Community developer blogs

Alex Barnett

Recent Posts

• Moving on.

  Posted: 27 Mar 2007 at 18:12 by alexbarn

  Alex Barnett here...a quick one: This will be my last post on blogs.msdn.com as I'm leaving Microsoft at the end of March 2007.  If you're still subscribed to my RSS feed on blogs.msdn.com/alexbarn please note this blog won't be updated again from March 30th. If you want to keep

• Moving my blog

  Posted: 02 Sep 2006 at 16:38 by alexbarn

  OK, so I moved my new Alex Barnett blog to here for a number of reasons, explained here at my, er, new blog.

• Sir Tim: Calm Down 2.0

  Posted: 01 Sep 2006 at 00:20 by alexbarn

  This is what The Register said Sir TBL said about Web 2.0: "You should thank Tim Berners-Lee. Not just for giving us the web, but for articulating what's gone wrong in the lexicon and thinking of Silicon Valley. Hopefully, his standing in the web community will serve as a rallying cry for

• I've not met Frank, but I know about his shirt.

  Posted: 30 Aug 2006 at 13:18 by alexbarn

  I've not met Frank Arrigo in person, but I know about his shirt. In the latest episode of  the 'Frank and His Shirt' reality show series, the hunt is on for an apparent posuer. The background to this rather potracted saga is a story unto itself, even getting press coverage in the

• Windows Live QnA service - public beta

  Posted: 29 Aug 2006 at 14:43 by alexbarn

  Congrats to Betsy and the team: the Windows Live QnA service is now in public beta. I've been on the private beta for a little while and turned to it for help for a couple of things when I got stuck. One example was asking for good seafood restaurants in Seattle. I

• I still love the smell of comment spam in the morning.

  Posted: 27 Aug 2006 at 14:36 by alexbarn

  I love the smell of comment spam in the morning. I did then, I do now.  

• YouTube video - How to - using Windows Movie Maker

  Posted: 26 Aug 2006 at 19:31 by alexbarn

  A video on how to make a YouTube video using Windows Movie Maker, on YouTube, made using Windows Movie Maker...

• Top 10 Ways to Light Up Your Windows Vista Apps

  Posted: 26 Aug 2006 at 17:58 by alexbarn

  Somasega introduces the 'Top 10 Ways to Light Up Your Windows Vista Apps' 1. Follow the Windows Vista style guidelines2. Enrich the user experience3. Enable users to visualize, organize, and search4. Run securely5. Design for reliability and manageability6. Establish a customer feedback loop7. Build

• RSS feeds, OPMLs and Grazr

  Posted: 26 Aug 2006 at 17:37 by alexbarn

  Kevin Briody of the Windows Live team has published the RSS feeds he subscribes to as OPML files for your feedreader. Some good feeds worth checking out there, including a bunch of Windows Live individual employee and team blogs. Kevin, one way of displaying these as a blogroll is to use G

• Private equity buyouts and crack

  Posted: 26 Aug 2006 at 16:52 by alexbarn

  Mitch Ratcliffe spotted a column published ealier this month on the FT. The article, written columinst John Plender, proposes that a leveraged buyout of Microsoft by private equity bankers would be a good thing. As Mitch points out, this scenario would be a good thing for the private

• Windows Live WiFi - beta testers wanted!

  Posted: 25 Aug 2006 at 15:10 by alexbarn

  Laura John (who I used to work with while we were both at MSDN / TechNet), has blogged about something I've not heard of before...Windows Live WiFi: "We provide dial-up access to a ton of users across the United States but we've also been working on a stealth project that we're now ready to Beta --

• oh yeah, I'm back...

  Posted: 25 Aug 2006 at 05:17 by alexbarn

  From Yellowstone that is. Land of volcanos, bears, tents, and scary sounds at night. I nearly killed a coyote. Don't mess with me.

• IE7 - RCs, Changes and CSS

  Posted: 24 Aug 2006 at 23:04 by alexbarn

  As you probably know by now, Dean Hachamovitch announced this morning that Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is ready for download. So what is the difference between a 'Release Candidate' (RC) and a 'Beta'? Here's the short answer from Dean's post: "A release candidate is

• 150 cool Windows XP downloads

  Posted: 19 Aug 2006 at 13:00 by alexbarn

  150 cool Windows XP downloads. via JoshBlog

• 1 line in XAML

  Posted: 18 Aug 2006 at 15:00 by alexbarn

  Tim Sneath asks: "What's the most impressive WPF demo you can construct in a single line of XAML? Can you improve on these?"

• On CodePlex, Open Source and Microsoft

  Posted: 18 Aug 2006 at 03:55 by alexbarn

  Korby on CodePlex: "My take, from the trenches, is that CodePlex is Microsoft doing what it has always done: quietly supporting the needs and expressed wishes of our most important customers: developers developers developers developers, the fine folks who write the awesome applications that run on (

• Meet Erik Meijer on Channel 9 (and why he keeps a penguin in a box)

  Posted: 17 Aug 2006 at 08:41 by alexbarn

  Meet Erik. Erik Meijer is an Architect in Microsoft's Data Programmability team. As you can see from these pics he let me shoot in his office, Erik keeps a penguin... I first knew of Erik when he was starring as the 'Head in the Box' on VBTV. (I wish I had a pic for you - you'll just have to watch i

• I'm not here

  Posted: 17 Aug 2006 at 06:30 by alexbarn

  ....on a little vacation, so comments are on moderation - will be approved when I get back in a week.

• Instant IM Translator and other winners

  Posted: 17 Aug 2006 at 03:55 by alexbarn

  The Made In Express Contest is reaching its conclusion - there are a total of 10 finalists' projects and now it is time to pick the winners...Who will win? Well, that's really up to you. My personal favorite is the Instant IM Translator. I confess - I've not played with the app - 

• 0% off!

  Posted: 16 Aug 2006 at 15:30 by alexbarn

  0% off. Yay!