IE 7 for x64

At last Internet Explorer 7 for x64 can be download here

Waking in the middle of the night..

I've never been one for tossing and turning in bed at night.  Generally I sleep like a log – out cold for the count.

However – if I wake in the night – I get up and spend a while working which usually chases away whatever demons are lurking about in the cognos.

The past month has been a little hetic with interviews and a couple of projects I am working on – hence the poor frequency of posts on the blog – and I have been waking in the wee hours more often.  In fact I have woken more times this month than I have in the last 10 years.

Tonight I cannot sleep and there are 2 reasons:

• For some reason I am worried about our neighbours who are expecting their third child anytime soon.  Each time I wake – there is usually some activity going on next door and I check our front window that separates us from the lake and also looks down onto the road into the village.  This morning I saw their car driving into the village.  I hope all goes well – if things are hotting up for them.

As to why I am worried/anxious for them….

I have absolutely no idea.  They are great people – but we aren't particularly close.  We chat sometimes when we bump into each other – they are usually very forgiving of my Italian.  Last Christmas, Settimio, the husband came up to me in the supermarket and gave me a hug & an Italian kiss (both cheeks – no tongue) and wished me Auguri (seasons greetings) in the supermarket.  Being part English (by birth) I was surprised and a little mortified and being part Italian (by disposition) I was happy to feel part of the family.  They live in a small apartment and have 2 great kids already – we sometimes hear them running around, or coming in and out – often giggling and having fun.  Last summer they were outside with Settimio, all three sitting in their swimming trunks, throwing darts at one of the olive trees with varying degrees of accuracy.  I was a little worried about my car parked next to the olive tree….  But only a little.  A car can be fixed.  A bubble of happiness – playing in the sunshine on a summer day after a cooling swim in the lake – stays with us forever.  Even for me seeing it from the outside.

I guess what started me thinking of the above was Tforcram's post on where he and his wife are and the amazing and thought provoking Ventoletta at the Ventbox.

• The second reason that I guess is an upcoming interview at Microsoft on Friday with the VSTA/VSTO team.  The onside interview is renowned for being intense – so I've been brushing up on my knowledge and researching topics I haven't touched in a long time.  The hard bit, I guess, is that I am interviewing for an SDE and a PM role with them.  The Product Manager (PM) role I feel fits my skills/experience/apptitude better – my coding in C# – for the Software Design Engineer (SDE) role -is, as I said on the phone interview, a little rusty. 

There is a lot, and I mean a LOT, of info out on the Internet on various websites, Wikis and blogs from people who have been through the Microsoft interview process.  I'm compiling a list of the resources I found most useful and I'll publish something once I have docked with the mothership.  The most helpful so far are:

• Tyler - A top to bottom writeup of the how/why/where and when
• Sellsbrothers
• Youngpup
• TechInterview
• The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing

I've also discovered the Safari bookshelf by O'Reily – a great resource of current and past books on a whole bunch of topics.  Great for swotting on topics you haven't touched in a while – or for just keeping yourself fresh with tech and tech thinking.

Finally – I stumbled over a couple of things over the past week that have been helpful. 

The first is OneNote from Microsoft – a superb app for taking and making notes.  It's been a big help in keeping the paper trail to a minimum.  It's web savvy – so you keep all your references when pasting from websites when you need to supplement your own notes.  It's a little quirky in places with some of the functionality not being intuitive but stick with it and you'll find yourself using it all the time.  It's so easy to use and incredibly useful.

The second is a quote that I found on Joel'swebsite that I think is relevant to those in the IT environment:

Thomas C. Gale, the famous Chrysler automobile designer who retired in 2001, meant when he said that "Good design adds value faster than it adds cost."

Vista Build 5342

Vista Build 5342 is out for those with an MSDN subscription or on the Beta program.  The new build has it’s quirks but all in all looks good so far.

If you’d like to get a nomination for the Vista Beta program – then checkout Outside the Cube here. 

*A handy tip – use the email contact form on his blog.

Windows Workflow (WWF) 2.2 is out…

Windows Workflow (WWF) 2.2 is now available for download from Microsoft from here.

There is still no Go-Live license (and the link on the page for Go-Live info is wrong (it’s an MS internal link)) and as usual – you’ll need to remove the previous WWF install first.

Origami..

It’s a nice looking device, and if affordable and performant – would go down well.

I’m kinda diappointed with how it’s just another device (in addition to all the others) that you have. It would be great if more focus was put on getting things to interoperate.

I’ve a mobile phone that I carry for voice, data, contacts – why can’t the origami use the contacts on my mobile phone (without having to sync them). Can I video conf using the origami as the device – and it route via my mobile? I’ve a bluetooth headset that I use with my phone – can the origami take control of the bluetooth device when it needs to (simply without having to un-pair and re-pair the headset with the mobile/origami).

Contact management is a big deal – Outlook (on my home machine) is the master respository for my contacts (email/phone numbers/web addresses/etc) – is there going to be an intelligent solution to what goes where?

My mobile can provide GPS (depending on the operator) – so I can origami use the info from the mobile?

My mobile has t-Flash – it’s a good medium for storage (1GB storage) – but if there isn’t going to be a simple way to use it from origami (via the phone without having to plug/unplug/switch) etc – then it’s a PIA.

Likewise – I’d rather have a USB device that I can plug the origami into that will give me decent graphics (the graphics capabilities on the origami look great) – but I wanna offload intensive graphics work onto the USB device (which will drive my monitor) – wouldn’t this mean the origami device does less of the grunt work?

How hot swap batteries? Even better – how about USB batteries – that I can plug in to extend the battery life! If I have the origami – why not let that charge my mobile? That way – I can just have spare batteries for the origami – and feel I’m always covered.

All in all – it looks exciting.