The first comic that I posted at the top and the template below are courtesy of these guys.

Make Your Own Bill Gates Vs. Steve Jobs Comic: Download Here

-Stephen

I’m just passing along information contained in an email sent to me this morning. If you’re interested in obtaining Windows 7 certification, this may be an avenue for you to consider. ExamForce (click their name to head to their Twitter page) is offering a free Windows 7 practice test that is apparently comparable to the test that will land you a “MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration” certificate. If you’re interested, head on over to the following link and sign up:

ExamForce’s 70-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring Exam Preparation

And, no, I am not affiliated with ExamForce at all — I just thought someone out there might be interested. If so, then best of luck!

-Stephen

This is just a test. This post will be removed soon.

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If you’re like me, you’re as intrigued as the next person by the iPad. We’ve gone from desktops to laptops to small laptops to even smaller laptops (aka “netbooks”) and now, the iPad. The device looks great and if you love your iPod Touch as much as I do, it seems like playing your favorite games and using your favorite apps on a ginormous screen would be awesome. But is it $499 worth of awesome? Sadly, not for me. To determine if the iPad is for you, put the price aside for a second and ask yourself the following 3 questions:

1 – Do you read books/ebooks? One of the major selling points of the iPad is the convenience and beauty of reading books/comics/etc. but alas, I personally don’t read books. I like the idea of reading books! Unfortunately, I just don’t have the attention span to sit down and read a book. So, if you’re like me, this selling point is absolutely useless.

2 – Do you need a portable media player (movies, music, et al) the size of a magazine? Well, it would be cool to have a video player the size of the iPad screen, but apparently, they didn’t implement that capability. Also, my portable music bases are covered and the iPad just doesn’t quite fit the bill of portable even if my bases weren’t covered. I suppose there are some neighborhoods in this country where you could find people jogging down the street with their iPads, but not mine. Lastly, take into consideration the iPad’s form factor. If you’re going to watch a 2-hour-long movie, you won’t be doing it laying in bed. Not comfortably, at least. It would be like holding a magazine that whole time with nothing to prop it on except yourself or whatever you can creatively cook up.

3 – Going even broader here, where/how do you plan to utilize it if not the 2 ways above? See, I don’t even know for this one. I see myself starting off on my couch or maybe laying in bed, but even at that, I can’t see myself using $499-worth of this device. Browsing the internet? Okay, but my netbook does that perfectly and port-ably here at home. Games? Yes, definitely. Other apps? Nah.

I know people who say the iPad really is a game-changer. One of my friends is a former Microsoft-fan-gone-Apple-dev who said he has no idea how Windows users do it now that he’s got his iPad with him everywhere he goes. I guess if it’s *that* good, then the worst-case scenario for us burdened Windows users is having to wait for the HP Slate, huh?

In all honesty, though, I really would love to mess with an iPad, but even if I love the thing, I can’t justify the price tag based on my answers to the three questions above. Wanting one just to have one doesn’t quite compute here. If you want a really, really comprehensive review of the iPad noting both it’s shining qualities and biggest failures, check out Paul Thurrott’s iPad review here.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

While sitting here this morning randomly surfing around some netbook ratings and reviews after considering picking up one of Alienware’s m11x gaming monsters (I know, it’s not really a netbook, per se, but it has the form factor of one which is very appealing to me), I noticed a news headline that said, “new richest man in the world!” Normally, I wouldn’t have cared about that, but seeing it as I’m a Microsoft fan, I knew who *WAS* number 1, so my interest was piqued. The “billionaire’s club,” as I’ll call it, seems to shift a bit every year in Forbes, but they all generally keep the same company overall. However, Bill Gates has remained the top dog on the list for some 14 years or so (with some fluctuations here and there, I believe, but none-the-less)… that is until now.

At the helm of “richest person in the world,” edging Bill out by a measly .5 billion (or 500 million — or, in other words, “chump change” when you’re worth in excess of 50 billion), is Carlos Slim Helu. Who the heck is that? Yeah, I wondered the same thing. From the article I’m sourcing:

Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil (AMX), Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires

Slim’s fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year.

That massive hoard of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft (MSFT) cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world’s richest 14 of the past 15 years.

Gates, now worth $53 billion, is ranked second in the world. He is up $13 billion from a year ago as shares of Microsoft rose 50% in 12 months. Gates’ holdings in his personal investment vehicle Cascade (CAE) also soared with the rest of the markets.

So, what is Bill Gates to do now that he’s not technically the richest man in the world? If I’m not mistaking, Mr. Gates probably couldn’t care less about his all-too-familiar “richest man in the world” title. He’s clearly focusing his worth on issues that will benefit the world and those who are suffering within it. If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out Bill’s blog — notably, the “Infrequently Asked Questions” section which contains some really great questions you’ll certainly want to read Bill’s opinion of.

Bill Gates: No longer the richest man in the world. So what? What has Mr. Helu done for the world lately?

Source: Yahoo! Finance

-Stephen Chapman

http://msftkitchen.com

After posting a short time ago about the Windows Mobile 7 UX flow prototypes, I thought I would post a couple of other findings from UX/UI design company Jeremiah referenced named, SectionSeven (who has one of the coolest portfolio sites I’ve ever seen). These projects are fairly vague in reference, but this post is all about the visuals, so I’ll let them speak for themselves. Feel free to discuss!

(Click for a larger image)

 

 

(Click for a larger image)

A few things to note about the image above, there are a couple of comment bubbles that provide some relevant information:

“A set of 9 prototype CD sleeves for a Microsoft product group … each principle is illustrated using only a pile of pebbles. Pebbles represent all the little pieces of a person’s life [and] these pebbles were all placed and arranged by hand – pebble by pebble.”

Ouch, that last part sounds like a real painstaking process. They sure did produce some great-looking results, though!

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

Ron George is once again putting out a product of his innovation, but this one isn’t just informational or theoretical, it’s something you can play with… and it’s free. They’re called Gesturcons and, in the words of Ron from an email to me, “[t]hey are helpful to any designer that is attempting to get into this space.” I don’t want to say too much about them here, because his explanation of his creation is far superior to what I could say (just short of completely copying his whole blog entry), so check out the image below, then visit the link below it to read more and download the Gesturcons Touch Pack:

 

More about Gesturcons and the Gesturcons Touch Pack 1.0 on Ron’s blog: Ron George

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Ron George is one of the UX talents on the Windows 8 planning team within Microsoft. That, in and of itself, is reason enough for this blog to keep up with his. Never mind the fact that he’s an innovator in his field. Today, Ron announced his paradigm shift in the world of UX: OCGM

Pronounced “Occam” as in, “Occam’s Razor,” the acronym stands for the following:

Objects: Objects are the core of the experience. They can have a direct correlation with something physical, or they can just be objects in the interface.

Containers: Containers will be the “grouping” of the objects. This can manifest itself in whatever the system sees fit to better organize or instruct the user on interactions. They do not have to be, nor should they be, windows. They can be any sort of method of presentation or relationship gathering as seen fit.

Gestures: Gestures are actions performed by the user that initiate a function after its completion and recognition by the system. This is an indirect action on the system because it needs to be completed before the system will react to it.

Manipulations: Manipulations are the direct influences on an object or a container by the user. These are immediate and responsive. They are generally intuitive and mimic the physical world in some manner. The results are expected and should be non-destructive. These are easily performed and accidental activations should be expected and frequent.

In other words, OCGM is Ron’s solution to the ever-growing problems present in today’s WIMP-dominated (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing Devices) world of human-computer interaction. To quote:

The WIMP interface is a slow dying breed as our demands on user experience and the demands of user’s keep inflating. It’s time to start thinking in a new direction. A direction that sheds many of the harnesses of the old acronym and begins to explain the building blocks of the future. It will be simple, concise, and cover all of the bases we need. There is no need to rely on pointing devices, menus, or windows anymore. It’s time to let the experience be the interface, and the user to be in total control. The interface will begin to blend in with the experience and the experience will be the interface.

I’d like to once again point out the fact that this guy is on the Windows 8 planning team. These are the types of people who drive true innovation, and when you can get them to apply their game-changing ideas to your product(s), good great incredible things can happen. It’s just nice to know that people like this are working on my favorite OS of choice. Feel free to go to Ron’s blog and let him know what you think. Give him your opinions and be honest. Sure, he might be a 6’6″ ex-Marine, but he welcomes feedback of all types with open arms.

Link: OCGM (pronounced Occam['s Razor]) is the replacement for WIMP

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

I love the snipping tool. If you have never used it and you take screen shots often, you may find it extremely useful. Previously, I used MS Paint for all of my screen shot needs. Well, after using both for a recent article, I noticed an inconsistency between the two. Check it out:

MS Paint:

 

Snipping Tool:

Do you see the difference? The inconsistency lies in the suggested text case for the file type. The difference in .png and .PNG makes all the difference in the world if you’re saving an image for the web. Linking Windows8.png and Windows8.PNG are completely different from one another; even though the names are the same, even so much as one character having the incorrect case will break your hyperlink. Now, while it’s true I could just manually save my image by typing the file name and the extension into the save box, the fact that the defaults differ for these two programs seems like a minor oversight with consistency. In fact, if I worked at Microsoft, I would probably push for a certain level of consistency across all Windows applications where things like this are concerned.

I love both of these applications and I won’t use them any less with this in mind, but after having noticed it, I looked back at my images folder for my site and I see just how inconsistent my image names are – undoubtedly based on which one of these applications I saved them with and then going back to link to the image based on how it resides on my server. Sure, that’s an oversight on my behalf, but I had no idea my behaviors had developed into that. Now I’m aware of it and, thus, the reason for this post. Not a big deal or anything, but when I run into these little quirks, I feel compelled to see if anyone else out there even cares. My last observation like this had to do with WinSAT. I wonder if they will ever fix that…

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

This is more an observation than anything else, but I’m highly optimistic about the outlook for Microsoft where the web is concerned in 2010. Why? Follow along to find out.

Those of you who have been around since the early days of the web when competition really started getting heated between Microsoft and Netscape know how important online market share is to Microsoft. And these days, it’s all about advertising. Whoever has the most web real estate to run the most ads on with the most agencies/companies contains the midas touch and that’s all there is to it. This week at PDC, Microsoft took us on a journey through the beginnings and vision of Internet Explorer 9. They also unveiled Silverlight 4 in all of its majesty and I have to say… I’m extremely excited about it. Having time to digest all of the information from PDC 2009, I can’t help but run the following equation through my mind:

Internet Explorer 9 + Silverlight 4 + Bing = The Year of Microsoft on the Web in 2010

If (and that’s a huge, “if”) Microsoft can pull off their vision for IE9, I may very well make the jump back to the browser I used to know and love (IE7 is about the time I jumped ship to FireFox, then Opera). Now that Microsoft has spilled the beans about hardware rendering in their browser, I’m sure every other browser out there has now shifted their model to include the very same technology. It’s off to the races and while another company may beat Microsoft to the market, I think Microsoft has a couple of tricks up their sleeve. After all, their new philosophy is to say as little as possible and over-deliver when the time comes (the polar opposite of the Windows Longhorn mentality, basically). With that in mind, I don’t see Microsoft stepping up to the plate with IE9 so soon without having full confidence that – even *if* someone else beats them to the market with similar technology under the hood – they will do what they have set out to do and they will do it better than everyone else. One would hope, at least.

Let’s step away from Internet Explorer 9 for a moment and talk Bing.

Bing. As a brand, it’s starting to catch on. I couldn’t stand the name initially, but it has managed to grow on me. As a search engine, I’m not sure that it will ever fully replace Google for me, but I find myself using Bing more and more. It provides additional results for me that Google doesn’t (and for how I use Google, that’s huge) and for shopping and travel, I look no further. Where I’m concerned as a consumer, Bing has the shopping/travel market share 100%. Also, I’ve spotted Bing as being the catalyst for traffic to my site more and more. Sure, it’s a very low percentage compared to Google, but it has knocked Yahoo out of ranking. Slowly but surely, Bing keeps creeping up in market share. I hope that trend continues as Bing is truly worthy of being an accessory to Google (as I said, I doubt it will ever be a full-on replacement for Google, but you never know what can happen years down the road).

Now, this is the point in which I note the obvious combination of Google and Firefox. Although Firefox has increasingly become a sluggish product for me (even on my blazing new gaming rig), I still prefer it over IE8. Even in compatibility mode, I notice a number of the pages I frequent acting strangely in IE8. Now, what are the odds of someone actually using and enjoying a combination of Bing and IE9? Google has become a habit. It’s almost instinct to have Google as your main page, so to change that behavior, it would take quite a concious act – one which I may be willing to go through with when IE9 finally drops. Once again, I doubt the combination of Google/Firefox will ever drop below the combination of any other search engine/web browser, but it’s an interesting thought none-the-less.

Lastly, we have Silverlight 4. What an exciting time for developers and Microsoft alike. Silverlight 4 takes Silverlight well-outside the realm of being labeled an Adobe Flash clone and finally places it into a territory all its own (they have been pulling away from that comparison all along, but Silverlight 4 finally commands all the respect Silverlight deserves). If developers can jump on the Silverlight/WCF boat and really help the technology take off, it will be to the benefit of everyone! It almost seems foreign that a technology like Silverlight could come along this late in the game, best Adobe Flash, and become the new standard in interactive/high-def/streaming media, but I really hope it does. And with the rumors of Windows Mobile 7 containing Silverlight controls (at the very least, there’s Silverlight for Mobile), I do not see this technology going away anytime soon (and that’s a good thing).

There is so much more I have to learn about all of the technologies above, so I’m not trying to pretend to be some expert on it all. These are just my personal observations and a culmination of thoughts from the excitement generated by putting all of this together. It seems that if Microsoft was/is ever to finally gain/reclaim web browser and search engine market share, 2010 is going to be the time for it. Now, it may not happen all at once in 2010. It will take time, just as Bing has. Unfortunately, there’s a negative stigma out there about Microsoft’s products in regards to the web. It has almost become a fad to hate Internet Explorer and any type of search engine that Microsoft creates, but now is the time when people should step back and actually give this stuff a chance (or a second-chance, as the case may be for IE9). Yes, at the end of the day, Microsoft is a business. They want to make as much as they can, but then again, that’s no different from any other company. The trick is to put a product out there that will not only be useful, but possibly life-changing… and when I say, “life-changing,” that can be as simple as something someone can leverage in addition to what they already know and love.

I was sold the moment Bing provided results for an exclusive for me that Google failed to. As for how I use the web, that’s a product I’ll stick with. Best of luck to Microsoft in 2010. So many people love to hate them, but I, for one, am excited to see what they put out to enrich the lives of those who give their products the fair shot they deserve. Feel free to chime in with your comments and let me know what you think.

Oh, and for the first time ever, I’m compelled to attend a MIX conference. It’s shaping up to be fantastic next year!

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com