I love talking about design and how important it is to keep the end users in mind - now this story that was re-printed on the eve of Bill Gates' retirement is wonderful and actually makes me like him more knowing that he gave someone hell about stuff like this: (this is an excerpt from a Bill gates email from 2003) "I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues. Let me give you my experience from yesterday. I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to ...

Microsoft doesn’t really have an optioin: Microsoft Office embraces the browser . I watch how my children use software. Multiple devices (ipods, laptop, desktop, mobile phones) access the same resources (gmail, google docs). Microsoft still has a dominant position on the desktop. But the desktop is no longer our sole option for creating and sharing documents. When our computing and interaction with others is not device centric, our software can’t be either.

I don't know where this appeared from or why but it seems that Microsoft has a rapid e-learning development tool. It's available for free download and there don't seem to be any strings attached. I'm not completely convinced because there's very little information about this product and it certainly isn't being marketed heavily. My best guess is that this is a tool used by Microsoft itself or by one of its contracted developers, and someone suggested making it more widely ... material to play in Moodle). I'm not sure I'd recommend this tool until Microsoft decides whether this is something ...

Eureka! A quick visit to Amazon yielded four copies of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World . Ever since last year ... was Microsoft's second highest ranking executive in China, and he gave everything up to build schools in rural Nepal ... closing, here are two podcast interviews with John Wood, author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. PBS ...

... with Microsoft using this, they didn’t get caught up in the details, in what colors were used or what font ...

Ahhh….Space, the final frontier…There are times, I wish I could have a trip to the nearest observatory one day and just take a peep to the night skies and do some star gazing whole night. Recently, Microsoft is making a lot of buzz on astronomical stuff, it is regarding about the investment Microsoft did 16 years ago (The SkyServer project). As a result, Microsoft will launching WorldWide Telescope (WWT) at Spring 2008. "The WorldWide Telescope takes the best images from the greatest telescopes on Earth … and in space … and assembles them into a ...

On Web 2.0 & Enterprise Mashups » October 25, 2007 Social Networking (?) With Microsoft Office ... . This situation can influence decision-making - people may prefer to evolve with Microsoft over the next couple of years ... below is that (1) Microsoft does not yet understand many of the fundamental concepts around social networking and the important distinctions between social networks and communities (2) Microsoft is looking at this through the lens of ... fundamental elements that do appear solid (user profile, social distance in search) that Microsoft can build on but it is ...

Stephen Downes provided a list of year-end wrap-ups that had several interesting posts. Included were: Wesley Fryer article that says that in 5-years, school district says - "not a single desktop in this 52,000-student school system in metropolitan Dallas will carry the image of a proprietary school software program." Wow - dump your Microsoft stock now! Doug Belshaw post of his "20 top blog posts of 2006" Doug's perspective is a bit different than mine, but the list was interesting to see. I'm curious what people in eLearning felt were the top posts of 2006? What ...

Just saw this : Earlier this month, Microsoft announced it was finally adding voice capabilities to its Live Communication Server . And now Cisco is adding hosted collaboration to compete with Microsoft's hosted service known as Live Meeting . This makes me wonder what these systems will start to look like in a couple of years and whether folks like Elluminate will be able to compete.

From an article I wrote in January 2007 : Microsoft hates losing business to upstart Google, first in search, then in advertising, and now threatening the Office monopoly. To try to make up for lost ground, Microsoft will buy Yahoo! I guess I’ll have to wait for Wal*Mart to acquire Amazon. More papers and ...

For the first time in awhile, I think Microsoft has Google beat. At least in terms of widget development for dummies.... Case in point - the documentation for Gadget development from Google . vs. Popfly Easy cheezy for non-coders like myself to build spiffy gadgets. Microsoft provided excellent baseline code for us to edit. Microsoft spent a lot of time focusing on developer tools and user interfaces on this product. The only current gripe I have about Popfly (and Google Gadgets) - my computer slows to a crawl during development. I'll be posting my experiments here ...

Microsoft has been a favorite source of mockery for all the cool web 2.0′ers. Microsoft is seen as too closed, too confined to the desktop, too late to search, and too out of touch with how people want to compute. In the face of this criticism, Microsoft continues to attempt a transformation - Personal Reboot: Web-Centric, But Beyond “The Cloud” : “Cloud computing may be trendy, but Ozzie says MSFT's best course moving forward is a hybrid desktop/Web-based strategy…future success hinges on new products that win over the masses instantly.” ...

Common Craft has produced a short explanatory video on Microsoft Live. The internet is starting to look like the desktop in the 80’s - numerous companies trying to mainstream new applications through a new centre. Microsoft integrated a variety of tools into its Office suite, making it possible for many new users to try tools that had each been ... , the web is moving in that direction, with Google, Microsoft, and MySpace/Facebook all trying to do to the web what Microsoft did to the desktop. I’d like to see a world where any content works on any device…but I wonder if ...

CustomGuide have released some Quick Reference Guides for Microsoft, Mac and Adobe products. These printable quick references are free to use, distribute, and share! CustomGuide Computer Training Quick Reference ...

The ZUNEPHONE! "We're actively seeking partners in the phone business" -Steve Ballmer Microsoft CEO (during Zune interview) "A Zune phone is definitely part of the future of this brand." -Chris Stephenson, GM for Zune I should pay more attention to this other Steve guy from Microsoft. He seems very ahead of the game on this one. I'm mostly excited about the idea of poloroid film making a comeback. Ah...to dream.

Okay, so I'm NOT a big fan of Microsoft. HOWEVER...every time I talk about opensource tools like MOODLE, or WIKIs, or anything NOT Microsoft, I get the collective rolling of the eyes from those who live and breath their work in an organization chained to Microsoft. This may sound "look how 2.0 we are", but I think truly think the ONENOTE team might be onto something. I had a long conversation with Mike Tholfsen of the OneNote team. I must say he had me wishing there was something like this on the MAC side of the house. Actually I'd like to see a standard...but that's not for ...

OK...haven't had the time to try any of these out but love seeing rich toolsets like this hit the cloud...if anybody out there has any reviews, I'd love to hear them... ( Webware story ) "If you use Microsoft Project, you might want to seriously consider three alternatives that run completely on the Web. In addition to supporting more contemporary features right now, and getting updated with even newer gadgets more frequently than Microsoft can muster, these products, being completely Web-based, offer much more robust collaboration tools." Liquid Planner Clarizen ...

I just scanned the e-clippings and I'm howling at this post . You still just THINKING about buying a Mac? wait...it gets SO much better... Check out this Microsoft Demo of voice recognition ...via YouTube . Go ahead and head on over to your nearest Mac Store and start doing some cool stuff.

This is a great free site where you can locate help videos (screencasts) for Microsoft Office Products. There is also a free downloadable tool to create help videos quickly and easily with the Community Clips help video recorder. Community Clips [via Digital Inspiration ] ...

Google is going after Microsoft's jugular ... the office suite. If you've not paid any attention to Google's entry into the software productivity suite, now is a good time to familiarize yourself with Google's efforts, particularly when ... offline ... at no charge. Does anyone remember Netscape and the Microsoft's new free Internet Explorer?! History has a ... decide to go "cold turkey" and avoid Microsoft, remember you also have these free options to interface with the rest of the world: Microsoft Viewer: Excel | Powerpoint | Word ...

Value and ethics training in a value organization (NPR audio - podcast). How Microsoft plans to beat its rivals Microsoft has a multi-billion dollar pile of cash ready to invest, and Bill Gates has a strategy to fight his rivals.

Recently I was in a SharePoint class and at the end of the day, the instructor showed a very cool tool which Microsoft has which allows you to check out user interface command differences between their Office XP (2003) and Office 2007 products (Excel, Powerpoint and Word). The command check is animated and is really cool ... can't remember when I last said that about a Microsoft web page! Better yet, the animation is in Flash, not Silverlight! Here's how it works: Select the command from the Excel XP menu you wish to review The system them morphs to Excel 2007 and shows how ...

This news just out that Microsoft is allowing you to create your own xbox games .  The BBC has an article Xbox outlines 'YouTube for games' . This should open the door for many more Serious Games being developed for the xbox, and perhaps open up the other platforms to opensource development.  This is going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Back in May 2006, I was fortunate to take part in a UK government mission to the USA to explore what lay "Beyond eLearning" (click the link for the final report). Travelling to both coasts (Boston and Silicon Valley) we met a great mix of academic (MIT Medialab, Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning) and corporate organisations (Cisco, Fidelity Investments, Microsoft, IBM to name a few).

Seed story ) "While writing his book The New New Thing, Michael Lewis found "so" endemic to Silicon Valley. Microsoft employees claimed it as indigenous to Redmond, Washington, with the rest of their rich lexicon of geek-speak and corporate jive. Employees at Hewlett Packard survived boring meetings by counting the number of "so"s. A joke even circulated: What's the sound of Santa Claus at an HP Christmas party? "So so so!" ...

... especially in the comments following his original post pronouncing the death of Wikipedia. Microsoft vs. Microsoft - Nicholas Carr Microsoft is only truly alive when it's in a fierce fight with a competitor. The company ...

... expect to see topics on eLearning, training and on-boarding with OneNote. Many companies, including Microsoft, are ... that the majority of Corporate eLearning Development is done on WinOS. AND Microsoft is actually seeing the eLearning ... Kit . If your company is heavily invested in the Microsoft suite of Enterprise applications then you might do well ...

How Do I... | Lotus Notes Intranets | Microsoft SharePoint | Products | Shopping   ... two awards this year. It repeated in the Enterprise Search category, with Fast Search coming in second. (Microsoft ... Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Intranet Dashboard Winner: Sorce Intranet Semantic Tool Altova ... Microsoft Sharepoint 2007 Coveo Fast Winner: Google Printer Friendly Version ... Spyware Build a PHP CMS Microsofts SharePoint and more at: Intranet Journals ...

... would leave his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft, and turn his title of Chief Software Architect over to Ray Ozzie. Why did he choose Ozzie, a relative newcomer to Microsoft? Ozzie had made his views widely known in his October 28 ... made by Microsoft, but by services offered by companies like Google and salesforce.com who were changing the software ... intention to compete against Microsoft Exchange by offering a version of their consumer email services repurposed for ... Microsoft Excel spreadsheets ( http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/tour1.html ) ( www.numsum.com ) ( ...

Beau and Christy both noted that you can customize Firefox with extensions. It never dawned on me that you could actually CUSTOMIZE a BROWSER!!!!! I never realized how much I had been sucked into the Microsoft machine.... Beau was kind enough to give me his list of extensions . He also has a really interesting Podcast list and some World of Warcraft info in this link. The link to the Firefox extensions themselves is https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/recommended/ I just added the WebDeveloper extension. Rapid install, includes a cookie administrator, and all of the pieces seem to ...