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Kentc's SOAPboxDisclaimer: All opinions are solely mine and don't necessarily reflect the opinions of Microsoft or my family.http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/atom.aspxTelligent Evolution Platform Developer Build (Build: 5.6.50428.7875)2003-12-04T13:59:00ZMy blog has moved...http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2008/05/28/my-blog-has-moved.aspx2008-05-28T19:41:00Z2008-05-28T19:41:00ZMy new blog home is at http://blogs.technet.com/Kent_Compton/

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxDigital Music that "get's it"http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/09/11/228339.aspx2004-09-12T06:58:00Z2004-09-12T06:58:00Z

I know it's been a while since I posted anything. I guess didn't have much to say.

After years of waiting, I finally found a way to purchase music over the Internet that works for my needs.

I have four PCs where I listen to music. Each of them serves a different purpose. Our main PC is a Media Center Edition that we primarily use as a desktop PC but occasionally record some TV programs on, let me daughter watch her cradle until current day videos, etc. I have an older PC that primarily is for backups and is the "server" for my Turtle Beach AudioTron. Its sole purpose is stream music from the Internet radio stations or from a digital music collection into your audio system. I have a Tablet PC that I use at home on our WIFI network. That Tablet is great to plug into a portable stereo to reach those areas of the house that don't have loudspeakers. Finally, I have a Tablet PC from work that I listed to music on during my train commute to and from work. I don't own a portable music player other than an old Compaq PA-1 player. I'm intrigued by the portable players out there but frankly I'm not sure I need to listen to my music anymore than I already do. There's a point where I think you can get saturated listening to the same ~3000 songs and I'm pretty close to that point (or at least was). That may change in the next couple of months…

Over the past year, I have purchased DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) music from both Napster and Buy.com. They make acquiring music very easy but with both companies I ended up never buying another song. The reason is because I know own more WMA protected music that I'll never be able to listen to again. That is because I didn't follow the proper "license key management" backup procedure before I rebuilt my computer(s). Every time I shut down the Windows Media Player it prompts me to do the license backup and stores that in the expected docs and settings folder. Shouldn't copying the docs and settings/… directories be enough? No, it's not. When I contacted their support departments they basically said 'sorry, that's just the way it is.' Even if I did recover the music they only allow the music to be run on one PC (you can make 10 CD-R discs but I'm not 14 and neither are my friends so that's not a big selling point). I only lost about $15 worth of music so I chalk it up to a lesson learned. Unfortunately, I figured I'd just stick to buying and ripping my CDs to WMA/MP3 as the best way to digitize the music while secretly hoping we'd get it right when we entered the market.

My frustrations with one PC, locked music all changed a little over a week ago when we finally did enter the market. MSN Music simultaneously launched with Windows Media Player 10 and they allow for the DRM WMA files to be played on up to five simultaneous PCs! MSN Music's multiple PC policy is so incredibly pro-consumer that I've purchased ~50 songs during the past week. I cannot believe how easy it is to find, sample, acquire and then share the music between all of my PCs. They have also done a really good job of getting you to impulsively buy other songs. If you choose an artist (say The Cranberries) they'll show you a list of other suggested artists that other "listeners also liked…" I do not have a lot of the one or two hit wonder artists' songs (e.g. Boomtown Rats "I don't like Mondays"). I can't believe how many other songs I'd found. I was like a kid in a candy store. They also take whatever bit rate settings you have for ripping your own music and download the same bit rate for the music you're acquiring. Give it a whirl. I'd be very surprised if you weren't really pleased.

I'm hoping they add an EBay-like way of entering a search and having the service notify me when a particular artist or song is brought on-line. Otherwise, I think it's about as perfect of service as I could ask for.

Jumping back to why I might buy a portable music player. Instead of buying the music if apparently if you sign up for the service like you would with DirecTV or another service you pay a monthly fee for you'll be able transfer and listen to as much music onto the portal device. You'll only be limited to its hard drive size. You'll be able to listen to the hundreds of thousands of songs as long as you keep your subscription current. Coolness…

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxMSR's Life of a Digital Photohttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/02/11/71403.aspx2004-02-11T21:43:00Z2004-02-11T21:43:00Z

Microsoft Research does some of the coolest work in software anywhere in the world. They send a newsletter to those of inside the company who are interested in their work ("Friends of MSR") which I found out it is OK to post. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see the photographs (I was told NewsGator doesn't support them) but the text still is very descriptive. You can find their past newsletters here. This one is particular story is near and dear to my heart because I have always loved photography. I'm really looking forward to this advancements coming to fruition.

The Life of a Digital Photo

Related Links

Continuous Flash

Image Stacks

WWMX Web site

Shot On Location:
A World-Wide Image Database

Friendly Planet

History is being written in a new way. It is being written by people through the big and the small events in their lives. We write history through personal Web sites, discussion boards, and the legacy of photos, taken at moments that are important to us.

Researchers at Microsoft have been working on a wide range of technologies that will help people write their personal histories through digital photography. To tell any history, it's best to start at the beginning, and move forward.

In the beginning, you buy a digital camera, take a quick look at the manual, throw it to the side, and start pushing buttons. Digital photography has made it possible to take an almost endless number of photos. Some of these photos are good; some get deleted before anyone else sees them. Many of them are almost good, with a little tweaking they'd be just fine.

Adjustable Light
A common problem with digital photography is lighting. Photos turn out either too light or too dark. Since digital cameras allow us to take lots of shots without running out of film, we're willing to throw away a lot of the bad shots. But if you want to take a great picture, it might be nice to be able to control the lighting without purchasing professional lighting equipment.

One of the research projects at Microsoft Research is called Continuous Flash. This technology allows you to take the same picture with flash and without flash and later adjust the balance between light and dark. It's better than contrast filters in photo editing tools, because it considers the reflection characteristics of each object in your picture.

"You can't compensate for having one area underexposed and one area overexposed," said Hugues Hoppe, one of the project researchers. "If an area is underexposed, you can't really get the detail back by increasing brightness, because it wasn't captured in the first place. By having two different images which both have useful information, you can merge them together."

Image Stacks
A similar technology that combines the best of multiple photographs is a project called Image Stacks. Image Stacks aligns multiple images of the same subject, allowing the user to pick and chose the best pieces from each photograph. Researchers Michael Cohen, Steven Drucker and Alex Colburn thought this would come in handy for special events, when you want to get a picture of the entire group that's suitable for framing.

Digital Photography Fun

Digital Image 9 Suite

Digital Photos With Windows XP

Tips for Intermediate Users

Windows XP Digital Photos Newsgroup

Taking group photographs is difficult, because capturing a single image in which everyone looks good is almost impossible. What usually happens is that in one shot, someone has their eyes closed, but someone else has got the most adorable smile. Check the next shot, everyone has their eyes open, but one person is picking a poppy seed out of their teeth. The third shot, both previous people are behaving, but grandma is yawning, tired of waiting through multiple shots. Which shot do you pick? With Image Stacks, you can easily cut and paste to present everyone's best face. The images are automatically registered into a single composite image.

Print to Digital
Print photos are still around. They're around in shoeboxes. They're shoved under the bed and in the back of closets. Some of us have so many print photos we don't know what to do with them. Neatnik types tediously scan all of their print photos one-by-one, converting them to digital form. But most of us don't want to go to all this trouble.

Cormac Herley, a researcher in the Communications, Collaboration and Signal Processing (CCSP) group, has developed a way to allow people to scan multiple photos at one time. You can put as many photos as will fit on your scanner, and the software will recognize each photo separately. It can 'read' the edges of the photos, even if they're crowded together or tilted. When it converts them to digital photos, it will correct for orientation and position. It's a quick way to get the family memories out of the shoebox and onto your hard drive.

"It's a harder problem than it looks like on the surface. Many scanner makers have tried, but it hasn't worked before," said Herley. "But this really works, it's not just a demo."

Take Out the Red
The Media Computing group at Microsoft Research Asia has developed several cool image editing techniques to help you fix some common problems with any photograph. One of the worst that comes to mind is the glowing red eyes that result from the flash hitting the pupil in just the wrong way. Unless you're way into the vampire look, this just isn't right. The red eye fix, which currently ships in Digital Image Suite and Windows XP Media Center Edition, is one of the best photo retouch features around. All you do is move the 'target' over the red eye, click, and the red is out.

The same group has also developed a quick and effective way to fix the brightness and contrast in a picture. Even if you took a picture that is too dark, you can use the Levels Auto-Fix feature in Digital Image Pro to lighten up your picture.

Organize the Digital Shoebox
The Media Computing group has also made it easy to organize your digital photos using image recognition algorithms. Some people do the same thing they did with the shoebox, and scatter pictures all over their hard drive. Then they can't find the one picture they want to use for their holiday card. The group's algorithms can distinguish between indoor and outdoor shots, shots with people in them and shots without, and city and non-city scenes. Combined with other technologies, such as keyword annotation, it makes it a breeze to find any photo in your collection.

John Platt, a researcher in the CCSP group has developed another way to manage your photos online. His image clustering algorithm helps users find their photos by one of the most prominent markers: events. The software is effective because it doesn't look only at timestamps, which could be misled by a faulty camera clock. Instead, the software looks at photograph order plus color to find pictures taken during one particular event.

"We only compare colors locally in time," said Platt. "So if you have a pumpkin in one shot, and a few months later you wear an orange shirt, later, when you're searching for the day you visited the pumpkin patch, it won't show photographs from when you were wearing the orange shirt."

His algorithm underlies several other technologies designed to help people find their digital photos, including the Microsoft Research Media Browser. The Media Browser, developed by researchers in the Next Media group, takes advantage of the photo recognition research from the Media Computing group, and Platt's algorithms to build a unique visual experience that helps you search for and identify your photos. And it looks darn cool as it works. The interface is an impressive, futuristic presentation of photos that rearrange themselves before your eyes, sliding into place in a typical 2D presentation or a 3D stack.

"The idea behind this is annotation of large collections of photos," said Steven Drucker, the lead researcher on the project. "We know that if you put annotations on photos, that it's much easier to retrieve them. But we also know that it's tedious and difficult to do. We use the advanced techniques that are available, such as face detection and image clustering, to make it easier for you to interact with your photos. We also use a game graphics card for higher visual quality."

Fill It In
Smart Erase is a photo editing tool found in Digital Image Pro and invented by researcher Patrick Perez in Cambridge. The feature allows users to remove objects from a picture. This can come in handy in case you want to remove your ex from the family reunion picture, or you before you lost the 30 pounds.

The algorithm looks at areas of the image to see which patch of texture can be "stolen" to fill in the holes left behind when the unwanted object in the image is removed.

To fill in the hole, Smart Erase does some reasoning about texture. It views the pixels outside the object as potential replacement material. The program has some strategies for knowing exactly where to look to get this material. "The algorithm constantly reviews what pieces it's got and makes comparisons very quickly to come up with the right fit," said Andrew Blake, Senior Researcher in Cambridge.

Blend It
Another photo editing feature from the Cambridge lab, a tool code-named Blender, appeared in Digital Image Pro this year as the "Blending Brush." Blender is a seamless cloning tool that can take the wrinkles out of your face, insert a new object into a scene, and combine parts of one scene with another - all without the usual difficulties and distortions that most photo editing techniques present.

If an object inserted into a new background has complex outlines, standard cloning may not work because of the incompatibility of color and intensity between the background and the new object. And even the best, most careful cutting and pasting often yields poor results because the outlines are fuzzy or jagged. Blender 'blends' pieces of the inserted object and the background together to form a seamless whole.

Cut It Out
Cutting out an image and putting it somewhere else has always held a lot of fascination for photo aficionados. Blake and his team are developing a new algorithm they call GrabCut, that's a 'no-brainer' way to do this important task. Instead of having to carefully trace the outlines of the object you want to cut out, all you have to do is draw a rectangle around the object. The algorithm selects the object and eliminates the old background. You can then paste the cut-out object onto a different background.

Cartoon Wizard
Doesn't everyone want to star in their own anime or Disney cartoon?

Though Microsoft Asia researchers can't get you a Disney contract, they can turn your digital photograph into a cartoon. Their technology, developed in cooperation with MPD Japan, is called the Cartoon Wizard. It is currently offered in the Japanese version of Office 2003. Westerners will have to wait, as the Cartoon Wizard is only trained to work with Asian faces.

Their system is based on statistical learning techniques. The algorithm automatically generates a cartoon from an image using face detection and alignment, and training data generated by studying how a human artist renders a human image into a caricature. The resulting cartoons can be used in e-cards or personalized emoticons for chat programs.

Tell a Photostory
Now that you've stepped through the process of improving and organizing your digital photos, perhaps you'd like to share them. Microsoft Research has developed several ways to do this, in small and large ways.

When researcher Dave Vronay was working on PhotoStory, he wanted to recreate the feeling of a family sitting around an old-fashioned photo album and telling the stories connected to the pictures.

"A picture is not just a description of what is there," he said. "For instance, if you have a picture of a hotel, and you showed it to a friend, you probably wouldn't just say, 'and that's the hotel we stayed at.' You might instead launch into a story about the waiter with purple hair who served you duck soup at the hotel restaurant, even though you didn't have a picture of him. The photo would be a reminder of the stories that surrounded that photo."

With Photostory, you can add images, music, and background narration to tell the stories behind the pictures and send it to the people you'd love to have sitting on the couch next to you while you share your memories.

Share Your Photos with Friends
The Social Computing group is experimenting with an online blog and photo sharing application code-named Wallop, a project designed to help people to connect with those close to them — families and friends, and friends of friends.

The group considers Wallop a "social networking" application that provides a way for small, closely connected groups of people to share personal information and photographs online. The beta testers can send photos to their Wallop interface through email or instant messages to easily update their blog interface.

Share Your Photos with the World
The World Wide Media Exchange (WWMX) offers users from around the world the chance to upload and share their photos with millions. It provides MapPoint maps and TerraServer maps so that you can view your photos by location as well as time.

One of the advantages to this interface is the ability to communicate with people across the world. If you're planning a trip to London, for instance, maybe some nice tourist who has gone before you has posted their pictures of a trip around the city, complete with shots of their favorite tea stops. Then other tourists or locals can jump in and write annotations on the photographs, such as, "don't eat here, the crumpets aren't up to the usual standards."

Some of the contributors to the WWMX have contributed to history by adding photos of 'news' events, such as fires in Southern California and search and rescue operations.

A Visual Journey
David Salesin, a senior researcher in the Document Processing and Understanding group, has inspired many digital projects at Microsoft Research. He is also on the faculty at the University of Washington. Salesin recently became actively involved in a large digital photography project. A very large project. He contributed original digital photographs from his trip to Bhutan to the world's largest published book, a visual journey across the last unspoiled Himalayan kingdom on the planet.

The project was funded by several sources, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the iCampus program at Microsoft Research. "Mike's project seemed like an interesting, original take on how we might be able to use technology for education," said Salesin. He helped convince the iCampus funding committee to support the project.

Whether you share your photos with only a few close friends, or the entire world, the latest innovations at Microsoft Research will contribute to the beauty and enjoyment of your digital creations.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxThere once was a OneNote Pure and Easy...http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/02/03/66497.aspx2004-02-03T09:32:00Z2004-02-03T09:32:00Z

You undoubtedly have read a lot of posts on blogs.asp.net that contain code snippets, insight into Longhorn, et al but for my money there's no more interesting reading than Chris Pratley's account on the birth of OneNote. Chris is the PM in charge of the glorious product I have now been capturing my notes in for over a year. In one year I have amassed 326 notes from meetings, 1:1 phone calls, conference calls, and doing research. In meetings, I almost exclusively use ink because it's just not as intrusive and it has a more natural feel to it (accept when my processor pegs which throws the HDD into paging hell and then the fan tries to cool it all off by running at 1000 RPMs. Only the people at Boeing could appreciate the noise <g>). Anyway, everywhere else I type. I have yet to use the voice recorder feature other than testing it, because I just think putting a microphone in front of people changes the dynamic. Too big brother…on the record…deposition-like.

I've seen the most polarizing reviews for OneNote. Infoworld gave it an "excellent" rating while the guys on TechTV just panned it. Obviously they were using different testing methodologies. Definitely give the product a whirl if you haven't already. You be the judge. Oh, and it's not just for Tablet PC users (but make sure you razz Chris by commenting "but since I don't have a Tablet PC should I still buy it?" PMs hate when their products are put into an unfair niche J).

Today, OneNote has a horizontal set of "folders" (called sections) that can contain lots of notes (called pages) that are listed vertically. I have folders for each of my four customers and then catch all folders. I have one section with 80 notes—that seems like a lot of meetings (or is it?). What will my OneNote look like in ten years when I have thousands of pages? Think of how the horizontal and vertical metaphor will have to change. 3D? I'm betting we'll see a way cool use of WinFS in the Longhorn timeframe. I can hardly wait.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxIntra-Company Blogging...what is it good for?http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/31/65655.aspx2004-02-01T02:55:00Z2004-02-01T02:55:00Z
IMHO, blogging is a redundant communication medium inside a company or organization. How's that for controversial? News at 11...

Companies could have had a "blog experience" as far back as 1996 using the first version of Microsoft Exchange using a combination of Distribution Lists (DLs) and Public Folders (PFs).

We use DLs heavily within Microsoft. I've heard our operations and technology group (OTG) say we have 25,000 DLs which is basically one DL for every two employees. DLs are fantastic because they allow the user to push email to those people who are interested in a particular subject/topic/technology/product/... The reason they're so pervasive is because using a tool that OTG developed called AutoGroup that enables anyone in the company (perhaps only employees) to create a DL (or security group) add members, etc. By and large, the DLs are completely automated which is why 25K DLs is almost acceptable. Assuming you've named the DL well (e.g. Office 11 Discussion Group) and its of interest to more than just you you're sure to have people join or send email to it. We used to allow DLs to be created for social interests (e.g. Cyclists at Microsoft) but those have been moved to PFs too reduce operating expenses. I think it is one of the more empowering tools we have at Microsoft and definitely allows us to share knowledge. In my opinion they're part of our secret sauce for out executing other technology companies. I've talked to non-IT companies (IT is a cost center) about pervasive DLs and I always get replies like "our users will create non-business related sites" or "the operational overhead is way too much." Its possible but I'd take that risk over people not communicating any day of the week. Communication is why each of us get a little smarter with additional blog syndication (assuming we're syndicating the right blogs). Its sort of my paraphrase of (Bob) Metcalfe's Law.

PFs are analogous to Newsgroups (and in fact can be an NNTP server or retrieve NNTP feeds). They're great for conversations because of the Outlook's Sort by Conversation view that lets you see the conversation thread complete with indentations. We have thousands (if not tens of thousands) of PFs. PFs can be added to a PF Favorites folder which enable you to quickly go to those PFs of interest and most importantly, at least in my case, read and post to them while you're offline. One limitation of PFs is that you have to go into them in order to see what was newly posted. You also have to be "in" them in order to post your reply or start a new topic, thus the pull. Once you've read a PF posted message Exchange "remembers" and the next time you go to the folder as you would expect (or hope for) the message remains "read." Most importantly, Exchange enables a public folder to have an email address which means they can be a member of a DL.

I like combining DLs and PFs because you get the best of both worlds. DLs make sure the email goes to a wide group users which can speed up getting a response (they're sort of in your face unless you use a rule to put them in a sub-folder) . PFs enable someone who wants to join in on a topic after it has taken place or who is recently employed to find an answer without having to restart an FAQ by emailing a DL. The biggest mistake a DL owner can make is not creating a DL archive PF when they create their DL. The second challenge is making sure the search tool(s) that you're using make it easy to find the archived message.

Feature flash: RPC over HTTPS enables a user to connect Outlook to their company's Exchange server(s) over port 443 which makes it almost as easy as posting to your blog server.

I'm sure Notes/Domino has a similar way of doing DLs/PFs and so may GroupWise. I don't follow the other messaging vendors that closely anymore. Given that Exchange, Domino/Notes and GroupWise make up the largest share of messaging servers its with nearly everyone's grasp to have the ability to create a blog-like world right within their own company.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxDoes the World O' Blogging need another rev?http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/31/65598.aspx2004-02-01T00:45:00Z2004-02-01T00:45:00Z
Blogging has gotten rave reviews as a new breakthrough in communication. I like being able to subscribe to various author's thoughts as I imagine most of you do too. However, there are a few things I find confusing or that I believe could work much better.

It's great that everyone has icons like this one  (or the one for RSS) on their site but can't they be taken to the next level? Wouldn't it be nice if clicking on that image simply registered that feed into your reader of choice (assuming it supported the feed). I remember clicking on the image the first few times thinking it would "subscribe" my reader only to be overwhelmed by a XML. NewsGator doesn't a scary good job of kind of "knowing" what page you were looking at when you open Subscriptions | Add but I'd still rather subscribe directly from the blogger's blog.

What is the ATOM vs. RSS debate is about? Does it address the issue in my previous paragraph? I've tried to find a good summary of the differences but it reminds me of reading comparisons between .NET and J2EE . There's too much passion around the topic and I can't find a neutral take on the differences. In the mean time, every reader that doesn't want to go the way of Lotus' cc:Mail's VIM has to support both.

Every once and a while my blog reader (NewsGator) suddenly receives lots of unread copies of the same previously read post. I'm not quite sure why it happens. I realize (through my feeble own attempts to edit something I've posted) that making a change sends a new message/post to everyone's reader. In the case below I highly doubt Robert did this for every blog he'd previously written. The other thing that happens is that a blogger will change an attribute such as his or her name and in the case of NewsGator there's a new folder for each new user name. Take a look at the screen shot below of the redundant posts from Robert Scobel's blog.

I'm only getting partial from some users. I subscribe to Chris Sells' blog and for a couple of the posts I only get a description of the content ("The one where I spend a peaceful Saturday morning contemplating my life's possessions.") versus the entire blog. For the most part I get all of Chris' blogs but how do I insure I get all of the text from each of the blogs?

I wish I could fix or contribute to fixing the perceived issues myself--you are coding codes and I'm only as good as your last rev of software. However, I love the power of software because it means blogging and subscriptions can go follow the same functionality path like Windows did between version 1.0 and XP (and then to Longhorn. Aaah...I see a bright light at the end of the tunnel now.

Is blogging like any new technology? Is it so new and exciting that no one wants to say a bad word about it? I was reading a back issue of InfoWorld where the reviewer gave Red Hat Advanced Server 3.0 a "Very Good" rating even though 1) an upgrade from AS 2.1 is not supported and 2) the reviewer found bugs that he had to get download and recompile in order to fix. From what I can gather 2.1 was the previous version. A score of 8.2 seems suspiciously high given that an upgrade from the previous version isn't supported. If we did that we'd be crucified (and rightly so).

Please don't oust me from the blogging community for asking where the emperor's pants are. <g>

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxMTBF for HDDshttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/24/62529.aspx2004-01-24T20:42:00Z2004-01-24T20:42:00Z

Do you remember when hard drives were 10 MB and bad sectors would eliminate 20% of the drive? Hard drives were not very robust (nor were the PCs, the OSes, …) but that was pretty outrageous. Not only would the sectors go bad which wiping out large percentages of the drive but the drives crashed pretty often as well. Over the course of four years I had to replace at least three drives.

That sets the stage for something I thought was a thing of the past—hard drive failures. I'm not suggesting that drives never crash but with the exception of a x-coworker who used to claim his HDD crashed in order to get out of doing a demo/presentation (more than was even remotely reasonable) the MTBF must be pretty low. Even with the five – seven laptops and Tablet PCs I've had which at least have a reason for failing do to all of the banging around in my bag I've had zero HDD problems.

In the past three months I've had two hard drives crash. One drive was in my Ultimate TV (upside: I now have 3x the capacity I had—room enough for recording almost all of the SciFi Channel's Twilight Zone New Year's Day marathon!) and just this past Tuesday the 160GB HDD in my Windows Media Center Edition PC (I popped in the drive that it replaced and it worked fine so it is a drive failure). The UTV was two or three years old and that drive was always being written or read from because that's just how it works. The latter drive was only three months old. It was manufactured by a well respected, name brand OEM. They have a great warranty/return policy all completely done via their web site. They even give the warranty holder the option of using a credit card so you don't have to wait until they receive your drive before sending you the replacement. Kudos for the fully functional web site. However, maybe drive crashes happen a little too often which is why they have the return section really nailed. <g> I'm joking, sort of. What a bummer though if I hadn't of had a backup of my data.

We never turned off the MCE PC and it has far too little memory (see earlier RDRAM post) so it swaps constantly. I always felt bad for the HDD as the light indicating disk activity looked like the one on my firewall that indicates packet traffic—it was constantly on. Did that contribute to its failure? It might have but I've got another PC that is six years old that is always on and it's humming only nicely (but with 756 MB of SDRAM it never swaps).

I have to find an advocate within Microsoft to get my PC RAID5 idea on the feature list (unless it is already being developed and I just don't know it which is quite possible). Because I'd gone so long between crashes it almost seemed like it wasn't worth pursuing but now I know it has merit. If it weren't for doing very regular backups I'd been hosed. Fortunately, between the script (which several of you were kind enough to help me with only last week—see earlier post) which distributed our music and photos to all of the other PCs and my external HDD I've not lost anything (well maybe my recently updated shared OneNote file containing future blog ideas).

I'm really trying to dive down into the details of Longhorn's WinFS because it's a fascinating idea. How do you build redundancy into the "database" engine such that the inevitable corruption (unexpected outages might not happen on servers because of UPSes but they certainly do on PCs) doesn't mean data loss? I'm glad there are some really smart people thinking about it because I certainly don't fully understand how to make it 100% fault tolerant. I've tried to grab some of the WinFS PM's blogs but I haven't read anyone discuss that issue (though it could be a trade secret).

BTW, doesn't the capacity of the drives fifteen years ago seem preposterous compared to the capacity we have today? I'm sure that's exactly what we'll be saying in ten years when terabytes of storage are the norm. <g>

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxDOS follow-uphttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/17/59794.aspx2004-01-18T07:04:00Z2004-01-18T07:04:00Z

Thank you EVERYONE for your comments and assistance. Not that it matters, but I did know that DOS v COMMAND were different apps. I guess I should have said "DOS-like commands." :-)

As far as my comment about wanting more descriptive help it would have made it easier to diagnose the issue if instead of indicating an "invalid parameter" (which of course is 100% accurate) it would have indicated "invalid parameters at C:\Documents" That would have given me a better indication of what parameter was causing the command to not function.

I have used Robocopy before with good success. I could have also used an app named RichCopy that someone in the company wrote but I really wanted to make XCOPY work (I can't let go sometimes even if it is easier).

As someone tucked away from people who write code and plan the next rev of our products I am sometimes am often humbled by our own technology and feel the weight of what my non-technical friends and family go through when trying what you'd think are simple things. I've tried to champion that because of enormously large hard drives hardly anyone buys a backup device anymore (although writable DVDs are pretty close). What I really would like to see is the backup program that comes with Windows be really nothing more than a very fancy copy utility. Since there is no compression in copying files from one computer to another I would like to see the backup program not create a single indexed files. Instead, I'd like for it to create copies on the target PC. The user would simply select the folders and subfolders that he or she wanted copied to another PC while skipping those directories named TEMP and TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES. There's not a day goes by that I don't wish I could code because there's plenty of apps (e.g. RichCopy) around that wouldn't take too much effort to extend.

PS I'm sorry I selfishly used my blog as a helpdesk. OTOH, I've never gotten such quick helpful comments. Thanks again!

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxWhen did DOS get so complicated?http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/17/59742.aspx2004-01-18T02:50:00Z2004-01-18T02:50:00Z

Admittedly I haven't used MS-DOS in quite a while and sadly even after all of the cool advances in Windows I find myself still needing it. For example I have to batch scripts I started to work on today. The first one is supposed to copy all of our digital photographs to all of our other computers. That is so that using the My Pictures screen saver lets us see all of the photographs we've taken over the past five plus years. The second one is simply supposed to copy all of our files from one PC to another PC. Using the xcopy /? I thought that

XCOPY C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\*.* \\dell333\Backup\DellP4\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\*.* /D /E /C

would copy all of our pictures from the shared My Pictures directory to a PC named Dell333's shared My Pictures directory. When run it would (OK should) skip all of those files with the same date and time stamp (/D without addt'l parameters), copy the even those directories who were empty (/E), and continue copying even if an error occurs (/C). Instead I get an "Invalid number of parameters" error.

I think I understand why Unix SysAdmins (who are incredibly adept with scripts) don't like Windows. Any one have any ideas?

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxCoaching excellencehttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/17/59686.aspx2004-01-17T18:45:00Z2004-01-17T18:45:00Z

I attended college at Indiana University in Bloomington. While IU is known for many outstanding schools (e.g. School of Music, Business, …) most people know it as the school Bob Knight coached at and even more so for his questionable behavior. The ironic thing about most people associating Bob Knight with the school is that he is really the third most dominating athletics coach at the school.

The best coach at Indiana and quite possibly ever was James "Doc" Counsilman who coached IU to six NCAA swimming championships. Sadly, he died on January 3. He coached the 1964 and 1976 Olympic teams and also was the oldest person to swim the English Channel, doing so at the age of 58. He I'm not a swimmer but he is widely credited for revolutionizing the sport of swimming and The Science of Swimming is considered the bible for the sport. Rest in peace Doc. You deserve it.

The second best coach was Jerry Yeagley who retired as the IU Men's Soccer Coach at the end of this season. Yeagley coached for 31 seasons, led Indiana to six national championships, and also was a huge influence on the rise of college soccer in the United States. In one of the great sports stories of the year his team won the national championship in his final season and literally the last game he ever coached.

Bob Knight was also excellent having won almost every conceivable basketball award including three national championships, coaching the United States Olympic and Pan American teams to gold medals, Hall of Fame, etc. He also made numerous "play" contributions such as motion offense but unfortunately, his madness often overshadowed the good things he did. After failing to comply with some fairly stringent rules laid down by the then-President of the University he was fired. He now coaches at Texas Tech.

The thing that stands out to me is that there are many styles in which someone can coach people to excellence. What is your style?

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxSmart Personal Object Technology is here!http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/06/47976.aspx2004-01-06T21:04:00Z2004-01-06T21:04:00Z

I was excited to learn that the new SPOT watches are now available. From what I've read, the SPOT watches are the first iteration of a new technology that is sent to you personalized (assuming you're in one of the United States' 100 biggest cities (I'm in a Chicago suburb and I can get the service). MSN is hosting the service under a new brand called MSN Direct. Their web page and the functionality look very cool. However, I think battery life is going to be the watches shortcoming. I have enough chargers I have to carry when I travel (fortunately USB powered ports have reduced the number somewhat). I'm more excited about the SPOT infrastructure and information channels than I am about the initial form factor.

I think the breakthrough for SPOT is when we start to see embedded SPOT-enabled devices. The two I've seen mentioned are a refrigerator magnet and a clock radio. The technology will be incredibly empowering as long as there's an endless supply of power (no pun intended). I see SPOT as a way of enabling the individual to have a similar experience to the displays you find in high rise elevators (usually where the ride can last a couple of minutes). They are very colorful, contain a lot of different information "channels" and just enough information to be read quickly. I'd love to have one in my bathroom when I'm getting ready in the morning (mounted to my mirror), in the kitchen, and finally in my car. The scenario around the clock radio isn't as interesting to me because I take a train to work so adjusting the alarm to based on traffic conditions wouldn't be that big of deal for me. The refrigerator magnet would be cool but even cooler (my puns continue without any effort <g>) is where the SPOT-enabled display panel is a part of the refrigerator. I don't want a magnet with a power lead.

Will SPOT change your life?

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxSoftware updates for one and allhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2004/01/01/47142.aspx2004-01-02T07:12:00Z2004-01-02T07:12:00Z

Why can't all ISVs have something comparable to Windows Update? I want an option when prompted for media or for a file location that also goes out to their Internet site to download the most recent driver/file/etc. I have lots of CDs lying around and a file folder named C:\Installs for all of the drivers I need every time I rebuild my PC. Their service would be WS-* enabled so all OS vendors could tap into it (Chicken or egg? Maybe the OS has to make it so possible first and then the service can exist. Longhorn?).

What's the barrier? Would the ISV raise their cost of support or lower it? If they tightly versioned their drivers and their hardware accurately described itself then I would think they'd be ahead of the cost curve. Of course, that would mean an end to installing software before plugging in the USB device but I can't think of any end user that would mind that trade off. The software before USB connection is a personal pet peeve of mine because if you do make that mistake often the only way to get the peripheral installed properly is to go back to a roll-back point.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxHappy New Year!http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/31/46977.aspx2004-01-01T01:26:00Z2004-01-01T01:26:00Z

I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Hopefully, this next year will welcome you all with great health, deep relationships, enjoyable occupations and super long battery life (couldn't resist).

Be safe!

Kent

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxDigital Photography, post 2http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/31/46976.aspx2004-01-01T01:23:00Z2004-01-01T01:23:00Z

Why is it I never remember to post a complete blog until after I re-read my own post? I do this a lot in emails as well. Its embarrassing. I'm hoping that we'll add some other squiggly line color someday that'll remind me that I've got unfinished thoughts, contradictions, and just general stupidity. <g> I'm so impressed by people like Rory whose blogs are incredibly funny and thought complete while not being really long (as opposed to me). To paraphrase Mark Twain "I'd blog something shorter but I don't have the time."

Anyway, I should have mentioned that the one other drawback to my high-end camera. It's really BIG. When I brought it home and showed my wife she said "so you're going to work for the Associated Press?" That was before I bought the Multi-function Battery Pack which gives the camera phenomenal battery life (it holds two batteries and will take months of photos without needing recharging). It also makes it super easy to shoot vertically because of an additional shutter release button. However, it adds an inch on the bottom and on the right hand side (sort of like the 35MM SLR motor drives). The extra inch on the bottom means the only way I can sit the camera down on its backside.

Much to my surprise, my wife gave me for Christmas a very small digital camera that I'd been talking about for a while. That's not because of my displeasure with the "good one" but because there were times when I wouldn't bring it with us because of the hassles. The good one has its own bag—really it is a backpack—which meant it became one of my two carry-on bags when flying. The bag was to protect it, carry the extra CF cards, battery charger, and although not really relevant a DV camera. Since I can't risk the airline forcing me to choose because between my Tablet and all of its computer accessories and my camera bag when the flight is full I often times left it home. There's also a new "rule" at some events that don't allow "professional equipment" in the venue. This happened to me at our own Tablet PC launch in New York. The security guard only let me take it in because I was with Microsoft but said he'd toss me out "if I brought it out." There's a joke about Pee-Wee Herman right there but I let you drawn on your own sense of humor. <g> I took one photo at the very end of the launch—an empty stage (although the picture was very cool). Everyone around me with "little" cameras was clicking away. Bummer too. Rob Lowe, Amy Tan, and Billg all had a part in the event. We went to a Major League Soccer game because my daughter had attended a camp and they were doing a parade honoring them in addition to an actual game. The security guy at the gate asked me how big the lens was—apparently they use size as a way to determine whether they let you in or not (another joke there but it'll remain untouched). I answered 35MM because I knew that wouldn't meet the zoom lens test even though it actually is a 30-120MM lens. The new camera is about two inches by 2.5 inches. It'll fit in the front pocket of a pair of khakis (if I didn't also have a Smartphone or Pocket PC Phone Edition, keys, and business card holder). My wife can put it in her purse without having to reinforce the shoulder strap. It also 3.2 megapixels as if that mattered. <g>

Why not use the camera that comes with most cell phones? The only phone I have with a camera is my HTC Smartphone (and it's an add-on that pops on the bottom). My build of the Smartphone OS doesn't support the photo software that shipped with it. Even if it did, it takes poor quality photos. The other reasons that prevent it from being the solution today is the phone form factor is clunky for taking lots of photographs, the battery doesn't need any thing else dragging on it. I've yet to see the phone replace a dedicated device digital camera but it's just a matter of time. Do you currently have a phone/camera that you think could replace a better digital camera?

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxDigital Photography...http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/31/46921.aspx2003-12-31T22:39:00Z2003-12-31T22:39:00Z

…has replaced film photography in our home.  It took me two printers and an upgraded camera to convince my wife that digital could compete and then replace traditional 35MM film cameras.

Our first digital camera was my Christmas gift in 1998.  It was a Kodak DC260 with 1.2 Megapixels.  It worked well although the shutter delay (press the "shoot" button and a second later the picture would be captured) and the inability to take more than two pictures in rapid succession (it'd take ~20 seconds to write the camera's buffer to the compact flash card) made it frustrating.  Why does my daughter do all of her best expressions invariably on what would have been the third photograph? <G> You couldn't do sports/action/fireworks at all without some serious guessing about what might happen in a second or two or having Jean Dixon as your spotter.

I bought a well known printer manufacturer's "photo" printer for $200.   I bought the leading photo supplier's paper.  The output was crap.  It was the bane of digital photography's existence.  The ink wouldn't jet onto the paper well leaving part of the picture looking glossy and other parts matted.  My wife wasn't impressed and kept using the 35 MM for pictures we'd give to people (mainly family).

The perfect storm of technical innovation and exercising a stock option grant convinced my wife to let me invest (yeah, like I'll see a ROI—I've been in sales too long) in a high-end digital camera (a Nikon D100).  There are several reasons I wanted it (and none of them have anything to do with its ability to take 6.1 megapixel photographs).  First, it uses real lenses ("glass" as those in the business call it). Want to get more light onto the CCD and zoom in from 300 feet away?  Open your wallet and buy a new lower aperture, 300MM lens. <G> Second, no shutter delay.  I typically take 300K JPEGs which means the buffer can write to the CF at ~3 frames per second continuously.  We take a lot of photographs and then delete the less than stellar ones in "post production" (when they've been copied to a computer with a display bigger than 50x40 pixels).  Lastly, because it behaves like a 35MM SLR.  I press the shutter button and take a picture. No worries about the technology (and its possible limitations).

I also replaced our photo printer with a Canon S900.  That printer got incredible reviews and was only $150.  They made the brilliant decision to include a few sizes of their photo paper with it.  Thier paper works very well with their printer. The pictures are stunning.  I have done photography as a student (high school a brief stint as a photojournalism major in college), professional (in kind trades), and of course as an amateur for twenty plus years and with the exception of not seeing Kodak or Fuji on the back I can't tell which was shot with film and which was stored as ones and zeros.

What could be better?

I don't like the AutoFocus on my high end camera.  That is because I invariably end up having "cheat" the camera by setting the focus point (press shutter button halfway down) and then moving the lens to frame the picture or end up forgetting to do that because I'm more consciously thinking about the composition and end up having a in focus wall with two out of focus subjects.  Solution?  Switch to manual focus.  Unfortunately, Nikkor (undoubtedly due to autofocus) makes the focus ring very small while increasing the size of the zoom ring (on the one lens I own).  I have two other lower end cameras (including five year old Kodak) that never had problems focusing. I have older non-Nikkor, non-autofocus 35 MM lenses that have a big 'ol focus ring. I've taken more out of focus pictures with my new camera than I ever did with my Pentax K1000 from 1979.

We take too many pictures and even as easy as it is to hit "delete" we don't do it often enough.  I've got 90 pictures of me and my daughter in the pool.  I took 220 pictures of my niece's basketball game.  Being able to take thousands of photographs and not have to pay for the film and the processing is actually a bonus so my point isn't as much a do better but a practice in need of besting. The one positive of the buffer writing limitiation was we were more judicious about taking fewer pictures.

I see a lot of people who are solely interested in megapixels. Poppycock! (I was in England once).  What are you going to do with a 6.1 Mb RAW NEF image?   Print a 20 x 30" photograph?  Could be but not in my household—my wife doesn't like anything larger than a 5 x 7s.  Actually, when flat panels are pervasive throughout our house (I see and want a Billg-like household experience someday) I can see where we'd want as much resolution as possible but between having 8000 photos and the cost be Gb being still about a dollar its still a bit more than I'm willing to spend (I can't imagine time and money is cost for Don to rip 1000 CDs in lossless format given that each CD is 300-400 Mb).  I do the poor man's version of this today on the couple of 17-19" monitors in our house and even at 300K they look very, very good.  If XBox's Music Mixer didn't require a daemon and the clunky software to transfer photographs I'd display them via our home theater today.  Someday…

The funny thing is someday we'll all be taking 20 megapixel photos just like we have 180 Gb HDDs when ten years ago I had a 120 Mb one!

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxSoftware conflicts and the madness of it allhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/31/46903.aspx2003-12-31T21:36:00Z2003-12-31T21:36:00Z

A couple of days ago I tried to burn a CD of some photos I'd taken at my niece's basketball game so she would have them and could share them with her coach and teammates. The built in software in Windows XP normally makes that very easy to do but I got an error that said the disk couldn't be written to and ask if I wanted to try another CD, save the files, or just delete them (they're copied into a temp directory from another directory (Longhorn's WinFS better fix this). Nothing worked. It worked a month or so ago.

I tried everything I could think of to fix the problem. I tried to roll-back a month of updates (including a HighMAT update I'd taken to burn CDs use in newer home electronic players). Nadda. Napster and the other DRM music services give you a way of burning CDs with DRM-enabled music which I thought might have created a problem so I uninstalled all of them. Nothing. I uninstalled the driver of the CD ROM burner, rebooted and let it rediscover the burner. Didn't work.

I want my PC to just work without having to start over (format, reinstall) every year. That's my simple wish for 2004. WinXP had fulfilled that dream for a couple of years. It just worked. However, I updated the PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition and now it seems I've taken a step back. Aaahhhhg.

Longhorn? Fingers crossed…

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxiCoolhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/31/46901.aspx2003-12-31T21:23:00Z2003-12-31T21:23:00Z

My first experience with a computer was on my college roommate's Mac Plus. One floppy held the OS and the application Microsoft Word 3.0 is memory serves and the other floppy held my data disk. That's pretty amazing given there are DLLs that are bigger than 1.44 Mb (or was the Plus' floppy on 720K?!). It crashed a lot (on par with Windows 95) but it was fun and beat the hell out of typing papers on a typewriter.

I think it's hard to not be impressed by Apple's software. I was in our neighborhood Best Buy yesterday and saw a software bundle called iLife. It's a package that includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD. Every review of the software and Mac enthusiast (is there any other kind?) I've spoken with really raves about those programs. I've always wondered how a company which is obviously largely hardware-oriented does such a great job with software when they have to have limited R&D budgets. The software isn't nearly as perfect as people make it out to be but it's still usually a really great experience.

I think updated versions of Windows Media Player, Movie Maker, and the built in photo services that work with Windows XP are equally excellent and quite comparable to iLife. The one area that I'm told we fail is burning DVDs. A few months back a friend spent days trying to get some video that he'd taken with his camcorder edited and then onto a DVD. I'm not sure if he ever did. He just wanted to give a DVD to his dad so the grandkids were a click away. I just noticed that Sonic has some DVD burning software to make this easier and its linked off of the Movie Maker homepage. It's about time. Unfortunately, PCs with RTM Windows XP (no updated versions of WMP, MM, etc.) are not nearly as showing their true potential to their owner unless the newer versions are downloaded. How do you adverstise the new version without putting people in tray table balloon hell or annoying them with information in the way of what they turned on their computer for in the first place?

Its scary how many people don't know about the software that's already on their PC or that they can get for free from lots of web sites (including ours). How do we, our partners and other ISVs do a better job of giving Joe Average a way of knowing what's possible without making the startup sequence look like an advertisement?

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxThe Digital Lifestylehttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/14/43520.aspx2003-12-15T04:28:00Z2003-12-15T04:28:00Z

I'm horrible at blogging. I started this with a few ideas in mind and it ended up being ~2100 words. If you've got ADHD you'll never get through this. I barely got through it.

I definitely live and love the digital lifestyle. 99% of the time I think it's a tremendous benefit. It's still a lot harder to set up than it should be but it's been good for me. Whenever I do something with the computers of my family or friends I'm quickly reminded of how the real world lives. I'll blog on those experiences at some point in the future. Some are painfully revealing. The only thing that disrupts the free flow of digital information to me is those companies who I get services from (as a consumer) and our friends who give you the pertinent information over the phone (and on the answering machine) or who mail invitations.

The integration between most everything in this lifestyle is very good. That is because I use only our software. I have friends (OK, coworkers) that have jobs that require them to focus on our competition and they run a lot of competitive software. They're always giving me grief about not testing and using the competition to see how they're doing. I used to when I wasn't a master of all domains (need to know lots about our stuff and everyone else's but more from an academic standpoint—via reading). I simply don't have the time. I want to keep my network up 7x20 (I don't care about the four hours when we're all asleep) and not tweaking it makes it very easy to do that. It took me a lot longer to install Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) beta software than I'd like but that's because it wasn't intended to support an in-place upgrade since you buy a MCE PC, not the software.

Here's a list why I love the lifestyle:

BroadbandConnectivity – Always on Internet. I don't know how people can live with dial-up. Broadband insures my PCs have the latest anti-virus signature, the latest patches and the coolest add-ons.
Both Wired and Wireless Networks – Everything except for my Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) are connected to each other and the 'net in some way.
I have three computers running Windows XP Professional all running in Workgroup mode. Why Pro versus Home Edition? Because I can Remote Desktop into any of them.
Ultimate TV – I have two and am convinced if we stayed in the business, and had more people experience them, we'd have them as customers for life. PVRs rule and may possibly be one of the greatest inventions after radio and TV. PVRs aren't perfect. I had a HDD failure and lost a couple of programs that had queued up while I was out of town. The upside? I upgraded from the failed 40Gb HDD to a 120Gb HDD. 3x more programming. Other downside: no HDTV. However, I'd give up high def for on-demand viewing any day of the week.
Digital Music – I stream my entire WMA and MP3 music collection through the stereo in our house. I also have speakers on our patio which means while I'm flipping burgers I've got my music close at hand. No more changing CDs. 3000+ songs all at my fingertips.
Digital Photos – We bought our first digital camera in 1998 (want to buy a 1.2 Megapixel camera, slightly used, for 75% of what I paid for it--$750? <G>). We bought another one a few years to get away from the shutter lag (its actually a memory cache to media issue). We've taken ~7500 photos. I use the My Pictures Slideshow in Windows XP to display them on the various monitors. One quirk: The My Pictures Slideshow doesn't work well across a network (via a shared UNC). We bought the Music Mixer add-on for XBox which enables us to transfer the pictures to it. It could be a lot easier to use. I don't want to copy them. I'd like to be able to point it to the source and have it buffer the pictures in memory or on the disk. I'll never copy all of the photos down to my XBox—I have too many and it's too time consuming.
Digital Video – I take all of the mini-DVs and pull them into Movie Maker. I haven't taken the time to really do anything other than plus my camera into the IEEE 1394 connection (did you know Apple trademarked "Firewire" so it shouldn't be used generically) and have MM create snippets of movies. I've played with some of the "Ken Burns" effects (his name is used every time a journalist describes what you can do which either means his style is pretty darn distinct or they're just taking the copy of our press releases) but never to actually create a final production. Perhaps when burning a DVD is drop-dead easy I'll make the effort. I also don't rip them in a high resolution even with a 180Gb HDD so I still keep all of the old tapes for someday when 1Tb is the norm. Jeez, that's pathetic.
Outlook – why does Outlook matter? It is the primary repository for all of my (our) personal and business contacts and calendar entries. My Pocket PCs and Smartphone have all of this information. Today, there is a separation between Outlook on our home computers and Outlook on my work computers (including my Smartphone, Pocket PCs, Tablet PCs). Someday (below) that'll be history.
Auto PC – I can take my Pocket PC contacts (usually created in Outlook) and "squirt" them to my AutoPC. That makes it easy to use them with the GPS software to have it tell me how to get from here to there.
Tablet PC – Its wireless and it works as well on the couch as it does in the kitchen. I have OneNote on it so with a "shared note section" that is shared on every other PC. That allows us to add a typewritten or inked note in one place and have access to it from any other computer.
Smartphone, Pocket PC Phone Edition, Pocket PC and Handheld PCs – I am a switcher. I move the SIM back and forth between my Smartphone and Pocket PC Phone Edition at least once a week. I take a train (as opposed to driving) to work so I usually have both hands available. I like the 240x320 screen and the applications I can access. If I'm driving to our other office I'll move the SIM to my Smartphone because there's a pretty good chance I'll have to call someone while I'm in the car. The Smartphone is a one handed device meaning that I can unlock it, find a contact, dial them or a number, all with one hand.
XBox and XBox Live – Gaming will never be the same again. It enables a forty year old guy to have the same sort of friend's relationship that you did when you were ten—buddies come over on any day of the week, hang out, and then go home at bedtime. I love the fact that I play an XBL-enabled game, can say goodnight, and then walk upstairs and go to bed.

I am looking forward to:

Getting all of my bills electronically in Microsoft Money (or Quicken—its XML baby!). I don't want the useless reminder that my gas company used to send me until I cancelled it. They used an outside company so the DNS address wasn't useful, you didn't see how much you owed and they didn't even provide a URL to get more detail. I want a full color, detailed report that Money can store for me and I can pay by clicking a button.
Having access to.NET My Services or some other cloud-based service like it for files (OneNote is the most important one for me), contacts, appointments, tasks and other settings that I use on every one of my computers. I expect that either between Longhorn or a pay service will enable all of the data to be synched between each other. I like what Plaxo does with Outlook contacts but I've stopped using it for a couple of reasons.
Being able to play my digital music on any of my devices, computers, and things that haven't even been dreamed up yet. DRM still seems to me to be too restrictive. I will and do not steal music. How do I prove it to the companies who make music and hold the rights to those songs?
Peer-to-peer networking works a lot better and is much much easier. Because my Tablet is registered as a machine in the Microsoft corporate domain when I plug them into my home network (which is in workgroup mode) between ICS, being in a domain, etc. I can't just communicate between the machines. I can't map a drive via NetBIOS names—I have to use IP addresses. I'm hoping that Longhorn fixes that in someway. I need a way for me as an end user to do a key exchange with myself for all of my PCs. I want them all to trust each other so I don't have to cheat and say "remember/save password" (bad security) in order to fake it. I'd really like to see us (or a value add partner but I think it'd have to be us) provide a way to have each of the computers in a customer's house treat each other PC as a RAID 5 drive. The OS would "stripe" the data across all of the PCs but they'd really have a full copy of each other. There are some serious implications around applications but just think how cool it'd be if one of your PCs died and you either got a new one (I've known friends that bought a new computer because they thought they had a virus!) or popped in a new drive and it "discovered" all of your other computers and rebuilt it for you! Does Longhorn's WinFS make that doable? I think it does but that's just a theory. It'd sure be cool.
Backing up your data. Most people do not and that's frightening they join the lifestyle. The frustration they'll feel when they loose their once in a lifetime photographs is scary. In the 80s and early 90s I'd buy a Colorado Memory Systems tape backup drive. At the beginning I used 10Mb tapes and buy the end I was using 40Mb tapes. I bought a DAT drive from a friend which I think used 1Gb tapes. That started to fail and the drives quickly eclipsed a gig. Now drives are 40-180 gigabytes! I bought an external HDD that's a 180 Gb to back up both my work and home stuff. If the house burns down I'll be the guy in my underwear with a Maxtor drive. That's a good look. <G> What I really want is good XCopy/Backup software combo. I don't want one 120 Gb file. Since compression isn't available going drive to drive I want each file but I was to be able to skip my temporary internet files directory, temp, etc. I've got a mother of a script that I keep appending but it still falls way short.
Not having my home theater completely isolated from my network with the exception of my XBox (via Live). I think MCE could eventually have a place in my component rack. This will happen when my Ultimate TVs either die (they're no longer made so there's quite an EBay market for them), HDTV programming is pervasive and the MCE gets 1) two tuners (record two programs at once) and 2) it can record HDTV. Some of the simple things MCE would enable me to do is to watch our digital photographs on the TV. Music Mixer doesn't cut it. I don't think I'm breaching any confidentiality by saying this (Bill Gates demoed it at Comdex or CES a few years ago) but we had some remote record technology for the Ultimate TV that meant via a browser connected to the 'net you could nearly instantaneously set a program on the unit). I want to be able to do this on MCE and ultimately via a Smartphone, Pocket PC or other PDA.
Having all of my data at my fingertips. SPOT Technology looks promising. I think it is a pretty good start. We'll see. It better take off or it may share an apartment with BOB, Team Manager, Ultimate TV, MS Phone and the rest of the misfit toys.

· Getting closer to single sign on outside of work. For most people SSO is a goal inside of work but our operations and technology group has built a world-class directory using Active Directory. I love Passport but there are far too few non-Microsoft web sites that use it. The Liberty Alliance group was supposed to challenge Passport and they had lots of members. I'm still not able to log into those member's web sites with the same ID and password. Please get in the game or talk to the Microsoft Passport people.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxFeedback part deuxhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/09/42293.aspx2003-12-10T00:21:00Z2003-12-10T00:21:00Z

There were several people who posted replies to my "feedback" post. I'm not sure how to make a reply a top-level post so I'm forking the original post into this post.

AndrewSeven ask a very legitimate question: "Does MS really want feedback?" Yes, I think we want the feedback but the problem is getting the feedback to someone who 1) cares about it and 2) can make it actionable. I am responsible for sales (on the technical side) for four of our major customers. I get lots of feedback because I have this blog and "own" ten Microsoft related web sites that are forums for questions and whatnot. The only reason I created them was because I hear from people all the time who think suggestions, feedback and "free advice" go into a black hole. I apologize for past and future neglect. It (your feedback) may have fallen into a well depending on how you provided it. Responding to the various Microsoft employee's blogs is a great place to start if you've found the functional/service owner.

I know quite a few people at our corporate campus but there are 20,000+ people I don't know. It's sometimes very hard to find out who owns a certain component or service within a product. I can relate to your frustration because even internally I feel that frustration just trying to find the right person. Being outside the firewall adds even more distance between you and the likely owner. All I can say is we'll try to help. If you find a person in an functional area (e.g. MSDN) then you'll most likely get proper closure. I don't know anyone in that group so I don't even know where to start. If we don't screw it up to badly you should be able to post a comment related to something on our web site with ease. I'll forewarn you that I've posted issues before and got what seems to be a boilerplate response (IMHO, MSN is the worst at that across all of the company).

I'm not sure there's a lot of distinction between "free advice" and feedback other than one may start via a pull and one may be a push. Like feedback, just because we ask for something (pull) doesn't mean you have to provide it. We have zero control over what feedback you provide us unless you're contractually bound. Example: A Rapid Adopter Program, etc. has requirements of both the customer and Microsoft. Even then, I can't think of an instance where we've pressed a company to force them to provide feedback. Holding someone hostage is going to give you worthless data ("feedback") any way. If you don't want to have a say in version x or solution y even though we ask you then don't provide it. Just don't be overly sensitive about the end result if you're not happy with what was created.

We survey my four customers twice a year. Are they giving us "free advice" or feedback? I think its both. I nominated over 90 people (advocates and adversaries) in this last round. We got ~8 responses. That's their prerogative. Unfortunately, at least IMHO, it hurts us both. We may not know what we're doing wrong and the customer doesn't get the behavior from us that they expect. Does it take time to fill out the survey? Yes. Is it worth it? I see the feedback (anonymously if requested) within a business day and can take immediate action. I can reinvent myself but I have to know what they want to do so. I wish I had a chance to provide more "free advice."

BTW, I'd be curious to know your viewpoint on open source software. Isn't most of the strength (real or otherwise) of open source based on "free advice:" the 7x24 newsgroups, quick fix turn around, etc. I want to understand this from a different vantage point. I'm not baiting anyone—I promise.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxFeedback...we don't need no stinkin' feedbackhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/09/42250.aspx2003-12-09T21:37:00Z2003-12-09T21:37:00Z

Kevin Hammond(as is Rob Relyea) is a friend of mine who recently blogged about people feeling that our continuous feedback loop (that's what we call it) is a burden. He was called out in this blog that seems to net out to: stop asking for feedback.

It won't take you too long to know which side of this argument I am on. I want to give feedback on everything. I believe most people want to give feedback. In order to make it something more than a PR stunt, that feedback should be readily accepted, consistent across everything that can be given feedback on and then actionable. For us that means asking for feedback on the products, our licensing, your account team and anything else that is a positive or negative about our relationship (as vendor and customer). We aren't always consistent. I do believe we're trying and nothing is above scrutiny.

There's a popular chain of restaurants in this area that has a web site that you can post feedback. I did so after having what has turned into a series of bad dining experiences to offset what is usually very good food. No one contacted me. Is that because 1) they really don't have a process in place for feedback 2) they don't really care about the feedback 3) they take the information that they've gathered electronically and put into a slow, paper based system which takes months instead of minutes or 4) they've been inundated with complaints so they're undergoing a massive customer satisfaction improvement process? I can't believe its any of the four but number two is the opinion that I'm forming. There's another restaurant near our office (Arby's) who seems to have a real problem getting the food ordered and then delivered. I like Arby's so I posted feedback to their web site. In two days I got a call apologizing for the delay and asking what I thought would help. Thank you for asking. They offered me a couple of free meals but I don't care about that—I just want to enjoy my roast beef more quickly. <g> I've done some Six Sigma stuff so I suggested putting some measurements in place to find out what are the bottlenecks.

I can understand why someone wouldn't want to give feedback but who wouldn't at least want to know the opportunity for feedback is there. I think constricted communication is the root of a lot of a company's problems in retaining customers.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxIM, presence and the phonehttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/08/42066.aspx2003-12-09T00:37:00Z2003-12-09T00:37:00Z

Why does it seem that every time I get on the phone I get an instant message from someone? We have an "on the phone" setting in our software but the only time I ever remember to set it is after the fact.

We just got a new phones in our office but they're dumb—no VOIP, no integration with the PC, and what has to be the least tested UI in the history of consumer products. I can't wait for when the phone rings and I can look for a Caller ID toast that works against my 1100 Outlook contacts, and uses some of the WinFS leveraging technology discussed at the PDC to determine if the call gets through or what voice message the caller hears, and ultimately switches my presence information to "on the phone" when I pick up the phone. Is that too much to ask?

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxGreg Reinacker, Customer centricity, Microsoft and Earthhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/05/41566.aspx2003-12-06T00:07:00Z2003-12-06T00:07:00Z
I started this entry to praise the effort that Greg Reinacker was willing to put forward to help me and then went off on a tangent (although quite parallel if I do say so myself).

In my blog yesterday (http://weblogs.asp.net/kentc/posts/41278.aspx) I briefly mentioned the Newgator product and some instability I believe Outlook was having as a result of using it. After the post, Greg Reinacker, the father/author of NewsGator commented my entry. First, I'm not sure how he even found my blog (he must have Google searching for every instance of the word "NewsGator" <g>). Second, he was concerned that it wasn't working for me. I posted to his "contact me" page and sent me an email with an answer and what a workaround to extend the trail expiration date).

I really don't care if it works or not now. I have become so underwhelmed by the overall lack of customer care or outbound kindness in almost every facet of my life (my wife and daughter notwithstanding) that I'm going to send $29 to him just on principle and as a monetary way of showing how much I appreciate his effort (this blog may not may not be enough <g>).

Our company is trying to become more customer centric. We're objected on it, we have money available to us when we need to make things right because the customer isn't having a positive experience with our product, and all (well at least most) of our senior management's pay is tied to Customer Satisifaction. However, I'm not sure if its possible to get everyone in an entire company to basically change their behavior. If each one of us were like Greg think of how people would look at us! I have a tremendous amount of respect for blogs. In our case, people outside of the company are getting to read the unspun thoughts of what we're collectively trying to do. I really think most of us take our motto very seriously: "To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential." Also, its cool to have millions of people see your work.

I love movies where someone does something that isn't about themselves. Don't get me wrong, I loved Seinfeld which was supposed to be the most about the most self-centered people on television, but movies such as Its a Wonderful Life, Finding Nemo, etc. are the ones I most try to emulate.

Consider this: If each person on this planet put some effort into giving something back to everyone else on the planet we would eliminate a lot of problems. For example, kidnapping--virtually eliminated, we'd each care about everyone else's kids as much as we care about our own. The amber alerts are a great way to see this put into action. I've been meaning to send an email to our .NET Alert folks about getting a .NET Amber Alert to expand the reach even further. I admire the people who have created community watch groups to take back their neighborhoods from gang members who pray and destroy their communities. As a group working closely together it seems to me that they'll eventually get their way. There's too many people and scale is a strength. The kids who have gotten into these gangs would ultimately come face to face with their own parents and doesn't that stop the violence? It does take a tremendous amount of commitment though. They've (we/I) have got to be willing to get involved even if it simply means "are you OK?" or picking up the phone and calling the authorities.

I'm guess an idealist (but I can be one sarcastic dude).

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxWelcome and where have you been?http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/04/41278.aspx2003-12-04T22:22:00Z2003-12-04T22:22:00Z
Welcome to my (our) new home! The folks in charge of MSDN are turning off http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/ and have asked us to move our blogs here. I am no ASP.NET expert or of any coding really but I know a lot about our (Microsoft's) technology from servers to joysticks. Please see my post at the bottom if you want some more background.

I haven't posted anything in a while do to a variety of reasons. The first is there is only so much time in the day and I still haven't found the ideal tool to enable me to compose blogs offline and then post them automatically when my Tablet detects the 'net. I tried Newsgator as a plug into Outlook because I live in that tool but it made Outlook too unstable (more than the baseline--see previous post). I'm open to suggestions. I'd like to use OneNote because then I've got a running diary of sorts but there's no web services feature in the product (that's a fairly amazing thing because everything else in the company is embracing big time) which would enable me to connect it up.

The second is I'm trying to be less caustic/jaded and it seems like everything I've wanted to post over the last month would have been less than positive and frankly, I need this job as sole supporter of my family. To my knowledge we've never really censured anyone and I don't want to find out first hand if we do.

Third, I feel guilty not having anything to contribute to the development side of this blog site. If I had my own server (I have a host) then I would feel a little different but I've always used gotdotnet.com and now the even more targeted asp.net. If you want to have a chuckle then have a read. If you want help with squiggly brackets then try Don Box's or one of the many other dev people who rule the roost.

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxMidtown Madness on XBox Live http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/04/41273.aspx2003-12-04T22:00:00Z2003-12-04T22:00:00ZThere's a couple of things that sort of define a platform. For Windows, I believe it is/was Office. For XBox, it was Halo. For XBox Live, it was Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. I just finished playing Midtown Madness on XBox Live with FunSlayer and DanO. I think that game has redefined what gaming should be. We were carrying on little school girls. The game is just a blast especially Tag and Capture the Gold (which were the only two we played). Kudos MM3 team. That game kicks some serious backside (I am so PC).

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashxHambone has entered the building...http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kentc/archive/2003/12/04/41271.aspx2003-12-04T21:59:00Z2003-12-04T21:59:00Z

I just consumed Kevin Hammond's blog shout out announcing my blog (what's blog etiquette—is it OK to acknowledge a blog about your blog?). I'm a bit embarrassed (although the Paypal process is a "go" if you know what I mean).<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

<o:p>  </o:p>

Kevin is one of those guys whose passion for technology, seemingly unending depth of knowledge and ability to relate/empathize/inform customers is almost without peer because he doesn't spin the message. In our binary world, that's the way it should be. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p>  </o:p>

He's also one of those persons you want with you on a long car trip, just having a quick lunch or if you were starting a company and you were limited to hiring a couple of key people. <o:p></o:p>

Kentchttp://blogs.msdn.com/Kentc/ProfileUrlRedirect.ashx


text:
1. Some have been inspired by famous incidents.
2. Like the Suarez bite.
3. Yes, that infamous incident.
Julian Finney / Getty Images
4. Regardless of spelling.
5. We will always be reminded of his presence.
6. Some have been overly optimistic — "hexa" is a prefix for six in Portuguese — in anticipation of Brazil's sixth title.
7. If only it were true.
8. Some are likenesses of the players, like Clint Dempsey.
9. And this dead-on Neymar piece.
10. Players have interesting tattoos as well, like Theofanis Gekas of Greece's forearm piece "寒冷殺人魔" which is Japanese for "cold murder demon."
Mark Kolbe / Getty
11. Or Chile's Mauricio Pinilla who immortalized his heartbreak…
AP/Martin Meissner
12. … By getting this tattoo on his back.
13. Along with two on his face.
14. Others like Italy's Mario Balotelli use tattoos as inked inspiration.
15. He is the "punishment of God."
Getty / Claudio Villa
16. Italian teammate Daniele de Rossi's ink provides a warning…
Claudio Villa / Getty
18. The Netherlands Wesley Sneijder's body art has spawned Michael Jackson rumors.
VI-Images / VI-Images via Getty Images
19. Whether it's intentional or otherwise there is at least a slight resemblance.
VI-Images / VI-Images via Getty Images
20. So smile!
21. Thanks to superstars like Neymar, we are all truly "blessed" to have seen these unique works of art.
Preview Your Response
In The News Today
- It's the third day of the Democratic National Convention. Here's where things stand 🇺🇸
- Prosecutors have dropped remaining charges against Baltimore police officers related to the death of Freddie Gray.
- Twelve states will support Obama's transgender policies in court after other states sued to block the rules.

subset: commoncrawl


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Because Life Is About Living
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text:
Holiday Lessons From Father Goop-mas
Monogram those cheeseboards.
Of course Gwyneth Paltrow is really, really good at Christmas. It's almost as if the holiday exists so Gwynnie can create new recipes, monogram some homemade cheeseboards, and just really go to Goop Town. She's the best at it, and she wants you to be the best, too. Well, not the best because that's her space, but either way, she shared her aspirational yuletide secrets with InStyle.
For Paltrow, the enduring love for Christmas started when she was a child, not even as tall as the stack of presents she got from her mom and dad: "I remember being probably about 4 years old and coming down and my presents were so tall, they were taller than I was. It was this incredible moment where Santa Claus had brought me all of these presents and it was the most astounding thing to have a mountain of presents that was taller than myself," she said.
Now Paltrow, who might actually still believe in Santa, hopes to recreate those warm memories for everyone else.
She starts shopping about "two months early," to allow time, of course, to get really personal with her gifts. In past years, friends and family have received "beautiful handmade cutting boards, everyone in the family's name was engraved on one side."She's also given "ceramic plates" and "jewelery all with initials."
Well, now that we've got gifts covered (get excited for those ceramic plates, friends!), Paltrow offers up some style advice for that age-old quandary of what wear to the many holiday parties: black jumpsuits! According to her, the LBJ is "always very easy because then you don't have to think about much else." Gwyneth, with her festive black jumpsuits and macrobiotic figgy pudding, might just wrestle the I'm the Best at Christmas title away from another blonde domestic doyenne.


text:
Minky Monday: Take 20% off 1+ Yards of Minky fabric through 11:59 p.m. EDT July 25th.
Aside from procuring 'fabulous fluff' for my online store, this kitty has duplicitous love of all things design and alternative craft projects. As featured in MadeIn Mag online creative magazine: http://madeinmag.ca
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis June 4, 2016
On Friday, June 3, less than 24 hours after Clinton's foreign policy speech, Iran's leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei celebrated his victory over American policy, saying: Iran has many small and big enemies, but foremost among them are America and Britain. "Any cooperation with the US," he said, "is an act against Iran's independence."
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis April 2, 2016
At a news conference Friday, April 1, at the end of the nuclear summit, Barack Obama demanded more Western trade benefits for Iran – despite its "provocative" actions. debkafile: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has forced President Hassan Rouhani to earmark 50 percent of funds released by sanctions relief for those same "provocative" actions – namely, Iran's nuclear and missile programs. If he fails to keep the money flowing, he risks fate of a "traitor" and doomed to extreme penalties.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 31, 2016
A North Korean sales delegation spent two weeks in Tehran this month for negotiating nuclear and missiles transactions. This time Pyongyang wants cash not just an oil commitment, but Tehran is making an effort to come up with the funds.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 17, 2016
Tehran is offering North Korea up to $10bn released by lifted sanctions to buy the North Korean nuclear warheads that are small enough to fit on its ballistic missiles.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 10, 2016
Iran refuses to discontinue its nuclear-capable ballistic missile tests, in the face of the threat of new US sanctions and has daubed on one of its weapons the slogan "Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth."
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 21, 2016
Iran's Revolutionary Guards had no sooner agreed to release US hostages in a prisoner swap than three more were captured in Baghdad to keep the hostage card in play for squeezing Washington to part with more nuclear concessions.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 21, 2016
Zarif extracted concessions on centrifuges from Kerry as the six foreign ministers waited ready in Vienna, hour after hour, to declare the nuclear accord in force and start lifting sanctions.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 14, 2016
Until the very last minute before the Friday date for lifting sanctions, Iran has avoided implementing all its commitments under the November nuclear accord, bar one – notably failing to decommission the Arab heavy water reactor.
DEBKAfile Special Report December 16, 2015
After two tries, US Secretary of State John Kerry finally turned President Barack Obama away from his insistence that Bashar Assad must go before the Syrian conflict can end. Tuesday night, Dec. 15, the Secretary announced in Moscow: "The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change." debkafile: Washington yielded to Moscow three days before a major international conference on Syria takes place in New York. But the US also yielded to Tehran, when the UN nuclear watchdog's board in Vienna closed its investigation into whether Iran sought atomic weapons.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 12, 2015
President Rouhani is losing his fight to stop Khamenei and his hard-line camp from reneging on the Vienna nuclear accord, especially since he can't prove that sanctions relief, even if forthcoming in full, would not save the Iranian economy from catastrophe.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 15, 2015
The Iranian parliament "tailored" the nuclear accord to give Tehran free rein to resume its nuclear program in full or hold out for more concessions.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 10, 2015
Israel drones have been upgraded with Japanese technology to see into the cores of nuclear plants and collect samples. The data and radioactive dust found in undeclared Iranian nuclear plants have been handed to the US and the nuclear watchdog.
DEBKAfile Special Report August 10, 2015
US sources report that the Israeli Air Force may give up on the US Boeing's KC-46A Pegasus as its future refueling tanker for long-range flights because of delays in its delivery. To retain the option of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities after Barack Obama's exit from office in Jan. 2017, Israel can't wait for the Pegasus. Israel Aerospace Industries is therefore working at top speed to convert the Boeing 767, a long-range, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner with a range of 7,000 to 11,000 km. into a refueling tanker, to replace the outdated Boeing 707.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 16, 2015
Khamenei didn't need a nuke to get what he wanted from the world powers. The threat posed by an elaborate nuclear program was enough for him to parlay into world-class status as a nuclear threshold state.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 15, 2015
The Netanyahu government, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, can only beat their heads futilely against the iron wall Barack Obama has built for Iran with the nuclear accord the six powers signed in Vienna Tuesday, July 14. Israel has the most to lose. It has been downgraded from its favored status in Washington and replaced by Iran. By this big geopolitical step, the US President has shifted the ground in the region, not only dumping Israel but the Arab world as a whole - and, incidentally, the Palestinians as well.
DEBKAfile Special Report July 14, 2015
In broad lines, the final nuclear deal, reached between six world powers and Iran in Vienna on Tuesday, July 14 - after repeated hold-ups - grants Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. debkafile: The accord is a triumph for President Barack Obama's policy of orienting US foreign policy on a rapprochement with Iran, while turning a cold shoulder to America's traditional Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. It anoints Tehran as leading regional power with its nuclear program intact – a major fiasco for Binyamin Netanyahu.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 13, 2015
US presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton holds the key to the Democratic Senate vote on the nuclear deal after its announcement in Vienna later Monday, July 13. The Republicans will oppose it, but a majority for annulling the presidential veto depends on 13 Democrats crossing the floor. Iran is ready for this with draft legislation empowering the Majlis to annul the deal if US compliance is deemed unsatisfactory. So the Iranian parliament is pitted against the US Senate and, by implication, Hillary Clinton is in the driving seat versus Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Back in Tehran… Khamenei adds red lines, Rouhani tries to resign, Jaafari hints at "fait accompli" soon
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 12, 2015
Tehran is divided over whether or not to sign a comprehensive nuclear accord with the six world powers in Vienna as 22 agonizing months of negotiations falter on the brink. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was hardly helpful when he said publicly on Saturday, July 11: "The US is the true embodiment of global arrogance," the fight against which "could not be interrupted" even after the completion of the nuclear talks. But President Rouhani, on the point of resigning on June 26, failed in an heated interview to talk him round.
DEBKAfile Special Report July 9, 2015
European Union Foreign Executive Federica Mogherini is quoted by debkafile's intelligence sources as shouting at Iran's Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif: "If that's where you stand it's a pity to waste any more time!" Jarif is quoted as snapping back: "Don't threaten us!" This exchange took place Wednesday night, July 8, after the second deadline had passed without a final deal. The US delegation led by Secretary of State John Kerry is said to have sat without moving a muscle. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stepped in to cool tempers.
Zarif returns to Vienna with top Iranian nuclear elite. Israel fears nuclear deal signing is imminent
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 30, 2015
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif was on his way from Tehran to Vienna Tuesday, June 30, accompanied by two government heavyweights: Ali Akhbar Salehi, Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Commission, and Hossein Feredydoon, senior adviser to President Hassan Rouhani. debkafile: Israel fears that this high-powered Iranian representation portends a "surprise" signing of the comprehensive nuclear deal with the world powers on or close to the deadline day, after word of delays was deliberately spread to head off objections..