Ryan Stewart and Long Zheng summed it up nicely.  This kind of banter and candor is why I work at Microsoft.  A CEO who will go, "Monkey Boy" just to please his customers.  Guy had some really nice things to say about the new Microsoft culture which was great to hear.  I'll post the keynote here when available.

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted.  A lot going on as of late so here's a quick rundown on activities and topics I'm going to write about during flights:

• Mix Update. The teams have been working incredibly heard in preparation for the MIX conference next week.  I've seen a sneak preview of some of the demos and think attendees won't be disappointed. 
• Silverlight 2 coming. ScottGu (now a newly minted VP!) provides a glimpse into Silverlight 2 on his blog.  If you can't be at MIX this year, don't fret- the videos will be posted on the Web shortly after the events thanks to Jeff Sandquist and team.
• HD-DVD is dead.  You can start buying Blu-Ray discs now or just go the digital route- my preferred method of delivery
• Apple TV Take 2.  Will I cancel my NetFlix and Comcast subscriptions?  Thoughts over the weekend and I'll explain how you can score one for $99.
• uStream as NannyCam.  Take an old IR-shot Sony DV camcorder, firewire and UStream my wife is addicted to her new Nannycam as a baby monitor.  I also hacked together a Vista Sidebar gadget for her which I may post. Now if only it was available in Silverlight...
• Dell XPS m1330. - my new and best laptop ever, despite the crapware
• New Silverlight site launches - Congrats to the team!
• MyNetflix Plugin for Media Center - Another reason why I need to put a full PC in the living room?
• Playing with CubeDesktop and loving it.  A must for any power user (thanks Chris)

By popular demand, Bill Gates' last day at the office video, courtesy of Channel 10.

Bonus points if you can name all the cameos and the song he's playing on Guitar Hero. ;)

Bill's Last Day: The CES Keynote video
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I'm watching the CES 2008 keynote right now, streaming live on the web with Microsoft Silverlight at www.microsoft.com/ces.  I'm so happy they allowed the funny video with a long cast of celebs in the simulcast.  I have four streams going right now for test purposes. Kudos to the istreamplanet team for keeping up with the crushing stream load, I understand it kept rising and rising during the keynote.

Speaking of which, I'm happy that Bill just unveiled that NBC Universal has selected Silverlight exclusively for online delivery of the 29th Olympics in Beijing, PRC in partnership with MSN.  Lots of exciting stuff to come there.   I'll write more on that later.

More pictures below:

Update: If you're unfamiliar with this whole Silverlight thing, check out Andy Plessner's Beet.TV interview where we discussed Silverlight last year. For some reason that day, I opted for the Quicksilver T-shirt instead of my "Evil Monkey" shirt.  Perhaps it was partner love.

The new Microsoft at CES site is up, and it's powered by Silverlight. There are so many projects underway now it's hard to keep track of them all and this was a great one to see.   
What's more, you'll be able to watch the keynote live in-page with Silverlight or via WMP/default browser.  Take a look, spin the wheel in LV fashion and check out the latest news from Microsoft at CES.

Hope y'all enjoy the show - Sunday night @ 6:30pm

Todd Bishop of the Seattle P-I provides a glimpse into the Take-Home testing that many of us do on digital home technologies at Microsoft.  Scott and Hakkan are two of the guys I've had the pleasure of working with in the past - nice to see inside their homes. 

Which brings me to realize my setup has changed so much in the past few years since I was GPM for Media Center- it might be time for a video this weekend walking around our Digital Home 2.0 ;)

Microsoft employees try out new technology at home

An interesting dialogue about consumer fair use rights happening right now.  I'm an advocate of protecting IP, but this bill (auspiciously named the PRO IP Act) goes way, way too far.

I may not agree with all of Jeremy's points (transmitting an MP3 intended for mass distribution is different from shoplifting a CD and should carry stiffer penalties IMO).  What concerns me about these kinds of bills is what happens to the Mom or Dad who puts copyrighted music under his home video, posts it and it goes viral?

This is an area where I encourage all of you to get familiar with the issues and make sure your congressional representatives have your views. Good places to start learning:

Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally » Blog Archive » A note to Nancy Pelosi regarding the PRO IP act

Michael Gartenberg - (un-) common sense on copyright

Home sick and head is swimming in sudafed- a good time for a diversion.  Pete asks what my Top 10 Sidebar Gadgets are.  Here is my latest list:

1. Weatherbug
2. Traffic by Live Search
3. App Launcher
4. Gas Price Information
5. Outlook Info
6. Traveler's Toolkit
7. iTunes or The Zune
8. Multimeter
9. DriveInfo
10. The Magic Folder (great idea, but buggy on my system)

Recently, I've been playing with a free Gadget for Vista Sidebar called, Visual Voicemail from CallWave and color me impressed.  Stevie J is right - audio management of voicemail is a pain.  CallWave on Cingular and other carriers can replace your existing voicemail system so that incoming calls are automatically routed to their service offering email notification, SMS notification with call details, and the Gadget, which provides a management feature for viewing, listening to, and deleting messages.  Nicely done.  It's free for a basic voicemail box with the gadget, or you can pay $9.95 for call routing etc.  My only complaints are the lack of a way to turn off SMS (it costs me $$) and lack of a Windows Mobile client for my Blackberry (er Blackjack) ;).

While consumers work through the dizzying array of new features in Windows Vista, Ryan Stewart cuts through the hype and brings it back to what really matters - User Experience.  He notes, "We're all better off when experience wins and Vista is a huge step forward."  I couldn't agree more. But what about after the hype, the roar of marketing moves into sustain?  I'm expecting to see big pops of innovation as new Vista-enabled applications start to emerge.

An example of this is WPF - Windows Presentation Foundation, which is going to enable the next-generation of desktop applications that are 3D accelerated, and designer-developer collaboraration with Expression Studio and  Visual Studio.  I agree with Ryan, and look forward to seeing Tim Sneath write about these new applications.  Yes, they'll run on many XP PCs as well, but will truly sing on Vista.

Another will be "WPF/Everywhere" or "WPF/E" (Codename), which will take rich media experiences traditionally targeted at the desktop, and bring those to the Web with the flexibility of standards-based programming, and the power of XAML for presentation.  I've seen how important XAML is first-hand- when I worked in Windows as a program manager on Windows Vista Sidebar, the tension was palpable between the User Experiece designers creating the UI, and the developers who were unable to fully realize the vision pixel for pixel.  With Expression Studio + WPF, what you can envision, becomes programmable, pixel for pixel.  That is a powerful thing, and soon we're bringing that to the web as well.

Try WPF for yourself with my favorite "essential" application - the NY Times News Reader (beta). 

(I have the flu so I'm heading back to bed. :( )

(Ed. Note: The new sites are being propped and updated as we speak, but getting this out ASAP.)

Today I’m excited to finally be able to talk about a new project I’ve been working on—“WPF/E”.   As some of you know, I spent the last year working on End to End User Experiences, specifically with Windows Vista digital media efforts and devices.  This was an amazingly fun and rewarding job, but when all the product work was done (some yet to be announced <g>), it was time to turn my attention to the next challenge.  It was about that time that I was made aware of another opportunity that was too interesting to resist.   

(My) Introduction to “WPF/E” (codename) 

About a year ago, I heard of an intriguing new project codenamed, “WPF/E” or “Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere”.  Announced at the PDC 2005, “WPF/E” is a key part of the next-generation Web platform from Microsoft.   I was intrigued and continued to track progress.  Designed to be delivered as a lightweight, cross-platform browser plug-in, the “WPF/E” client is optimized for presenting rich media such as vector-based graphics, animation, and video content efficiently over the Web.  Microsoft releasing a cross-platform technology?! Readers here know I own a few Macs (one PPC, two Intel-based) and I had to pinch myself.  More importantly I had to be a part of this effort, and I’m excited to say that not only am I a part of the team delivering the technology, we’re making it available to you starting today as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for evaluation and feedback.  Together with Microsoft Expression Studio also just announced, it’s a goodie bag of toys for designers, developers, and content providers to collaborate on delivering next-generation web experiences and we’re just getting started. (By the way, the codename is a temporary thing, with a much more simplifed one TBA).

Rich web media, simplified with “WPF/E”

Of course, being “Addicted to Digital Media”, there are certain features which led me to join the team.  The “WPF/E“ December CTP also includes support for playback of Windows Media Audio and Video, enabling delivery of rich audio and video integrated with graphical overlays, dynamic resizing, and marker support for interactivity. Customers have been asking for a simple way to embed Windows Media (and VC-1) files and streams organically on web pages for cross-platform playback.  With “WPF/E” they’ll be able to do it (starting with eval’ing progressive download support in the CTP and content protection is on the roadmap).  With “WPF/E” we’re finding new ways to tap into the broad ecosystem of content, tools, and solutions for Windows Media and make it easier.  And for standards-fans, common profiles of the SMPTE standard VC-1 codec are also supported in this release (that’s the same one that ships in all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players in case you’re keeping count).  Naturally for the Web, standard-definition quality will reign in the near term, but the platform is capable of HD delivery ;),

Introducing Expression Studio

Today, Microsoft also made a number of announcements focused on delivering tools and platforms for delivering rich user experiences (UX) in Windows and on the Web.  The first was an announcement around Expression Studio, a suite of four tools focused on bridging the designer/developer gap that exists today in most development houses.  Using the Expression suite, whatever a designer can visualize and be implemented by developers using .Net Framework 3.0 and Windows Presentation Foundation.  As a program manager, I’ve witnessed first-hand the tension that exists between the designer who creates phenomenal concepts that the developer just can’t code behind.  These tools will also be optimized to support “WPF/E”. I’ve seen upcoming applications built using these tools over the past few months (you’ll get to see some of them soon) and it really takes desktop app development (and soon, web development) to a new level.

Also simplified is the encoding and publishing of content via the new product in the Expression suite is the just announced, Expression Media.  Based on the iView Media Pro product acquired by Microsoft last summer, Expression Media is an update to the professional digital asset management tool to visually catalog and organize all your digital media (pics, fonts, sounds, videos etc.) for easy access  and presentation. (And yes, we’ll still support Mac for asset management).   For video publishers, it will also include a new tool for Windows - Microsoft Expression Media Encoder for encoding and publishing of video with “WPF/E” and beyond.   For more on Expression Media and “WPF/E”, stay tuned.  I’ve added a new category called, “Rich Media” so you can keep tabs on the topic. ;)

Also be sure to check out the blogs of my co-workers talking about “WPF/E” as well including our VP, S. “Soma” Somasegar:

• S. Somasegar - http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/
• Scott Guthrie - http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/
• Joe Stegman - http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/default.aspx
• James Clarke - http://www.clarkezone.net/
• Mike Harsh - http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/default.aspx

I’ll provide links to other team members shortly as they post more.  We have a ton of interest in blogging from the team among members with designer, developer, and video production backgrounds.

So take a look at the resources, send us your suggestions, and come back here with questions.  And while you’re at it, check out the just-relaunched sites at http://www.microsoft.com/expression and http://www.microsoft.com/design.  J

Duncan tipped me off to a new video he just posted looking at mceAuction, an eBay add-in for Windows Media Center. Developed by long-time and highly respected Media Center developer Christoph Buenger of Scendix, this is a great example of the cool stuff you can do and winner of the, "eBay Star Developer Award 2006". 

New features include:

• Show item's location in Google Maps®
• Get notification when you got outbid, your watched auction end in a few minutes, ...
• Shows shipping costs, payment options, item's attributes, ...
• Shows all details for a seller (latest feedback, % feedback score, ...)
• List of other items from a seller
• List of auctions in "my eBay" that are ending soon.

I can't wait to see what Christoph and team comes up with using the Vista Media Center SDK and rumor has it he's working  on  a Windows Sidebar gadget or two.

Sometimes a mashup of two existing ideas just makes sense.  For example, let's mash up two of the most popular Windows Sidebar Gadgets (or Widgets) - a clock and a photo sideshow.  After seeing The Human Clock on Time's Top 50 Web Sites it's occurred to me that this would make a great Gadget for Windows Sidebar with a human element.  Imagine a clock that shows original pictures from around the world, each incorporating the time in a unique way.  It should be super-simple to write (I'm just a little busy with other projects right now <g>).  Anyone want to write it (with the author's permission of course).

No, seriously I love the revisionist history tact Apple is taking in their "PC Guy" video from the WorldWide Developer Conference.  Yep, I'll link to it too.  At the beginning of the "wink wink" comments about Vista, they mention Vista's Gadget feature vs. Apple Widgets.  Funny - Apple was inspired by Konfabulator Yahoo Widgets enough to what... dare say you... copy it?  Name for name? Years after Konfabulator's release?  The concept isn't new- Microsoft Research did a paper on it in 2000, well pre-dating either product.  Then they make a statement about Windows Gadgets (which in full disclosure, I helped to name for Vista prior to Google shipping their dashboard) :). 

A few days ago, I called up the guy in charge of Windows Sidebar to congratulate him on the Apple video.  Apparently the competition thinks enough of the feature to slam it.  Like it or not, a good idea is a good idea, and I won't get bent out of shape when OSX SP3 Leopard is made available for download for purchase and includes some features inspired by Vista.  Windows XP has the feature Apple calls Spaces too, but it's a powertoy. It's been available since 2005, mentioned in Wikipedia for some time and it's a free download for Windows customers.

Others took shots at OSX when it was late to arrive, and didn't include features like DVD playback.  Vista will ship when it's ready and include advanced features such as digital cable HDTV PVR and enhanced home networking that makes it super-simple to set up and even diagnose when a WiFi router or other component goes on the fritz (happening a lot since I upgraded my WiFi- another story). Yet my Powerbook consistently decides to drop connection after ~5 minutes of access (WEP is enabled and authenticated). My wife on her Tablet PC right next to me?  She's still online.

For me, I welcome Apple's ads. The prevailing sentiment outside Microsoft circles?  Go to the "Nascar Nation" and I hear "That Bill Gates guy gives billions to help poor people".  What do they say about the Apple ads?  You be the judge  This is one PR battle I actually look forward to seeing more of.

Update: Paul Thurrott has his own thoughts here.  As does Engadget's Ross Rubin. And in the Apple camp, Daniel Eran. All in all, I think it's fun and not worth getting bent out of shape over. Satire is satire.  Apple's just trying to pull a Colbert/Wikigate (Video on YouTube).

Todd Bishop of the Seattle P-I has updates on Zune and Vista from the Microsoft Financial Analysts Meeting (FAM).

Correction: Todd Bishop of the Seattle P-I. ;)

Today the announcement was made that Bill Gates will be stepping down as Chief Software Architect and in two years will retire to his part-time position as Chairman of Microsoft. Instead he's going to focus on efforts such as battling tuberculosis, a topic near to our family. 

My "little" sister is a microbiologist for the CDC, running Tuberculosis projects around the world.  Yesterday she IM'ed me from Botswana-a surreal moment.  She was in Kazakhstan just a few months ago, it's amazing.  Regularly she talks about Bill Gates a reverence not seen (in my parts) in a while now.  Despite all the flak he received in years past, Bill is doing something incredibly worthy with his immense wealth.

I've had the opportunity to work with and talk with Bill on four separate occasions.  In each of these, he had the air of an elder statesman, on one occasion even sticking around for an extra hour to brainstorm a few ideas with a group of us.  It was energizing to have this kind of engagement with him, outside of a review, just like a group of friends and co-workers out of the office shooting bull about the industry.  He's human, we didn't necessarily share all the same ideals but could discuss and debate.  I enjoyed our time in this capacity.

Bill is part of the reason I joined Microsoft- the mystique inspired me like many; the desire to meet him "one day" was strong (checkbox filled plus pictures).  But in actuality his is just one person.  Microsoft is filled with bright and passionate people I learn from every day. He's not the only one.  The transition is bittersweet, but now it is perhaps my sister's turn.  I know she (like many other scientists) would like to one day work at the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.  Perhaps she'll get her opportunity one day to meet Bill and the two of us can compare.

For now, we can all joke about how Bill is following Robert Scoble's lead :).

If you're a beta junkie like me, and have a spare test system laying around, why not give Windows Vista Beta 2 and Office 2007 a whirl? Unlike when XP was in beta, broadband is finally at acceptable speeds for most to able to download.  Just be sure to run the Vista Upgrade Advisor first m'kay?

• Download Windows Vista Beta 2 (or order DVD media)
• Download Office 2007 Beta 2 (or order DVD media)

Wondering what all the fuss is around Vista?  Download the Vista Beta 2 Guide (Word .doc).

I've been playing with a few of the gadgets showing up on the Windows Sidebar gallery at http://gallery.microsoft.com.  It's a beta gallery and the SDK just went live but already I'm more productive with the Traffic Map showing flow on the main highways around Seattle.  I just wish there was more detail and an RSS feed available for new gadgets.  Great, now I really need to upgrade to a widescreen monitor at home.  Father's day is coming up...

You know what would make a killer gadget?   Flickr Uploadr.  I've been using the Uploadr to add pictures from my Windows Photo Gallery to Flickr this AM (sorry, they're pics for family).  But, Uploadr still works great with Vista.

Email from my Dad - he's loving Urge's collection of Rolling Stones and Benny Goodman hard to find tracks.  Mom, who I would consider a non-enthused computer user (they mostly frustrate her), just had jaw surgery and I suggested Urge as a diversion.  She says she, "can't stop!".  Now she wants an iriver clix.

I've been a fan of Orb, but found it didn't run as stably as I like.  And with a bunch of international business trips coming up, I bit the bullet and am evaluating Slingbox as a way to control and watch my favorite shows recorded on our DVR.  I have to say, wow I'm impressed so far.  The UI could use some work, but the function is solid.

Underneath the hood, it's basically a hardware-based WMV Encoder that can easily be found across the Internet. Put in some quality of service (QoS) goo and away you go.  Lots of folks have been having fun with it including Scoble.  Hundreds of uses - some folks monitor their babycam using one. 

One idea I had was for Slingbox to build a Gadget for Windows Sidebar and Live.com.  They're already close-with the ability to dock the SlingPlayer on the left or right sides of your screen, but it leaves a lot of unused space.  What do you say SlingMedia? 

In the coming months I'll be blogging my experiences with Slingbox from Hong Kong and Japan.  Away we go!

I had the rare opportunity to lounge in the grass picnic-style with Thomas Hawk, Ian Dixon and his wife and blather on about digital media in general.  Thomas has a good recap of our conversation over on his site not to mention some stunning pictures.  Thomas has inspired me to re-engage on Flickr and I've posted my own pics from the show here.

Whew.  Crazed schedule at CES, I really haven't had time to post as I'd like.  The Windows Vista/MTV-Urge party last night was completely crazed.  I've literally never seen lines that long (about 200 feet) to get in, and when in, the floors were completely packed.  Microsoft parties have had great attendance before, but the buzz I kept hearing was about the Urge announcement (and the party). I get irritated with large crowds so I ended up hanging out in the "VIP area" most of the night trying to keep away from the crowds.

The keynote went well the day before- I had lunch with BillG's speechwriter the week before and made a few jokes about the importance having an electrical engineer monitoring the power after last year's power outage. It's good to be able to laugh about it now.  It's even better when the keynote went so well.  One thing that did bother me though- little applause, little laughter. This is a fundamental difference between MS and Apple - they surround themselves with their fans, throw a bash for them, and THAT is where they announce their products (like next week).  The buzz is infectious. Press and public alike get wrapped up.  I don't buy statements that CES or other shows are the equivalent of a "WinWorld".  The problem is too many audiences to make this work effectively.

One of the pieces that has me so excited this year is the new Windows Media Player 11.  This is part of the reason I re-joined the group.  Can you say performance?  I have over 10,000 tracks in my library.  I was so tired of UI freezes and slow searches that I started using Windows Desktop Search as my way of finding music. WMP11 takes a completely rethought and highly optimized database that is hands-down the fastest media player library I've ever seen- visually and logically. Album art is amazing. There are tons of perf improvements folks are just starting to see. I'm also hearing about additional perf optimizations in Vista's USB stack that will help as well. MCE users will benefit from all of this as well.  More on this over on the new Windows Vista site at : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/community/mediaplayer.aspx

I've accepted recently that I'm now more a part of the VH1 demographic than MTV. At first I wasn't wild about Urge but then I realized that MTVN (Networks) recognizes this fact, and that's part of the reason they created the Urge brand.  I'll be able to tap into my favorite "classic rock" like Alice in Chains, Aerosmith, and  Now, I'm addicted. Urge integrates cleanly into the UI, I can download and sync a playlist in one step.  And my favorite is "Feeds"- these are truly smart playlists. This concept takes the best of smart playlists, smart sync, and concepts like RSS and mashes them together.  What you get is truly smart playlists that update (and sync) to your device automatically.  More on that later.

There's so much more to WMP11 and Vista which hasn't even been announced yet.  Stay tuned.