#Microsoft

I was just reading over at TechCrunch about Google quickly hiring Don Dodge after he was let go from Microsoft. It seems Don will be doing what he used to do at Microsoft – Developer Evangelism (good for him, and Google!). I’m very happy to see that Google is putting their stock options and cash where their mouth is to evangelize their APIs, platforms (Android, AppEngine) and tools to developers. [Read More]

2 days ago I wrote a post []1 about the lack of Google Israel’s involvement in the development community. It seems that in most of the places (I’m sure in the US, I’m not sure if the rest of the development centers in South American and Europe have the same involvement) where Google has development centers they are a little more involved with the development community in the form of lecture, places to meet and chat, sponsoring events, etc. [Read More]

I know that Google‘s original Googleplex at Mountain View is very active for non googlers. There are frequent open lectures there and they host a bunch of other things like Summer of Code (well, not always host, but sponsor and make sure people know about it) and Google Developer Day (which is happening at 10 different locations worldwide, but NOT in Israel). I know there are suppose to be two development centers in Israel, one in Haifa (which I know is located in MATAM cause you can see it from road #2 leading from Tel Aviv to Haifa near Intel and Microsoft Haifa) but I have no idea where the other development center in Israel is located, other than the fact that its suppose to be in the Tel Aviv area. [Read More]

Forgive me Outlook for I have sinned. I have been using you as one of the primary communication tools that I have form your very first days. I have stayed within the 2Gb PST file limits but when I was told that Outlook 2003 can hold up to 20Gb I have rejoiced, joyed and thanked you for your kindness. I still dreaded the old 2Gb limitation but decide to look forward for a better future. [Read More]

According to this, Google is opening an R&D center in Israel in the Tel Aviv area. This is the second center, the first one opened in Haifa. Microsoft has a research center in Haifa from 1991 and it was published in the Israeli press (sorry, I couldn’t find an English reference for this) that they are planning to open another research center in the Tel Aviv area. The only company now from the big GYM (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) that doesn’t have an R&D presence here in Israel is Yahoo. [Read More]

According to this link in Globes, the Israeli Business newspaper, Google is going to open up an R&D center in Israel in the second quarter. The center will be led by Dr. Yoelle Maarek, a long time (17 years) veteran of IBM’s research labs and will be located in the northern city of Haifa (near the Technion, surprise surprise) The only company out of the big 3, a.k.a, GYM (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft), that has an R&D center in Israel is Microsoft. [Read More]

I just found out about the new name of the previously Windows code named “Longhorn”. Guess what, it called Windows Vista. Now I wonder who is the smart-ass marketing guy that thought about that? What is this? half resurrecting dead Digital Corp. companies? The year branding (95,98,2000,2003) I could live with, the XP signature was OK (at least it sounded good) but VISTA?! I guess Office will be the next thing to lose the year branding (although it lost it in XP and gained it back in 2003). [Read More]

Its nice to see that MS has finally concluded that AJAX is a technology that is worthy of getting frameworktized into the .NET Framework :-) If you don’t want to wait for “Atlas” and you need to use this technology in .NET Framework 1.1 I would like to suggest Ajax.NET written by Michael Schwartz. It’s well designed and written piece of software which is now even open sourced (Thanks Michael!). [Read More]

I just read in my Roy’s blog about the contest Channel9 is holding in which you can get free lodging, enterance and $1000 travel fair for the PDC 2005. You can do that by either blogging your way in or code your way in using Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and the Shareware Starter Kit. Now I’m in a bit of a dilema. a) I doubt that my current employer will pay for this. [Read More]