Community developer blogs

Eileen Brown

Recent Posts

• My role is impacted by the layoffs at Microsoft

  Posted: 07 May 2009 at 15:57 by Eileen_Brown

  …and I’m currently At Risk of Redundancy. Therefore I won’t be continuing to blog here any more, but I’ll still be blogging at my other blog at: http://eileenbrown.wordpress.com/ Please point your feeds to go to: http://eileenbrown.wordpress.com/feed/ If I do manage to find another role at Microsoft before my formal notice period ends, then I’ll continue blogging here of course, but you can always find me over on my other blog or you can get in touch via Twitter @eile

• Download Windows 7 Release Candidate now

  Posted: 05 May 2009 at 15:11 by Eileen_Brown

  The Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) is now available to download for everyone, and is available until June 2009 to download. Download the RC So what’s new in the RC?  Check out this video explaining some of the enhancements introduced since the Beta release. If you are considering deploying Windows 7 in an enterprise, try downloading Windows Server 2008 R2 to test out the ‘better together’ features such as Branch Cache. Support for the RC is via the Windows 7 TechNet forums: Have questi

• Gesture your way arond Photosynth

  Posted: 01 May 2009 at 16:08 by Eileen_Brown

  Now this is neat.  YDreams have incorporated a device that lets you navigate your way around Photosynth using your hands.  You may not need to have the sound on the video though :-) Hat tip to David for finding this.  A very impressive demo…   Technorati Tags: Photosynth

• 90% discount on Microsoft Office 2007

  Posted: 01 May 2009 at 15:44 by Eileen_Brown

  I blogged about the Ultimate Steal last year – a really great opportunity to get your hands on Office 2007 for an incredibly low price.  all you need is an .ac.uk email address – so that includes all of the more “mature” students who have gone into academia later on in life.  Do you know anyone studying a the Open University?  Well they’re included too :-D   Microsoft can now offer students the new software they need for a rock-bottom price.  The ‘Ultimate St

• Can you spot the spammer?

  Posted: 30 Apr 2009 at 18:17 by Eileen_Brown

  This is a quiz. Here’s a word doc in an attachment that someone sent to me asking whether this letter was genuine or not. I spotted 10 different reasons why this letter is a fake.  how many can you see?  By the way – I’m not just criticising the use of English (although there are many examples here).  Leave a comment and see how many you can find…   Technorati Tags: 419 scam,spammer,spam

• How to use IE8 Accelerators for a better retail experience

  Posted: 29 Apr 2009 at 08:43 by Eileen_Brown

  At our last team meeting, Simon, who runs the business value blog did a great demo about IE8 accelerators which I asked him to capture as a video so I could share it with you. ASOS have an accelerator which you can add to your copy of IE8 and have a play with yourself. just go to: http://www.ieaddons.com/gb/accelerators to add the ASOS.com accelerator Go to the web page, then highlight the word Jeans as Simon explains and the demo should work as per the video… A great explanation abo

• Talking about Windows 7

  Posted: 28 Apr 2009 at 16:42 by Eileen_Brown

  Following on from my community focused post today here’s an interesting site showcasing stories from the engineering team working on Windows 7 and also there are also soundbites from IT Pro customers. Talking about Windows Windows. Worth a look … Technorati Tags: Talking about Windows,Windows 7

• A community look at Windows 7

  Posted: 28 Apr 2009 at 15:54 by Eileen_Brown

  Hot on the heels about my musings about what Windows 8 could look like, there’s a community view of Windows 7 courtesy of Rodney and the Canadian IT Pro blog… Some great stuff here from the community. Now come on UK guys – I’m sure we can come up with something windows 7 stuff that we haven’t seen yet :-)

• Reasons to get a Roomba

  Posted: 27 Apr 2009 at 19:41 by Eileen_Brown

  So @Alex_ball was right :-) Courtesy Graph Jam My post has more daft cat stuff and the link to a YouTube video…

• Using cool Technology at a Wedding

  Posted: 27 Apr 2009 at 17:23 by Eileen_Brown

  Narenda Wicaksono sent a mail about his Wedding and using some geeky technology to invite remote guests… Narenda and his bride Kintan were able to share their traditional Indonesian wedding with ALL of their friends.  The tradition includes inviting ALL of your friends; even if they number some 2000, from all over the world.  Using the Internet, and products such as Office Communications Server 2007 LiveMeeting, Silverlight Streaming (Live), Windows Media Services 2008 and IIS7, and several cam

• All Woman team in the Imagine Cup final

  Posted: 23 Apr 2009 at 13:01 by Eileen_Brown

  Mary Jo Foley noticed that there’s an all woman team in the  final of this year’s Imagine cup which will be held in Egypt in July this year.  So who to root for?  The UK team or the All Women team?  difficult choice.  Whichever i choose, I think that this is an amazing contest with some true inspiration from every entrant – so all should be commended for their efforts and innovation so far.  Well done all… Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

• Potential Windows 8 design?

  Posted: 22 Apr 2009 at 16:23 by Eileen_Brown

  I like this :-)  What could Windows 8 look like?  Have a look at this video… Copenhagen User Experience from Copenhagen Concept on Vimeo.   Some amazing UI and design features here – and some good stuff about past present and future concepts… Copenhagen User Experience, The Past and Future from Copenhagen Concept on Vimeo. Some great stuff here.  Nice one Cullen… Technorati Tags: Copenhagen User Experience,Cullen Dudas

• Ian Hameroff talks to me about Exchange 2010 features

  Posted: 21 Apr 2009 at 10:28 by Eileen_Brown

  Last week at Interact2009, I grabbed some time with Ian Hameroff (@hameroff) to talk about the features of Exchange 2010 that we’ve announced. We snuck into the  filming room where they were filming the Windows 7 videos during a coffee break and captured some of the key features of Exchange – straight from the product team… Thanks Ian for missing lunch to do this – and well done for getting it all filmed in one take too :-) and the URL for you to click is: http://www.microsoft.com/

• Outlook Thread Compressor – now available externally

  Posted: 20 Apr 2009 at 15:23 by Eileen_Brown

  Ewan has finally gone ahead and posted this amazing tool externally.  Thousands of us have been using this internally at Microsoft for years.  I make no apologies for reproducing his post (for those of you who don’t click links to other blogs) Included in the v5 beta (which is a real pain to install nowadays – the previous v4.2.030 version has nearly the same feature set and is a lot more self contained), was a piece of logic which captured stats on TC usage and emailed them back to me.

• For those who don’t “get” Twitter

  Posted: 20 Apr 2009 at 11:02 by Eileen_Brown

  I thought that this was a really clearly laid out diagram of the Visual guide to Twitter on Applicant which will stop me trying to explain what Twitter is all about to those who don’t “get” the value of Twitter.     And it’s given me a couple of new ideas on how I use it myself.  happy Tweeting…   Technorati Tags: Twitter

• Lovelace colloquium at Leeds university

  Posted: 17 Apr 2009 at 13:26 by Eileen_Brown

  Long day yesterday.  I travelled up to Leeds for the day to present a session on Unified Communications for the Lovelace colloquium.  The audience consisted of mainly female Engineers and doc and post doc students in computer science.  Very intimidating for me, who left school without a degree and went out to travel the world in the navy, see the sights  and earn some money. The day kicked off with Alan Pollard, president of the BCS, welcoming everyone to the day and talking about the need for t

• Interact 2009 and Exchange 2010

  Posted: 15 Apr 2009 at 13:53 by Eileen_Brown

  Interact2009 was a really amazing event yesterday, even more so because we’d given all of the attendees pre-release information about Exchange 2010 so that they could blog about the new features today after the deadline.  The beta is available to download and there’s a new site dedicated to the features of Exchange 2010 with a link to the download.  I’ll leave all of the techy bits to Steven and Mark, who have done much more research than me, but i will share some photos and a video

• RFID Cats on Twitter and Roomba drivers

  Posted: 09 Apr 2009 at 16:40 by Eileen_Brown

  Off topic I know, but as I’ve spent all day on Twitter today, and I know that several cats have twitter accounts, well here’s the ultimate, RFID, Twitter enabled cat door.  Via Engadget and Switched. @Alex_ball isn’t too impressed by that though and pointed me to the video of a cat riding a Roomba … … which was just as funny as my all time favourite youtube cat video of cats exercising on a treadmill. Just the thing to send me off on my Easter holidays with a smile.  See you on Tuesda

• I’m a (UK) PC. The rookies campaign comes to the UK

  Posted: 09 Apr 2009 at 13:35 by Eileen_Brown

  I’ve just watched these videos which are going to air on TV in the UK tonight. Like Steve, I think Lewis is wonderful, but I like Sam. He’s going to have ATTITUDE when he’s older :-) Love them… especially Sausages bum… or is it his bowl?… :-) Technorati Tags: I'm a PC

• Ada Lovelace: a descendant

  Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 17:05 by Eileen_Brown

  GetSETWomen has a blog post about Honora Smith who was a direct descendant of Ada Lovelace who has been blogged about extensively on 24th March. Dr Honora Smith is a lecturer in Operational Research and Management Science at the University of Southampton School of Mathematics. She is a member of the Operational Research Society and the EURO Working Group on Operational Research Applied to Health Services She is also a member of GetSET Women Impressive pedigree – and with such a memorable ancesto