istartedsomething

After devoting 20 years of his life to the evil empire, Microsoft Australia employee number 27, Jeff Alexander, is still fascinated by the occasional Microsoft freebie.

Today the 26th of August 2007 marks Jeff’s 20th anniversary at Microsoft where he will become the 2nd oldest serving employee in Microsoft Australia. In comparison, notable ex-Windows-executive Jim Allchin had only spent 16 years at Microsoft.

As we were chatting at TechEd Australia, it had struck him that he started working at Microsoft before I was even alive. Spooky! Jeff kindly provided this synopsis of his life at Microsoft including his fair share of job changes and challenges.

• 1987 – Started at Microsoft at the age of 22 on August 26th. My first role was Accounts Payable clerk which involved all things accounts payable. In those days we used to pay employees in cash. My how times have changed.
• 1990 – Moved into a Customer Service Role which was a pre-sales technical support role. I did a lot of upgrades over the phone and took the call for the first person to upgrade to Windows 3.0. This was because of the timezone we are in and NZ did not have an upgrade team in place. I spent 2 and half years in this role and averaged around 100 calls per day.
• 1993 – Moved into Product Support to work as a technician delivering telephone support on desktop applications such as Word for DOS, Word for Windows, Word for Mac and Excel for Windows and Macintosh. At this time we also had to do a stint in MS-DOS 5.0 support for 3 months so we could understand the underlying operating system because in those days everything ran on top of MS-DOS.
• 1995 – Windows 95 is released as you know to huge fanfare. By this time I was in our Internal IT department as a helpdesk technician and was charged at this time of deploying the M8 build of Windows 95 internally before it was released. It was a pretty interesting project given how new it was so we were blazing new ground at this time. The M8 was what we call a Beta or CTP today and was the most stable build we had to deploy internally.
• 1998 – Moved into the NSW Sales team as a Systems Engineer responsible for talking to customers about Windows NT, SMS and eventually Windows 2000 and Active Directory. In 1999 we deployed Windows 2000 internally which was monumental because it was the first large scale deployment of AD in the world at the time. A lot of work went into this project. During this year Bill Gates came to Australia and I was his technical support person during his visit. Very nerve racking but fun all the same.
• 2000 – As a company we were as worried about Y2K as everyone else and hired generators as a business continuance measure and had the PSS folks working when the clocks ticked over. Of course nothing happened but we were ready all the same.
• 2001 – Took a role back in our internal IT department as DataCentre Manager for Australia & New Zealand and spent 3 years in this role mainly working on projects to provided value back to the business. The biggest one was our consolidation project of many of our servers to Singapore. During my time we went from about 85 servers down to 30 or so.
• 2004 – because I consolidated so much of the internal infrastructure there was not much left for me to do in my IT role which is how I ended up in the IT Pro Evangelist role I’m in now. This is a great job because it allows me to talk to customers on technology I have passion for. It’s a great role and I see myself doing for some time to come.
• 2007 – August 26th 1987 is my 20 year anniversary at Microsoft in Australia. I’ve seen a lot in that time and seen technology change a great deal. And the best thing I’ve been on the edge of it the whole way which has been really cool. Here’s to another 20!

Apart from everything, I only hope those Microsoft stock options are serving him well.

For most people, Microsoft’s range of home softwares probably doesn’t get hormones going, unless of course you’re researching “Boobies”. I don’t ever recall bloggers speculating feature lists or leaking blurry screenshots of the ‘next’ version of Encarta or Microsoft Works. Granted Encarta, Money, Student and Works are all very functional products, they haven’t really innovated or changed all that much. Project “Ohana” might have changed all that, if it hasn’t been already canceled.

As identified in Mary Jo’s book-of-codenames, “Ohana” is a Hawaiian phrase for extended family, in a nutshell. There is a rich cultural meaning behind it and for a deeper explanation, check out its Wikipedia article. At the time besides a few rumors not much else was known. This week, I found a few “Ohana” tidbits that I think paints a much better picture of what is, or what it was.

Reading the Jackson Fish blog, I came across a link to SectionSeven, a (talented) Seattle-based design and development company who also worked on “Tafiti“. Innocently browsing their portfolio, I stumbled across a Microsoft project which they showcased, “Ohana”. When I clicked on it, I felt like opening Pandora’s box. Included were design concepts including a CD packaging prototype and a set 5 out of 9 posters illustrating the user-experience principles for “Ohana”. I nearly dropped my jaw, luckily I caught it just in time.

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Since two weeks ago, a lot of people including myself had expressed interest in the catchy soundtrack to Animal Logic‘s showreel video shown during the Microsoft TechEd Australia 2007 keynote. “Ya da da da da da da”.

Just yesterday I have finally been able to track down the producers, Nylon Studios, to get in touch with them about the music and I have some unexpectedly good news. Not only were they very open to share the MP3 with me, but also allowed me to share it with all of you. You can download “Animal Logic” MP3 here.

Nylon Studios is a small Sydney-based group of composers and songwriters. Their music is widely used in advertising and film. For those who enjoy the “Animal Logic” song, you should also check out “Sunkissed” for the Telstra “Spread the good stuff” ad, downloadable here. They MySpace page can be found at myspace.com/nylonstudios.

Update: Nylon kindly provided some extra information about the song.

Elliot Wheeler and Johnny Green who wrote and produced the track wrote the lyrics. the singer is Australian singer/songwriter Melanie Horsnell.
http://www.myspace.com/melaniehorsnell

Elliot and Mel also make up the band Forever Thursday.
http://www.myspace.com/foreverthursdaymusic

MSN and Microsoft (arguably all the same) are at it again today with the latest rollout of its “interactive Office 2007” advertisements on the MSN homepage. The third in the series – once in April, July and now August, features the website wrapped around a faux Office PowerPoint 2007 “Ribbon” interface for the “It’s a new day, It’s a new Office” campaign.

Personally I’ve been a big fan of these interactive Office advertisements as they’re non-intrusive at the same time extremely educational. Granted most of you who read this blog, or any blogs for that matter probably won’t be as impressed, but to the user who only knows the Office suite by the big blue “W” or green “X”, a product demonstration without requiring any installation or bible-thick manual can work extremely well.

And with over 465 million unique visitors per month on MSN, getting the word out about Office 2007 is a good thing.

A range of possible combinations of SmartArt style and colors

However I do have to admit this PowerPoint version is not as functional or “fun” as the previous Word version. You are only restricted to one tab, “SmartArt Design”, which only allows you to change the style and color of the SmartArt placeholder. Technically, there are 30 possible combinations. It would have been much cooler if they also enabled “Design” and allowed you to change the theme of the entire page.

I asked whether this was a sign to expect more of these interactive Office ads as part of a whole series. The Microsoft spokesperson replied,

Microsoft bases ad campaigns like this on feedback from users. We are always looking for fun, innovative ways to showcase new technology to our customers, and the live preview on MSN has been a popular function. We are always keeping our eyes open for interesting ways for people to experience our products, and we take customer feedback into consideration when deciding on how to further engage our customers.

With Word and PowerPoint out of the way, I can’t wait until the interactive Outlook ad.

Once upon a time, Windows didn’t come in different versions or flavors. You bought Windows and it was Windows from A to Z, or technically W to S. Some might call it better times, but times change and so have market demands. Since now we have 5 versions of Windows for the consumer market – although some insist to round-up to a bazillion, it only seems fair to be able to upgrade between versions when it is required, thus Windows Anytime Upgrade was born.

Up until May, Anytime Upgrade was only accessible through a proprietary online ordering system provided by Microsoft, limiting the availability and accessibility of those who either don’t have a credit card or simply aren’t comfortable with purchasing online. From May till now, Microsoft has been quietly offering these Upgrade Packs, an off-the-shelve product for Anytime Upgrade. Not much has been said about these packs, and it’s not even mention on Microsoft’s own website which made me wonder what Microsoft intends to do with these.

A Microsoft spokesperson had this to say,

When did Windows Anytime Upgrade become available through these Upgrade Packs?

The initial version of Windows Anytime Upgrade was available at consumer launch in North America and EMEA on January 30th in the form of a card with a product key. Since then, we’ve redesigned the SKU to also offer a pack with a DVD and a product key inside. The English version of this pack was made available in the North America, EMEA and APAC markets in May, with localized SKUs made available in June. In the US market, the Windows Anytime Upgrade Pack is available as a service upgrade at retailers and can be purchased on Amazon or at Circuit City and Best Buy. In EMEA and APAC customers can purchase the pack through several different software distributors and retailers.

How does that work – is a reseller still involved in some way? Or are the bits available directly from MS on CD/DVD (with a new product key)?

Upgrade Packs are available through direct retail in response to requests from our retail partners. Direct retail offers customers the choice of another way to acquire WAU, coexisting with the online WAU model. When customers purchase the upgrade at windowsanytimeupgrade.com, they receive a digital certificate download and product key. With the upgrade pack, customers insert the DVD, enter the product key and proceed with the upgrade. The bits are also available on a WAU DVD that they can purchase at the same time.

To me this sounds like the ideal alternative for Anytime Upgrades. From a user’s point-of-view, purchasing software online is a scary thing. The question everyone asks is, what happens if you lose the electronic key or digital license? Even with all the fanciness and wrapping of “Digital Locker“, it is still a tough choice over something you can hold on to and gather dust on your bookshelf.

If anyone’s interested in upgrading their version of Windows Vista to Ultimate for any other reason than to enjoy the luxuries of Windows Ultimate Extras – because they don’t exist, then check out these Upgrade Packs.

Am I the only one to find this claim a little bit of a puzzler? PC Pro writes,

Skype blames Windows Update for 48-hour outage
Skype is pointing the finger at Windows Update for a critical system crash that wiped out the VoIP service for two days.

In a statement posted on the company’s support page, the company claims: “The disruption was initiated by a massive restart of our user’s computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine software update.” This is presumably the Windows updates that were sent out on Patch Tuesday last week, which required the PC to be restarted.

Of course on the Skype blog they don’t actually refer to the term “Windows Update”, they refer to a “routine software update” which many websites have subsequently replaced with “Windows Update”. Given Windows Update does fit the criteria for a mass “routine software update” in relations to the timing of the Skype outage, but does it really make sense?

Skype’s blog has been updated to say,

On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.

The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.

Think about it. If Windows Update did in fact cause the restart of millions of Skype users worldwide, which it can do without argument, then how come Skype doesn’t crash the second Tuesday of every month when of course Microsoft distributes its Windows patches like they have for the past 3 years and years of unscheduled patches prior to that? As far as I recall, last week wasn’t any different.

Am I missing something? I’m not saying it was not Windows Update, but why only last week did it do what it could have done 36 times already?

Update: The Skype blog has now been updated to directly refer to “Windows Update” as the culprit.

Update 2: Skype clarifies their statement in an update about “Windows Updates”. Other factors not present at any other previous Windows Updates attributed to the “perfect storm” on August 16. Probably should have just said that the first time around.