If you want to skip my rambling and just check out my new blog, here it is: http://www.refocuser.com.  Refocuser is a blog about focus; specifically the ability to apply your focus at will to whatever requires your attention.

Hi folks!  Since December of 2004 I’ve been blogging here on Torres Talking – sometimes regularly and sometimes irregularly :)  Topics on this blog have ranged quite a bit from “what I’ve been up to” type posts to detailed descriptions of the ways I’ve applied various technologies in my life.  Torres Talking was a real passion of mine for a number of years and has been very instrumental in crystallizing my thoughts and helping prove to myself that I actually have something to contribute to the overall “conversation”.  It’s also how I became a published author, has served as motivation for my part in revamping Microsoft’s social networking strategy… and most importantly is how I’ve come to connect with hundreds of new and interesting people (both virtually and in the real world).  For all these things, I’ll always be grateful.

But all good things come to an end.  As you probably already know, since the birth of my daughter and a shift in job responsibilities, I’ve had a hard time dedicating the kind of time and effort to this blog as I once did.  I feel like most of my posts recently have been apologetic and not at all informational, and every time I feel the urge to post something interesting about something on Techmeme, I tweet it instead.  The urge disappears and I move on.

Also, as a Microsoft employee and someone who loves his job, there’s inherent conflict in evaluating and talking about technology from a personal standpoint.  You run the risk of insulting internal Microsoft teams inadvertently and can be accused of being both a self-promoter (through genuine praise of our tools and products) or a liability (through equally genuine promotion of other tools and products).  It’s a bit of a no-win situation.  Either way you always strive to be honest, but all the while you’re doubting whether or not you should hit publish.  The cost/benefit ratio shifted at some point for me, so I’m going to focus most of my “tech writing” energy on Microsoft-run blogs like Windows Live Wire (I have a post coming soon there).

But I’ve also decided to start another blog.  Something I’ve been “threatening” to do for years (like… 10!) and finally decided to just go for it.

This time it’s a more structured blog to focus (no pun intended) on another lifelong passion of mine; personal growth and self-directed focus.  At times I dabbled in this area on Torres Talking, but this blog will go into much more depth on this broad topic.  The full title of the blog is Refocuser: Find flow, fight fear, and create focus!

You can learn more about Refocuser here: http://www.refocuser.com/about.  And if you’re interested in how I’ve found time to keep this blog up with everything else going on, I’ve already blogged about it!

Refocuser covers:

• Goal setting
• Flow
• Fear management
• Work/life balance
• Conflict management
• Productivity and yes, some ‘lifehacks’ occasionally
• Nutrition and supplementation (fuel for focus!)
• Exercise and activity
• Philosophy
• Positivity
• Purpose
• Sleep (it matters more than you think!)
• Simplicity
• Creativity

Browse through the site and start filling your own toolbox.  Email me with questions if you have any.  Or just sit-back, relax, and subscribe to updates via email, Twitter, or RSS.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy it!

Note: Torres Talking will stick around for some time, but I’ve turned off comments.  I may not post here again for a while (or ever!) but if you’re interested in focus, you can always find me at www.refocuser.com.  And for Microsoft-specific questions, comments, or concerns, just hit me up on Twitter.  We have some great stuff on the way – I’ve definitely never been prouder to be a Microsoft employee!

Russell Beattie sums something up that I’ve been thinking for a while about personal blogging punditry in 2009:

Man, I wish I could just sit down and write like I used to on a daily basis.

It feels *different* though... Keeping a weblog seems to have become a sort of a mid 2000's fad that has passed its peak and starting to fade into obscurity, and maybe even soon ridicule along with bell-bottom jeans and mullets. Even though I love putting my thoughts out there, in the back of my mind it's almost embarrassing to add to the cacophony of opinions that now flow daily from every orifice of the Internet from people who just haven't gotten the message that it's just not cool any more. I mean, hey, let's face it - Social Networking elected the current US president, not blogging.

I can't seem to get into the habit... - RussellBeattie.com

I started blogging back in 2001/2002 on my own domain (with about 5 readers as I didn’t have “Microsoft” attached to my name) and continued to blog (this time as a fitness blogger) once I joined Microsoft.  In December 2004 I “reopened” my personal blog here on Spaces – Torres Talking – and for a few years I was rockin’ it, posting at least 5-8 times monthly with posts that took me time to research, think about, write, and comment on.  For a while I was in the Technorati 100 back when it mattered but given my lack of attention to this site since my daughter was born on Oct 07, I don’t even show up in a Live Search for “Mike Torres” anymore!

Oh well.

I’ve talked about this before, but there are lots of reasons for slowing down in addition to the embarrassment factor Russell calls out above.  For one, I spend 8-12 hours each day writing between email, product specifications, and vision memos… so the last thing I want to do in downtime is write more.  Secondly, time spent training (martial arts/strength training) cuts into already valuable time with my family and it’s frankly just more important to me than blogging.  And of course, downtime during early mornings, nights, and weekends are best spent with my wife and daughter.  The little one changes every single week and if I don’t spend enough time with her during any given week, I can feel her changing without me, and it’s one of the worst feelings in the world.

I think another real factor is that I contribute thoughts in other ways.  Twitter updates, SmugMug photos, Facebook comments, Google Reader shared items, and Windows Live to pull it all together for people… they all give me an outlet that takes seconds instead of hours, and anyone following that stream will immediately know where my head is without reading a bunch of prose.  Some examples of items from my Twitter feed which I would have blogged about back in 2006:

• Omar & I are giving a talk at TechReady next week, "Getting Things Done like a Ninja at Microsoft" - 350+ people projected, yikes!
• Offline Gmail is so NOT interesting, but the Labs concept continues to provide small reasons not to switch away
• Amazon Kindle 2 coming February 9th? Maybe I'll finally ditch books.
• IE should stop *clicking* every time it loads a page; first thing I turn off (but I'm sure most people just deal with it)

Each one could have been a long-winded post like this one, but instead I got the thoughts off my chest and got feedback on them almost immediately.

Now having said all of that, I do still love blogging (and Windows Live Writer) and want to keep this site alive for the foreseeable future – just without the “web 2.0 remorse” of letting it sit here.  So I’ll continue to post long-form posts every month (or three or four) and I’d really like to start talking more about the new Windows Live Movie Maker once we’re ready to talk about it.  I’m thrilled to be working on a project so many people care so much about and is so well timed with market needs.  So I’d like to make sure I can have an ongoing dialogue with folks about it on this blog, on Twitter, and anywhere else I can.  Again, once we’re ready to talk more about it.  But that will hopefully be nice and focused, not the inane ramblings of some random dude.

If you still want the inane ramblings of some random dude, just catch me on Twitter ;)

(Sorry, I accidentally posted an early draft of this earlier today)

One of the great benefits of working for Microsoft is our parental leave policy.  Even though we had our baby almost a year ago, you have up to 12 months to take your leave… which really helps work around project schedules, life events, vacations, and most importantly to me, making sure you’re home with your child at the “right” time. 

For me, spending time with my daughter as she approaches 1-year old was infinitely more satisfying than it would have been had I taken the time when she was born.  She’s barking at dogs, giggling all the time, playing hide & seek, and is saying “Dada” now.  We had a lot of fun.  She’s an amazing little girl.

But my time off wasn’t all play.  I had a bunch of little projects I wanted to finish around the house that I just haven’t had much dedicated time to do all year – so I used this work-less time to crank through them.  Here’s the list in all its glory:

• First of all, I was sick the entire time.  So I had a few doctor visits.  Turned out to be a series of colds thanks to my daughter’s daycare, but it threw a serious wrench in my gym time.
• Took a 5-day trip to the Washington coast to kick off my leave – lots of relaxation, reading, and walking on the beach with the fam.
• Cleaned out my closet & donated my old clothes.  I try and do this at least 1-2x/year, but for some reason this time it just felt more satisfying.
• Cleaned out bookshelves and recycled old books; sold old DVDs/CDs.
• Cleaned out bathroom drawers and realized it’s much easier to keep them organized than to organize them, so that’s the plan now.
• Stella and I took afternoon trips to the Seattle Aquarium (she loved it), the Woodland Park Zoo, the Children's Museum, and we even went to a parents & kids movie with some friends which was fun.
• Rented a wide angle lens to experiment.  Stella and I did a photo shoot with the lens and I got a few great shots.  In all, I probably took over 2,000 photos of the munchkin.
• Spent some quality park time at Myrtle Edwards Park, showing Stella the boats in the Sound (the photo above is from that visit).
• Filled up my gas tank just ONCE in 5-weeks!  WOW.
• BIG project: Scanned hundreds of old documents using a ScanSnap, and then proceeded to shred almost all of them.  Our home is now 99% paperless and it feels great.
• Downloaded Zune 3 and Windows Live beta – Love them both!
• Rebalanced all of our investments - not like it mattered once the crisis hit.  Would have been better off not having any!
• Applied for life insurance for my wife & me and started a 529 college fund for our daughter.
• Sold off almost all of my old Xbox games (sad – expected to get $5-10/ea but instead clocked in at $1-2/ea)
• BIG project: Digitally encoded 25+ VHS tapes and recycled them (this is worthy of another post as it took 4 trips to Best Buy to make this work – it was pretty horrible)
• Made a video with Windows Movie Maker for my Mom’s birthday from footage from 20 years ago.
• Bought a Polar heart rate monitor, learned how to use it, and started a more intense fitness program once back to normal.
• Ignored my blog completely thanks to Twitter which has become my outlet.
• Changed almost all of my online passwords after reading horror stories (see: Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account)
• Learned a lot more about politics and started following the campaign on an hourly basis (I’m hooked now!)
• Bought a new fireproof media safe for my backup hard drives & miniDV tapes, transferred everything to it.
• Renewed my driver’s license.
• Took a 5-day trip to Pasadena to visit family & friends and soak in the sun!

In all – a very satisfying leave.

I swore off the iPhone for at least a year when it was first announced.  I had good reasons (to me at least).  To recap:

1. I couldn’t synchronize with Exchange over the air (ADDRESSED)
2. Couldn’t swap the battery out for a better one
3. The EDGE network was/is so slow to be unusable (ADDRESSED)
4. It was a closed platform (ADDRESSED)
5. It was ridiculously, insanely expensive (ADDRESSED)
6. It was a v1 from a company that’s never built a phone before (ADDRESSED)
7. Typing on something without feedback won’t work
8. I didn’t want a phone that could get scratched easily
9. Functionally, it didn’t do more than my current phone (ADDRESSED)

I compromised on a few of these things – but Apple addressed the important ones.  So I ended up waiting in line for 2.5 hours (I think it was actually more like 3!) yesterday morning to get one.  I don’t even know where to start with this thing, I dig it so much; it’s easily the most excited I’ve been for a toy since I got my first PalmPilot in 1997 (the thing that started this addiction).

I likely won’t be writing too much about my iPhone though, for a few reasons: 1) I don’t want to gush, and I will end up gushing 2) I’m not blogging that much anyway - even though the iPhone is inspiring me to, 3) It’s been covered to death, 4) Anything I write can’t do justice to this little marvel.

So, just in case anyone cares, I now have an iPhone (syncing it with Windows Vista and Exchange Server of course).  Using it is like having a magic wand ;)

On my first father’s day (as a father) I felt it only appropriate to give a shout-out to the old man who got me interested in all this computer nonsense in the first place.  A truly inspirational individual – even if he doesn’t know it – my dad’s responsible for who I am as a father, a man, and… well… a technologist!

We ran our first bulletin board service (BBS) on the Commodore 64 twenty-some odd years ago on a 300 baud modem (then 1200, then 2400, then 9600!) using Ivory Joe’s 6485/Ivory BBS software.  Which we eventually got the BASIC source for and hacked up ;)  From that moment on (sometime around 1986) I knew what I wanted to do with my life.  Cool, eh?  At some point I’ll write something up that’s a more complete history… because a lot of what my dad taught me about over 20 years ago set the stage for what I’m working on right now.  We had IM, forums, email, page designers / homepages, and all that jazz back then!

Thanks Dad!  Happy Father’s Day!

I've been giving Mint a try over the past few days.  It's not quite feature-rich enough for me to switch from MS Money Plus just yet, but I do see a day when 100% of my banking and financial management moves to the web.  I've been waiting for this day for about a decade, so it's a long time coming.

Mint is unbelievably friendly though and has a great UI for getting up and running in less than five minutes.

And it tells you things you sort of wish you didn't know.  Like this:

Great.

Lots of stuff to post about in the new year - like just how great Amazon's MP3 store is now and how I'm a Photoshop Lightroom addict - but for the time being, I'm just enjoying the holidays with family and trying to stay off the computer.  I hope everyone has a wonderful New Years!

As has happened quite a few times in the almost three years I've been "talking" on this blog, I've hit a bit of a lull.  I give myself a total pass given that I just became a new father 2 1/2 weeks ago, but I wonder if there's more to it than that.  I don't think I've run out of things to say, but there are a couple factors playing into the fact that I'm blogging a bit less these days (the last few weeks notwithstanding):

• Family and work come first.  This has always been the case, but both family and work have grown recently ;)
• Twitter has given me an outlet for "quick thoughts".  Things like a one sentence wrap-up of OpenSocial, how greedy Alex Rodriguez is, and so on - things I may have dedicated an hour and a blog entry to in the past.  I'm really, really enjoying the simplicity of micro-blogging - certainly more than I thought I would.  And since I have Twitter piped into my space (below) and into my Facebook status message, I no longer have the "no one is listening" problem we all had when Twitter first launched.
• Controversy in the tech industry bores me.  I don't want any part of it, so posting controversial things like Dare does isn't really appealing to me.  Never has been; but it did take me a little while to figure out what would rattle people's cages and steer clear.  And as a Microsoft employee, just about anything I publish can end up being controversial one way or another.

So what does this mean?  Nothing really.  Just some observations.  I expect I'll still be posting about Windows Live (which just shipped in final form!), gadgets, and digital media throughout 2008 and beyond.  Perhaps a little less frequently than 2005, 2006, and 2007.  I did just get a Tivo HD to replace the atrocious Comcast DVR that I've complained about multiple times in the past, so there may be a post in the making there.  And of course, the new Zune comes out on the 13th!  Can't wait.

By the way, thanks to everyone for your comments on the Stella post.  Fatherhood is a complete blast so far!  Much more fun - and far less intimidating - than I expected.

Life.CommenceChange(DateTime.Now);

Well that took a lot longer than I had hoped.  The AT&T Tilt is finally here.  It's fun when AT&T says this, knowing full well they're comparing it to the iPhone:

"The AT&T Tilt is the most comprehensive wireless device on the market today," said Michael Woodward, vice president, Business Voice/Data & Mobility Products, AT&T. "In addition to its innovative design, there is no device on the market that packs the number of features that are available on the Tilt."

I'm a little concerned going back to Pocket PC (although I've always liked it more than Smartphone for my needs).  I bought the Q because it was small and light.  This device isn't small or light.  But hey, it's almost the winter and I'll be wearing a coat most of the time.  The beauty of AT&T vs. Verizon (which I use now) is if I want to get a used "dumb" phone for $50 and swap the SIM card out for those times when I don't want to carry a computer in my pocket, I suppose I could.

This phone really is very close to my perfect device from a year ago.  I'm calling AT&T tomorrow to see if they'll have it on Friday.  Now I just have to make sure the kid knows to wait another few days before arriving so I can play with one last toy.

Within the last 24 hours, a bunch of new things from Microsoft and Apple dropped and Techmeme has been hopping all day:

• Silverlight 1.0
• New iPods
• Windows Live suite (new unified installer!)

Each one is totally exciting for different reasons, and of course each deserves its own write-up.  But I haven't been much of a blogger these days - it isn't that I don't love blogging (I do) or that I have fewer things to say (I don't), it's just that there's more and more stuff competing for my time every single day.  So I'm trying to be more selective, especially with a baby on the way.

But of course, I do have some quick thoughts to add on each of these announcements:

Silverlight 1.0 looks great, and I'm incredibly impressed with what the team has pulled off.  The real watershed moment will be when 1.1 is released with the .NET Framework support though - that thing is a true game changer.  In the meantime, I expect a number of video sites to start to use Silverlight in interesting new ways.

The new iPods are exactly what I expected (down to the Starbucks deal) and they're stunning.  But I'm not sure I get the real desire to drop $299 for an 8GB player, which certainly won't hold much video, when you can get the 160GB version for $249 - albeit with a slightly smaller screen.  What I'd really want is an 80->160GB player with the iPod Touch or iPhone size screen - now that would be my ideal "bus device".  Of course, it's typical of me to want more than I can get ;)  Apple impressed with these announcements.

The Windows Live suite is finally out in beta form with Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, OneCare, Family Safety, Writer, and Toolbar.  There are new versions of just about everything!  I would definitely give Photo Gallery a try as a Spaces user... there are all sorts of great features including VERY simple publishing (high-res!) to Spaces.

You can read more about the suite here from Chris Jones, and install it from here!

Dramatic Scoble-esque title, I know.  But sometimes it's deserved.  With all the talk about the iPhone, including on this blog (#1, #2), I was starting to get some real phone envy.  Well, until the AT&T Tilt (aka HTC Kaiser) arrives next week that is.  See, as beautiful and "cool" as the iPhone is, it ultimately comes down to what I can do with a device - not how flashy the UI is.  And there are just far too many things I can't do on the iPhone that a phone like the AT&T Tilt enables.  Plus, this one's quite a looker too...

So when people tell me it's "all about the experience, duuuude" and they still can't read their corporate email, call Mom while driving using voice command, synchronize their calendar, contacts, and tasks over the 3G-powered air, read a rights-protected Word document, type quickly using a real keyboard, or get turn-by-turn directions to Cannon Beach, I'll just smile and nod.  As much as I appreciate a beautiful and emotionally charged experience like the iPhone, I need to be a productive engineer and businessman in my old age.

Check out what the AT&T Tilt/HTC Kaiser is all about:

• It has built-in GPS.  How cool is that?  No more getting lost... ever. 
• Of course, it supports Wi Fi - but it also supports HSDPA for data, which is blazingly fast compared to EDGE.
• It has a real, full QWERTY keyboard with a large screen that tilts at an angle like a laptop.  Pretty nifty.
• It has the best Exchange support ever on a phone - it supports HTML email, IRM protected email, MS Office attachments, Out of Office updating, and Global Address List searching (what is Carmen's office number again?)  It even supports instant search of your entire Exchange mailbox from the built-in mail app.
• Since it's a Pocket PC, there are thousands of games to play - even NES and Sega Genesis emulators.
• It has Windows Live built-in (Hotmail with push support and Messenger with voice clips) along with Live Search for Mobile (which supports the built-in GPS)
• The 3MP camera with auto-focus takes fantastic photos (for a phone) with one-click upload directly to Spaces. 
• It supports microSD, which means 4-8GB of music, video, whatever.
• It will still cost less than the iPhone. 

What's it missing?  To be honest, not a heck of a lot.  I'm going to seriously miss having a VGA screen - the crisp colors and fonts are really nice to have - and the Windows Mobile Professional (aka Pocket PC) interface is quite dated at this point, even though it has been tweaked a bit in the latest release to have more of a Vista look and feel.  It's certainly no iPhone when it comes to pure "pop" and wow-factor, although it can come kind of close with apps like Wisbar Advance, Opera Mobile, and Spb Mobile Shell.  I'm willing to sacrifice that for now just to get some real work done on the go.

I can only hope the rumors are true about it coming out next week, otherwise my new phone will have to compete for my attention with my new baby in October.  YES, the baby will win that one... relax... I kiiiiiid!

If you happened to read my Twitter trail on Sunday/Monday on the right-hand side of this page, you'd know that I had to go into the ER for an unexpected appendectomy.  Given that I'm on pain & nausea drugs, I didn't really want to take the time to write up how it went down for friends & family.  Thankfully my wife (and nurse!) did it for me yesterday!  Thanks babe.

So we had an eventful weekend. Ever since we got back from Mexico, Mike's had off and on stomach aches. As we went about our day on Saturday it was really bugging him, but it wasn't until it was making him bend over in pain on Sunday that we really took it seriously. We finally called a doctor on Sunday afternoon and they said we should go to the ER. It was strange going to the ER in such a calm manner - we packed up books and snacks, assuming we'd be there for a while and then get to go home. It felt a little bit like foreshadowing for our trip to the hospital in October. :)

It took the ER until about 2 or 3 in the morning to diagnose the problem - Appendicitis. Mike had to endure 2 hours of drinking a liquid dye which made his stomach expand like crazy. And telling his symptoms over and over to 16 doctors. I slept off and on in another room where there was an extra bed. Mike didn't sleep. He went in for surgery at 7:15am and I went home to sleep for a bit. Surgery went very well - they did have to do a full appendectomy which means a 4" scar. We finally got home last night at 8:30 or so and put him to bed. Drugs plus no sleep = very deep sleep for 12 hours. He's now resting on the couch surrounded by crackers, empty soup bowl, remote for TV, 2 bored cats, and some pills.

I am glad that it was what it was and that it was something they can just take out - voila! And thankfully it happened now and not in 2 months. The only issue is that he can't lift anything for 2 weeks and I can't lift anything heavy either, so that big box that I just spotted in our mailroom might get a little dusty! Yikes! 

I am just glad the father of my baby girl is ok. I have to admit, I had to think about it on Sunday - what would I do if something was really wrong? Not fun to think about, but always a reality. Thankfully, I still get to keep him. Who else would sing to the cats??

Omar writes exactly what I would have written had I documented my iPhone experience from Saturday:

The iPhone reminds me of what it's like to play and experience something I hadn't experienced before. Microsoft Surface gave me the same goose bumps. It reminded me why I am such a gadget freak. Every couple of years something like this comes along that puts a big huge smile on your face every time you use it.

It's the perfect blend of technology and art. It's a completely emotional experience. It's fun.

I did not buy one. I reserve the right to change my mind in the future, but if it did in fact support Exchange ActiveSync I would instead be writing a review rather than a "Wow" post. It's not the e-mail I care so much about, but the calendar, contacts, and tasks sync that is the killer app for me. Knowing that when I update some one's phone number on my phone that all my devices on all my computers get that update is the holy grail.

Exactly.  I wrote about this back when the iPhone was announced; without Exchange support (which you have to assume is coming very, very soon) it's a total no-op for me.  The other things (the slow network, the built-in battery, the price, and so on) are still things you have to deal with - some of them are just Apple taxes similar to the iPod.  But I've gotta tell you, after holding that thing and playing with it, these taxes might be worth paying.  I didn't want to like it, but I do.  With Exchange sync, I would probably have to jump on the bandwagon... taxes and all.

Omar lists some of the other devices that hit him this way.  I have my own list:

• Commodore 64
• Palm Pilot Professional (and then the Palm V)
• Treo 180/320
• Tivo
• HiDef TV
• Xbox 360
• Apple Titanium Powerbook (Mac OS X Jaguar)
• 1st-gen iPod
• iPod nano
• Microsoft Surface
• Added: Sega Genesis.  I knew I forgot one.

I love that Omar exists because he saves me a lot of time - whether it's writing blog entries for me or teaching me about some Outlook idiosyncrasy that dramatically cuts down email filing effort, he's always making me more efficient :)

I'm sorry but this is too funny ;)  Whoops!

iPhone stunt gone wrong

Just when I thought blogging was getting boring, Trevin called me out to list 3 non-tech blogs I read regularly.  I have about 191 feeds in Google Reader (down significantly from 325+ last year) so hopefully this isn't too difficult.  Here we go.

Project: Trevin’s Swivel List of 3’s

Rules:

1. Nominees have to nominate 3 blogs that they regularly read.
2. The nominated blogs cannot be strictly tech-focused; any other category is fair game. (e.g. You can’t nominate Tech Crunch or Engadget, but someone’s personal blog that occasionally talks about tech is allowed).
3. The nominated blogs cannot already be on the list.
4. Nominees nominate 3 other people to participate. To keep the close knit feel of this, the new nominator and nominee must have met in person.

Here are my nominations - I decided to go with a positive psychology or personal development theme for this, since that seems to be my #2 category behind tech feeds:

1. StevePavlina.com blog.  There are some classic posts on this blog about becoming an early riser, intention-manifestation, and self-employment.  Highly recommended.  The posts tend to be on the long side however, so you have to give yourself a lot more time to process these than Engadget blips.
2. 43 Folders.  Great blog and fun podcast.  Very much focused on Getting Things Done type work; Merlin is an entertaining writer and speaker and I've gleaned a lot of great tips from this blog (like applying the "shitty first draft" name to something I've been doing since college)
3. Presentation Zen.  Want to learn how to be a better presenter and get people's attention?  This blog is where to start.  This is another one where the posts tend to be on the long-ish side, but reading the Gates/Jobs lessons in contrast alone is worth it.

Hope people get some value out of those recommendations.  If you want more, let me know.

And next up?

1. Karen Luk.  I'm sure they will be something about food preparation, "cute things", or injury care!
2. Jay Fluegel.  College roommate, co-worker, and best man.  Prediction: sports.
3. Omar Shahine.  Since Trevin was too chicken.

Blog software should have ways to spread these "memes" built-in somehow.  Hmmm...

I just finished watching the 20-minute iPhone tutorial on Apple.com and I realized one undeniable thing: everyone from Apple speaks exactly the same, mannerisms and all.  Of course, everyone from Microsoft does too so that's the pot calling the kettle black.  Anyhoo, I realized one other thing...

What's interesting to me about the iPhone isn't the YouTube app (which apparently doesn't work at all over EDGE and requires Wi-Fi) or Google Maps or the fact that it's "the best iPod ever created".  The thing that's interesting is the one thing that it has over other phones - it looks and feels great.  That's it.  It has subtle animations that tug at your emotions and you can't help but have fun playing with it.

It's the one feature of the iPhone that no one else has.  I'd gladly set my Windows Mobile phone up for a duel with the iPod if it weren't for the fact that I'd be embarassed by the lack of pretty little transitional fades.

If I sound like I'm badmouthing the iPhone, that isn't my intention.  You can't underestimate the importance of the user interface and the emotional connection it can foster, regardless of features.  It's a big deal.  I expect that if nothing else, the iPhone will spur mobile OS developers everywhere to take the little things (like transitioning from a call back to email) a lot more seriously.  Instead of adding more features, focus on the basics.  Get people to love using your phone.

Of course, this is all from a video demo since I've never actually held one.  And probably won't for a while given the price of the thing.

I've spent some time over the last few weeks branching outside of Windows Live-ville and trying out some other applications that could potentially pass the 7-day software test.  So far, three things are about to break through that elusive barrier, so I figured I would give them a quick shout-out in case people out there are interested as well.

1. Twitter with Twadget for Vista and Twitget for Live Spaces. 

I resisted Twitter for a while, but I'm finally starting to warm up to it.  I can see how it's becoming a little mini social phenomenon with the digerati, even though it really is pretty similar to Windows Live Messenger status messages and Facebook's status updates - both of which have been around longer.  I'm using the new Twitter mobile web and SMS interfaces to update my status about once daily, and I'm subscribed to about 10 people (and will likely not go beyond that).  Of course, I had to up my text plan from 500 texts to unlimited in order to really play with this.

Using Twadget has been fun too as it's more ambient like Messenger - the status updates just sort of stream in and I can look at them whenever I have a few seconds to kill.  And of course, I had to integrate my Twitter status with Spaces via Twitget - you can see this on the right-hand side of my space. 

The one downside to Twitter: the thing is down half the time.  That little cat they have working on their servers needs to take a scalability lesson me thinks.

2. Callwave with the Vista gadget. 

For those of you not using this great service, you really should if you're anything like me and despise receiving voicemails.  I'm a big believer in streamlining inefficiencies, and this little tool does the trick beautifully.  Trevin wrote about this a little while ago, so instead of reiterating how cool it is, I'll let him speak to it.  One thing: I do love the Vista sidebar gadget.

3. Google Notebook.

Trust me when I say that I don't want to use this - but as much as I love OneNote, I can't handle the fact that it isn't a hosted service.  When you have 5 different PCs and Macs + a smartphone and you want access to your notes from anywhere, OneNote synchronization just doesn't cut it.  So I'm giving Google Notebook a try for a personal project (note: NOT for corporate use - I would never store my job-specific notes on Google servers).

I've already run into a few problems with it where fonts get randomly changed and line-spacing gets messed up.  But I will just deal with those for the time being in order to have access to my notebook from anywhere.  At some point, once my notes become more solidified, I will probably switch back to OneNote or Word and use FolderShare or something to keep things in sync.

Honorable mention: Google Reader which I've been using for about 4 months or so after switching from Bloglines during one of their many outages.  I love it.  Not a single minute of downtime or "mark every item as unread just for fun" event yet.  I've also been playing a bit with GarageBand but since I have zero musical ability, I don't expect this one to pass the 7-day test.

And no, it has nothing to do with Windows Live Spaces this time.

We're having a baby!  He or she is due in October and we're obviously incredibly excited about the whole thing.  We've been slowly telling people in person over the past few weeks, so I figured it was safe to tell everyone else via my blog at this point.  Great stuff.  If you're learning this from my blog and you're upset that we didn't tell you in person, blame the head and not the heart.

Here's the little peanut...

We're also in the middle of a pretty significant remodel on our place in Seattle, so we're living out of temporary housing (on the east side - 11 minute commute!) for a few more weeks while they finish that up.  Once finished, we'll actually have a nursery for this kid - and an office with a Vista-powered iMac and 2TB of redundant storage for Daddy.

So there's just been a lot going on recently, and I suspect life is going to be busy like this for, oh... about 18-22 more years.  At some point, I'll write up some stuff that's on my blog backlog about our latest release, Silverlight (amazing), and my thoughts on Rich Internet Applications in general. 

In the meantime, I'm going to be moving us back into our home, comforting my growing wife, and working on the next release of Spaces which is already rapidly approaching.

My almost five-year old Titanium Powerbook had been acting a little funky lately; randomly freezing up, slowing to a crawl whenever I loadad a video or a Flash app.  I decided I had enough of that considering I use that machine most of the time that I'm not in the office.  So I bought a MacBook Pro during a day trip to Oregon yesterday (where they don't have any sales tax) and here I am using Windows Live Writer within Windows Vista on a Mac.

I bought this machine primarily to run Vista.  People who ask me "Why didn't you just buy a Dell?" have probably never used a Mac - or it's been so long they couldn't imagine why someone would want Apple hardware to run Windows.  It's pretty simple.  It's hands-down the best hardware for me.  I love the automatic backlit keyboard, the crystal clear 15.4" screen, the slick metallic finish, the MagSafe adapter, the fantastic embedded iSight camera, the slot-loaded DVD drive, and so on.  But at the same time, I love Vista (with Office 2007 specifically) and if I couldn't use Word 2007, Windows Live apps or Outlook 2007, it wouldn't be worth it.  But I can.

And I get the added benefit of being able to pop into OS X to play with it and see what Apple's up to.  Nice perk.

So here I am using Parallels to run Windows Vista Ultimate on a Mac.  From within Parallels (which took about a minute to setup... and the automated Vista install took less than 30) I can plug-in external devices, use the iSight camera in Windows Live Messenger, and even use the cool trackpad features to right-click or scroll windows with two fingers like you can in OS X.  The network was available immediately with zero configuration and every Windows application has worked flawlessly.  I'm totally impressed with how plug-and-play the process was.

Next up: I'm going to give Bootcamp a try.  Although it's probably best to wait until Apple catches up and releases Vista specific drivers.

Is it for everyone?  Nah.  It's expensive for one (you have to buy Parallels and Vista separately) and it's a bit of a power-user thing to do.  But it's pretty great to be able to finally pair the world's slickest new operating system with some beautiful hardware goodness.  Now when I'm on a plane, people will see the Apple logo and think I'm running OS X... just to see a big fat glowing Windows logo staring right back at them.  Love it.