microsoft – Page 5 – Nick Hodge's Blog

The weird people I work with

Andrew Coates documents the weird people in the Australia DPE team.

My Dream Machine in Three Acts

After spending late 2007 writing about and building my own fast PC – I realised there was a larger place for the story to be told. But not here. It was time to go PC enthusiast over on Channel 10.

The most difficult piece to write was the overture. Knowing at which technical level to target the writing. Feedback is welcome.

x64 is a barrier that the PC industry is going to push through during 2008. Laptops with only 4Gb of RAM are a bit cheezy and limited.

The overture:

64bits. More than 2 times 32

And the three acts:

Next articles will be related to how I work on this machine. The old Toshiba craptop just isn’t cutting it anymore.

Good to be rid of writer’s block.

I To Do Therefore I Am?

Personal organisational skills. I can not has. They left me some time ago.

Microsoft has released some research on the gender differences of To Do lists.

About 70% of people have a To Do list.

20% of males keep their To Do list in their head.

Mine is a combination of email (whatever is still in there needs to be done) and my head (flexible rearrangement) and calendars (so I know where and when I should be)

If I spent my time managing my time I’d have no time to do stuff. And I’ve decided never to be so busy and stressed that I’ve got to have pages full of things to do. Been there, done that. Others are better equipped to deal with myriads of lists of things to do, delegating, measuring and motivating. I do, not to do.

Enjoying life is not cross items off a list. Life is in the doing.

Australian Accent and Blokey Good Looks

Microsoft’s answer to Ewan McGregor, Nic Fillingham, has joined the http://on10.net/ (Channel 10, on10) team at Microsoft.

Apart from being Ewan good looking, he’s a smart and hard working bloke.

…first day on the job, he gets to interview Bill Gates and Robbie Bach. How do you top that?

The Australian Mafia gains a posterboy.

Robbie Bach @ CES 2008

Bill Gates @ CES 2008

Windows Home Server team just ROCK!

The Windows Home Server team absolutely rock. OK, I work for Microsoft and am paid to say that.

Well, today I am on holiday. So, I am saying this as private citizen Nick Hodge.

Listening to users, researching and fixing bugs quickly; and adding requested features in an open and rapid way. This is the way to make software.

Watch Todd provide an overview of the forthcoming Power Pack 1:

Windows Home Server Power Pack Announced

My personal thanks for popping x64 client support in there.

Think simple. Be social.

Joe Wilcox, at Microsoft eWeek watching Microsoft with an eagle eye, has a strategic "Top 10 List for Microsoft in 2008"

It all boils down to a two-part mantra: Think simple. Be social.

I like it. And many of the other suggestions to. That is, as a mere worker bee in the hive.

Ah, and if Joe is reading this, the Enthusiast Evangelist team are working on No. 6. Thanks for the extra support, dude!

Project General Melchett. Stage 1.

Project General Melchett is my own, roll your own, home built Intel Core 2 Quad box for home.

Ordered yesterday, and delivered in pieces yesterday. Started the build at 10.30am and completed major parts at 1.00pm.

A big part of the decision process was should I install a new 45nm Quad Core Extreme. The current price difference between processors is a massiveAU$1000. Whilst having a processor that knocks your socks-off benchmark did seem attractive the price difference is too massive.

Instead, purchasing a motherboard that could install a 45nm processor in the future seems like a better plan. When there are more choices.

The build was easy: the Corsair modular power supply was an good choice; the hardest part of the overall install was (a) installing slippery screws whilst bleeding from the finger tips (b) snapping in the heat-sink fan into the motherboard with the right amount of pressure. The fans, once turned on, were relatively quiet. Many pieces of rubber insulated metal-on-metal vibrations.