How do you Twitter?
I created my Twitter account back in the very early days of the service. It was so long ago that I can’t even link to my original posts, as apparently their archives don’t go back that far… Lesson: Twitters are not forever!
Despite that, I never really felt that I “got into” the whole twitter phenomenon. I experimented with different interfaces for it… the basic Twitter web UI, the original Twadget sidebar gadget. It was largely functional, but not the prettiest thing and had its bugs. Eventually I stopped using it.
I’ve always had the SMS setup enabled for a small group of my former colleagues, but it was really just our own private backchannel, not the true “twitter” experience as most would describe it.
For a little while I tried various iPhone apps, like the PocketTweets web app, and later Twitterific. But none of them really stuck. Now I’m trying out TwitterFon and rather liking it, so maybe, just maybe I’ll start becoming a regular Twitter’er. Why do I bother? Well, I’ve attended three “tweet-ups” now hosted in Issaquah by my friend Chris Pirillo, the most recent of which was Thursday evening and featured special guest Chris Brogan.
This afternoon I tried to check on the state of Twitter gadgets for Windows. Sadly, I have to say it’s not very good. Of the slim pickings, I’ve installed one called Tweets — which to be fair is labeled as an early beta / preview release. In terms of appearance, well, we’ll go with “acceptable” which puts it far above the competition. In terms of features or options, well, it just doesn’t have any.
Now I’m starting to think of just writing my own. One of the existing gadgets is a CodePlex project called Chirpr, but it looks pretty far from what I’d try to build if I just started my own. In fact, I’d be tempted to cheat and just write one that uses .NET, or perhaps use it as an excuse to go play with Silverlight.
So now it’s time to get your feedback. Do you Twitter? What apps or interfaces do you use? Do you try to read everything? Or everything from certain people? Or do you just respond to interesting tweets if you happen to be looking when one floats by? Would you use a Windows (i.e. “sidebar”) gadget if there were a good one? What features or options would be important to you in a desktop Twitter gadget or app?
I love WordPress
If there’s one example of a free and open source project that continually impresses me, it is WordPress. I’ve used it to power this blog for quite a while. But I also used it as a CMS for the WeHaveHope.org website, and am now using it as one for an even larger project that I’m working on — a new website to replace the one currently in use by Village Volunteers.
I never really had any experience with PHP until I started dabbling in WordPress, but it was easy enough to pick up the basics, and the WordPress “API” documentation for building “themes” is quite good. It provides all the infrastructure for the site and great tools for content editing and publishing, leaving me to only worry about the design and layout of the site itself (and in turn letting the content people worry just about content).
As an example, the new site I’m working on has a “featured content” slideshow on the home page that I designed using JavaScript and a little PHP. The PHP code calls into WordPress and grabs the latest 5 pages tagged with “featured” by the editors, and it pulls an excerpt and image from them to display sequentially in a nice little slideshow to show off new and featured content. WordPress made this easy for me to develop, and makes it easy for my less technical friends who do the content to make use of it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love ASP .NET. If I were writing a web service or any kind of complicated web application I’d use that without a doubt, if only because I’m more comfortable in C# and the relevant tools than with their open source / Linux alternatives. In fact, that’s why BrandonTools.com runs on a Windows server — I had (and still have) some plans to dabble in some web service projects, and so I put that site on a Windows server so I could at least host prototypes there.
Unfortunately, the Community Server software powering BrandonTools.com hasn’t impressed me at all. In fact, I’m probably going to ditch it soon if I can find a good alternative and can find a reasonable way to migrate as much content as possible. It’s a shame really, and for me proof that the effectiveness and utility of applications are often more important than the details of underlying technology, or the philosophy with which it was developed.
So for straight-up web site design, I’m hooked on WordPress, and not afraid to admit it. At the moment it’s clearly the best tool I’ve found for the job. I would love to see an equivalent platform get developed for Windows / ASP .NET, and who knows, maybe something like Oxite will get there some day. But so far WordPress seems to be in a league of its own, not just as a blogging platform but as a very effective content management platform – particularly with their latest 2.7 update which really raised the bar.
Oh and did I mention that in 2.7 its web configuration tool has a one-click in-place upgrade option that pulls down the latest version directly from WordPress.org and applies it to your site? Yeah, it’s seriously slick.
We just posted the first version of the Windows 7 Federated Search Implementer’s Guide! You can download it here.
This document covers subjects such as crafting the best OpenSearch Description File for your site, returning files and custom properties, customizing the results view, optimizing your source for performance, and more. If you’re interested in developing an OpenSearch source for Windows 7, check it out! And as always, please share your feedback!
Link: Windows 7 Federated Search Provider Implementer’s Guide
Windows 7 line-up announced
Today Microsoft announced the official line-up of Windows 7 editions that will be made available.
Ed Bott does a nice job covering the announcement.
The main changes, which I am very happy about, are:
- Two main Editions for consumers. Home Premium, and Professional.
- Professional now contains Media Center and everything else in Home Premium, as well as the traditional Pro feature set (Remote Desktop, domain support, etc).
Not only is this simpler, but I think it may constitute a price cut for people who needed to buy the Ultimate version of Vista in order to get both Media Center and Remote Desktop (or Domain support) in the same package. Now they can get a machine with Pro and be all set.
Here’s the official press release / Q&A with Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra.
Windows 7 Beta hotkey cheat sheet
Got yourself a shiny new Windows 7 Beta install? Here’s a little cheat sheet I made up for some of the handy new hotkey combinations, many of which I’ve become quite dependent on!
General
| Win+Up | Maximize |
| Win+Down | Restore / Minimize |
| Win+Left | Snap to left |
| Win+Right | Snap to right |
| Win+Shift+Left | Jump to left monitor |
| Win+Shift+Right | Jump to right monitor |
| Win+Home | Minimize / Restore all other windows |
| Win+T | Focus the first taskbar entry Pressing again will cycle through them, you can can arrow around. Win+Shift+T cycles backwards. |
| Win+Space | Peek at the desktop |
| Win+G | Bring gadgets to the top of the Z-order |
| Win+P | External display options (mirror, extend desktop, etc) |
| Win+X | Mobility Center (same as Vista, but still handy!) |
| Win+# (# = a number key) |
Launches a new instance of the application in the Nth slot on the taskbar. Example: Win+1 launches first pinned app, Win+2 launches second, etc. |
| Win + + Win + – (plus or minus key) |
Zoom in or out. |
Windows Explorer
| Alt+P | Show/hide Preview Pane |
Taskbar modifiers
| Shift + Click on icon | Open a new instance |
| Middle click on icon | Open a new instance |
| Ctrl + Shift + Click on icon | Open a new instance with Admin privileges |
| Shift + Right-click on icon | Show window menu (Restore / Minimize / Move / etc) Note: Normally you can just right-click on the window thumbnail to get this menu |
| Shift + Right-click on grouped icon | Menu with Restore All / Minimize All / Close All, etc. |
| Ctrl + Click on grouped icon | Cycle between the windows (or tabs) in the group |
Note that this list focuses on stuff that’s specific to Windows 7. For a complete list of Windows Vista hotkeys (which should be largely unchanged except where noted above), visit this page on Microsoft.com or look in the Windows Help file.
If there’s something you think I should add, post a comment!
Raymond Chen recently wrote about the WOW64 system that Windows uses to virtualize file system and registry access for 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit version of the OS. In the comments, some began discussing the fact that Windows puts 64-bit binaries in the “System32” directory, and puts the 32-bit versions in a directory called “SysWow64” to which 32-bit applications get redirected. It does seem odd, I’ll grant you that.
One commentor wrote:
“Maybe it’s finally time for MS to stop catering to bad ignorant developers that skip on reading the documentation? I suppose that’s what big A did.”
This, of course, is making an assumption that the design had anything to do with ignorant developers or developers not following some documentation.
But think about it… exactly which documentation would they not be following? I mean, if a developer built a 32-bit application that hardcoded windows\system32 – then clearly they wouldn’t have a problem if the 32-bit binaries were left in that directory. Their 32-bit application would continue to find the binaries its looking for just as before. On the other hand, if they’re going through the trouble to recompile their application for 64-bit, they could probably handle fixing that little issue along the way, right?
So it stands to reason that the decision was made on a different basis. Let’s see, if it wasn’t to support existing 32-bit apps, and it wasn’t for apps that are recompiled as 64-bit, then who would this arrangement benefit?
Well, I wasn’t around when WOW64 came about, but I have a theory. There’s another little kind of “program” out there that isn’t really 32-bit or 64-bit, in fact is isn’t even compiled at all. They aren’t sold on store shelves, but there are millions of them, often vital to the businesses and developers who use them.
They’re called scripts, and the chosen WOW64 model keeps most of them chugging along quite happily.
Flickr search in Win7
Long Zheng of iStartedSomething.com has taken it upon himself to enable users to leverage my Windows 7 feature, called Search Federation, to search their Flickr photos from inside the Explorer.
It looks like a work-in-progress, and since his service works as a proxy to talk to Flickr, performance isn’t what it would be if Flickr had a native implementation. But for something he threw together over the last night or two I’m impressed!
We’ll be talking more about Search Federation on the Engineering Windows 7 blog soon, and will have much more to share when we deliver the upcoming Windows 7 beta release.
Channel 9: Windows 7 and OpenSearch
Our video about integrating OpenSearch-enabled data source with Windows 7 is now available on Channel 9!
Heading home from PDC
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.
It begins!
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.