Marcus' Tablet PC Radio Weblog

Gates touts the merits of blogs in speech to CEOs

Fri, 21 May 2004 06:15:25 GMT

More motivation to get blogging again :)

Wow, time has flown...

Fri, 21 May 2004 06:15:17 GMT

We've been here 6 months now...whoa. There's no way to sum it up here, but it's been busy. Moved into a house in Redmond, great neighborhood. The rain thing is still a myth to me, I'm having to water the lawn and trees quite a bit. We're hosting the neighborhood happy hour tomorrow. Finally got the garage organized enough to get one car in. Kids are very high energy and growing fast. We think the boy said da-da for the first time the other day. Settling into work, lots of great people, I'm helping with the designs for IE, sharing and search. That's a lot of meat. At the end of every day, both Alex and I are exhausted! We miss our family and friends in Austin. We're looking forward to having Alex's sister come in for Memorial Day weekend.

We're in Redmond to house hunt this week

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 20:59:20 GMT

Alex, Kobe (our 8-month-old), and I are in Redmond this week on a househunting trip. Had a great dinner last night with Will Vong from the Tablet PC team and his wife at Anthony's in Kirkland. Headed to lunch today with Scoble at Shi Lin. Dinner tonight with Bill Mak from the Tablet team downtown Seattle. Yes, we also spent 2 days with the realtor looking at houses. Saw some beautiful areas. We're still going through a bit of sticker shock from where we're moving from in Austin. We're gonna let it soak in for a bit.

Today is my last day as a frog

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 16:06:14 GMT

Well, this week has been nuts...as usual. Had a big update presentation with the client yesterday. I've been trying to help transition 2 others to fill my role. Sounds like they will try to play the zone. It is tough to have focus when you're a lame duck, but I've tried to be as professional as possible and dedicated to the team. It's been a good work week. frog has been a great experience. I'll miss it. Alex is a bit disappointed that I've had to work as much as I have this week....as usual.

So the biggest decision at work today is where to go for the good-bye lunch. I've had a bratwurst from the Best Wurst hotdog stand on Congress everyday this week so far. Mustard, onions, saurkraut and curry ketchup. I think I've had my fill.

Panther rocks!

Tue, 28 Oct 2003 04:57:32 GMT

The IT guys loaded up Mac OSX Panther while I was sick on Friday. It is cool! Why?

Easy Navigation. Persistant sources/favorites in the finder Finder enable quicker access and context to where you are. The color labeling is back and totally rocks. It's easy to mark trail to files and folders. Yeah, I know a lot of people will say that that's what Microsoft did x years ago with the tree on the left, but what I like about this is that its a limited set of starting points, not a fully redundant tree. And favorite starting points that I've put over there, not everything under the sun. They've made smart choices to limit the complexity, and allow users to make smart choices too.

Easy Windows Management. Expose is totally cool and fixes a large hole in windows management that OSX had. See the demo in the link here. It enables you to dynamically scale all open windows down so you can see the landscape and pick the one you want. You can also see just open windows of an active app. Simple, effective.

Just a few whizzbang features that make it really stand out and improve the overall experience.

Easy music sharing. Side note, it's cool to see Window's users in the office fire up iTunes for PC and share their music. You're able to access friends playlists who are on the network. It uses Rendevous, the same technology that Tivo uses for it's Home Media option to share files from PCs on your home network. I'm going to load it up at home so we can stream music between the PCs.

I can finally make the announcement...Hook'em!

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 18:03:28 GMT

It's time for a new adventure. I'll be leaving frog Nov. 7. I was finally able to tell my current client yesterday in person. 5 years at frog, almost to the day. It's been a great opportunity for me and I've learned tons. I'll miss all of the talented people I've worked with there over the years. I'm totally grateful for the opportunity frog gave me and I'll be leaving on good terms.

So where am I headed, you ask?

I'm headed to Redmond. Specifically, the MSX team. Longhorn. Helping design Aero, the next Windows shell, the UI of Longhorn. Feels great to say it! It's a great team and I'm psyched about it! One of my passions is designing products that people use and enjoy, whether it's a t-shirt, a brochure, a website, a UI. What a unique opportunity to design for 93% of the desktop users!

It will be a culture shock, I'm sure. It's a great team, lots of talent, but there will be lot's of things to get used to. My first large corporation, my first experience being on the 'inside' and not a consultant, different process. I'll let you know how it goes.

So add me to the list of Microsoft bloggers!

The family and I will be moving up northwest the first week of December. Its gonna be tough to leave Austin. We love it here and will miss being near our family and friends. Alex, my wife, is incredible. She's totally supportive and excited about the opportunity, but I know it will be tough for her to be farther away from friends and family.

So we're busy trying to manage the swirl of family life, getting stuff ready for the move, continuing to be involved on my last project at frog, and trying to spend time with as many friends and family here in Austin as we can.

More later, I'm at home sick today.

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 04:57:06 GMT

Theme change. Sorry I've been off the blog for a while. Lot's happening. I'll be able to say more in a couple of weeks. I'm having fun on my current project. I've been travelling quite a bit to LA. It's gonna be good...

My good friend JJ has left frog and is working for ascential software. We'll miss you man!

Now that's what I call off the wagon!

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:33:35 GMT

I'm not dead and haven't lost the tablet. I've been swamped with work and considering some big changes. There have been some very interesting developments I'm in a fortunate spot considering the climate out there, we'll see how things turn out this week.