Last night Microsoft announced that the technology preview of Live Mesh is available to a limited number of beta testers. Live Mesh is a way for me to sign up all of my devices (mobile and Mac coming soon) and designate libraries (files) on each one to be synchronized to the others. I also get a secure remote desktop into the machine. This all runs in the cloud and uses your Live ID and SSL to secure the data. I can see this enhancing/replacing the array of tools I use now for synchronizing and remote access to my machines and data. I am excited to start working with the technology preview and see how this will work when I am on the road next for remote access to my home PC. Right now if I need to get to it I can have someone log into it and I use the remote help option as an easy way to do remote access without having to configure firewalls and worry about having a connection from the Internet to that system. The downside of that is that someone has to request the help and then allow me to have control so it takes someone being available. From what little I have seen about Live Mesh I don't have to have someone at the device to connect to it securely so it will make it more convenient.

Of course at the top of my wish list is to have Live Mesh work with CardSpace but since I can set up my Live ID to use CardSpace I don't know that it is that big of an issue.

When the SDK comes out later it will be interesting to see how Microsoft delivers on their promise of having the same API on the client and in the cloud. If the API looks just like the current .NET Framework that would go a long way to making this the "killer application" of clould computing even though it is really a platform to create killer apps. If all of the .NET programmers can just write their applications and then at some time decide to move them from an on premise app to a being hosted in the cloud that would make this platform extremely useful and really enable it to take off. If I have to write my applications in a new way with different constructs and they only run in the "mesh" then I don't know if I would start targeting this platform for general user applications. There are a class of applications that use collaboration heavily and could use the mesh immediately but I don't know that writing your typical data entry and reporting line of business application would gain enough benefit from the mesh to justify a new programming model and the drop in productivity that it would entail.

For now I will just try to explore what I can do with the technology preview and post my experiences.

You can find more information about Live Mesh at the web site http://www.mesh.com. There are also the following resources available:

- Watch the interview with Ray Ozzie introducing Live Mesh on Channel 9 (link: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=399578) 

- Watch an interview with Abolade Gbadegesin on Live Mesh Architecture (link: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=399577) on Channel 9
- Watch the demo of the Live Mesh application on Channel 10 

Some good background on Mesh can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/livemesh/

I got back from vacation and got a few prompts this morning to update software installed on my machine. This one for Flash player caught my eye since the biggest sale point of Microsoft's Silverlight over Adobe's Flash has been that Silverlight can play HD videos. Now it looks like Adobe has closed that gap so it may make it harder to sell companies on Silverlight.

I saw an article on the BBC News technology web site that said PayPal would start warning users who have older, less secure browsers and eventually would block them from accessing their site. My first reaction when I read that there are users using IE 3 and 4 to access PayPal was "you gotta be kidding me". I knew that there are people using older browsers out there but I always assumed that they were like my parents who are on dial-up, visit the 2 or 3 web sites they know, and don't do anything else. They don't feel the need to upgrade their computer because it is faster than they can type and I also figured they weren't using the latest browser because downloading IE 7 would take too long. I was surprised that these people would be using PayPal. The more I thought about it I decided I know people like that. One of their favorite web sites is EBay and they love to buy and sell items, always looking for a good bargain. I can then see how PayPal would be getting involved with people using older browsers. I applaud them in their role to help protect the Internet because it will help all of us to be safer.

I am looking forward to the time when the use of Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates becomes widespread and we will see users looking for the green address bar just like they look for the lock icon for SSL now. I am also holding out hope that at some point in the future we will see Microsoft putting out patches on a DVD and making them available at Wal-Mart or other large retailers where people like my parents can get them and update their computers. As time goes by I see fewer and fewer reasons for Microsoft to go through the cost but it would definitely make it so I wouldn't have to spend most of a night updating computers when I go to visit family. Until Microsoft starts dropping DVDs with the latest patches I (and a lot of other people in IT) will just plan on giving up some sleep each year to update older computers.

I heard the other day that the difference between ranting and constructive criticsm is the offering of a solution so let me rant first and then I will offer a possible solution. So first the problem. I sent out an e-mail with a Microsoft Project 2007 .mpp file attached. I heard back from one of the people that I sent it to that they could not open the file. I wasn't sure if it they had an older copy of Project or didn't have Project installed on their computer. I decided to go into Project and do a "save as" on the file to an older version and print a XPS file that I could also e-mail. While saving to the older version I saw that I could save to Excel and decided that might be a better option. I ran through the wizard asking me what columns I wanted saved to the Excel workbook. I foolishly clicked on the button to add all and then had to go through and delete most of them since they were not populated in the Project file. After cleaning up my mess I finally got through the whole wizard and clicked on finish only to get a message that the Excel workbook couldn't be created because of security settings with a somewhat terse message on how to fix the problem. I was able to do the 2 steps to get to the dialog box where the instructions started and reset the security settings. The second time through the wizard I was much faster and I was eventually able to save the file. My complaint was with the error. I shouldn't have ever had to see it. I can see 3 possible solutions to this problem.

1. The option to save to an Excel file could have been disabled. I would have seen that there is a possibility and could have looked in the help file to figure out what I needed to do. I am not sure how effective this would be because I would have likely determined I didn't have the correct driver or something and instead printed to the XPS but at least I would have known that when the sun, moon, and stars all align just right I might be able to save as Excel.

2. I could have been told that my security settings wouldn't let the wizard finish and asking me if I wanted the security settings to change. I don't really like the idea of a "black box" security change and would be tempted to say no most of the time but given the amount of time that I had invested in this (100% my fault) I might have been tempted to accept the option and try to undo it later.

3. The second screen of the wizard (you know the one after the splash screen that nobody bothers to read) could have checked the security settings and told me that I couldn't finish without making some changes. It could link to a help file with accurate instructions and a full discussion of the tradeoffs I was making by changing the security setting.

Option 3 seems so simple and certainly like it should be the logical choice so why wasn't it taken? I have no idea. I *suspect* that the reason might be that this particular feature wasn't tested or that it was automatically tested. I can see automatic testing being the most likely culprit. If I were given a specification for a feature that says if a certain security feature is set a message should appear and the file shouldn't be created I am pretty sure I could write an automated test to determine that is what is happening. Since I might only have to watch it run once if even that many times to make sure the test ran correctly and then I wouldn't have to think about it any more. I could also see reusing another test to fill out the dialog box so it wouldn't be like you were taking a lot of time to set up everything.

My solution to the problem would be to have the automated tests run at least once manually during each product development cycle to make sure that they still make sense and that they test the correct functionality. I am not sure what the cost of all this manual testing would be verses the amount of complaints Microsoft gets from customers but there should be some way for Microsoft to check the number of calls coming into PSS and just check the tests that are designed around those features.

Last Friday I flew to Colorado Springs and participated in the community launch event for SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and Windows Server 2008. It was a lot of fun and Julie Yack made sure it was fun. She took the "Heroes Happen Here" theme seriously and had the speakers and volunteers dressed up with t-shirts or red capes. I spoke on SOA. I decided to post my slide deck here so anyone who wanted it can view it. I have to admit I showed the first few slides and then dropped into demos before showing the resource slides at the end.

This is a followup to my post last week. I just checked and I moved up in the NCAA rankings. I guessed half of the teams in the final 4 correctly. Next week I guess I will finally find out if I was lucky or one of the teams I didn't pick wins.

On the OOXML front things are looking up as well. According to the article at http://www.itnews.com.au/News/72970,the-votes-are-in-on-ooxml.aspx the results of the vote are not yet public but an informal poling shows that OOXML will pass. I have been really busy and haven't had time to digest all the feedback but there are numerous articles and e-mails floating around about how Microsoft or someone opposed to OOXML strong armed someone into voting one way or another. I wasn't there and with a few exceptions don't know the people personally so I don't know how reliable the accounts are and how much of what they are reporting comes from their own personal bias. I have to say that is disappointing but not that unexpected. All anyone has to do is look at the political process here to see examples of name calling, mud slinging, and down right lies used to make one person look better than another. I suppose that each side in this discussion/debate is passionate enough to resort to those same means to get what they want.

In the end the idealist in me would like to see everyone be able to decide on a single specification but the pragmatist says "if you ask 10 people their opinion on a topic you will get 12 different opinions" so we will not be likely to see any single specification satisfy everyone. For now it looks like we will have an official specification to work from and to make changes to as they are discovered and voted on through the change procedure.

While you are watching the NCAA basketball tournament and wondering if Davidson is going to win again or end their Cinderella story there is another "contest" going on. Actually it is a vote and not maybe not as dramatic as the NCAA tournament but possibly more important. I can tell you that I didn't fare to well in my predictions on basketball (sinking to the bottom of the brakets on ESPN) but if Open Office XML (OOXML) fails to be ratified we might see Microsoft having to change the file formats for the next version of Office. If, on the other hand, it is accepted as a standard that will mean that anyone ca write file viewers and other tools that interoperate with Office. I know that I love using Foxit for reading PDF files. It seems to load faster and it doesn't prompt me to download updates all of the time. I could see others taking the specification and writing viewers for PowerPoint that don't take up as much memory on my machine but that would be 100% compatible so I don't have to worry about fonts or animations not looking correct.

Even more important would be the possiblity of getting a competitor to Word and Excel that includes the "basic" functionality that we all use without some of the fancier or more esoteric features that you don't even know how to use.

Come on and admit it, you really want to know what it would be like to write the next software that will be the "killer app" for the desktop and this gives you a chance to try :)

After the considerable amount of press over Microsofts bid to buy Yahoo, the rejection by Yahoo, and then the announcement that Microsoft was going to continue to try to take over Yahoo it seems that Yahoo has been doing everything in its power to be unattractive to Microsoft. First there was the changes in the benefits package that would mean Microsoft would be paying out for a long time for former Yahoo employees. Today I read that Yahoo has joined the OpenSocial group. When the initiative was formed Microsoft didn't seem impressed since they have a programming model for Live already and OpenSocial was more of an idea for bringing the different ways of writing gadgets, portlets, blocks, or whatever they are called for social networking sites under a common API. If Yahoo is successful in implementing some of OpenSocial before the takeover it would require more work on Microsoft's part to change the technology and bring them under the Live programming model. Of course Microsoft could also just decide to support OpenSocial and leverage that technology but I haven't seen and couldn't find anything official in Live Search saying Microsoft will support OpenSocial. One thing is for sure, this is an interesting time for all of us as companies struggle with the tension between protecting their income streams and making sure their products interoperate with other products.