Like everyone else in the blogespher, I installed Google Desktop Search last week. And, after using it a few times, I’ve uninstalled it. Jim’s right; X1 kicks its butt.

Tim wonders whether he should let the ’softies attending and speaking at the Applied XML Developer’s Conference have it or not. I say, give us both barrels, Tim!

I haven’t even seen this yet and I want to recommend it. I’m just a big monad and Jeff Snover fan.

Here.

Don sent his new talk abstract my way this morning:

″WS-Why? This talk will make sense of why various WS-* specs came to life and which ones every developer should ignore. Naturally, the size of this set is non-zero, however, it is not the entire universe. Hopefully, the audience will be left with a mental model for what to ignore going forward as the WS-* machine continues to move forward.”

Personally, I’ve always wondered about the history of the avalanche of WS-* specs and to hear it from an irreverent horse’s mouth should be tons o’ fun.

If you didn’t get to go to the Indigo Software Design Review last week (like most of us), Aaron Skonnard puts you right into the middle of it.

d.code has a lot of great stuff to say in his post, but hands down my favorite is this:

“How many software developers at Microsoft consider themselves artists first, and software developers second?”

This is the thing that separates today’s Windows software from tomorrow’s. IMO, this is the line between Windows Forms and Avalon. The former is hands down the best way for software engineers to build professional UIs that we’re familiar with under Windows today. The latter is for artists to build things we’ve never seen before. I know this is scary for software engineers who don’t know how to be artists (lord knows I don’t) and for companies that don’t have artists (better get some), but crossing this line is necessary to get from the best of today to the promise of tomorrow for Windows.

My boss, Shawn Morrissey, is looking for a Content Strategist. This is my position, which allows me to dig into my technology areas as deeply as I want to do, finding areas of weakness in our developer story and filling them with internal, external or self-generated content, whether demos, samples, tools, articles, videos, audio, events, etc. You get to be involved in the trifecta between the product teams, the marketing and evangelist teams and the developers themselves, balancing all of their needs and making them all happy. Plus, you get to work with the likes of Matt Powell (Web Services), Kent Sharkey (ASP.NET, Visual Studio and Whidbey), Brian Johnson (Security), Frank Redmond (.NET Framework and C#) and Christa Carpentiere (Data).

Right now, Shawn’s looking for someone to fill Duncan’s shoes in Visual Basic, be he’s always looking for passion and ability. Drop him a line if you’re interested. Don’t be shy! This team is where Tim Ewald and Duncan Mackenzie got their start at MS. Plus, they hired me and made me a very nice home, so clearly their standards aren’t too high. : )

Here’s the official job description:

MSDN is looking for a Content Strategist for the Visual Basic Developer Center - a site on MSDN Online dedicated to all things related to Visual Basic. The subject matter expert acts as the public face of MSDN for the subject area to both external and internal customers, and leads the content planning and development for the developer center. As content strategist, planner, and writer, the SME must partner deeply with the product teams to understand the technology and the overall developer strategy. 

Major responsibilities include:

• Coordinating with the product and marketing teams to produce a content plan on an ongoing basis
• Commission, review, and acquire content
•  Manage ongoing review of content and the appropriate archiving of old content
• Working with site management on publication schedules, headlines, hot topics, featured books, and other content features
• Participating in the community by being actively engaged in the newsgroups and listsrvs; attending appropriate conferences and tradeshows as the MSDN representative; and responding, or coordinating responses, to technical questions directly from customers (ex: via feedback from the Web site)
• Act as a major stakeholder with regard to future site features, improvements, and evolution

Required skills include a deep technical knowledge of historical, current, and future software security issues,  the Visual Basic (.NET) programming language and other .NET languages, the Visual Studio environment; a clear understanding of Microsoft’s direction and strategy; ability to work in a rapidly changing environment; solid coding and writing skills; ability to assess content for quality and customer value; proven ability to work across organizations to align goals and execute against them; and an intense passion for and knowledge of the Microsoft developer.

Randy Jackson enjoyed my recent .NET Rocks appearance because of my discussion of how I like to learn things. I only remember talking about two strategies: “ignoring the docs” and “hyperventilating” but his take on it was so beautifully worded, I had to share it with you:

“I’m referring to flying in that strata called by some of my PhD’ed friends as the ‘Shirley McLean’ possession experience, where the actual act of jumping in to the unknown pleases the Gods in some twisted way and the outcome is usually beyond our expectations.”

I don’t get the Shirley McLean reference, but I love the bit about pleasing the Gods by jumping into the unknown.

And yes: today I’m going to read you my email because today, clever people insist on emailing me. : P