Fellow Geeks, we must strive for excellence not only in our code, but also in our interactions with Those Who Think HTML is a Programming Language.

Excellent ‘rant’ about the value of a developer involved in more then just developing software, like sales or customer support. But: “As developers, we are often just not qualified to participate in things like sales or marketing or strategy. We can be too abrasive to talk with customers. We love certain technologies too much to be objective. We forget that users are very different from us.”

Sleeping beauties

Bart has resurrected his blog and is focusing on using portal technology in real-life applications. Allthough not as technical as Mart's Sharepoint blog, but certainly worth the reading, if you're implementing portal technology for your (internal) customers.

His first post, "Clients demand sharepoint, but sometimes lack portalvision..." , discusses the dissapointment some customers will feel, when they realise Sharepoint will not solve all their problems and world hunger, without a clear understanding what their problems are or without support from the entire organisation. 

The most interesting quote from the press release, would be:

"Windows® and Office are a powerful foundation for productivity and a rich platform for partners to build great solutions and add value,"  Gates said. "The Microsoft Business Solutions group builds on that foundation to deliver world-class business applications that are simpler and less expensive, offering more companies new ways to enhance the way they work."

Which shows MSFT is moving towards further integrating it’s Business Solutions with Office and selling it more and more as a platform as well as an application suite, see also VSTO 2005.

One more quote:

"Project Green," the code name for next-generation Microsoft Business Solutions' development efforts, will be delivered over the course of two waves. The first wave will occur between 2005 and 2007, and will include the release of a shared user interface based around 50 common configurable roles that people have within a company, all seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Office. Microsoft's business applications also will interoperate with service-oriented applications and include a common configurable reporting environment based on SQL Server (TM) Reporting Services and a common security-enhanced intranet and extranet environment based on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server to enable new levels of collaboration within and across companies. (Emphasize mine)

Looking forward to see what improvements have been made, esp. in Microsoft CRM, est. RTM Q4 2005, since that isn’t the friendliest platform to base a solution on.

In Seattle for the Compiler Workshop and offcourse it's raining, so I felt right at home.

I did touch up this picture to make it less depressing.

Mart has a much cooler pic of the Space Needle and a great post about his top 6 things at Office DevCon 2005.

Scott Hanselman has a good tip to protect your clients’ clients’ privacy.

This is one a lot of people know, but it's worth covering again because it's easily forgotten as it's a small detail. Since we do eFinance sites, we often don't want folks' UserNames collected and stored in AutoComplete, especially when the site is browsed on a public machine.

autocomplete="off" method="post" runat="server">

Note that autocomplete="false" doesn't work. However, autocomplete="off" works in both IE and FireFox.

Could be a little sharper, but still a nice perspective.