Best way to get started with SQL? - <AUTHOR> Hello friends.
I started programming almost year ago and I still very much enjoy it that I've considered to turn it into a career (even though I'm approaching 30 now). Anyways, 80% of the jobs seem to be requiring knowledge of SQL and relational databases.
Now my skills are still somewhat basic but I'm accustomed to the learning process. I've gone through Learn Python The Hard Way, created my first little program and now crunching through Swift book - so there you go.
My only experience with SQL was using MySQL interface when setting up Wordpress installations. I'm looking for something that is approachable with lots of good examples and possibly exercises.
Is there a good book, youtube channel or course (Udemy) that I should look at? Mind you I'm pretty serious about it so I don't really mind spending some money (less than $100 though) but if there is good free material, even better! I've had somewhat positive/negative relationship toward Youtube tuts - I found one that was great for Tkinter framework but for Django I had to go through a book to understand it properly.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> You have already gotten good academic and research based advice, so I'll toss something else in.

Install MySQL on your machine to play with. If you have access to a Wordpress install that has some data in it, take a backup of that and restore it to your machine and learn how to write queries for it. The way to figure out what to query is ask yourself questions, like, how many blog posts were posted in the past year. What was the count of blog posts per month for the past year. Stuff like that. And anything that you could see someone asking you to answer. BTW -- I am not suggesting that Wordpress is an amazing database design, but it is fairly typical of what people do so its a reasonable place to learn.

Then once you feel pretty comfortable there, take a couple of the public datasets you can find online, Amazon shares a bunch of them and you can find others. Then create a database, import the data and write queries against it, following the same process of asking questions that seem interesting. You can even take the max-mind CSV file they provide and create a database out of that to learn how to query it and get answers. It is a small and simple dataset but there are a number of things you can figure out using it.

While I personally prefer postgres, I think MySQL is probably a good place to learn as there are a ton of tutorials and resources for it. After you master the concepts then you can switch between platforms much easier, MS SQL, MySQL etc. The basics are the same between them all, even though each has their own quirks and gotcha's, knowing how to work in one you can always ask Google how to do X in Y if you already know how to do X.

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently asked my 4th-year students (who take a relational database course in their 3rd year) how much they used what they learned from the database course. Most of them had internships between the 3rd and 4th year, and they told me that in their jobs they needed to (a) write complex queries and (b) write stored procedures. Our database course had focused, I think, too much on ER diagramming and things like field data types. You need to know those things to _create_ a database, but as a new person I guess you're more likely to have to deal with a database that already exists.

To my point: make sure you learn how to do complex SQL queries including subqueries and correlated subqueries. Also, learn to create stored procedures and triggers in your favorite database.

You might look into the book "Refactoring Databases" by Ambler and Sadalage. It challenges you to think about the database as an evolving system, which is different than the kind of textbook exercises where you just sketch or build it once and then move on to the next problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> If your really serious about enhancing your SQL skills the following should take you from beginner to expert with time. Udemy and other online resources are nice but they will not take you to your maximum potential, only the books and official documentation will as that is where the experts get there information. The videos and tutorials are good for overviews and helping with certain scenarios but not the best resources if you want a professional high end learning path to the top.

If you want working with SQL to become extremely easy to you, you will need to start creating websites, bring traffic to those sites and implement the scaling procedures you have learned from the books below.

As if you go to a job interview and want to blow it out of the water it is to your best advantage to know for example MySQL in and out so well you make the interviewer smile inside and go yes we have found the one. You will probably see a little smirk as the interviewer is trying to hold in their smile when this happens but you will know when this occurs very easily. Upside to this is you will be very comfortable getting started on day one and the only training you will need is the current architecture and backup or non existent backup plans in place so you can get to work.

I recommend the following hardcopy books in order:

MySQL: [http://www.amazon.com/MySQL-Developers-Library-Paul- DuBois-e...](http://www.amazon.com/MySQL-Developers-Library-Paul-DuBois- ebook/dp/B00C2SFK2Q)

www.amazon.com/High-Performance-MySQL-Optimization-Replication/dp/1449314287/

[http://www.amazon.com/MySQL-High-Availability-Building- Cente...](http://www.amazon.com/MySQL-High-Availability-Building- Centers/dp/1449339581/)

If your wanting to do Microsoft SQL Server, I recommend the following: [http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Server-2012-Step- Developer/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Server-2012-Step- Developer/dp/0735663866/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Training-70-461-Querying-Microsoft- Ser...](http://www.amazon.com/Training-70-461-Querying-Microsoft- Server/dp/0735666059)

[http://www.amazon.com/Training-70-462-Administering- Microsof...](http://www.amazon.com/Training-70-462-Administering-Microsoft- Databases/dp/0735666075)

<comment><AUTHOR> cool thanks. should I start with the first one? i just need to emphasize that I'm still fairly beginner so I want to be sure that I can understand it and go gradually from easy to hard.

<comment><USER4> Yes the first MySQL book will take you a long way and lay most of it out for you very nicely. The other books add on to the foundation that is given to you in the first book.

Part One gives a really good overview of writing queries for mysql, optimizing them, understanding all the data types etc.

Part Two gives you the practical hand on that you need in multiple programming languages C, Perl, and PHP.

Part Three teaches you administration and security which helps complete the circle of knowledge. As you don't want to be a developer that does not know how to talk the Database administrator language. As the more you know and learn the better you and others can help optimize and secure the different development, staging and production environments applications and hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would start with adding fields to a CSV from some open public data and building reports that include featurs like GROUP BY month and ORDER BY city_name.

That'll give you some understanding of the richness that's available to you when you start to use SQL. Until you get why SQL is amazing, SQL will feel like a chore.

Once you feel comfortable with custom reports, you should learn about performing queries on queries (via subqueries, CTEs or views ... all very similiar) and queries between tables (JOINs).

Once you have JOINs and subqueries down, you'll be able to do things that are both blazing fast (compared to similiar operations in your application) and extremely memory efficient.

<comment><USER6> Excellent advise - the biggest problem most people have when starting playing with databases is that they don't have any data to begin with. Unless you have, let's say, a couple of tables 1000 records each, you cannot actually grasp the significance of what you're doing.

Search for elections results, weather/climate change, air pollution, crime rate - there's a lot of it online.</comment></comment>


The Road to Reliability Starts with Better Observability - <AUTHOR> https://www.braze.com/perspectives/article/building-braze-site-reliability <comment><USER2> ELK stack is so useful</comment>


Gartner:XMPP future standard for real time communication - <AUTHOR> http://www.process-one.net/en/blogs/article/gartner_xmpp_becoming_a_universal_standard/

<comment><USER2> This is a press release with no evidence cited about XMPP's takeover. They do say there is some evidence in two linked documents, but both are behind pay walls. Where's the meat?

<comment><AUTHOR> Twitter uses XMPP and now even diaspora is also looking into to adopting XMPP.

Again may not be enough to call it 'the meat' :P

<comment><USER2> LOL, but even those two points aren't mentioned in the article.

I'm down to talk about XMPP; I share your interest in the subject. I just don't know why anyone voted this particular submission up.

Sorry, I don't mean to be an HN curmudgeon.

<comment><USER3> It would nice if it would have been more specific about google's usage (for IM) or facebook's usage at all.

Although facebook still sucks at it (no tls support yet even)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gartner is pay to play research.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a non-xml "flavor" of xmpp? Doesn't seem like an xml protocol is the wave of the future based on current trends.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> XMPP is known for real time but poor to scale. I have my doubts on this, but could somebody suggest any alternatives?

<comment><USER6> So perhaps a badly written individual server doesn't scale (neither does an individual Apache instance).

Google manages to scale XMPP to support each of their Gmail users. Is that big enough?

Nokia runs all of the Ovi account on a Tigase-based backend. That's quite a few users.

And all these disperate networks federate into a massive <cough>"web- scale"</cough> cloud of XMPP federation.

So as someone building massively scaled components on XMPP, it scales!</comment></comment>


Abusing Linux's firewall: the hack that allowed us to build Spectrum - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-we-built-spectrum/ <comment><USER2> Dup, 6 days ago - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16821807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16821807)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr - Cloudflare used an obscure iptables module- TPROXY, originally designed to help transparent proxying, to help them bind to any port on Linux, without using conntrack.</comment>


The Dash – Wireless Smart In Ear Headphones - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hellobragi/the-dash-wireless-smart-in-ear-headphones

<comment><USER2> My concerns would be A) the battery life, they won't make it the length of some domestic US flights and B) considering how expensive they are and their battery length limiting them to being workout headphones and not daily headphones are they really water resistant? Every single water resistant headphone I've had doesn't last long once I start sweating at the gym but none have been this expensive.

Honestly what I really want is a iPod nano (small square with screen) form factor device with a crippled GSM service (like the older Kindles) that lets me use music streaming services like Pandora and also local MP3s. The headphones are secondary.</comment>


Gem utility to automagically rename TV show files to a correct format - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fklingler/tvshow_renamer

<comment><AUTHOR> Please contribute :)</comment>


The Next Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.minimallyminimal.com/journal/2012/7/3/the-next-microsoft.html <comment><USER4> Dear everybody,

Are you paying attention? This is how you build a portfolio. Did microsoft ask this person to do this?

No. But he did it, and it's brilliant, and now he can put it in his portfolio under "speculative work".

And then he gets a job doing this.

I can't tell you how many people I talk to (I live in a college town, and frequently go to bars and strike up conversations with people) who just finished, or are working on, some degree in "design", but have an empty portfolio, and are waiting for their "big shot".

Good job, Andrew.

Totally rebranding the window to the "slate" is incredibly ambitious, but it certainly looks good.

<comment><USER5> This can go either way.

Remember when dcurtis did a unsolicited spec redesign for the American Airlines website? We here at HN tore him a new one (justifiably so, it ignored so many critical aspects of the business, and came off as entirely impractical).

When you do something like this, you better be sure you nail every single angle of it.

FWIW, I normally hate spec redesigns - they're usually positioned in a pompous, "I know better than everyone", self-aggrandizing way. But this one I really like, this one strikes a chord.

<comment><USER6> HN criticized, but I've heard "the guy who redesigned American's website" referenced in several times from several sources. It spread, it got him a reputation, it gave him a brand! Dustin Curtis is now recognizable in any kind of design discussion.

I've never heard of minimallyminimal, but I'll remember "the guy who rebranded Microsoft" for a long time.

<comment> the-cakeboss He may be recognizable in a design discussion on HN, but hardly out of this context. Same goes for this guy.

That of course is not to say that these sorts of efforts should be avoided, but I do think you are overestimating their impact.

<comment><USER7> I think you are underestimating the impact of being well known on HN for something like that.

Nearly everybody who matters reads this site at least sometimes.

<comment><USER8> Although jsprinkles got slowbanned and hellbanned (still unsure why but cannot be bothered; more on that later), I had to create another account just to respond to this. This comment encapsulates, in amazingly succinct fashion, everything that is wrong with Hacker News and the people that participate in this community.

I can translate "[n]early everybody who matters" in this context, and it means _a subset of Silicon Valley that thinks it is the entire universe_. Hacker News these days is TMZ for Silicon Valley, with the occasional dash of Lisp thrown in. Conversations are usually way off-base and are wildly misrepresentative of reality in many cases. Half the discussions are folks opining on how poorly someone is running a business after digesting several years of Hacker News articles during their work hours at someone else's company, with no actual experience at the helm. I went after one guy for proclaiming that Tim Cook hasn't done shit for Apple in his entire career there, and I couldn't help but imagine the kind of person behind such a comment and it wasn't a pretty picture.

The other day's thread about the sale of Sortfolio is a _great_ example of this. The entire thread was arguing with DHH and Jason Fried about _their own company's transaction_. No, really[1].

There are exceptions. There is the occasional absolutely phenomenal and industry-affecting discussion here. There are people that use their "Hacker News reputation" for good. However, standing atop a pillar of arrogance as tall as "everybody who matters is here" just screams a complete disconnect with how our industry actually works.

In the grand scheme of information technology, startups are tiny little mosquitoes that are, with few exceptions, swatted to death quickly and quietly. The occasional mosquito that kills a human, though, is the one that gets press and pays off its investors mightily. That's the golden mosquito, and a whole tribe of mosquito farmers has popped up in pursuit of their payoff. However, simply because a couple mosquitoes have succeeded at killing a human does not, I repeat does not, indicate that the entire world of disease revolves around mosquitoes, nor that a forum discussing mosquitoes is representative of epidemiology as a whole. The average startup employs what, a dozen people? IBM employs more than _four hundred thousand_ [2]. And before you turn around and mock IBM, they've made enough money to research and do great things[3] while your startup is still struggling to come to terms with burn rate in search of that ever-elusive revenue.

Please dig yourself out of the hole of narcissism and reconnect with reality. Hacker News is _not_ the entire world, and more than half of the movers and shakers in the industry have probably never even glanced at a comment thread. I will ever remain relieved if that fact does not change.

An aside which reinforces that point:

After getting hellbanned, I stopped worrying about combating stupidity in Hacker News threads. I stopped reading most of them, to be quite honest. I relaunched my blog and wrote a long essay I've been meaning to write about how Python decorators work[4] which before, I could never seem to find the time for. I adopted an ethos of using my time for sharing knowledge instead of arguing about pointless shit, like Sortfolio's acquisition price or what the meaning of Steve Jobs parking in a handicap space is or what some UI designer named Dustin Curtis thinks about Quora's latest funding round. I'm learning to listen to what people have to say rather than waiting for my turn to speak, just to refute my conversational opponent's take on Microsoft as if it matters or has any bearing on my life whatsoever.

The effect that removing frequent Hacker News contribution has had on me as a person is nothing short of extraordinary, so if "everybody that matters" is here, God help our industry.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4191233>

[2]: [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/perfo...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/performers/companies/biggest/)

[3]: <http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/index.html>

[4]: <http://jedsmith.org/post/python-decorators.html>

<comment><USER7> Startups create the future, not companies like IBM.

In the context of my comment, people in the orbit of world-changing startups are the ones that matter.

You make some interesting points though. Good post.

<comment><USER9> I am obviously biased, but I am terrified, TERRIFIED, if a company with Microsoft's history has a say in delivering the future.

I dont want that future.

Microsoft has a very very long way to rehabilitate their image for their long history of bad behaviour.

<comment><USER10> Not biased so much, maybe, but definitely subjective.

I have more faith in Microsoft than I do in any other big tech company. It's easy to forget that any commercial organisation's mission is to make money, which makes it inherently self-serving.

Microsoft, Red Hat, Google, Apple, Oracle, Facebook and so on all exist to make their shareholders rich. And yet we seem to think that they exist to make cool products, or to offer services we might find useful. Or to support us in any way. Not so.

<comment><USER7> "...Facebook...exist to make their shareholders rich. And yet we seem to think that they exist to make cool products,"

Zuck specifically said this isn't true in his letter to shareholders. They make money so they can build, they don't build to make money.

If you simply observe his own lifestyle and the choices he's made with Facebook, it is pretty clear money means very little to him and that he absolutely loves running Facebook.

Given that he can veto anything anybody else ever says about the company for the rest of his life, I am inclined to believe him.

Wall Street seems to believe him too, thats why FB's stock is not doing so hot. They know FB's dictator despises them and doesn't care about making them money.

<comment><USER11> Interesting conjectures...

On the other hand since Zuckerberg's being an arrogant asshole preceded his wealth, one can argue that this sing and dance number that fools you is actually just history repeating itself.

I think I'll base my opinion on him from actions rather than what I read in a multi-billion dollar letter... as if he would realistically say anything else...

One thing is for certain though: his stock has underperformed because his company was considerably overvalued, not because he wasn't a kiss-ass to the street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We could debate whether this would "work" on a practical level as if this was a Powerpoint presentation for Steve Ballmer and we're supposed to predict how he'd react. But I'm really just finding myself appreciating the "space/science fiction" metaphor for technology.

Steve Jobs has often quoted Apple as "advancing the human race." I feel like this takes it to the next level. I felt myself _wanting this company to exist just on pure principle._ Whenever I read older science fiction, occasionally I'll recognize the story is supposedly set somewhere between 2000-2100 A.D., and yet we wear spandex and zoom around with FTL travel and fight aliens with lasers and make food with replicators, etc. And I'll smirk and think, "heh, he was way off," but beneath that cynicism, there's just a bit of regret that we just didn't actually evolve in that way. And I guess this is why the branding here resonated with me so much -- it touched that part of me and convinced me that this company could make all that reality after all.

As an engineer I feel like I have a hyper-literal mindset where most branding and advertising just washes over me. I live in a world where it matters what things "do," not how they "feel," so some guys playing volleyball with girls in bikinis while drinking Coors Light just washes over me as a bizarre way to stay hydrated while at the beach. But as I said earlier, I _wanted_ this company to exist. I wanted to feel the things that this branding made me feel. I wanted to strap myself into this spaceship that this company was building and fly wherever it would take me. Practically speaking, that company probably won't be the one we all know as the bloated monopolistic entity that makes most of its profits from boring office productivity software.

But this made me wish it was.

<comment><USER13> The "slate" logo is okay. The promise of delivering the future is brilliant. I had the same exact reaction to it - there needs to be a multi-billion dollar company devoted to this philosophy! I think microsoft is in a unique position to become this company - they suck right now and they have the resources. I also think Ballmer probably will see this. I bet he'll see it and he'll like it, but worry that it's too big of a shift.

I don't know what they're working on internally, but if I were in his shoes, I'd go for it. Bundle the phone with the laptop and do whatever it takes to allow tethering at no extra fee. That's not going far enough. Create an ecosystem with clear direction that upsets the market, under the banner of delivering the future of science fiction.

I'm a mac, and I want to be excited to buy microsoft.

<comment><USER9> Bundle? One reason why microsoft is so hamstrung in the last ten years is because of that word. That, and "anti-trust".

Apple has been behaving well enough not to be on anti-trust watch, and that gives the company so much more freedom to innovate.

And I say that as a penguin.

<comment><USER13> Point taken, bad idea. But they would need to back up a rebranding with new and innovative products that demonstrate vision. I shouldn't pretend to know what those products should be, or how they should be sold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is great.

It will never work.

A brand has to reflect the culture of how a product is made, sold, experienced, etc...

Microsoft is not about simplicity, it's about feature creep. Microsoft sells software and licenses to big companies. Big companies don't want simple, they want value for their money - features!

A better brand promise would be Microsoft - It Does Everything!

Look at Windows 8. Is it going metro only? No, Metro is a feature on top of the existing mountain of features. Instead of one UI, it's now TWO UI's!!!

Putting this kind of branding on Microsoft is like putting the geeky kid with oversized glasses and suspenders a new wardrobe. Sure, the kid will look cooler, but it won't stop him from playing Magic: The Gathering in their basement.

Microsoft has built their company on saying "yes" to just about everything. The simplest Windows ever sounds like they are saying "no" to things and that's not what Microsoft does.

I love the design, but it's not Microsoft

<comment><USER15> Could have easily made the same criticism of Apple in the mid 90s. Microsoft can definitely be saved. You just have to fire Ballmer and put a visionary in charge. There are still some really good people working at Microsoft. Unfortunately, the leadership and vision haven't been there. Nobody has been willing to take risks.

They took a risk in killing the OEMs and building Surface in house. They now need to take a bigger one.

<comment><USER16> I used the think the same thing, but it's not clear to me that Microsoft "needs" saving. They're growing the enterprise side of their business quite fast and the problem just seems to be that investors expect them to be the next Apple, whereas Ballmer is turning them into the next IBM.

They'll still make boatloads of money on the enterprise side and that'll be enough to keep them floating for decades to come, so I continue to wonder if there truly is a problem with their business strategy or if it's just misaligned expectations.

<comment><USER17> If Ballmer was aiming for the next IBM, he'd have spun off Windows Phone as IBM sold off its PC business. They wouldn't be buying companies and pouring resources into it and pissing off the OEMs by pouring resources into Surface.

And if they were just shooting for Enterprise++, keeping Windows Phone and Surface to keep enterprise device sales under their umbrella, they'd be spinning off the XBox and consumer media properties.

But they're not spinning anything off. They're still expanding into new spaces. And they're fighting for consumer money harder than ever.

I'd say the evidence suggests that, even though it could be wildly profitable if it went the IBM way, Ballmer still wants Microsoft to be all things to all people.

<comment><USER18> Isn't Microsoft more profitable than IBM?

<http://ycharts.com/companies/IBM/profit_margin>

<http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/profit_margin>

<comment><USER17> And how much more profitable would they be without things like their Entertainment division, Bing, Ad company acquisitions, etc?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This design is Orwellian in nature.

In the current age of global wars, international terrorism, financial turmoil, outsourced labor, awakening behemoths (China), increasing corruption, people fear the future.

Look at Apple, classic 1960's space age retro.

Look at Instagram. Cozy and nostalgic polaroid filters.

If I designed for the future, I'd take hints from the past.

A key difference is that in the past, different social groups had something to look forward to (emancipation and liberation), despite the looming threat of thermonuclear warfare. Nowadays? In the western hemisphere? It's all gloom and doom.

In western markets - Your brand should function as an opiate, it should reassure and placate people.

In emerging markets - Sell the American dream of old.

Of course there's a third way, show us a way out of here. But for that advertisement alone is not enough. You'd have to change how your business runs and make a lasting impact on society. Forget shareholder value and start thinking about society.

<comment><USER20> As much as I love the mockup, in the end I probably agree.

Microsoft's core branding strength in the consumer market is its "genericness". Look at the new homepage - very standard US families using MS products. While Apple's aesthetic appeals to millions and millions, to some it comes off as elitist and/or flashy. As unusual as it seems to say this, MS may be doing well by pushing their bland mostly-business-but-you-can-go-on- facebook-on-it-too branding - many americans could assimilate the mockup's intended message and react negatively. People want cheap crap that doesn't make them think too hard.

Microsoft's current branding is unexciting (read: safe, reassuring) for very specific reasons.

<comment><USER21> I think you're right on the money. Your comment reminds me of Neal Stephenson's characterization of Windows as the station wagon of operating systems.

<http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html>

<comment><USER20> Thanks a lot for this, it was a great read.

I think the following phrases things far better than I did:

>The answer, for people who don't like Damoclean questions, is that since Microsoft has won the hearts and minds of the silent majority--the bourgeoisie --they don't give a damn about having a slick image, any more then Dick Nixon did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Allow me to be contrarian for a moment and say _I don't like it._ It's a nice experiment, and it's better than the new Windows logo, but to me it fails on a few different grounds.

\-- The typographic mark is less substantial, and the typeface is just poor. The existing logo isn't pretty, but it works just fine, and the arrow device connecting the O and S is cute.

\-- The use of a lower case "m" is just a slave to a trend that died years ago. And some idiot in marketing will decide that it has to be written as 'microsoft', even at the beginning of a sentence.

\-- The new design language with the "Deutsche Bank" logo competes and clashes with all the work Microsoft have put into their Metro design language. As much as I despise the new Windows logo, the Metro theme has been well implemented in stores and marketing.

<comment><USER23> It's not contrarian when a full half of the top-level commenters say they don't care for it.

And really this seems to me pretty much par for the course for design work here on HN. Every single time someone posts an attempt at some design work that they have taken very seriously, it quickly degrades into a contest to see whom can say "meh" the most dramatically.

<comment><USER22> At the time I posted, 90% of the top level commenters were positive about the design. A vast majority of the top level comments are still positive.

A great brand design is like a great API -- it's easy to build something that can pass casual scrutiny, but it's damn hard to make something that can survive decades in the field, appeal to many different type of customer, withstand changes in technology/aesthetic, and grow elegantly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I particularly hate about MS branding right now is those stupid, unnecessary (TM) and (R)'s that follow names of their products... Just look at this picture for God's sake: [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post- images/microsof...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post- images/microsoft/m19.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1341179900853) or head over to their website: <http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx>

It's ridiculous. So "Windows" is a registered trademark of Microsoft. Big deal, but why put it after every single mentioning of the name?! Doesn't it bother you ( = MS marketing guys) to see little dots _(they're so little that you can't even say if they're (tm) or (r)'s!)_ after product names? Isn't it ugly in your opinions?

Apple doesn't do it. Google doesn't either. Oracle does it too, however. Congrats, MS; you're as uncool as a database company.

<comment><USER25> They _are_ a database company :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm no designer, but aren't logos supposed to be recognizable? This is a geometric shape, why not just use a square for the logo, or a triangle?

Would people really associate this shape (which isn't particularly unique and probably not even trademark-able) with microsoft when they see it? I have my doubts

Also unrelatedly, the missing i-dot is really throwing me off (probably just because I am used to it)

<comment><USER27> Microsoft is big enough that a shape that simple could easily become their logo. What company is this:

[http://www.owenjonesdesign.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/05/1_...](http://www.owenjonesdesign.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/05/1_Nike.png)

or this:

[http://www.wearesuntravel.com/SquareLogo_Jewel.303162624_std...](http://www.wearesuntravel.com/SquareLogo_Jewel.303162624_std.png)

or this:

[http://www.vintagevideogamer.net/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/...](http://www.vintagevideogamer.net/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/map-pin1.png)

<comment><USER28> I'm not saying you're wrong, but none of those logos is nearly as simple as this one. For example, I wasn't taught a formula for calculating their area in elementary school.

Are there any successful logos that really are this simple?

<comment><USER27> Yes, you're right, they're slighly more complicated. Hows about these:

[http://blog.iso50.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/windowslive...](http://blog.iso50.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/windowslivewriterolympiclogos-1ed9rings-3.jpg)

[http://www.findthatlogo.com/wp-content/gallery/pepsi- logos/o...](http://www.findthatlogo.com/wp-content/gallery/pepsi-logos/old- pepsi-logo.jpg)

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DvlYtL1ReM0/TIHrinS6g5I/AAAAAAAACw...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DvlYtL1ReM0/TIHrinS6g5I/AAAAAAAACw4/gxLGDpDmZsk/s320/tvsquad_accidentally_on_purpose_55697_cbs_logo.jpg)

this is even better:

[http://www.logodesignconsultant.com/images/Memorable- simple-...](http://www.logodesignconsultant.com/images/Memorable-simple-logo- designs-examples-2.png)

this is probably the winner though:

[http://www.petergreenberg.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/01/log...](http://www.petergreenberg.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/01/logo_redcross.jpg)

<comment><USER29> Interestingly, the red cross logo is actually a trademark of Johnson & Johnson [1], not the Red Cross. It's also easily confused with the Swiss flag, and Swatch Watches (though granted they have inverted colours). Unless there is some context you wouldn't necessarily know which brand that was referring to. If you remove the colour (as is proposed on the page), it's just a plus sign and not recognisable at all.

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1559971/Johnson- an...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1559971/Johnson-and-Johnson- sues-Red-Cross-over-logo.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So, I'm not a huge fan, but definitely an interesting attempt. Some commentary, because why not:

\- As others have noted, the "moonshot" imagery is a good idea and manages to seem classic and futuristic at the same time.

\- The wordmark is a little cliche (lowercase sans wooo), but it looks okay. I like the beveled foot of the t, which provides echoes of the slanted logo, but feel like it's just an afterthought right now. I wonder what it might have looked like with a few more bevels.

\- The slate shape is nice, but it's not an uncommon shape. In order to avoid confusion you're going to need something to make it extremely recognizable. A strong color identity will help a lot here. Your system of positioning the log above the top-left corner of text also helps, but only if there's text around. You know you will have succeeded when the demo image of the woman in the orange jacket is unquestionably your logo and not a random part of the jacket design (which it could be mistaken for at the moment).

\- The derived logos (Windows, Office) are a little confusing. Why is windows two slates? Why are the slates fighting in Office? Why doesn't metro have any slates / why is it even up there with Windows and Office? To create a family of logos you actually need a sense of "family" -- this just feels like the first two things that popped into your head.

\- It's still a little unclear whether the slate logo is also Microsoft's logo, or whether the corporation itself will just use the new wordmark. Why is the slate logo used on the Windows Phone? Shouldn't it be double-slates?

\- Maybe it's just my screen, but your color palletes for metro don't look that great. Dark blue on black is hard to overcome; the teal is too light compared to the white text; the black theme is hard to distinguish from the black background.

\- I really, really like the combination of screen reflection and slate logo that you see in the ad for the Nokia phone. You see those fake reflections on any ad for a device with a glass screen. I think you could turn that into an enduring visual language for ads.

<comment><USER31> "The derived logos (Windows, Office) are a little confusing. Why is windows two slates? Why are the slates fighting in Office?"

Apparently you missed what I thought were some pretty awesome visual metaphors:

* "Why is windows two slates?" there are two of them, hence Window _s_ plural

* "Why are the slates fighting in Office?" They look like the walls of an office (the transparency helps with the 3D illusion)

<comment><USER30> You know what they say about a joke that you have to explain...

<comment><USER31> Oh really?

[http://inagorillacostume.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Amaz...](http://inagorillacostume.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Amazon-Logo-A-Z.jpg)

[http://pictures.mastermarf.com/blog/2009/090113-fedex- expres...](http://pictures.mastermarf.com/blog/2009/090113-fedex-express- arrow.png)

<comment><USER32> <http://www.goodlogo.com/extended.info/2385> (Sun Microsystems)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Design isn't about just being radical and experimental (which has a place). Good designers know when to use these features while obeying the over arching rule of design: Don't just include elements because you fancy them (or the idea of them) - They must work completely on their own merits.

As an experiment this is interesting, as a proposition it's very poor, it's design-poor.

This is subjective, but in my view it's both too abstract and unruly for microsoft and fails the continuity test. Unstructured logos need careful examination, this is more experimental than logical. Also Deutsche bank has a very similar logo which is ill-advised in general.

With regard to the new microsoft logo type this is visually imbalanced, particularly with the use of various clashing typographic styles. For example the x-height limited 'i' is at odds with the "ft" ligature which ascends above the x-height. Letter terminals are square, then the 't' on the end suddenly has two angled terminals which directly contradict the 'f' it's attached to. It doesn't come across as flair, it comes across as trying to add interest where there is none.

Also the type in general is poor, it's variously weighted strokes present a mottled "grey area" and the surrounding "white space" is unnatural to read.

<comment><USER34> I completely agree - It seems like this is one of the only other design responses on this board.

Every point you've made here is right. The harsh angles and general feeling of a "sharp razor" are just not right for Microsoft, or many other companies actually. It's experimental which is cool, but just far too strong to be adopted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I don't find it appealing. The surface version of the logo, especially, bothers me; it feels off-balance due to the size of the geometric block and its placement.

Personal issues with the design aside, I also don't think the overall idea is any good. Microsoft as a whole doesn't need to be futuristic or hip or apple- ish. For its corporate customers especially, I think this would be counter- productive. Instead, they should take Microsoft Research and really DO SOMETHING with it. Such as attaching an accelerator of sorts, where small groups of entrepreneurs/innovators can take something MS Research has developed and see if they can make a marketable product out of it.

Surface really feels like the case in point here - they're how many years behind in finally releasing something to the consumer market? I remember reading that the cool desk in the The Island (2005, two years prior to the iPhone) was a MS research surface prototype or something; and yet it took them another four years to get a product out, and they priced it at 10k and sold it to phone retailers. Phone retailers! What the actual fuck?! Today, all of that seems to have fallen by the wayside in favor of tablets. It feels like MS is following the TSA model - wait until something big happens, then do something about it, instead of the other way around.

Anyway, if MS Research got a new logo that could be attached to semi- independent MS-funded experimental projects aimed at getting something to market, I could see a futuristic/high-tech branding being a useful thing to have. For MS in general, I don't.

<comment><USER36> Surface was not a real product. Sure they sold it for 10k but that was cost. It got a Microsoft cool product into design agencies. No phone retailers were harmed...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37>
        - Apple - <USER2>
        - Google - <USER3>
        - Microsoft - Purely digital

I agree that this is one of the things Metro has right. It's even more "about the content" than Google or Apple is.

In the case of Apple, I think this may be intentional. Apple is also about the personal. Skeuomorphic interfaces can be used to evoke memories associated with physical objects and past technology.

<comment><USER38> This rings true for me. The retro look of Winamp brings back vivid memories. I'm not sure how well Metro's content-is-everything aesthetic will go down with the public; it's bold, but possibly too much so.

This proposed rebranding veers a bit too cold (or Orwellian, as someone else said) for me, despite its futuristic appearance. I'd be afraid that MS would turn out to be an amoral megacorp that was trying to develop weaponize alien lifeforms. The style is cool; a bit _too_ cool. Still, a lot of respect to the designer for putting this great piece of work together.

<comment><USER37> _I'd be afraid that MS would turn out to be an amoral megacorp..._

Too late. Hopefully, they won't go down any pathways involving weaponizing alien lifeforms. (1 - become amoral, 2 - weaponize alien, 3 - ????, 4- PROFIT!!)

Really all three are amoral megacorps. Apple has been good at putting personable faces on its brand. Google still has some "Don't be Evil" cred, and is still held in good regard for open standards.

Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do in the PR department.

Then again, maybe Microsoft should apply the principles of Judo, and just _go with it_. Instead of fighting the public perception currents, they could gain incredible momentum by going with them. Forget the progressive and clinical Sci-fi future -- embrace dystopian darkness and evil! That stuff is geek-cool! For me, Steve Ballmer publicly and wholeheartedly embracing evil would result in an 800% increase in credibility. Add an evil scientist laugh, and he'd get an equal boost in nerd-cred.

<http://imgur.com/3Seb8>

Also, they could dispense with their long struggle to be cool. Just embrace basement-dweller IT-worker RPG-playing nerdyness.

Microsoft: Just Be Evil!

Microsoft: Inflict your users, for the Lulz!

Microsoft: Help us destroy society and make your Sci-Fi dreams come true!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wow.

I am always amazed at the creativity displayed by those who so obviously have talent. It makes it all the more impressive given that Microsoft would likely benefit by taking this exact marketing route.

What they're doing right now certainly isn't working...

</comment><comment><USER40> Great work. But you know what they say about lipstick and pigs.

Microsoft's problem is not their lack of spending on advertising, branding, marketing, PR, etc. They spend colossal amounts of money in these departments.

Their problem is that they no longer know who they are. Worse, they no longer know who they want to be.

In that respect, they are very close to Sony.

</comment><comment><USER41> Wow, excellent work!

The only thing I would change is the black and white space photography. While it's very cool, the grayscale lunar landscape photography doesn't quite convey the feeling of future to me... it feels a bit too bleak and desolate to me and maybe even depressing. I would consider adding a splash of color somehow (they are the designer, not me!). It would take a little of the edge off of something that is mass-consumer-oriented, in my opinion.

But regardless, the concept and the work is fantastic!

<comment><USER42> I agree, unfortunately it's already being used by Microsoft! <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpzu3HM2CIo> which led to this amazing parody <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ideYfNcEZsI>

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 3 days redesign of a brand for fun? Whatever you think about the result, this guy has talent.

I personally thought it was beautiful, really breathtaking.

<comment><USER44> The only thing I liked over the current ones was the palette in the first WP screenshot.

Left top one on [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post- images/microsof...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post- images/microsoft/m26.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1341180082954)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I wanted to hijack a top comment to say what I will, but decided against it, just because I didn't expect this thread to have such divergent views.

This portfolio to me just fucking gets it. The design thinking going on here is incredible, in that it frames the challenge correctly and immediately, and then fills that gap really well. MS has for a long time had the vision, but the brand and feel of that vision has never matched. It results in the feeling that some boring and risk-averse engineers are running the marketing department. MS has no clear sense of self.

Web 2.0 and startups today focus and thrive on that sense of self, because it's the only way to stand out in a sea of Microsoft's, Oracle, Cisco, etc. Because of this, I feel like this new branding attempt resonates with a very specific crowd - young 20-something's like me. It's very clear to me the ones who are talking about lipstick and pigs in this thread are completely missing the point of this experiment. That's what design thinking and branding is all about.

Congratulations man, I can bet you a team full of marketing guys (whoever's left that is) are shaking in their boots right now. Not for the branding or design, but for what their branding is failing to do.

*edit - just food for thought for the forward thinking nature of this design, the FB thread I found this on is blowing up at a rate of a shit ton of likes and comments, all young 20 somethings who are really impressed.

</comment><comment><USER46> Great work, although looking at them all together like that, Microsoft's 1985 logo appears to be the best of the bunch. I suppose design is cyclical.

I really like the "slate" concept, I'm just not sure it works as a _button_. Buttons should have roughly equal height and width. The slate looks very out of place on the physical devices themselves. Otherwise, it's great.

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't understand all the hate on the new Windows logo in particular. Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with it?

<comment><USER48> As far as products go, that's about the only thing he changed at all. I think it just is a way to differentiate between the "old" MS and the "new" MS in branding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Some relevant writing on unsolicited redesigns from last year, worth bearing in mind in this context, by

\- Lukas Mathis: [http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2011/05/15/unsolicited_redesig...](http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2011/05/15/unsolicited_redesigns/)

\- Khoi Vinh: <http://www.subtraction.com/2011/07/28/unsolicited-redesigns>

\- Andy Rutledge: <http://andyrutledge.com/journalism.php>

</comment><comment><USER50> I posted and complained about that same skeumorphic podcasts app today. Apple leads so much in the realm of hardware design but is starting to take steps backwards in it's own application/software design. I'm very anxious and hopeful for Microsoft to progress in this arena and give Apple some competition.

<comment><USER51> I really enjoy these designs.

I see the Sony and Toshiba labels and they still throw me. I'd really like to see Microsoft step up their game in hardware. I know they all come from the same factories, but there's something about the simplicity of and the lack of another brand on Apple's products that make them so gorgeous to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The irony being that chunks of that (note the boxes, bags) would match Apple stock product surrounds almost exactly if they had an apple on instead.

I also don't understand in a branding exercise why you pick some photos of planets (when Apple is known for its use space imagery on the desktop) and start from there. There needs to be a reason to result path, not a pre- determined result and then ignore of fit some reason to it.

<comment><USER43> His reason for using space as a theme is probably deriving from his thesis that Microsoft should brand itself as a bringer of future tech. What seems more futuristic than space? It also appears mystically and naturally beautiful as well as allowing for a lot of breathtaking, pure looking pictures.

Windows being a window into the future, seeing space through the slate projects the image this artist had in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> After looking at quite a few of his blog posts, I wouldn't be THAT surprised to read articles in a few years time about how this guy is the new Jonathan Ive.

Now if only he could start working for an innovative company, I feel great designs on the way.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm more interested in the HN comments here. Personally, I felt it was an inconsistent, and pretty tame take on an iconic brand (I'm not a fan of the new Windows logo either).

Check out his HTC 1 concept.. a bit dated but still interesting

</comment><comment><USER54> As a longtime Apple _product_ fanslave I've got to say, something like this would be welcome competition. Apple's obsession with sickly-sweet sentimentality (seriously, who uses FaceTime with any regularity?) grates on the nerves. A cold sci-fi revamp is exactly what I'm expecting from Microsoft in the next few years.

It's obviously started to dominate their product line and is slowly permeating their flagship UI. The dubsteppiness of the Surface commercial wasn't an accident. It will take a long while before the company has earned itself a rebrand, because a rebrand without actual, significant and, here's the kicker, successful change to its entire product line (including Windows, that poor magnificent demented bastard of an OS) is an empty gesture and deserving of contempt and mockery.

Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle with itself, but it has one advantage on its side: technology rapidly changes and improves, and it's only accelerating. As long as the company doesn't fall too far behind, the shifting landscape of mobile platforms, touch surfaces and desktop v. small screen conventions will be a perfect excuse to retire its failed products entirely, rather than endlessly iterating and mutating them beyond reason.

If they can scrape by long enough to let the features rot fully and throw the garbage out the window, and finally shine some sunlight on their promising new seeds, they will be able to justify a new brand.

Til then, moar dubstep.

</comment><comment><USER55> The only thing that strikes me as in poor taste is the choice of colors for the new palette. His monitor must have really low saturation, because a few of those colors look pretty bad on mine. The light grey looks dull and dirty, and the contrast with the text is insufficient on the light blue and orange backgrounds, both of which are too bright to be comfortable; though they might be fine with dark grey text instead of white. It's really hard to find a light blue and light orange/yellow that looks good as a solid background for text on a wide range of displays, and white text on a light background is just asking for trouble.

Other than that, this is some fine work. Microsoft should hire this guy to replace the person currently in charge of branding, marketing and packaging design (or invent that position and make all those people report to him).

</comment><comment><USER56> While I appreciate the work that was put into this I gotta say I really don't like it. The "slate" logo looks cold and enigmatic which is really not something that a large corporation like Microsoft generally wants to be seen as. I actually think one thing Microsoft has going for it is its familiarity, its a brand almost everyone has a history with and to the average consumer at least that a big selling point. The lettering also feels particularly generic and a little on the trendy side. Of course its all a matter of taste I imagine.

</comment><comment><USER57> That was the first time I saw the Windows 1.0 logo (I'm in college). It looks REALLY similar to the windows 8 logo, but I actually prefer the 1.0 logo. The asymmetric lines, and rounded edges really remind me of a lot of the app logos you see in the android and iphone market place, and it's single color scheme reminds me of metro's strong lines. I think it would have been cool if Microsoft pointed out where they got the windows 8 logo (assuming they did do a redesign of the 1.0 logo), and maybe kept a little more of the 1.0 icon look.

</comment><comment><USER58> I went through more or less all of the comments out here and many of them say that the effort is great but it's not implementable.

I really don't understand what makes you say that, many of the people have given out points like: * typefaces suck * 'moonshot' ain't nice * the slate doesn't mean much

To be frank I am quite amazed by the point I put above. I have been following minimallyminimal's blog for quite some time now and his work is really amazing. And specifically this _rebranding effort_ carries a lot of meaning and shows the dedication he put in. He has taken so many cases to showcase the usage of the 'slate' logo.

As for me, I love the slate logo a lot. He is able to make different combinations by transforming the original base unit and created logos for other products. I feel that it adds more value to the logo because of it's flexibility and fluidity. The old logo couldn't be transformed in any manner to generate logos of their other products.

\--

And the worst part of all this discussion here is that it went astray at so many places. But, if Microsoft had this logo in the Windows 7 products, no one would have said a thing then. We just accept what the company is offering. When someone put in his time in doing a rebranding, I guess we better appreciate it and put in relevant points. Pouring in crap like 'the design is poor' doesn't do any good to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER59> I can't stand design pomposity, but this is excellent. As a ~25 year Microsoft fan, who thinks the company is much smarter than it is given credit for, hire this guy already.

</comment><comment><USER60> It's a thought provoking study.

However, the 2012 Windows logo kerns with text (Metro is text centered) in a way that is simply not possible with the proposed slash...which reminds me of a Kubric's obelisk. With the downside of suggesting "2001."

And the translation of the slash to Office looks like cubicle partitions rather than the shared workspace of the current logo (e.g. office doors all facing each other). Though that's not to say that the current Office logo couldn't use a makeover.

</comment><comment><USER61> I was really impressed by this. As nhashem said, "I _wanted_ this company to exist".

The "Mankind's most advanced phone" image was what really did it for me. Here is an extremely talented person who really has vision, with a subtlety to match.

What I wish for the most, is that more people will show their vision in this way. We need to re-imagine like this all the time, otherwise ideas and vision become stale.

And when vision becomes stale, the future becomes mediocre.

</comment><comment><USER62> While I think it's cool that designers show off their creativity in thinking up new ideas for old products, I could never shake the feeling that this was design's answer to fanfiction. The original creators have to look back and go "okay...?"

Related: [https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=is+this+the+iphone...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=is+this+the+iphone+5&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER63> Laughably bad fan-made hypothetical Apple products are old hat, but sometimes design fanfiction gets the attention of the companies: [http://9to5mac.com/2011/12/13/apple-hires-designer-jan- micha...](http://9to5mac.com/2011/12/13/apple-hires-designer-jan-michael-cart- praised-for-his-ios-interface-concepts/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I like how designers are beginning to feel compelled to point out the disconnect between the old Microsoft and the new. To me this signifies the impending reinvention of the Microsoft brand. Their development tools (like Visual Studio 2012) are so far ahead of anything out there that their new product designs delight without surprise. That being said, these proposed designs take minimalism too far.

</comment><comment><USER65> I like the designs but to me, space signals "past" more than "future". Or rather, it says "future, as it looked in the last century".

<comment><USER66> Glad you said that.

I'm old and can remember the moon landings. I loved the images as well. I'm sitting in an open plan staffroom with hundreds of Windows 7 PCs with bright high colour screensavers. The room has primary colour (slightly pastel) desks and white walls with displays of student work. The building we work in is new, with curves and a 4 story atrium. Not sure how many will recognise the images here and what the younger people will think about it.

The moon shot images on my monitor just disappear into sludge from more than 10ft.

Not sure about the moon shot images or the modernist skyscrapers.... nostalgia?

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Microsoft's major problem is not the branding. The branding is just a symptom of the underlying problem which is its culture.

</comment><comment><USER68> Its still very "corporationish".

If you see the ads for ipad or iphone (siri) on mute, you could mistake them for a Johnson & Johnson ad. Ie bright colors, people in the spaces they normally inhabit - running in the park, cooking at home etc.

Microsoft needs to lose the corporate image and become what apple brands itself - part of your life.

</comment><comment><USER69> Surely a new logo and "branding communication" will change the way a corporation works and conducts its business.

</comment><comment><USER70> This is the same uninspired crap that Microsoft always puts out. M$'s problem is not their marketing its their leadership. They keep making superficially changes and marketing them as huge leaps. XP-->Windows 7 = some gui changes. I launch the system program and tada its exactly the same as it was in Windows 98. The most innovrative thing they've announced in a long time is locking down your install completely to prevent install of unsigned software. Apple makes new products. Google takes real risks to change the way things are done. Microsoft is way to risk averse for the space they are trying to play in.

Step one to a good rebranding effort. Change what it is your selling. You can rebrand a turd as a chocolate lollipop and expect me to drop what I'm doing to rush to the candy store.

</comment><comment><USER71> I think the new logo has a very interesting effect, that is according to me though. It's asymmetric yet simple. Where Apple's logo and most logo's can be perfectly centered this one doesn't. I think that's mainly because it looks "italic".

I also wonder if this logo follows on certain points the golden ratio, but than again it's soo simple it shouldn't.

Lastly, if you'd place this logo on varia devices they would even kind of look "unbranded" which some people, including myself, really like. I can't really explain what I mean, but compare a logitech keyboard to an Apple one, the Apple-keyboard doesn't has a logo to advertise their brand, yet it's "one of a kind".

A phone without any brands explicitly written or displayed on it looks more sleek and modern to me.

But don't take my opinion to serious, I'm just a developer.

<comment><USER72> That forward slant is a very well known design paradigm. Take a look at Deutsche Bank's logo - for example: <https://www.db.com/index_e.htm>

<comment><USER71> Thanks for the reply! But even the Deutsche Bank's logo has a square around it, which again makes it visually easier to center. I guess it's just me, but I can't help noticing how it doesn't looks centered, even if it is.

Also I didn't realize Deutsche Bank has such an appealing domain name!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I can appreciate the guy who did this for the amount of work he put into it, but the actual design feels incredibly uninspired.

The space motif screams of a PBS or Discovery Channel special. Also, isn't the "Slate" already the name of an actual tablet?

</comment><comment><USER74> The ev1 was marketed as "sci-fi" and "advancing the human race". It used dark settings and scared consumers (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g7cgUm7o9k>). If you go for sci-fi don't go for scary dark moon pictures. Personally I link the moon surface pictures to the death star.

When the Playstation 3 was running commercials they used weird sci-fi shorts that were confusing and didn't show off the product. Also ps3 did not perform (sales) as well as the wii or xbox 360.

more examples: 5gum tv marketing, Hulu's alien marketing

I would be curious to see if this sort of marketing actually hurts sales.

</comment><comment><USER75> That slate and the word "next" remind me of something...

Ah, I know - [http://www.logodesignlove.com/images/classic/next-logo- paul-...](http://www.logodesignlove.com/images/classic/next-logo-paul- rand.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER76> It's pretty good, but it's a bit cold, impersonal and corporate. Almost alienating. It has a masculine minimalist bent that reminds me of hard stone floors, benches and the alienation of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

<comment><USER37> Impersonal was the first adjective I thought of. Of the three, Apple is the least impersonal. Though deliberately unobtrusive, Siri is quite personal, to the point of having been lampooned numerous times by comedians.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I was into it, until I saw it running on the boring, generic hardware.

The reason Apple's products are so inspirational, so meaningful, and so timeless is because from the moment you _see_ the computer, before it even turns on, you're entranced.

Apple knows that the _experience_ of using a product starts right from the moment a person sees it, and they've made that part of their mission. Yes, ownership of everything from the hardware to the software is inevitably part of that, but in my mind, it's what makes Apple work from boot-up to shutdown.

</comment><comment><USER78> Microsoft didn't get where it is by tweaking their marketing symbology. They got where they are by a lot of work by quite a few very smart programmers, some shrewd business moves, and a lot of luck.

I can look at new symbols all day, and it's not going to change my opinion of Microsoft or their products. Not one whit.

And not that it matters, but I think the slash is too stark, and, frankly, ugly. It might be liked in some boardroom, but it's not consumer friendly, and it's nothing like the touch-feely trend that is the metro interface.

</comment><comment><USER79> Brilliant scheme.. might not work for Microsoft as it Enterprise focused, and mockups are more concentrated on Consumer focused. Though Office might look small, corps still love MS Office. Windows Server family, Azure Family, most of these are nowadays forefront tech from Microsoft. Dev tools is another aspect of Microsoft arsenal. Little bit more work might be required. Good effort though :) Would love to see Microsoft taking some hints from this design.

</comment><comment><USER80> I thought this was really great design work. I could definitely see getting behind this because it points out most of what I see that is wrong with MS' Windows strategy. Metro doesn't need to be on the desktop, but it's totally applicable to tablet-like devices, a la WP7/8 and Surface.

If they went this route and did something like this, there would be serious impact to core Microsoft itself. But, it's definitely time for them to come into the new era, so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER81> Awesome designs. Microsoft rebranding experiment outshines their own branding but that work pales in comparison to your other works. I wanted to keep looking at your other designs. They simply please.

Have you pitched to Coca Cola and Microsoft? And why isn't someone already making the divine Powder watches or the Pal? I haven't had the chance to read through the text and comments on those pages. Maybe they are already in production which they should be~

</comment><comment><USER82> What I particularly like about this is that it fits with changes Microsoft have already been making (a move to minimalism and a focus on the content and clean lines, with extraneous UI elements normally off-screen and need to be swiped in). So, rather than the spec proposal coming across as an arrogant "About face and do it my way", it comes across as a thoughtful and sympathetic proposal based around their business.

</comment><comment><USER83> I really liked this stuff. I am commenting just to mention that my "free association" response to the two slashes together was "[nazi] SS." I think it looks nice but that just popped into my head. Kudos on the awesome rebranding proposal in any case!

[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_faQqAqCMoKc/TDxWZNPnD2I/AAAAAAAABE...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_faQqAqCMoKc/TDxWZNPnD2I/AAAAAAAABEo/-o1uFs6lSHk/s1600/SS.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER84> I don't care what logos look like. I care about what products do. I also care about how the company treats its customers and developers.

That said, nobody put a Microsoft sticker on their car. Maybe Microsoft should think about that a little. The designs proposed by the article would most- definitely not have me even consider a sticker on my car (which has zero stickers, but that's another topic).

</comment><comment><USER63> Just wondering, is minimalism really the forward of design where it comes to software-related aesthetics? You'd think so that, on principle, computers are getting more and more user-friendly and easy to understand, so minimalism and simplicity should follow. On the other hand, should every company embrace minimalist aesthetics, as both Apple and Google have?

</comment><comment><USER85> Very nicely done!! When I first looked at the logo it reminded me of Accenture, so I don't know if the font would work, but it is a step in the right direction.

I really liked the metaphor of seeing different things through the windows (slates). This could be leveraged by Microsoft as a play on "this is your Windows" or "what do you see through your Windows".

</comment><comment><USER86> Eh, the logo also looks like the bit of the blade you snap off on a utility knife. Not sure that's a good image to convey. :p

"If you don't buy our products, someone from Microsoft will cut you."

[http://image.made-in-china.com/4f0j00veRTkBUralbh/Utility- Kn...](http://image.made-in-china.com/4f0j00veRTkBUralbh/Utility- Knife-30105-.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER87> Or how about this: MS could just build again inovative and beautiful products and invent new stuff that pushes the limits of technology, rather than only having the legal and marketing departments kill off competing products? Sounds crazy, I know.

The new Windows interface is a good start. But with Balmer at the top, I don't have much hope.

</comment><comment><USER88> I want to pay this kid to hang around the office and come up with remedies to our questionable design decisions.

</comment><comment><USER89> The only thing here extra is Steve Balmer, get him out of the picture if you want to go to the future, otherwise, I can't wait to have my hands on genuine touch screen computer that win8 will provide.

Oh, so this not official MS rebranding, well it should be, and kudos to that guy who made it, great work. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER90> Interesting that Nokia is allready a part of Microsoft. And since when is Apple a friendly company?

</comment><comment><USER91> The best brand pitched here is that of the author. If he is looking for a job, I hope he gets one.

</comment><comment><USER92> <http://hipsterbranding.tumblr.com/>

</comment><comment><USER93> Microsoft should fire their VP of Marketing immediately without severance. Then hire this guy as his/her replacement. He should be given a $1 million retention bonus for 365 days of employment.

Or better yet, Microsoft should create a new position called President of Simplification and Branding, then have all employees, including Steve Balmer, report to him.

The first thing he should do in his new role is fire Balmer.

The second thing he should do, which is alluded to in his presentation, is roll up all subsets of a given product into a single SKU. For example Windows 7 has the following versons: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. This does not include sub-editions, upgrade editions, and family pack editions. All of this should simply roll into a single version that includes all features. Let it be named Windows 7. Do the same thing for the upcoming Windows 8. Drop 32 bit support outright.

For windows set the price for this single version to $50.00.

After making this change alone, you could probably eliminate 500 FTE head count. Do this across all product lines and you could eliminate thousands of jobs, and numerous levels of management, a move that would reduce costs, but far more importantly interject some much needed nimbleness into the organization.

Next combine all like products that compete with each other. For example, consolidate Windows Media Player, Zune, and XBox Music product groups into a single product group.

Kill notepad. Acquire Light Table or Sublime Text editor and include it with every copy of the OS.

Fire 1 and 3 program managers. Fire 2 in 3 product managers.

Increase the base salary of every engineer by $30,000.00 or rebase their salary to $200,000, whichever is more.

I'm just getting started but you get the point ...

<comment><USER94> I'm confused if this is sarcasm or not. I'd like to believe sarcasm, but if it's not, then could you explain why they would ever drop 32 bit support outright? Perhaps on new versions, but are there not problems that come with 64 bit installs and 32 bit drivers? I would assume that much of the scientific/technical drivers, not to mention old printer drivers, would not get updated and therefore be unusable. However I could be completely wrong, so I'd like some more information on this. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Has some consistency issues and flaws in design. Not perfect typeface, windows logo is smaller than office/surface logo, looks as stranger in set, metro/xbox has no logo, logo/ui relations could be better across the board. But. For 3 days project, good.

</comment><comment><USER96> Yeah, great work. Pretty impressive; how long did all that take you?

Pretty Apple inspired though; as someone said in the comments above maybe Microsoft does need to have separate public entities much like the way telecomms up here in Canada are doing (Koodo/Wind etc.)

<comment><USER97> Nitpick: while Koodo is owned by Telus, Wind is independent. Chatr, Fido, and Virgin are some of the other brands owned by the big operators. (Solo was another one, I just learned they're being killed off by Bell now.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Love the effort, but that typeface is just horrific! Badly hinted and that 'm'? Jeebus.

</comment><comment><USER99> From a marketing point of view: Great work! I really like the "slate" logo. The only thing i didnt' like that much was the font: Espacially the "c" looks strange. But the rest: Just nice! I would hire you, if my name was ballmer ;)

</comment><comment><USER100> One fact: that slate trapezoid is wAy better than the new slanted window logo. The entire project is an improvement. Ps, can't wait for winrt, can't type on this stupid iPad (I'm gonna give it to my grandma to read the news on)

</comment><comment><USER101> Nicely done. I think the only 'mistake' is the shot of Balmer in there - nothing against the man, just think if you are truly trying to break their current image problem, then showing him doesn't help that cause.

Otherwise, really well done.

</comment><comment><USER102> "Microsoft is a once-in-a-civilization disaster." (from [http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3243717585684194@naggum....](http://firstname.lastname@example.com))

</comment><comment><USER103> I haven't got excited about a mockup since I saw the windows 8 concepts:

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop- ui...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop-ui-concept)

</comment><comment><USER104> Not bad, but I doubt they'll do anything about their branding or logo for a while--they just recently switched to the one that looks like the Ames Window... and as we all know, that's an illusion.

</comment><comment><USER105> Nice, but while your at it, why not change the name too, to "MACrosoft"

</comment><comment><USER106> Lots of good intentions but by making it public, you ensure Microsoft cannot and/or will not consider it. Their marketing people might even actively try to avoid anything similar to this.

</comment><comment><USER107> Good work! I would say that the over all feel may be a bit too trendy/hip for microsoft's business market, but I can see this being very strong for the younger crowd. Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER108> I would hope Microsoft(M) would listen and eliminate some features. Even M is not about simplicity it can learn from others how to do it. Bravo, great work.

</comment><comment><USER109> This reminds me of Nike branding, which is very powerful.

</comment><comment><USER110> I dont think the science fiction(tomorrow is here) kinda branding will work. Verizon tried a lot with for their Driods without luck.

</comment><comment><USER111> Your design made me to like Microsoft and Look Current Microsoft product in different Eye. Believe me I'm a Linux Hacker.

</comment><comment><USER112> This somehow reminds me of Aol.'s new branding, which as I remember was soundly criticized in most design circles...

</comment><comment><USER113> I would highly consider microsoft products if they were marketed that way...but they aren't and they never will be.

</comment><comment><USER114> There's looking cool, and there's being functional. This has even less personality than their current branding.

</comment><comment><USER115> This is what the preview of Microsoft's new web site could have looked like, very well done, inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER116> Curiously, Microsoft's most exciting project outside of the general SV/HN community, Xbox, is absent.

</comment><comment><USER117> This is really nicely done. This is also just a love-child of microsoft and apple. That's ok though.

</comment><comment><USER118> Everything is amazing, but I especially liked a screenshot of the New Wallet. Metro app done right!

</comment><comment><USER119> This was an amazing work. That's all I have to say with my first post on a 2-minute new account.

</comment><comment><USER120> Having the company name start with a lowercase letter always seems "weak" to me.

</comment><comment><USER121> If only all the problems of a company could be solved by changing its logo...

</comment><comment><USER122> I liked it a lot, except for the "promise made, promise kept" by-line.

</comment><comment><USER123> Actually I like it. Microsoft should jump right in to it imo ^^

</comment><comment><USER124> How incredibly pretentious.

The woman in the orange hoody is just super lame.

</comment><comment><USER125> Love this guy's work.

His metro UI looks much more fun than the original one.

</comment><comment><USER126> Read this while listening to dubstep. Was totally awesome!

</comment><comment><USER127> The next Microsoft... is not Microsoft. Sadly.

</comment><comment><USER128> very interesting. hopefully someone at msft is listening.

btw, would love to know what you used to put this presentation together.

</comment><comment><USER129> metro really needs more pallets. I would prefer a RGB color picker. This seems very doable.

</comment><comment><USER130> I didn't find it good at all. Why "microsoft" and not "Microsoft"? And the logo is ugly.

well, after all, it's just a matter of opinion.

<comment><USER131> Why "Microsoft" and not "MICROSOFT"?

I emphatically disagree that capitalization is merely a matter of opinion, as it can have significant ramifications in both readability [1] and trademark law, especially where marks like 'Word', 'Windows', 'Excel', 'Outlook', and 'Surface' (or 'Apple', 'Pages', 'Keynote', and 'Numbers'; or 'Android'; or 'Oracle', 'Sun', and 'Java'; or ...) are concerned.

[1] [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/06/05/a-de...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/06/05/a-design- with-all-caps.aspx)

<comment><USER130> I agree that capitalization is not mere opinion. I was asking why not capitalize a name? Makes Microsoft sounds like some stuff, not some business.

<comment><USER63> There's something (unintentionally?) cyberpunk about this.

Not to be confused with the present-day software company, in Neuromancer a "microsoft" is a chip used in conjunction with a cybernetic wetware implant located behind the ear. Microsofts grant the user new abilities as long as the microsoft is plugged in. For example, a French language microsoft might be used to temporarily allow the user to speak French. The term refers to a small, portable piece of embedded software, hence "micro" and "soft."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy#Glossary>

For those who don't recall, Microsoft Corporation was not always a corporate giant; at the time the author wrote this book, Microsoft was one of the many small companies that made software for those newfangled microcomputers. Microsoft the company was started in the mid-1970's; the company name was registered in 1976 and went public in 1986.

Just a couple of years before this novel was written, most software for microcomputers came in a plastic bag with a disk and some photocopied instructions (if you were lucky).

<http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=123>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> "My God, it's full of stars!"

</comment><comment><USER133> Absolutely exceptional work.

</comment><comment><USER134> This is really nice work.

</comment><comment><USER135> It's certainly not worse.

</comment><comment><USER136> wow - you apple-fied microsoft. I don't feel like it's a new image or brand identity, rather just try to fit them into that "other" brands persona. interesting concept, but I think it misses the mark on the actual audience of the brand.

<comment> mkr-hn What about it resembles Apple's branding?

<comment><USER137> The fact that it's a simple and elegant version of what microsoft was failing at attempting with their metro logo.

Don't you know, Apple own the ability to make things simple and nice. Or user friendly. Or stylish in any way. /sarcasm

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> It may hurt.

</comment><comment><USER139> Beautiful!

</comment><comment><USER140> beautiful!

</comment><comment><USER141> Rad.

</comment><comment><USER142> I like it!

</comment><comment><USER143> Huh... I had no idea the Windows 1.0 logo looked like that. It's actually rather timeless. Kinda interesting that they've brought it back a little with the new logo.

<comment><USER144> My immediate reaction as well. Simple, elegant, and lends itself well to bold colors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER145> The slate logo is every bit as 'visually uncomfortable' as the Windows logo on that tablet. And the kinda-sorta-connecting office logo style is just plain terrible.

</comment><comment><USER146> The graphics on this are just so awesome. In particular black-and-white images with those particular font choices.

What are those fonts? Really interested.

</comment><comment><USER147> I like it a lot (except for the dotless 'i'), but can you trademark a parallelogram?

</comment><comment><USER148> So make them look like Apple? Gotcha.

<comment><USER148> I'm getting downvoted, so let me explain. I wish people would discuss their ideas instead of downvote beliefs they disagree with.

1) Space themes – This is old in Apple land. Leopard launched with a space screensaver and the galaxy background. This was in 2007. Every year they update the space themes. Not cool, not sci-fi, and far from unique.

2) Packaging – The packing mirrors Apple's current packaging exactly. Side color with white text, main image from a direct shot, black text on white.

3) Utilitarian Design – The stark modernist style was pioneered by Apple. I run a design firm, and the number one thing I've heard consistently over the past ten years "I want to look like Apple". I got sick of Apple's style in 2002. Stark in computers is one brand.

4) Logos – The flat shape approach would be good if it wasn't mirroring Apple again. The lack of depth, the application on images, the short "inspirational" text...all of this is so common for Apple it is pained. Windows is one of the most recognized brands in the world, so it still needs to retain the iconic nature.

Do I think this is cool? Yes. But do I think they should do it? No way! Adopting this design is adopting cultural defeat. MS gets labeled a copycat and the worst thing they could do would be to rip-off the worlds most profitable brand.

Why not adopt the Metro approach? It can be refined further, made into a similar overview, and actually still "feels" Microsoft with being something completely new.

<comment><USER11> "The worst thing they could do would be to rip-off the worlds most profitable brand."

There's a oxymoron if I've ever seen one...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> I have never wanted a Microsoft product so badly. This is such a bad ass project!

</comment><comment><USER150> New or next. Same thing in new package. Microsoft is a proprietary dinosaur of the previous era, which doesn't realize its time is slowly running out.

</comment><comment><USER151> "Purely digital."

There is no such thing. That's like saying "purely hologram". Pixels have no inherent materiality. There is nothing about the Metro UI that couldn't be recreated on a piece of paper.

The goal is visual communication and delight. Sterile for the sake of sterile isn't virtuous.

<comment> mkr-hn "Purely digital" means it avoids real-world metaphors like postal mailboxes, analog clocks and magnetic tape.

<comment><USER151> Metaphors are part of visual communication. Blatantly disregarding metaphors creates unnecessary confusion and abstraction--it separates the interface from culture.

Remember, all of this stuff is ultimately (and most truthfully) 1's and 0's. There is always abstraction. It is best to choose the abstraction that is most DESCRIPTIVE.

<comment> mkr-hn Did you look at the examples? No one is talking about getting rid of metaphors.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.1 - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/8613/intelligent-tracking-prevention-2-1/ <comment><USER2> > Safari removed support for DNT so that users are not presented with a > misleading and ineffective privacy control that, if anything, only offered > additional browser fingerprinting entropy

Predictable, but still a bit depressing to read.

My appreciation to the WebKit team for working so diligently on behalf of their users.

</comment><comment><USER3> ITP is great for protecting privacy on the web but doesn't do anything for native apps. Apple needs to crack down on third party frameworks that developers are distributing in their apps. I hope this is a sign of an upcoming policy change.

[https://blog.appfigures.com/shazam-for-ios-sheds-3rd- party-s...](https://blog.appfigures.com/shazam-for-ios-sheds-3rd-party-sdks/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm wondering if anyone has real world experience implementing or moving from document.cookie to http only cookies? Or any stats on lost cookie coverage for iOS devices?

We're currently about to push an update to our system that uses a http only cookie on the shared 'action' domain and writes non-sensitive JWT to client domains for pre-fill and sending action data to CRM/ESP with document.cookie

Now, I am leaning towards rethinking the client side and potentially just move everything to hosted subdomains so we can set http only JWT on client domains - would echo out a JS var with the user so JS can still access instead of document.cookie. Critically this JWT contains not login / donation / sensitive info I assume it's publicly accessible even though we dont have 3rd party JS outside of GA on these domains.

I guess could just keep current setup with identity http only cookie on separate domain and just return JWT in a JSONP/cors request only send it back for 'verified' domains. But that seems hacky and adds http trips (and critically for pre-fill etc want it to be instant not flickered), though would be a lot easier than managing a bunch of subdomain cname stuff.

</comment><comment><USER5> This has broken password reset links that Django sends[1].

1\. [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django- developers/20d7a1d1...](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django- developers/20d7a1d1-9c37-44df-8d6f-577f55727efc%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer)

<comment><USER6> This breaks when the password reset link is passed through click-tracking services. Seems like a good thing - you shouldn't be leaking password reset links (which are almost equivalent to passwords themselves) to email stalking providers.

<comment><USER5> After clicking a password reset link Django performs a redirect to a change password form. The initial link tracking redirect still occurs, it's the second (domain-internal) redirect that is the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What will be the ads & tracking companies' next step? Maybe they'll want to serve tracking cookies as Secure and HttpOnly, as if they were login cookies? o.O (to prevent the tracking cookies from getting deleted after 7 days: "Client-Side Cookies Capped to 7 Days of Storage")

<comment><USER8> It's not that simple if I understood correctly. The trackers can only set first-party cookies on other websites via JavaScript, and cookies set via JS cannot be HttpOnly.

<comment><USER7> What I had in mind, is that the ads & tracking companies, would want to integrate/add some of their code server side, to be able to set HttpOnly cookies. Crazy next step?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too many cookies per site makes for a fat browser cache. Sites issuing cookies have no incentive to clean up the ones that they no longer use. It does make sense to consolidate into a single set per site, and tech allows that without losing anything.</comment>


Does Information Theory Support Design in Nature? - <AUTHOR> https://mindmatters.ai/2018/10/does-information-theory-support-design-in-nature/ <comment><AUTHOR> The basic idea is Shannon information says all bitstrings of length N are equally likely, but Kolmogorov complexity says the compressible bitstrings are less likely than the incompressible bitstrings. Therefore, when we see a highly compressible bitstring we infer some cause other than chance. E.g. if someone flips 100 heads in a row, you would be justified in thinking the coin is not fair.

Dembski's work is a generalization of this observation.</comment>