No Apple comments please :). I'm sure there are a few of these types of emails from Steve as well. ;)
---- Original Message ----
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame
I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.
Let me give you my experience from yesterday.
I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.
The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.
This site is so slow it is unusable.
It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.
These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.
They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.
I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.
They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.
In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.
This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.
Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.
This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.
What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?
So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.
So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.
So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.
What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.
So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.
At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.
So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.
The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.
So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess.
Moviemaker is just not there at all.
So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.
I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.
I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.
I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.
So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)
When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
Dramatic reading of the email :)
Taken from Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
Monday, June 30, 2008
Epic Bill Gates Email Rant
Monday, June 23, 2008
Five things you should never tell your boss
"June 20, 2008 (Computerworld) In the information biz, more isn't necessarily better. Though full disclosure and transparency are buzzwords today, that doesn't mean your boss wants to hear about everything going on in the office. In fact, there are some things your CIO definitely doesn't want to hear, and if your career is going to thrive, you'd better know what they are.
We asked a group of Computerworld's 2008 Premier 100 IT Leaders to talk about the kinds of messages they never want to hear from their staffers. Here's what they said.
1. All about the technology -- and nothing about the business. Acting like the business is terra incognita is a no-no. "Never tell me you don't know what the business wants but you'll build it when they decide," says James E. Schinski, CIO and vice president of Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator in Carmel, Ind.
Joseph J. Tufano,vice president and CIO at St. John's University in New York, agrees, saying IT workers need to tell him how technology can help the organization and its staff do their jobs better. "You bring so much more credibility to the discussion when you're presenting technology in the context of business," he says.
2. There's only one solution. "People can sometimes develop a fondness for a certain technology or programming language or manufacturer into almost a religion, but it's never the case that one type of solution is the proper one for all situations," says Neal Puff, CIO for Arizona's Yuma County. "And when you develop an attitude like this, you're viewed as an obstacle or a roadblock. People will assume you're just going to like it this way and you're not going to like it any other way."
3. Bad opinions about your colleagues. It's a simple rule that can get overlooked when your team is struggling with a missed deadline or a failing project, but think before you point a finger, because bosses generally don't want to hear about it -- especially if you haven't tried to work it out on your own.
"I want a team that works together and not one that's political, and if I see it happening, then I think people are trying to score points," says Kumud Kalia, CIO and executive vice president of customer operations for Toronto-based Direct Energy, an integrated energy company and part of Centrica PLC.
Of course, there are times when you need to discuss personnel issues with your boss. For example, Kalia wants to know from managers when workers are thinking of leaving. Just be sure the boss really needs to know about the situation; then be discreet and objective. "
Click here to read the rest.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Move Over AJAX, ARAX is Here!
"At the RailsConf conference for Ruby on Rails developers in Portland, Ore., on May 30, John Lam, creator of the IronRuby project at Microsoft, told eWEEK that as Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet application environment takes off it will provide Ruby developers with a way to deliver AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)-style applications without having to use JavaScript.
"If you're a Ruby programmer and you like Ruby as a language, context-switching into JavaScript is just something you have to do," Lam said. "It's a tax. You're trading productivity away arbitrarily because that's just what runs in the browser. And it's much more interesting when you can run the same language on both sides [the client and the server] so you don't have to do that context switch."
In essence, using ARAX, Ruby developers would not have to go through the machinations of using something like the RJS (Ruby JavaScript) utility, where they write Ruby code and RJS generates JavaScript code to run on the client, Lam said. "Sure, you could do it that way, but then at some point you might have to add some JavaScript code that adds some custom functionality on the client yourself," he said. "So there's always that sense of, 'Now I'm in another world. And wouldn't it be nice if I have this utility class I wrote in Ruby…' Today if I want to use it in the browser I have to port it to JavaScript. Now I can just run it in the browser."
Click here to read the rest of the article.
GMail Labs
I like their approach to development... "not that much testing". I wish our environment was that flexible... :)
"The idea behind Labs is that any engineer can go to lunch, come up with a cool idea, code it up, and ship it as a Labs feature. To tens of millions of users. No design reviews, no product analysis, and to be honest, not that much testing. Some of the Labs features will occasionally break. (There's an escape hatch.)"
Click here to read the rest of the post.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Google Android: iPhone Killer?
I would have to say that it's going to be a close matchup. My only hope is that Verizon picks up a device with Android as soon as it comes out.
Google Maps (with Street View and Compass!) - sweet!
Original Android post
Click Here for more info