Scenes from the Canadian Windows 7 Event

October 21, 2009
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I’ll be updating this post regularly through the morning, so keep an eye on this article!
Here’s Steve Ballmer doing his keynote:
Photo by Tom Purves. Click to see the original.
Here’s my view from the event’s Twitter Lounge, where I’ll be doing demos and answering questions:
Photo by Yours Truly.
This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Reporting From the Canadian Windows 7 Event

October 21, 2009
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The official launch of Windows 7 doesn’t happen until tomorrow, but we’re having a big launch event with Steve Ballmer today in Toronto! I’ll be blogging and tweeting all day from the launch venue – Toronto’s Harbour Castle Westin Convention Centre.
For the full skinny on the event, follow the #cdnwin7 (short for “Canadian Windows 7”) [...]

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Portable Computing in the “Mad Men” Era

October 20, 2009
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Are there any computers available today that come in that particular shade of blue, with matching chair?
Click the photo to see it at full size. Photo courtesy of retrofuture.
This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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One Year at Microsoft

October 20, 2009
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I knew that I might be a little too busy to write an anniversary blog post with my work schedule this week. That’s why I wrote that article last month to mark having worked at Microsoft for 11 months. My schedule was a little less hectic then. Go and read the article if you like [...]

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Area Man Gets His Own Channel 9 Show

October 20, 2009
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Ryan McMinn – co-founder of the Toronto-based development shops Unspace and M7 Database Services turned Sith Lord with The Empire’s Access Team – co-hosts the newest show on Microsoft’s Channel 9: The Access Show. Ryan hosts The Access Show with Clint Covington and in the first episode, he and Clint talk about Access Services, [...]

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The Truth About Pac-Man

October 19, 2009
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[Found via Certified Bullshit Technician.]
This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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Visual Studio 2010/.NET Framework 4.0 Beta 2 and Final

October 19, 2009
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The Beta: Available Now!
The newest beta, Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 is out! MSDN subscribers can download it right away, while everyone else can get their hands on it on Wednesday, October 21st (and don’t worry, I’ll remind you if you on Wednesday if you have to wait until [...]

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WinMoDevCamp: Save the Date – November 11th!

October 19, 2009
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On Wednesday, November 11th, we’ll be hosting the Toronto-area WinMoDevCamp at Microsoft Canada’s headquarters! It’ll be the fifth in a series of worldwide “Camp” style workshops focusing on developing applications for Windows Mobile (including the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5).
WinMoDevCamp – short for Windows Mobile Developer Camp – was inspired by events like BarCamp, SuperHappyDevHouse [...]

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WIND Mobile’s Videos: Funny. Canadian Mobile Phone Situation: Not So Funny.

October 19, 2009
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I have no idea if WIND Mobile is going to be able to deliver what they promise – a mobile phone company that listens to its customers and provides better service than the sad players in the Canadian mobile phone oligarchy – but they’ve got the right ideas and some rather funny videos that perfectly [...]

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Mario Learns an Important Lesson

October 17, 2009
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It’s About Helping Your Users Become Awesome (or: “Being Better is Better” by Kathy Sierra)

October 17, 2009
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Kathy Sierra, who co-created O’Reilly’s “Head First” series of books and who used to write the very inspirational Creative Passionate Users blog, is awesome at helping users become awesome. I use her lessons as guidelines in my evangelism work and even borrowed from her to create a catchphrase that I used when interviewing for my [...]

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24 Years of Windows Packaging and Boot Screens

October 17, 2009
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TechRadar UK is publishing a series of “Windows 7 Week” articles, some of which take a look back at the history of Windows. One of the articles presents a timeline of Windows packaging, from version 1.0 to 7:

…and another is a chronology of Windows’ boot screens:

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Explore Design ‘09

October 14, 2009
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I’m going to be “booth-bunnying” today and tomorrow at the Microsoft area of the Explore Design fair, which bills itself as “North America’s first design education fair for youth”. It’s an event where young people can find out about the creative, technical and career possibilities offered by the field of design. There’s a wide [...]

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Who’s Got .NET Framework 3.5?

October 13, 2009
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Alexander McCabe wanted to know the adoption rates of the various .NET runtimes, from .NET 1.0 up to the current .NET 3.5. He took the data from the logs for the website for his quiz-building software, Question Writer, augmented it by including figures published in Joel Spolsky’s Business of Software forum in March 2008, and [...]

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Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

October 12, 2009
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It’s the second Monday in October, which means it’s Canadian Thanksgiving (or in French, Jour de l’Action de grâce)! I’d like to wish you a safe and happy holiday and remind you to think of what you’re thankful for.

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