Archives for October 2008 | Software Development in the Real World

October 9, 2008 By miguelcarrasco 27 Comments

The PDC 2008 and Windows 7 Promotional Video

Microsoft released the official PDC 2008 and Windows 7 Promotional Video today finally after a huge amount of hype. We tried to reach Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates for comments but our phone calls went un-answered. Chances are they are stuck trying to figure out what to do with the new boy band sensation. The track is titled “4 Softies and a Pizza Guy” and instantly received a record breaking 12 plays on last.fm within 24 hours.

Find more videos like this on twitter devs

The Lyrics

Verse 1:
I’ve seen you in my dreams, I love you so much
I know I’m gonna love the way that you respond to my touch
So fine, I need to make you mine
When we’re together there ain’t no mountain we can’t climb

Verse 1A:
P-D-C, two thousand eight
Windows 7 is coming and I can’t wait
I’m gonna get the first one, right out of the crate, Wrap your windows around me

Chorus:
I share my best ideas with you
Make them come true, ’cause that’s what you’re meant to do You take me closer to heaven
Tell your dreams and hopes to me
Get close to me, ’cause that’s where you’re ‘sposed to be I’m talkin’ about Windows 7. ooaahooo

Verse 2:
You turn me on, with your graphics and text I get so excited when I think about where you’ll take me next
I’m gonna leave with my developer guide
And tons of Windows content on a hundred sixty gigabyte drive!

Verse 2A:
P-D-C, two thousand eight
Windows 7 is coming and I can’t wait.
The desktop and taskbar will integrate,
Wrap your windows around me.

Chorus….
Mid section
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul When I look in your eyes, I almost lose control
We’ve got a strong foundation, efficient applications
And new APIs
When I’m with you I feel energized!

Rap:
7 is my lucky number
At night I get 7 hours of slumber
And Windows 7 at the PDC, twenty o eight, is gonna go and steal the other guy’s thunder Developers and users, be good to your computers
Ya can’t win with another system made for losers. for Windows 7, my love is true Now let me use direct 3d to unlock your GPU!
Verse 1A…..
Chorus…..

By the way, this is a joke obviously.

Filed Under: Microsoft, PDC

October 9, 2008 By miguelcarrasco 31 Comments

The 10 Commandments of Great User Experience Design

Great User Experience Design Starting a new software development project in the next little while? Praying and hoping that it goes well? Are you worrying about all the little software development intricacies like: Making sure you have a proper source control, ensuring you have a continuous integration environment, making sure you have great developers and making sure they are happy? If you are, you probably haven’t remembered to pay attention to the most important part of the software development process. The User Interface and the User Experience.

While there are literally hundreds of User Experience rules that you could follow, if you simply remember these 10 commandments, you should do just fine! In fact, I recommend you print them out and put them in every developers office, or cubicle.

Great User Experience Design Commandments

Publish your application’s goals and objectives, your “mission statement” if you will.
The less choices you present to the user, the better. Users get confused rather quickly.
User Interface should remain consistent from screen to screen.
No “Smart Menus” that change depending on how you use the application. Users hate their application “changing” on them.
Keep the “Noise” to a minimum. People don’t need to know about the business as usual messages. Don’t annoy your user.
Avoid acronyms if at all possible. If you must use them, supply a descriptive message right beside it.
Your application must run lean and mean. As pretty as your interface might be, if the software seems slow, no sale.
Let them explore the application, without fear they will cause a disaster. Undo, Redo, and History features might be a good idea.
Ensure your software works the first time its run. Configurations can occur later, but out of the box, you should have intelligent defaults.
Have an easy way of allowing your users to provide feedback.

Every item on this list is very critical for the success of your project. Make sure your software development team is always thinking about these things throughout your next project and you should be fairly happy with the outcome of the project.

I find that typically software developers will end up focusing solely on the architecture and technology of the application they working on, and leave the user experience piece as an afterthought. This can have a huge impact on your timeline, and the happiness of the user’s of your application. How many software developers out there have been on a project where you worked your buts off for months (if not years), and then went to release something to the users, and they where unimpressed with the application because the team didn’t put enough weight on the user experience?

Technorati Tags: User Experience Design

Filed Under: Software Development, User Experience

October 8, 2008 By miguelcarrasco 32 Comments

You Might be a Web Developer…

Canadian Developer Connection John Bristowe has been hard at work on TechDays, but today he decided he would take a break and create a list titled “You might be a web developer…”. I laughed, I cried, I called my mom. Seriously though some of the one liners were instant classics.

Some of my favorites include:

If the phrase, "I can program HTML" bugs you, you might be a Web developer.

If you respond to confusing questions with "HTTP 500", you might be a Web developer.

If you think "passing the Acid test" doesn’t refer to a drug problem, you might be a Web developer.

Anyway, check out the full list at the Microsoft Canadian Developer Connections Blog. If you have time, why not add a couple of your own to the list. Here is my contribution: If when someone asks you if you would your favorite kind of cookie is, you instantly respond with “persistent”.

And make sure you attend TechDays 2008, you wont be sorry!

Filed Under: Humour, Web Development

October 7, 2008 By miguelcarrasco 63 Comments

Live Search Integration with Facebook

I had a lot of fun writing the article on how Microsoft could beat Google at search over the weekend. It was pretty neat today to see that Live search integration with facebook is already starting. While it is still relatively hidden, Facebook today launched Search with Live Search! I’m pretty stoked about it because either way, if Google or Microsoft come out with it first, the semantic web is coming where one day all the hundreds of hours I spend on social networks teaching them about what I like or don’t like, will actually pay off when I perform a search on Google.

It’s still pretty hidden, but give it a try! just start typing into the search box, and notice the new “Search the Web” option.

Once you are done the search, you can select either “All Results” or only “Web Results”.

While there is nothing revolutionary going on yet, you have to figure that if Microsoft is successful in integrating Live Search with Facebook, the new search engine of the future will only be a few months away and we could quickly see Live Search gain incredible momentum vs the traditional method of searching.

I’ve talked to a few people at Microsoft over the last few months about Live Search and there are some pretty amazing brains working on this project. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of the Live Search Camp in the next few months.

Filed Under: Facebook, Google, Microsoft Live Search

October 6, 2008 By miguelcarrasco 31 Comments

Complete List of Office Labs Add-ons

Blow Your Audiences Minds with this amazing add-on from Microsoft Office Labs.

Have you ever thought “I wish Office had a feature that did xyz" ? Like for example, I wish I had a really cool way to make awesome charts. I also wish I had a way to prioritize my email, and maybe even turn off email for an hour so I can concentrate for once. How about a really neat way of presenting PowerPoint Slides that would remind your viewers of the Bill Gates presentation at the CEO Summit earlier this year? And by the way if you haven’t seen Plex and Touchwall, you should really check it out below. Then later make sure you download pptPlex for PowerPoint and really blow the socks of your next audience.

Bill Gates Presenting TouchWall

Microsoft actually has people working on projects for Office which you can check out at Office Labs! Here are the Add-Ons you can try out today! Make sure you let the teams know what you think of their applications. Who knows they might make it into the next version of office.

pptPlex

pptPlex is a plug-in that explores an alternate method for presenting a PowerPoint slide deck. Using pptPlex, you can present your slides as a tour through a zoomable canvas instead of a series of linear slides. No it’s not the same thing you saw Bill Gates present above, but it’s as close as your going to get to it in the next few months anyway. It’s actually pretty impressive how close they came to making PowerPoint behave in a similar matter with the use of a mouse and your scroll wheel.

Download pptPlex

Chart Advisor

Chart Advisor is a prototype that provides an alternate approach for creating charts in Excel 2007. This add-in uses an advanced rules engine to scan your data and, based on predefined rules, displays charts according to score. Top scoring charts are available for you to preview, tweak, and insert into your Excel worksheet. Some of the cool features include:

Automatic pivoting to generate more useful charts
Hidden rows and columns are ignored in the spreadsheet
Totals for columns or rows are ignored in the charts so as not to skew the data plotted
Ability to quickly change the data displayed in the chart through the Modify chart pane
Ability to filter data
Intelligent mapping of data to the axes
Scoring of charts to show the best charts first
Chart formatting (legend on/off/location, chart style) is rules-based – e.g., no legend if only one value series

Download Chart Advisor

Email Prioritizer

Email Prioritizer is a plug-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (running on Exchange Server) that helps you manage email overload. This concept test provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival, and prioritizes email with a 0-3 star rating system. The main features include:

A "Do Not Disturb" button that stops incoming mail delivery so you can work without interruptions.
Email priorities are assigned to incoming mail so you can focus on the most important mail first. With a “0-3 stars” ranking system, you can focus on email messages that are most important to you. These priorities are based on algorithms from Microsoft Research.

Download Email Prioritiezer

Speed Launch

Have you ever wanted to save commands you do on a daily or weekly basis in a quick launch interface. Speed Launch is the tool you have been looking for, and its free. You can save web commands like searching for movies, phone numbers, even launching certain applications extremely quickly.

Download Speed Launch

Search Commands

Search Commands helps you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need. Search Commands also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks.

Download Search Commands

InkSeine

The goal of the InkSeine project is to completely rethink the user interface for tablet computers. Some people have described InkSeine as "Windows Journal on steroids." But InkSeine goes well beyond Windows Journal, particularly in its features to search from ink and to easily drag hyperlinks for documents and web pages into your notes.

Download InkSeine

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Research

Filed Under: Microsoft Research