Brandon Live!

It’s been a whirlwind of a trip here in LA.  When I arrived I thought I’d be blogging, posting photos, and keeping in touch with the outside world the whole time.  Well, that didn’t quite work out.  There was always so much going on and so much to do, that the little downtime I had when I arrived back at my hotel was spent squeezing some of that “sleep” stuff into my schedule.

In case you’re wondering which of the features unveiled at PDC is “my baby,” that would be the OpenSearch-based search federation feature in the Windows Explorer, detailed in the Find & Organize session which you can watch here.

We also have a Channel 9 video covering the new Libraries feature and other user experience improvements in Explorer for Windows 7.  This video is part 1 of a two part series, the second of which covers the Search Federation feature (and yours truly).

For now, the best place to learn more about OpenSearch in Windows 7 is to watch the session video at the link below.

PDC 2008 session - Windows 7: Empower users to find, visualize and organize their data with Libraries and the Explorer

Just got through with the first PDC keynote a short while ago.  Since then I played with a Surface computer and met Larry Osterman.  At the Surface machine I was given a little card to take around to all the Surface machines in the convention center for a Scavenger Hunt game.  Basically you set the card down on the Surface table and a ring appears around it with about 10 images.  Then you drag matching images from the virtual tabletop to your card in order to “collect” them.  Each table has 2 of the images you need (and about a dozen you don’t but that other people do).  Apparently there’s a T-shirt in it for me if I fill up my card.

The keynote was really interesting.  I was aware of some of the work going on, but it was great to see it all tied together and to see how impressive the vision for Azure really is.

In about an hour I’ll board my flight to LA, which will be my first on Virgin America airlines.  I’m heading down a day or two early to visit my younger sister and enjoy a bit of warm sun before the conference kicks off on Monday.  From what I hear, there should be some pretty exciting stuff happening on Monday beginning with Ray Ozzie’s keynote address.

Of course, what’s most exciting to me is that on Tuesday we’ll begin talking about all of the work my team and I have been doing for nearly two years now (has it really been that long?!?).  My friend and colleague David Washington, platform PM for the Find & Organize team, will be presenting our session on Tuesday afternoon.  It’s the one titled “Windows 7: New APIs to Find, Visualize, and Organize.”  Apparently it was a bit of a challenge to come up with an interesting title that didn’t spoil the fun of our announcements.  At any rate, if you’re at all interested in Windows Explorer or Search - you won’t want to miss it

I’ll be there to help answer questions after the session, to assist with our hands-on labs, to hear everything you have to say about the work we’ve done and what we can do to make sure Windows 7 is a compelling offering for you and your customers / users.

Oh yeah, and one more thing for those of you following along at home.  On Thursday, David and I were interviewed by Dan Fernandez for my very first Channel 9 video.  I expect it’s the first of many, and I think you’ll enjoy it when it’s made available in just a few days.

About a week ago we posted an entry to the Windows 7 Engineering Team Blog about Windows Desktop Search, describing the motivation behind indexing files and what investments we’re making in that area of the system.  It’s a good read so check it out if you haven’t already.

This afternoon we made a follow-up post addressing some of the suggestions, comments, and concerns that showed up in the comments to the original entry.

If you have more feedback, please keep it coming.  I and others will try to respond in the comments over there, or in future follow-ups.

I was just reading this article from the Wall Street Journal and was struck by how it butchered an issue very important to everybody who uses the internet.  Mind you, this isn’t a WSJ “blog” post, this is the full-on deal apparently penned by Monica Langley and Jessica E. Vascellaro. 

Here’s where it started to go wrong:

Congress is considering measures that could have an adverse impact on Google’s business, including laws that could limit companies’ ability to deliver personally targeted online advertisements and rules that would allow telecommunications companies to charge different prices for different levels of Internet service.

At first I thought to myself, “what the heck does that mean?  ISPs already charge different prices for different service levels.”  Oh well, whatever, this article is about Schmidt supporting Obama so one goofy line is forgiveable right?  But oh no, it gets much worse.  Speaking as if she/they were an authority on the matter:

Mr. Obama’s stances on some issues important to Google remain unclear. Both the candidate and the company, however, have said they support limiting Internet service providers from charging different rates for different levels of service, saying it would be discriminatory and stifle innovation.

I’m not aware that Obama or anyone else have supported such limitations.  Such limitations make no sense at all.  What Obama and companies like Google, Microsoft, and others all DO support is what has become known as “net neutrality.”  Net neutrality isn’t about price levels for internet service.  It’s about limiting or banning internet service that discriminates against specific endpoints.  The closest thing I can think of to what the WSJ said is that one effect of this could be an ISP charging a higher price level for somebody else’s service.  

It would be like AT&T charging me extra, or intentionally giving me more dropped calls, if I use my iPhone service to call Dominos pizza instead of Pizza Hut, because Pizza Hut made a deal where they pay AT&T to sabotage phone calls to their competitors.

Price levels?  Come on WSJ, I use to respect you guys.

I updated my Windows Search indexer gadget with a couple of fixes.  If you run the gadget, you may want to update in order to fix issues with the play and fast-forward (“index now”) buttons not properly reflecting the state of the indexer back-off feature after clicking one of them.

Also, if you like the gadget, please go to the Gadget Gallery page and give it a good rating

Download Indexer Status Gadget on Live Gallery