I was sent an article today that said Bill Gates has started another company called BGC3. While the details are sketchy it sounds like the company will be a think tank that will be focused on solving problems. I would love to see Bill Gates apply the passion and energy that he has around solving humanitarian and education issues to other issues like alternative energy sources, better user interfaces to computers, or global warming.

Only time will tell what if anything comes out of this company.

Microsoft is looking for people who have used the BRE in a project to fill out a survey so they can get feedback and plan for the next version. I haven't ever used BRE so I didn't answer the survey but if you have used BRE please fill out the survey at https://live.datstat.com/MSCSD-Collector/Survey.ashx?Name=BRE_Usage_Survey_Blog.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that Silverlight 2 was released. The amazing thing is that it is already installed on one in four of the computers in the world. Also the integration with Eclipse is exciting as it will allow Silverlight to be used in organizations where they don't normally have Microsoft development tools.

Today you can download it from http://silverlight.net/GetStarted. There is also a lot of guidance to help you get started with Silverlight development.

I am sorry to report that we had to cancel the Utah County .NET User Group meeting for October. There was a perfect storm of bad news including a change in our speaker's schedule. We will hold our regularly scheduled meeting next month on November 19.

You would think that I would learn but it seems that I am doomed to create the same mistakes again and again. The particular mistake that I am talking about now is the tendency I have to change Windows settings without thinking through all the consequences.

Yesterday I was trying to set up Office Communicator to use my USB headset and microphone. I could only get the sound to come out of the computer speakers. I could see that the sound was set to the default device which were the computer speakers. Since I had been playing my Zune through them that made sense. I tried changing the settings to the headset but it wouldn't reset the default nor allow me to choose the headset. I thought I would just disable the internal speakers and then it would work. When I disabled the speakers there was no sound at all from the computer. I was in a little panic as I am supposed to be recording some stuff this weekend and not being able to play it back and hear what I did would be a big problem.

I tried going into the device manager to re-enable the device. That didn't work. Although I could see other disabled devices the disabled sound device had disappeared. I tried re-installing the drivers but that didn't work either.

I finally reverted to the Vista System Restore points. I went back to the last daily restore point before I had disabled the sound device. After about a half an hour of intensive disk activity the machine rebooted and I heard sound again.

I have some minor complaints about Vista but things like the System Restore that protect me from my own stupidity are proof to me that Microsoft is listening to their customers and the pains they have.

Rob Bagby will be in town on October 23 to host an MSDN event titled Demystifying the Code. You can find complete details including a registration link at http://blogs.msdn.com/bags/archive/2008/10/02/msdn-unleashed-event-in-salt-lake-city-on-october-23rd.aspx. The first 50 people to come to the event will be getting a copy of the book Applications = Code + Markup by Charles Petzold.

The session will cover some of the latest technologies from Microsoft including WPF, Silverlight 2, and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. The event is being held at the Microsoft offices in Salt Lake City.

If you need more incentive to sign up for PDC now Microsoft has announced that they will be distributing "the bits" on an external USB drive. There will be some software that will be available in a CTP or beta version but there is other exclusive content.

There will be many things that are only available at PDC including the ability to interact with the people who are developing Microsoft's cloud and Software + Services offerings. We are also hearing that we will be the first to get the pre-beta version of Windows 7.

I got sent an e-mail with the subject "did you see this?" and a link to an article with the title "IBM May Quit Technology Standards Bodies". I did some more research and found the following articles about the story

http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39293016,00.htm?r=1

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/IBM-standards-business-practice,6403.html

http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C400693880002574CD0027DDFF.html?ref=technology

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10048497-92.html

The articles seem to speak around the same general points which I summarize as follows:
1. IBM is concerned about the perceived value of standards that are not widely agreed upon.
2. IBM wants to make sure that they are using their influence to ensure that the standards that are created are ones that a majority of the industry can agree upon and that will get wide adoption.
3. There is a concern that if the standards bodies are not respected there will be a proliferation of standards or an abandonment of standards which would be bad for the entire industry.

I agree that if people loose faith in the standardization process we will soon cease to have standards. I agree with the stance that each standards body (to be respected) needs to have a well documented process for reviewing proposals and resolving differing opinions. Those processes need to have checks and balances that will make sure that minority opinions are not ignored while at the same time not allowing a minority to completely stop progress on a specification. Those rules should be different for each standards body as they are dealing with different topics with differing levels of impact on the industry and differing levels of contention between the participants.

As the cnet article points out IBM has also been accused of manipulating standards bodies for their gain so I don't see this so much as IBM threatening the standards bodies or reacting to the OOXML specification so much as IBM saying that we need to make sure that there is not another instance where a standard is approved without having been properly vetted in the community to the point that different national standards bodies are complaining about the results.