A View from Elsewhere
John Montgomery's Weblog
Dumb Idea Nipped in the Bud: Film at 11
Have you ever sat down and thought up some brilliant thing, then realized, “Why bother?” Today...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/23/2006
Things That Wouldn't Pass Through Airport Security
Well, here's one: a PC case modded to look like a Hollywood nuclear device.
Author: johnmont Date: 05/23/2006
“Some Day I Will Rule You All.”
Transcription of the Morse code in Sunday May 21st’s Fox Trot. ... s --- o -- m . e -.. d .- a -.--...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/21/2006
“…At Least There May Be Bacon.”
Today I’m going to be at an offsite with a bunch of other managers from the VS team. When I was...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/17/2006
First Post with Word 2007
I’m checking out Joe Friend’s work to make Word 2007 a good blog post editor. So far what I've...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/15/2006
"Learn those things and Server is just a tame little kitten that happens to randomly vomit on you when you pet it."
From the post of a former Apple support person. This actually describes a lot of software from...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/13/2006
Attack the Critical Plague of Cat Typing
Via Fark: PawSense -- catproof your computer. My favorites: "PawSense analyzes keypress timings and...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/11/2006
Coding in Someone Else's Kitchen
During the renovation on our house we've moved to West Seattle and I've noticed that things take me...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/11/2006
An Express Web Page Editor?
Do we need a complement to Visual Web Developer Express (i.e. a free, simplified Web page editor)...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/10/2006
Multitargeting and Express
When Visual Studio "Orcas" ships, we have a question we need to answer: which version(s) of the .NET...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/09/2006
"Retaking your college women's-studies course and writing a new section for your paper on gender stereotyping and representational imbalance in the mainstream media."
Courtesy bbSpot: 2006 Summer Blockbuster List and why you shouldn't go see them.
Author: johnmont Date: 05/08/2006
Express "Orcas" Principles
Building on my Principles for First-Use Tools, I'm thinking about Principles for Express. Express is...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/08/2006
Funny Watch Reviews
Courtesy bbSpot (again): Watch reviews.
Author: johnmont Date: 05/07/2006
Top Rejected Names for My Team
Getting the right team name is critical to setting the right tone for the kind of team you want to...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/05/2006
...And 24 Hours Later the Cats Come Out of the Basement
We have two cats: Mac and Jack (yes, named after the beer). Yesterday we moved from our house to a...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/04/2006
"V is for Vendetta" Parody Trailer
C is for Cookie. Thanks to bbspot.
Author: johnmont Date: 05/04/2006
How Did You Learn to Program?
How did you learn to program? Especially if you’re not a professional developer and never had been...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/03/2006
Concrete Post Caps OK But Not Usable
Following up from my previous post about creating a cap for our front porch pillars out of concrete:...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/02/2006
Who's the Customer?
Who is the target user for our non-professional tools? In order to make smarter decisions about what...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/02/2006
Forming Concrete
Yesterday, in preparation for the start of a big remodeling project, my wife and I began to create...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/01/2006
Principles for First-Use Tools
Even as we’re working out the potential features for the next version of Visual Studio Express,...
Author: johnmont Date: 05/01/2006
$250,000 VW Bug with Jet Engine
Not street legal, unfortunately.
Author: johnmont Date: 04/30/2006
Do Kids Still Program?
A long thread on /..
Author: johnmont Date: 04/29/2006
"I see spastic animated gifs as the standard medium for illustrating stories in the future"
Quote of the day: I see spastic animated gifs as the standard medium for illustrating stories in the...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/28/2006
Anthony Hopkins Strange Coincidence
Freaky, from 2Spare: "The British actor Anthony Hopkins [who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter] was...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/28/2006
The Truth About 1080p
With all the hullabaloo about HD-DVD standards, we've missed a conversation about one of those...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/27/2006
Is Enormous Larger than Huge?
Go into Outlook 2003 and sort by size. Look at the sizes: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Very Large,...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/27/2006
"VB Developers Don't Make Me Buy $800 Aeron Chairs"
A quote I remember from about 6 years ago -- the CEO of CafePress, if I remember right, on one of...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/27/2006
TryRuby for BASIC: I Want One
Have you seen Try Ruby? I want one for BASIC. And maybe for JScript. Except I want the interpreter...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/26/2006
One Billion Words
Cool. And that's only the documented ones.
Author: johnmont Date: 04/26/2006
Software Enthusiast Scenario Fake Demo Script
As a way to get my head around the whole scenario, I wrote up the entire scenario as a kind of very...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/26/2006
Neither Mort Nor Elvis
In a post about the role of the personas that for several years have defined developer division's...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/25/2006
bbSpot's Top 11 Ways to Celebrate Reaching Level 60
One of my favorite satire sites is bbSpot. It's cool that the site creator managed to quite his day...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/25/2006
The Orcas Software Enthusiast Scenario Personas
The scenario I’m working on is for the “software enthusiast” – think of this person as the person...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/25/2006
Will Apple Accept Ads in iTunes?
Hmm. Maybe advertising in desktop software isn't so far fetched.
Author: johnmont Date: 04/25/2006
Awkward Game Quotes
A long time ago, I worked at Imagine Publishing in Brisbane California. It's gone through several...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/24/2006
Scenario-Based Planning
As you may or may not know, for Visual Studio "Orcas" planning we’re using a new process based on...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/24/2006
A Traditional Way to Learn to Program
Allen Downey has created a good traditional book for how to learn to program. What are the good...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/24/2006
How MySpace Is Destroying Language
After my previous posts on language where several commenters pointed out that language is an...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/23/2006
7:04PM PST Friday: Hit ZEB
The definition.
Author: johnmont Date: 04/21/2006
A History of Computers in Print Advertising
Points for every one of these computers you've worked on. Bonus points if you can name every...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/21/2006
Can Advertising in Windows Client Software Work?
MSN Messenger does it. Quicken does it. There’s a fair amount of Windows client software that has...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/20/2006
Visual Studio Express is Free
Up until today, all of the Express products (VB Express, VC# Express, VC++ Express, VJ# Express, and...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/19/2006
Thinkweek Paper Done and Submitted
Thanks to Kunal Mukerjee (my coauthor and the guy who wrote the entire first draft), our Thinkweek...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/19/2006
Entrancing: Der Lauf Der Dinge (Run of Things)
This video on Google makes the "Cog" commercial from Honda seem like a minor hat trick.
Author: johnmont Date: 04/19/2006
Hosted Software Development Tools
When I first thought about Tuscany, this was the first thing that sprang to mind: Hosted Team...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/19/2006
Top 11 Self-Help Books in Middle Earth
You know one of them fits you.
Author: johnmont Date: 04/18/2006
Think Week for a Developer Marketplace
I was lured. Each year, Bill Gates retires with a stack of “think week” papers to get a sense of...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/18/2006
The "Doh!" Moment
Have you ever worked on a problem and kept working on it and working on it until you knew you'd...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/17/2006
Sometimes Life is Embarrassing
It's especially embarrassing when your frustration overflows and you let others know what you really...
Author: johnmont Date: 04/17/2006