OK, off for the weekend again. See ya Sunday night.

John Dowell, weblogger for Macromedia, points us to Lynda Weinman's videos. Very cool idea!

Chris Anderson is looking to add some non-Microsoft voices to his blogroll.

Along that topic, Joe Wilcox over at Microsoft Monitor weblog, writes about the security issue: Good security is about making smart choices.

Lots of you are talking about @Stake this morning and their firing of a researcher. I was once almost fired by a company that had close dealings with Microsoft (and Microsoft had Jim Fawcette take away my modem after I leaked details about VB4). So, I feel for this guy. Microsoft doesn't need to say anything. Vendors are quite aware of the economic power that Microsoft has over them.

Now that I'm inside I see that most people here are trying not to do anything that would make vendors do anything but take the high road. It doesn't help our PR when stuff like this happens -- it also really hurts our efforts to turn around the perception of our company. Something that I know is very high on exec's task lists (remember, they are paid on whether or not customers are happy -- think the perception that we are firing people who speak out against us helps or hurts that effort?). I've also learned that when people get fired, there's usually a whole subtext to the issue that isn't discussed publicly.

Josh Ledgard writes an interesting blog, says Roy Osherove. I agree. Josh is a tester at Microsoft. Subscribed!

Dylan Greene has a bunch of ideas of how he'd like Windows Update to be improved in the future. After just coming back from the dentist, I can relate!

In another message he notes that he's been Scobleized: "Basically I complained about MS and he listened. I like that."

I make TDavid go hmmm. Cute name for a weblog.

Sasha Corti is nervous that Bill Gates is coming to his event: ITU Telecom World 2003 conference.

Brad Abrams asks "what makes a good PDC session?" He's one of the speakers.

Speakers should study Don Box. What does he do? Shows some freaking passion for his topic! I once watched a Microsoft speaker giving a talk about DirectX and he bored me to sleep. Jimmny crickets. That's the technology underneath all the video games. If you can't be passionate about that technology on stage, what else is there?

Don's magic is he gets excited about XML. At one conference he grabbed my camera, took my images, and translated them into XML. All with excitement of a kid who just kissed his first girl.

The other thing? Demos baby. And make that font big in Visual Studio so we can read it in the back.

Werner Voegels: Hard things learned about technology evangelism.

ASP.NET 101 is a place where you can learn, what else, ASP.NET.

Oh, I see Marc has been added to the PDC Bloggers. 111 attendee blogs and counting. One month left before the start. Man, I can't wait.

Ahh, Marc Canter is coming to the PDC and he is building a bunch of questions to ask.

Here's my pre-PDC answers:

1) Actually, pieces of Longhorn are the third revision of our technologies. .NET has been around since December 1999 and .NET plays a very large part in Longhorn. Same for WinFS (the new file system). It's the first time it's been used as a file system, but WinFS is derived from SQL Server, which has been around for quite a while. There's lots of new stuff, though, so yes, there will be market fear of Longhorn. It's a big job to overcome that.

2) There are lots of changes to the base platform to really enable rich media. It'll be interesting to see what you say after the PDC.

3) The Eolas lawsuit hasn't played out yet. We're not able to comment on things that are still in court, sorry.

4) Actually, this is why I invited you to the PDC. Microsoft is trying to be a good platform vendor and open up new opportunities for developers. I'll be interested in hearing what YOU will propose.

Didn't you get Bill Gates' memo? We're a company that eats weenies.

Fun little GE commercial.