theSpoke.net

Too close to the office
Monday, October 31, 2005 11:51 PM

So it is just about midnight and I am trying to relax and get to sleep. It has after all been a long day. I was up late answering/reading/writing email. And the computer in the office keeps making a little ding sound. You know, sound it makes when new

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Network Problems
Sunday, October 30, 2005 9:29 PM

I've been having trouble reaching a number of web sites all week-end. Sites like blogs.msdn.com and www.msnbc.com are giving me 404 errors. The first thing I tried was connection for Microsoft's corp net using VPN. From there I can reaach everything just

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posted by AlfredTwo with

New Guy in Charge
Friday, October 28, 2005 5:23 PM

Justin is taking over theSpoke from Mario. Hats off to Mario for the first two years of theSpoke. Let's all give Justin a warm welcome as he leads things into the future.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Bill Gates in the Classroom
Thursday, October 27, 2005 7:37 PM

Bill Gates visits a programming class at University of Wisconsin-Madison.He talks about his money, the Gates Foundation and his favorite Xbox games. It's an MTVu film. [Thanks to Kevin Schofield for the link]

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posted by AlfredTwo with

About Bill Gates
Thursday, October 27, 2005 1:22 PM

14 things you probably didn't know about Bill Gates I knew about his first company. I also knew that he fixed the schedule in his high school so that all the best looking girls were in his classes. Who says programming can't help your social life? :-)

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posted by AlfredTwo with

A fun link
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 5:00 PM

Interesting advertisement here. I think it may have come from Microsoft UK where they apparently have a better sense of humour that we do in the US. Check it out - its funny. Really it is.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Blogging in the Dark
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 11:07 AM

The power went out at my house this morning. That means, among other things, that the cable modem and the office telephone are out. I am using my laptop so I have the ability to work on most of my efforts for several hours. This battery should be good

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Three Keys to Success
Sunday, October 23, 2005 10:06 PM

There are, I think, three keys to success in business. Brains, courage and luck. I don’t think you have to have all three in equal measure. You can make a lot from a little bit of luck if you have the brains and courage to take complete advantage of the

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posted by AlfredTwo with

We share your pain
Saturday, October 22, 2005 2:35 PM

OK this is funny. Go watch it. It is about a new program to improve software quality. It's a joke. I think. :-)

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Bill Gates MTV Interview
Friday, October 21, 2005 10:12 PM

The Bill Gates MTV interview is now online. Today I watched Steve Ballmer in action during a visit to a high school. I'll blog more about that when I'm not so tired.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Hardware
Thursday, October 20, 2005 7:48 PM

To be honest I am not a hardware guy. But I have spent the last couple of days fixing computers (long story as to why me) and it's been interesting. In a sense I was debugging. Problem solving is something that I do enjoy. While a lot of hardware problems

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posted by AlfredTwo with

More on search
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 9:43 PM

I started to write a reply to some of the comments to my last post but decided to make it a new post of its own. Google has a lot of very smart people. They also seem to know what business they are in and choose wisely what businesses they add. AltaVisita

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posted by AlfredTwo with

The history of search
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 10:00 AM

Don Dodge has a very interesting blog entry on search. Don was at Digital when they invented the search engine. AltaVista was the very first search engine and I was using it while it was still in beta. It was the Google of its day but it lost its first

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posted by AlfredTwo with

COBOL
Monday, October 17, 2005 10:07 PM

People keep telling me "don't teach the business languages of today to students because those languages will not be in use when they graduate." Well tonight I spent som time talking to some people programming in COBOL, a language I first learned

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Flying with Bill
Saturday, October 15, 2005 9:43 PM

Kevin Schofield blogs about what it is like travelling on Bill Gates' airplane. Nothing like my business travel I'll tell you. There are a number of interesting anecdotes in this blog. How about Bill Gates, world's richest man, eating take out from McDonalds?

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Welcome Diane!
Friday, October 14, 2005 5:21 PM

Diane who is a new member of my group at Microsoft has just opened a blog at theSpoke. She's a great person so go stop by and say hello.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Five great CS problems
Friday, October 14, 2005 8:14 AM

I've been following the trip details of the Bill Gates college tour at Kevin Schofield's blog. In one update last night Kevin talks about a couple of things. One is travel troubles. Apparently being the richest man in the world does not give you control

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Survey lessons
Thursday, October 13, 2005 2:40 AM

Rick Segal used to work for Microsoft. Over the last several months he has been asking other people who no longer work for Microsoft for their opinions on different issues about the company. Some of the answers are scary. Some look good. All of it is

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posted by AlfredTwo with

What if there were no Microsoft Windows?
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 6:43 PM

An interesting speculative story of life without Microsoft Windows. It's an interesting story of expensive hardware and software and other limitations.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Bill Gates College Tour
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 3:14 AM

Bill Gates is visiting colleges this week. Kevin Schofield is blogging about the trip. If you want a behind the scenes look at what it is like to travel with Bill Gates Kevin's blog is the blog to read.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Bull Riding
Sunday, October 09, 2005 1:38 PM

Having some fun enjoying the local sporting events at Billy Bob's Texas. No it's not a real bull. :-)

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Wanderlust
Saturday, October 08, 2005 12:08 PM

Regular readers of my blog know that I love to travel. Travel is one of the best parts of my job these days. Although wanting to travel has some frustrations. As I sit in airports waiting for flights, as I am as I write this, I hear people being called

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posted by AlfredTwo with

I love Texas
Saturday, October 08, 2005 12:16 AM

I've been in Texas since Tuesday night. I've enjoyed the three basic Texas food groups: Steak, barbeque and TexMex. I am stuffed. :-) Tonight I went to Billy Bob's Texas the world's largest honky tonk. They have live professional bull riding indoors.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Shortest Distance? Something for the Imagine Cup perhaps?
Thursday, October 06, 2005 6:10 PM

If you remember the Visual Gaming event from last year's Imagine Cup you will remember that one of the key things is to find the shortest distance from one point to another. So I have a reference for you. Microsoft Research just published a research paper

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Texas
Wednesday, October 05, 2005 6:11 PM

So I am in Texas this week. Texas is a pretty amazing place. Local means very different things here than it does in New Hampshire where I live. Local and close could mean a 2 hour drive here. At home anything more than a half an hour is a long way to

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Geek Travel Tips
Tuesday, October 04, 2005 10:45 PM

OK so you are a real geek and you are going somewhere away from home. What things should you bring with you?o:p> Laptop computer (Obviously!) Extra battery Power adaptor for airline and/or car USB cable (Why? You may want to hook up to something.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

A view from the country
Tuesday, October 04, 2005 9:39 PM

This picture was taken just down the street from where I live. I thought it might give people an idea of how close I live to a rural area. That is a beaver dam in the middle of the little lake.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

Been busy lately
Monday, October 03, 2005 9:45 PM

I spent much of last week and the week end catching up on things I didn't get to do while I was in Redmond the week before. And then I got busy getting ready for tomorrow's trip to Texas. Yaahoo! Hopefully I'll get some good TexMex food while I am there.

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posted by AlfredTwo with

October 2005 - Posts

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