In a recent blog, Todd Bishop highlighted the fact that Microsoft had hired “more than 10,000 people worldwide in the fiscal year ended June 30, bringing the total to 71,553 (… the biggest annual increase in the company’s history)”. Subsequently, the anonymous Mini-Microsoft blogger duly wondered what exactly these 10K people actually did AT Microsoft – … Read more
Wandering around Sharpreader today, I stopped off (as I usually do) at my old friend Tom Kyte’s blog and saw his entry about the new Windows LiveWriter, a free blogging tool. It sounded like it might help me get round some of the limitations and frustrations I’d found using the Community Server interface — so here … Read more
During the recent World Cup a couple of my friends in the US sent me this clip from an English newspaper claiming (boasting, more like) that English fans were “drinking Germany dry”: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17302491&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=beer-we-go–name_page.html English people seem to have this strange, unfounded reputation as large beer drinkers. The reality is, in fact, that most of us … Read more
As part of an occasional series on odd places to get good beer, on Friday last week Red Gate sent me on a fact-finding mission to Cornwall to investigate “The Watering Hole” pub at Perranporth. Now this pub is actually on the beach – not near it, or overlooking it, but actually on it. The … Read more
In the press room, Mary Jo Foley (from Microsoft Watch) was expounding on how hard it was to predict which articles would really take off and which would bomb. She would write controversial pieces on the latest hot topics, such as SharePoint, expecting a whirlwind response and getting barely a breeze. She then punts out … Read more
I met a lot of good people today at Tech Ed yesterday. I know that may seem a rather trite thing to say, but I just can’t come up with a better way to summarize my day. In the morning, I had a nice chat with Bob Beauchemin, whose written work I admire a lot, … Read more
Well, your intrepid ST hack made it (almost) all the way through the opening 2.5 hour – yep read’em and weep – keynote. It was a tough 130 mins, and reminded me more than anything else of the oft-asked question: “Has Microsoft forgotten how to talk to its developers?” Certainly there seemed to be little for … Read more
As an Englishman I’m well used to the experience of leaving some gloriously sun-kissed location and returning home to greyness and drizzle. But rarely the opposite. However, so it was on Friday as we swapped a sweltering, blue-skied London for the rain-drenched streets of Boston. Our hotel (the Onyx) is one of those seemingly ubiquitous … Read more
I have had a lot of emails following Adam Machanic’s recent SP article on Simple-Talk. A few of the correspondents expressed frustration that they couldn’t air their views on the article publicly (a limitation that will be removed on the soon-to-be-launched new site) so let’s use this as a landing space for the debate. First, … Read more
Tech Ed in Boston is just around the corner and the Red Gate offices are a feverish hive of activity (carefully coordinated around numerous swag boxes). I will be at the event, trying to dig out the latest news and views and hopefully, scratching a little beneath the shiny surface of the MS hype machine. … Read more
There is a line in the book “London Fields” where the main character is asked why he only drinks lager when playing darts and not real ale. His answer is (I’m paraphrasing and omitting a lot of swear words — this is Martin Amis after all): “It’s kegged. You know what you are getting every … Read more
Last month saw the release of the SQL Bundle 5. Here, some key members of the Red Gate development team offer insight into some of the major new features, and the technical challenges they faced in implementing them.… Read more
By the end of May we will have launched a brand new version of the Simple-Talk web site. In this article, I explain my vision for the new site, and talk about the process I went through to get it to the brink of launch.… Read more
Microsoft's CTP program can result in higher quality, more usable, and more secure products- but when badly managed, it can also cause confusion and fuel doubt.… Read more
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