Beck's Microsoft Blog: Blog

This is a test

Wed, 21 May 2008 18:18:19 GMT

Announcing Windows Live Writer 2008 and more!

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:16:05 GMT

Come and get it! http://www.windowslive.com/

The very first beta release of Writer was in August 2006. Since then we've had 2 more beta releases and over 1.5 million people, all over the world, installing the product and send feedback our way.

This has been a really fun product to develop and I look forward to planning out the next version with even more cool and exciting publishing features!

Windows Live Writer Beta 3

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:34:10 GMT

Today, the Windows Live Writer team released Beta 3.

While Beta 2 was more about adding functionality to Writer and putting in "juicy" features, Beta 3 is more about rounding out the quality of the product. Joe (one of our developers) does a really good job describing our Beta 3 work in more detail.

This is the last of our beta releases before shipping the "final" 1.0 (or 2.0) version, so now is the time to tell us what you think.

IE Not Responding

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:14:53 GMT

This is even better than adding a printer on Vista - not!

This is screen shot of IE running full screen on my desktop.
What? Can't you tell? :)

Meet Windows Live Writer Beta 2

Thu, 31 May 2007 00:38:48 GMT

Windows Live Writer Beta 2 is now available for download. You can get all the details on our team blog.

This was a long release cycle for our team where we took the opportunity to invest in foundational pieces that make blogging easy and accessible for even more people. This includes work we did to make Writer available in 6 languages:

English
German
French
Japanese
Chinese
Spanish

This also includes accessibility support for keyboards and screen readers.

We also got a lot of feedback on our newsgroups, and by reading your blogs, and think you'll find that much of that has been addressed with features like: table authoring, in-line spell checking and better plug-in integration.

What's next for Writer?

There IS a next release of Writer - that I can say for sure.
We're already plowing ahead on that and will be listening to the feedback we get from this release. We'd love to hear about your experience: good or bad. Here are the different ways you can share your thoughts:

Customer Forums - this is our discussion form where you can talk with other Writer customers and the Writer team
Feedback - praise or punish us; this is anonymous and we can't reply to you
Support - if you have a technical issue you can email our support center for help
Developers - a whole community site with links to dev documentation and a discussion forum for developers

On a personal note, I thought the first release of Writer was exciting and I'm even more excited this time.
I'll be watching the feedback closely.

Now on to the next release...

Windows Live Writer gets a new URL

Tue, 08 May 2007 16:30:15 GMT

Today, when you visit http://get.live.com/betas/ Windows Live Writer is the featured application (which means we get more space at the top):

Now you can also directly navigate to the Writer product page directly at: http://writer.live.com/. It features links to the Writer Team Blog and the Writer feedback forum.

This is a great improvement for the Writer team because we have not had a good product page to reference since the first release in August 2006. As a result, most people have linked their blog posts either to the Writer Team Blog or directly the Writer MSI. This has bumped the Writer MSI to the top of the search results generated for "Windows Live Writer" and "Live Writer", which could be a unexpected or jarring experience for those searching the Internet for Writer and the first link they click on starts installing the application. Now that it is possible to directly reference http://writer.live.com/ the hope is that that becomes the URL of choice when linking to Writer on the web.

Adding a Printer in Vista Just got Worse

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:00:17 GMT

Last week, I got a beautiful new laptop at work with Vista on it.

I approached my first week of Vista with patience and an open mind: I knew that things were going to be different - that's kind of the point. All the nooks and crannies of the old Windows that I knew so intimately have changed and now I feel a little less adequate as a person. But overall, I'm learning quickly (the Search bar on the Start menu is becoming my friend) and darn - my glass bubble screen saver and side bar are SO PRETTY! They do make me smile.

I've gone over a full week before I had the need to print something (which makes me feel proud of technology). So I finally reached the point where I needed to configure a printer to my laptop on my corporate network.

On Windows XP, this used to be so easy:

1. I would go to the Start Menu and click on "Printers and Faxes"

2. A window would launch and there would be a big task bar on the left hand side. The top section said "Printer Tasks" and the first task was....you guessed it! "Add a printer"

3. In the "Add a printer" wizard I would click the Next button three times: once to get through the "welcome" screen and twice to accept choosing a printer from the network (which was the default option selected) and third time to find the printer on the network.

4. Then the "Find printers" dialog would come up and I would click "Find Now". It would show me a list of printers available to me on the network in my building.

5. I would then select the printer I wanted and click OK.

6. The printer would be added and I would have two more clicks to determine if it should be my default printer and complete and exit the Wizard.

I'm glossing over some clicks in these bullets - so while conceptually there seems to be 6 STEPS I think overall it's about a 10-click process at best.

While very smooth, this process stands for tons of improvement. In Vista, it just got worse. Here's how:

On Vista I want to add a printer.

1. I go the Start menu and I have no idea what to click on.

2. I type the word "Printer" in the Start menu search box and click on the "Printers" item listed under "Programs".

3. I now get a new looking window that lists the default printer and fax connections.

4. I'm now looking for the big "Add a printer" button. I have a million folders listed on the left side...a bunch of printers on the right...Where is my "Add a printer" button?

5. I have now had to perform DOUBLE the amount of steps that I did previously to get to this point. Now I'm in the "Add a printer" wizard. This looks like an improvement (below). I choose the second option to add a network printer.

6. Unfortunately, no printers are found:

7. Searching again gets me the same result so I have to click "The printer that I want isn't listed" (or Cancel and add no printer).

8. Now I have to find a printer by name or TCP/IP address

Of course there must be a good reason I couldn't have just come straight to this dialog in the first place, or bypassed it completely when the wizard tried to search for my printer on the network. I'm just not sure what that reason is.

9. I click "Next" in this dialog and get to my friendly "Find printers" dialog FROM STEP 4 (I'm now on STEP 9) in the previous scenario on XP.

10. I select my printer and wait for it to be added. It's taking a long time....Vista is thinking and:

I have to INSTALL THE DRIVER for the printer!!

11. I click to "Install Driver". Did my machine just crash....wait, what is going on? Some other applications just crashed and....oh: I get the security prompt from Vista to allow the driver to install. Lovely.

12 - 13. Now I'm done and the printer has been added and it takes two more screens to set the printer name and print a test page:

Now 13 steps later I am convinced that adding a printer just got worse on Vista.

LAME!

Ms. Dewey

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:24:51 GMT

I got forwarded an email from a Microsoft colleague asking if I had ever heard of http://www.msdewey.com. The title of the email talked about the "sexiest search engine on the planet so far".

I started wondering if Ms. Dewey was in any way a "pen name" for the Microsoft DUI (pronounced "dewey") team that is all about making the user-inteface of our applications great looking (or, if you embellish, sexy).

Its a very interesting prospect to think that Search could be personalized more through a person/character that looks as though they are participating in helping me. The unforuntunate part is that the page loads half-way and then crashes for me. So I never got to see if this concept was built into the rest of the site and really worked or not. Really disappointing.

Beyond Vista - Editorial - CIO

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 23:27:01 GMT

With all the news around the Vista launch coming up, it was nice to see an article about what next in Microsoft's sight. While I'm excited about Vista, being someone working on Windows Live, this is something that I'm very excited about. One thing that struck me about the article was the idea that software could be distilled down to a browser + software as services:

Furthermore, all a user needs to access a Web-based application is a browser—not a robust operating system tightly integrated with the application. Therefore, unlike in its past battles with Netscape and others, Microsoft cannot rely on its Windows strength to pull its bacon out of the fire. And while Microsoft argues compellingly that it would be foolish not to take advantage of all the processing power a PC offers, the company simultaneously is planning for a future that will rely upon less powerful mobile computing devices and ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections.

Source: Beyond Vista - Editorial - CIO

This isn't a really new idea, Microsoft has been talking about this concept for years and yet somehow, because of where technology and the web are at today, the reality of that statement seemed so much more plausible than it ever has. Today I can get my email, save documents that I care about (and roam them), upload pictures, and a whole lot more using my browser and a bunch of web services. And, ever since I got my smart phone, I've noticed my need to interact with my desktop has decreased significantly. While I couldn't live without my desktop today, I can actually imagine a day soon where I could.

Although, I'm still wondering if I'd really want to. When I start to visualize the scenarios that I do today and imagine doing them on a lightweight machine with just a browser I get a strong tinge of excitement. And yet, at the end of the day, I love the idea of having my PC, with all my pictures, videos, music and files on it - I just don't want to give that up. I can't explain it and I can't imagine an advantage compelling enough to push me over the edge. The other scenario I can never imagine getting comfortable with is finances. While a consistently disgruntled customer, I currently use Microsoft Money to manage my finances, and while I make an occasional transfer now and again through my bank web site or pay a bill online, I can never imagine a day where I feel comfortable doing and storing my finances on a remote service somewhere. I know that someone could argue that accessing my financial information through the web sites of my financial institution is not a whole lot different than managing my money online and yet there is something emotional that I can't let go of that still makes me think I would still prefer to have it on my "old clunky" desktop computer.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft catering to masses

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:48:11 GMT

Wow.

I think Microsoft's taking a smart approach that will do for feeds what Google did for search. It's bringing a powerful technology to the masses by making it dramatically simpler to use.
Like Google, Microsoft is also cementing its position by providing free tools that make it easier for Web designers and software developers to work with feeds.

Source: The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft catering to masses

Korean social-networking site hopes to nab U.S. fans | CNET News.com

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 22:40:00 GMT

I was wondering when this would happen.

It's arguably one of the oldest and more successful social-networking sites in the world, and it's now coming to the U.S.
Cyworld, a site based in South Korea, kicked off a beta in the U.S. on July 27 and later this month will formally begin a nationwide tour to encourage Americans, particularly those in the age 18 to 29 demographic, to create personalized Web pages, or "mini-homes," on the site.
Henry Chon, CEO of Cyworld USA, won't say how many people the beta site has attracted, but said the number is "way more than we expected."

Cyworld claims to have distinguished themselves among the social networking players in their focus groups that know each other:

"A lot of social-networking services are like going to a concert in a big stadium. You have loud music and 40,000 to 50,000 people in a stadium," Chon said. "Everybody is having a great time, but you will probably never see them again."

That sounds a lot like a direct comparison to MySpace and I'd like to see Chon comment on Cyworld vs. Windows Live Spaces which is the closest in relation (that I've seen) to the South Korean site.

The one aspect that I find extremely compelling and competitive is the notion of social networking sites as an extension of the cell phone:

Social networking took off early in South Korea, largely because of the proliferation of broadband. After the monetary crisis of the late 1990s, the government funded the creation of a massive cellular and broadband network that covers most of the country. Partly as a result, the country has become one of the global centers for online gaming, electronic homes, consumer electronics and development work for third-generation and fourth-generation networks.
In South Korea, Cyworld also functions as an extension of people's mobile phone. Using a camera phone, they take a picture of what they're eating for lunch, post it to their site and send a text message directing friends to the latest update. The ability to post from a mobile phone will come to the U.S. too.

I am also intrigued by their presentation of blog, rather "journal".

While the term "journal" seems to connote a less cyber-geeky and "professional" impression than what the term "blog" currently means in the US, I really like the decisions Cyworld has made here - they've really kept to their entire metaphor of each users site being a book about them. I love the ability to see Weather and Mood associated with each post. I also which they had "Song".

Personally think that cyber-geeky is geek and not chic (though I find myself corrected when close to those deep in the blogosphere - those who think they are responsible for "Web 2.0", etc). Cyworld's ability to gain broad appeal among people who are not into earning their geek-badge will be strong. However, I worry about their ability to attract people who really take their blog seriously and do blogging intended for professional audiences. This is where I think Windows Live Spaces has a edge.

All in all, very exciting news!

Source: Korean social-networking site hopes to nab U.S. fans | CNET News.com

Facebook customers revolt and everyone misses the point

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 02:37:28 GMT

Yesterday, Michael Arrington wrote up a positive review of the NewsFeed and MiniFeed features that were newly added to Facebook.
Today, there is a revolt from Facebook customers. And, based on the comments I'm reading, industry people are missing the point.

This is not about if Facebook did something cool. They did. They really did.
This is not about customers reacting (possibly overreacting) to change. They are. Most customers don't like change.
This is not even about "privacy" (in the overused-industry-buzzword sense of the word).

This is about control.
This is about control over my life, my reputation and how I want people to percieve me. To some degree this is about being able to control the information that people can see about me. Some people like to call this "privacy". That approach, and that term, is overlaoded and misses the point.

It is very frustrating to be a person developing technology and watch other people that make technology, and their close followers, consistently miss the sociological and psychological impact of the products they make and the reasons why "users" like or dislike something. The rationale that "all this information was available before" as a reason for why customers shouldn't be upset about this change, or that they'll be happy about a band-aid fix that is an option they can "check off" to disable the behavior, is just crap.

Start with Zachary Harrison for example:

Through Zachary's mini-feed I can see that wrote on Patricia Cheugn's wall 5 times in the last week (he only posted to Jake's wall once). I can also see that he posted to Patricia at all hours of the day (2:58 am, 1:49 pm, 10:30 pm). He seems to like Patricia a lot and want to interact with her all the time (definitely more than Jake).

That's really interesting to see SINCE HE'S BEEN DATING ME FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS!! I can't believe I hooked up with him the night he wrote on Patricia's wall at 2:58 am!

Actually, we're not dating. I really don't know crap about Zachary and made the whole scenario up. But it's plausable and that I might be getting my point across.

Maybe, Zachary's new friend Chelsea Roska, that he was flirting with at Bull Feather's last weekend, is now telling all her girlfriends that "Zachary was so cute and was totally flirting with me at this bar like he didn't have a girlfriend. And then, the next day I got a thing to be friends on Facebook, which of course means that he's interested. And then I went to his page yesterday and saw that he left like a million messages for this girl Patricia. What's up with that?!"

Sounds like Chelsea might not be giving Zachary the time of day since seeing this new addition to his Facebook page. Sounds like Zachary might be pissed that Facebook made it so easy for Chelsea to see where and when he's leaving messages for people. Now Zachary has to try to explain to Chelsea that Patricia is, "an old friend from high school that is totally like my sister - I swear I don't have a girlfriend."

Good luck Zachary.

Zachary might love the concept of mini-feeds and news-feeds features. But with some exceptions. And those exceptions might change and evovle depending on what Zachary wants people to know about him at certain times in his life. Maybe Zachary's old girlfriend, Kate, just broke up with him and he's writing on Patricia's wall (a lot) to make Kate jealous and hopes that Kate might see her friend Patricia's wall and notice that Zachary has been putting a lot of stuff up there. While at the same time Zachary is trying to hook up with Chelsea as his rebound girl and hopes that she doesn't stumble on all of his posts to Patricia's wall. Quite a predicament.

In Zachary's case, and all other similarly plausable scenarios, 'm wondering how a check box option on Facebook solves this problem. I don't think it does.

I'm also interested in seeing how Facebook addresses the nuances of Zachary's need for different levels of control for individuals at different times in his life. Will Zachary really even know to, or want to, make the effort to set all of the options that would be required to design the exact way each person in his life is able to "see" him? Or will he just turn the feature off and feel resentful that Facebook messed up his dating life?

I'm not saying this problem doesn't have a solution. I think Facebook, and others creating social networking products, can get it right but only if they pay attention to how their customers really feel. I'm willing to be patient and I don't think anyone is really listening yet.

Comentful! Not a real word, but a real useful service.

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:38:05 GMT

Recently, I worte about the word "planful" and it's reality, as a word.

Ironcially, Mike Torres blogged about a web service named, of all things, COMMENTFUL. While not a real word, Commentful seems like a really useful (no pun intended) service.

Commentful actually

"watches comments/follow-ups on Blog posts, Digg submissions, Flickr pictures, and many other types of content. Whenever there is an update, such as a new follow-up or comment, Commentful notifies you instantly".

Commentful gets way more useful when I add it as an RSS feed to my live.com homepage. Since live.com is my dashboard for all information that I like to view the web adding a commentful "block" to my page allows me to take quick account of threads I like to track and if there is anything new that I would want to read. The screen shot below shows how I can hover on a my blog and see if there are any new comments that I should read.

That's freakin' sweet!!

This actually make my live.com experience better in so many ways: I can track updates from one place, I don't have to remember to go to sites and check if there are updates, I don't have to add each site as it's own block on my dashboard (saving me room on my home page and the time of sorting through what is new). I'm sure the list will grow as I continue to play with this.

All I can say for now is that this is great and I hope to see more.

Lame Alerts - will they ever end?

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:20:31 GMT

Back when I worked on Office there was a campaign to banish "lame alerts" (it's killing me right now that I can't remember the name of the PM who championed this. Anyone who reads this, and knows who I'm talking about, let me know and I'll update this post). I still have the buttons that they made for everyone pinned to my cork-board as inspiration. It looked like this:

Every time an annoying dialog or pop-up jumps in front of me, I remember that campaigning and wish I was running that special release of Office that had the "This is lame" button on all of the alerts; and that I could press the "This is lame" button and someone who cares would hear my (and everyone else's) pleas to get rid of this all to frequent, and terrible, nuisance.

Yesterday I happened to be going through a, what seems to be quarterly, computer melt-down. About once a quarter my computer (and usually my cell phone and Media Center PC and every other electronic device) just "checks out". It won't boot, is missing some driver or just all together too slow. And I'm stuck troubleshooting the problem for what feels like days or weeks. These are already frustrating times when one's productivity devices decides to "check out" while one is trying to be productive.

And leave it to those annoyingly lame alerts to help you during those times!

I stumbled on one too good not to share (AND it actually didn't come from Microsoft! <wink>). Here she is:

Isn't she just beautiful? This just cracks me up because it actually recognizes the machine I have (a Tecra M3) and tells me that it's not supported and required all in the same time!! LAME!!

Shipping Windows Live Writer

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:16:47 GMT

It's amazing how products make it out into the world these days. I've been shipping products now for over 8 years and, for the most part, it feels like "the same stuff, different day"; every case-study on project management repeat themselves in recognizable ways within each release cycle. And yet, each product release never seems to be predictable or go as planned no matter how strictly any team follows the teachings and philosophies of "Project Management". And Windows Live Writer is no exception.

The most interesting part is that Writer is the only product I've worked on where the release-date actually got MOVED IN! That's right, moved in. You always hear about products "slipping out" their dates as they struggle to get out the door - trying to balance the right choices for the customer with product quality and business demands (ahem, Vista). But rarely, at least in my experience, do you hear about product dates "slipping in" their dates. That's what happened with Writer. Admittedly, we did "slip out" our release date early in the project when we revised what was going to be released in our first Beta. After that initial adjustment, we stuck to that date and were on track. So on track that when we had to adjust our dates in to accommodate an internal dependency - we did. And then when Writer was leaked and we needed to announce even earlier - we did. In all, the release date was moved in by nearly 4 days. And in the world of web-releases, that seemed like a lot.

Like every product release, there is a huge sense of accomplishment now that Writer has finally walked out the front door. Not every effort sees the light of day - so I feel honored to have worked on another project that actually shipped and one that I believe in so strongly. I'm insatiable in my need to see all of the reviews and comments that are already out there and can't wait to see more. Please keep the feedback (good and bad) coming in!

And, like every product release, we're already planning our next steps. I already have a long list of items that we want to attack in the next version of Writer and, as we continue to get feedback, that list is only going to grow. Now is when I have to contain my excitement and get back to work.

Happy Blogging,

Rebecca Levine
Windows Live Writer, Program Manager