On Friday, Microsoft held its annual company meeting, celebrating our 30th anniversary!

The meeting was held at Safeco field in downtown Seattle. Some of the highlights include: a Bill Gates keynote, a Bill Gates and Napoleon Dynamite satire, a Vista demo, and an XBOX demo. Also, each group wore different attire; in the MSN section, we are shown with the cool hats!

Happy 30th Microsoft!

If you are into web development, I highly recommend adding Fiddler, an HTTP debugger, to your tool arsenal. Fiddler allows the manipulation and creation of incoming and outgoing HTTP transmissions.

To do some HTTP fiddling, check out the Fiddler site:

http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/

Last night, I broke out the acoustic after a hiatus of several years. Soon after, the lasers started flashing and the room filled with fog. I felt like a living room rock star.  Then, alas, reality set in and I remembered that I am a geek at heart.

Goodnight Cleveland!

Along with many other cool new features, tabbed browsing is now available in IE via the MSN Toolbar.

Be sure to che, che, che, che, che, check it out:

http://toolbar.msn.com/

Those into web applications have no doubt heard the buzz of late on Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), an approach to web development that focuses on harnessing the existing client side processing capabilities of modern browsers. In short, a larger portion of web application code, typically JavaScript, can be downloaded to and executed on the client machine. Further, the client code leverages the XMLHttpRequest object built in to most browser engines to communicate with the server in the background using XML and HTTP.

The most compelling reason for using the AJAX technique is that it enables a more fluid user experience. In other words, the user is not constantly interrupted to jump to a new page. Thus, with the understanding that client processing is far less expensive than network communication, the AJAX approach allows web applications to behave more like desktop applications.

There are, however, some caveats to be aware of before embracing the AJAX paradigm.

First up, application maintenance. With a large portion of code written in JavaScript, without care, applications can become gremlins (the bad kind, not like gizmo). Now, with appropriate measures in place, application gremlins can be mitigated, and we can have gizmo applications. In particular, the gremlin vulnerabilities can exist in the interplay between JavaScript and the application presentation, typically HTML.

Next, as more and more code moves from server to client, intellectual property vulnerabilities may become an issue. Of course, this is very specific to the organization responsible for the application. If the organization is driving an open source effort or primarily focused on providing a service that is coupled to hosting infrastructure, exposing the client application may not be as much of an issue. On the other hand, if the corporate advantage resides in the client application, depending on customer audience, intellectual property exposures should be evaluated. Preventative measures can be taken through JavaScript obfuscation and potentially the future development of JavaScript security standards.

Lastly, for very large applications, the amount of code downloaded to the client machine may pose interesting performance challenges. Could we use AJAX precepts to download more AJAX precepts?

Overall, I am very excited to see the improvement of the user experience in web applications. Here are some great examples of the power and fluidity that results from creative applications of the AJAX paradigm.

http://virtualearth.msn.com/

http://www.start.com/

One parting question: what has changed recently to cause the flurry of AJAX activity? Was it the acronym itself? These technologies have been around since 1998. Why haven't application infrastructures and tools been maturing over the years? Possibly more importantly, is there a technology out there now that will raise similar questions seven years from now?

Yesterday, a nickname was bestowed upon me. Though, the interesting thing about this nickname is that it does not stay the same. Indeed, it varies.

This evolving nickname begins around lunchtime wherein someone accidentally called me Andrew Now, although my name is Aaron, this was no big deal at all. I mean they both start with an A and they are both two syllables. Close enough.

It starts to get interesting towards the end of the day when several of us were wrapping up. As it turns out, an astute individual recalled the prior mix-up, compelling a resurgence manifesting itself in the form of a remark. This comment was cleverly subtle, namely, referring to me as "Andrew" as if there was no doubt it was my name.

Since I am still the new guy in the crew, after it was known that it was a joke, the others assisted in the ridicule. The jokes progressed from Andrew, to Drew, and finally to Andy. Thus, a dynamic nickname was born.

All in all, it was decided that, depending on my behavior, every week, the nickname would change for better or worse. Further, the criteria upon which the nickname changes are not known to me. Therefore, it will be a learning process.

Perhaps, a poll is in order for the upcoming week's nickname allocation

Today, I migrated my blog to spaces.msn.com!

For the past several months, I have been blogging with a web application called .Text. While .Text is very good, the blogging user experience in Spaces is just great. In particular, the photo gallery component, theme engine, and what I like to call spacelets (modules like the ones along the left of my space) make for great blogging. And, to top it off, blogging with spaces is free!

Get your space now! 

On a side note, during migration, I tagged previous entries and comments with their original date.

8/27/2005

Today, I had a great time hiking with friends at Silver Peak, a trail in the Cascade Mountains. Now, although we were unable to locate the, poorly marked, trail to Silver Peak on the way up, we did venture to Mirror Lake as the turn-around point of our hike. In short, it was beautiful. As a first time hiker, I must say that this activity is quite fun and relaxing, even though somewhat strenuous at points.

On the hike back to the car, we did happen to find the entrance to Silver Peak; however, we had run out of time for the day. So, perhaps another time.

Overall, the hiking was an amazing experience. I will surely partake in this hiking stuff again!

8/27/2005

What a great way to start my journey at Microsoft! At the end of week 2, MSN held its 10 year anniversary party. This party was packed with awesome activities like laser tag, mechanized broncos, and dodge ball.

Even more, the main event of this great celebration was an appearance by Mr. Bill Gates himself! It was pure awesomeness to be standing approximately 20 feet away from Bill while he gave the very inspiring opening address for the MSN anniversary!

Congratulations on a wonderful 10 years MSN! I am so excited to be a member of this awesome team!

Thanks for the great anniversary party!

8/20/2005

Here is the ever-changing list of my top film picks:

The Godfather
The Shawshank Redemption
The Pianist
The Matrix
Pulp Fiction
Million Dollar Baby
A Beautiful Mind
Amadeus
Finding Nemo
Forrest Gump
Lost in Translation
The Deer Hunter
Fight Club
The Usual Suspects
Memento

It was somewhat difficult to place these in an ordinal sequence, given their disparity in genre. Movie buffs will notice that Citizen Kane is not listed. Since this film's cinematography was quite impressive for its time, it is easy to see why it is favored amongst critics. It seems as though, however, Kane has not been able to stand the test of time in applicability for general viewing. Hence, the omission from the list.

Of course, this is all subjective.