Clouds (finally) and Steve Ballmer, superstar

After two weeks in Seattle, the constant misery of 70 and sunny weather has finally given way to an overcast day.  Yes, the cynics have been proven right - it rains ALL THE TIME here and I hate it.  I'll be sure to post ASAP when as I feel the first drop.  In the mean time, my beautiful bike commute will continue.  When the rain does finally hit (my understanding is this will happen some time in November), I hope to continue biking through the light drizzle and skiing on the weekends while those of you in the Northeast and Midwest enjoy your beautiful winters, characterized by 20 degree days with ice, slush and dirty snow.  If you want some good skiing, please come visit me out here, I'll be more than happy to show you around.

I apologize for the bitterness, but along with the Vista and Google questions (see Mojave Experiment), the "did you know it rains a lot there" question has to rank up there with the most common and most irritating questions I have received about my new job/location.  We'll see if I change my mind once it starts raining, but so far I love Seattle and don't anticipate a little drizzle getting in my way.  From what I understand, our drizzle is much less irritating than the driving rain that periodically pelts New York and the Eastern seaboard, dropping more annual precipation than our rainy metropolis.

In other news, today was the Microsoft company meeting.  Unlike other companies, which can fit in a large conference hall, our company meeting has to happen at Safeco Field.  Attendance measured 22,500, allowing us to set the world record for most paper airplanes in the air at the same time (true story).  Rainn Wilson of The Office (American version) emceed.  Most of the day was spent watching demos of all of the new Microsoft products scheduled to be released in the next few years as well as some further off projects in development at Microsoft Research.  Very impressive stuff for the most part, although I think I'd be violating my NDA to go into too much detail.  Seeing all of the cool demos reminded me why I'm in software and why I'm working at Microsoft.  And nowhere else in the world does Steve Ballmer's entrance receive a standing ovation fit for a rock star.  Although I have to admit, that man is passionate about what he does and fairly entertaining to boot.

The Mojave experiment

This ZDNet article discusses the negative coverage in the blogosphere surrounding part of Microsoft's new Vista marketing campaign called the Mojave Experiment. As a future Microsoft employee, I have to admit that I'm getting tired of one of the most common reactions people have when I tell them I'm going to work for Microsoft: "can you fix Vista?" I usually answer "no, actually, I'm working on Windows Live, which has little to do with Windows, despite the poor branding." Then, depending on my mood, I might follow up by asking if said Vista-hater has ever in fact used Vista (usually not). Most people who have used Vista a few times instantly see why it's so terrible - the user interface is DIFFERENT than XP! They don't know how to use it! The reviewers must be equally puzzled by the horrible new interface.

I won't go into an in depth analysis of why Vista's interface is superior to XP and even in some ways (certainly not all) to Leopard. The point is, as the Mojave Experiment points out, that the interface is NOT the issue. Generally, the (valid) complaints about Vista are related to hardware compatibility. When Vista came out, drivers were not ready for a lot of older hardware, which caused nightmares for people trying to upgrade. Apple conveniently doesn't have to worry about this since they have a very limited set of hardware. In addition to hardware compatibility issues (mostly solved at this point), Vista requires a lot of system resources, so I wouldn't recommend trying to upgrade the XP computer you bought 5 years ago.

Overall, I'm not sure whether the "Can you fix Vista?" question is more common or more irritating than "You're working for Microsoft? Why not Google? I LOVE Google! AND they have free food!" Don't forget the ball pit and massages - two very important perks that I'm missing out on by working for Microsoft.

Bottom line: just because I'm going to work at Microsoft doesn't mean I can fix your least favorite Microsoft product or your computer. If you don't believe me that I have neither the training nor the desire to fix your computer, please read Avi Flamholz's informative article, I'm a computer scientist, not your technical support.