Random .NET Ramblings

Some time ago I wrote the post Bootable USB Drive for Windows 7 about a tool that would help make a ISO file in to bootable USB drive. Recently I told my father to use that tool and for some reason it did not work but he dug up a new tool from Microsoft that I did not know about. It?s called the (hold on) the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool (flashy name). He did not have an ISO file so he used a free tool from MiniDVDSoft called DVD ISO Maker that took his media to an ISO.

Now the question was why did he need all this? All I can say is that he now has learned what I did a long time ago family tech support sucks!

Ok, I admit it, I have gone seriously dark in the last month but I have been busy. On April 12th I started a new job at MindTouch a PHP/Mono Open source company in San Diego. The general reaction has been WTF! I think this reaction stems from those who have always known me with my Microsoft hat. I still consider myself a Visual Studio/.NET/C# fan boy however, and many of the developers here at MindTouch use Visual Studio. My role at MindTouch is primarily product management, well okay I am the Product Manager, and while I intend to earn check in rights, I have not yet had time to install Visual Studio on my box.

How did I get hooked up with MindTouch? Well, I met Aaron Fulkerson and Steve Bjorg while I was at Microsoft and focused on startups. During that time I tried to find funding to have a white paper written about the experience MindTouch had while creating a Windows installer for their commercial product. I wanted to focus on how the experience gained a lot of new downloads for MindTouch. I found the story about how Microsoft has made efforts to make PHP a first class option on Windows and the market opportunity that Windows has for developers fascinating. Unfortunately no one found the idea as interesting as me and I was not able to find anyone who had the guts to pay for the white paper. Things happen?

So what does MindTouch do? I will let this outstanding video that Mike Diliberto created for the Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad contest:

How has my community role changed you ask? My role has not changed at all and I remain extremely involved. I am still helping with SoCal Code Camps and the San Diego .NET Developers Group. In addition I have recently taken over as the SoCal INETA Membership Mentor which allows me to help all of the local INETA user groups.

Now that you know where I have been over the last month I would like to close with my commitment to you to start blogging about work on the MindTouch Blog. I will cross post summary here just so you can see what I am up to. My blog will now have a much more community and personal focus.

Until next time?.

As I said in my post "OK Its Official Now". When I was unemployed and between Microsoft and Neudesic I set some simple commitments to keep me motivated and more importantly to simply ensure I got out of bed each day. One of the commitments was to read a non-technical book a day. I came across some great reads during this time and I would like to share them with you. So, in no particular order here is a list and a few comments.

	Software Product Management Essentials ~ Alyssa Dver
	Software Requirements: Practical Techniques for Gathering and Managing Requirements Throughout the Product Development Cycle. ~ Karl E. Wiegers
	More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice ~ Karl Eugene Wiegers
	Infoenza: Why Projects Fail And How To Fix Them ~ Troy Malone Troy is a buddy that started Pelotonics a cool project & group management site. He produced this book which is a very cool short read.
	Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project ~ Karl Fogel This was an interesting read and changed how I would run any project.
	This Man's Army ~ Andrew Exum I am not much of a fan of ?war? books but looking to get some perspective on our current conflicts I picked this one up. Andrew provides some terrific insight. A second book in this same genre that provided additional context was The Middle East ~ Bernard Lewis.
	Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain ~ John J. Ratey , Eric Hagerman
	The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich ~ Timothy Ferriss Wow is what I say, each time I read this book. I can?t believe how much I get out of it! Note: it looks like there is a new and expanded version of this book but I have not read it but if you are getting it new I would check it out.
	The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference ~ Malcolm Gladwell
	The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller That Changed The Way We Do Business ~ Clayton M. Christensen This is quite an interesting read. My father had given it to me a while back but I had not found the time to sit down and read it until now. I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to implement something new inside of an existing organization.
	The Definitive Book of Body Language ~ Barbara Pease
	Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity ~ David Allen All I can say is from the day at BarCamp LA where Heather introduced me to this book in her amazing session on GTD I have tried to live the GTD way (often failing). This book has helped me tremendously!
	The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life ~ Erving Goffman I can?t say enough about this book. I read this book for the first time when my wife was getting her sociology degree. In fact, I read all of her books when she was in school and this one and one from her Fundamental Forms of Religion class were the most interesting books from her four years at school (for me at least). I reread this one every few years to simply remind me why we humans do the stupid things we do!

So feel free to let me know about your favorite books. I want to keep up my reading momentum. Now that I am not receiving hundreds of emails a day I have much more time to read.

Today Microsoft announced another round of layoffs and I was included. It was totally unexpected and there was no explanation other than the (I am sure legally vetted) ?reorganize and restructure? answer. I am sure this is how they have handled past layoffs and if you look at the group I am in I can understand how the job I was doing was redundant, if I were management I could see selecting this position for removal. I had a counterpart doing the same job in NorCal and that is the market that Microsoft is more concerned with. I have looked at the current positions Microsoft has open in SoCal and decided not to apply as I would not be a good fit for them. So that leaves me with some thinking to do?

I will brush-up the resume but I really want to take some time to think about what?s next for me and my family. I am sure I will find many interesting opportunities and at least one that I will be excited about. My goal is to find something where I can make big contributions to ensure the success of an organization.

My network access and email will be shut off soon so you can reach me through this blog or use my gmail address or send a note on facebook or twitter @woodyp.

Thank you to all of the great people I was able to work with at Microsoft, I will look forward to seeing you all in the developer community soon.

I had the pleasure of once again being a guest on the "Java with John" show on computeroutlook.com. John had several emails from his audience from the last time I was on there talking about Windows 7. While we were doing the show, I got the idea that a lot of what we were talking about would be just a little more than abstract for a radio show... So I offered to make some videos that showed off the features we talked about. I have the videos for Libraries and the Problem Steps Recorder completed today and I will get the videos for Windows Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop Access finished soon.

Windows 7 Libraries

Windows 7 Problem Steps Recorder

For more information about Libraries see the Libraries topic of the Windows 7 Features site and for more information about the Problem Steps Recorder see the ?How do I use Problem Steps Recorder? topic in the Windows 7 site. There is some information that developers will need to know about Libraries but that will have to be a different post.

Go get it at download.live.com. If you have not been keeping up Microsoft has moved Movie Maker out of the Ultimate product line and in to Live so now if your computer has the horsepower to edit video go for it!

For full details see the product groups announcement on there blog post The new Windows Live Movie Maker – available today! - Windows Live. Have fun!

I was just ordering some new Business Cards so I was checking out the web sites I have listed on the back of my cards and found this little tidbit An Easy Way to Create a Bootable USB Drive for Windows 7 from Channel 10. I can’t wait to get the RTM bits so I can test this utility out. For the RC of Win7 I spend 2 hours making two bootable USB drives (one 64bit the other 32bit) it took so long because the messed up the steps the first time. This will help make the process go faster and I hope get more people to use a bootable USB to install from as it takes sooooo much less time than from a DVD.

I am happy to announce that I have a new job here at Microsoft! This will not change much about my involvement with many things I do today such as Code Camps, BarCamp etc. and it’s not a big change from the outside but inside a big company like Microsoft small things matter.

To recap where I am and where I have been, I was hired by the West Region Developer Platform & Evangelism Team (WRDPE). I started in the group that is now called the Audience Team where I was focused on talking to as many developers in SoCal as I could and making sure others that were talking to developers in SoCal got what they needed from Microsoft. This was a fantastic job and now Lynn Langat & Daniel Egan are doing a great job at it. Then last year about this time I was offered a job in the Customer Team for WRDPE where I would shift focus on enabling and highlighting the success customers have with the overall Microsoft platform and technology. So what's new? Now Microsoft has me focused on developers, ISV & consultants as well as software startups that are not currently using Microsoft products or technology to show the value, enable and highlight there success they can have with the Microsoft platform. I can see while it will be hard to get non-Microsoft developers attention once I get a chance to understand their goals I know I can show how and what Microsoft has to offer to help them achieve their goals.

So if you are or know any ISVs, consultant shops or startups that want to know more of what Microsoft can offer please put me in touch.

By way of Kurt Shintaku and the Swiss IT Professional and TechNet Blog here is a cool way to know what is going on with Power Management on your Windows 7 box.

Windows 7 – Power Management Reports

Well no one except Jas (the guy who hired me in to Microsoft) noticed that I have now been at Microsoft for 4 years... WOW I know there were several people who did not expect me to make it this long and to be honest I did not expect to make it this long but now it looks like I may make it for my desired 5 years. Just to review I started at MS as a Developer Evangelist where I got to help support the local Microsoft community as well as reached out to non-Microsoft communities. This was a great job I loved helping get support from Microsoft, this year I took on the challenge of the Architect Evangelist position (I call my self a Technology Evangelist as I self identify more as a developer). In this job I am more focused on working to make early adoption of Microsoft technology successful and then evangelizing the use of the solution. In my option I have not done an outstanding job in this position, it kills me as I want to be the best at anything I do! This coming year I will be looking to be outstanding in this job or what ever they have me doing.

What I have learned in 4 year:

• Most people think Microsoft is something it’s not!
• Big companies can bring out the best and worst in people
• To succeed you have to self promote
• Having big company benefits make wives happy
• I love to deliver not just work processes
• and more that I don’t want to make too public ;)