Steve Rowe's Blog
Ruminations on Computing - Data Science, Programming, Test Development, Management and More
Contemplating ViM
A conversation with a colleague got me interested in ViM once again. I've used ViM on and off for a...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/30/2007
Mac Users Respond To Vista
I have heard several Mac users talking very kindly about our new OS. This is encouraging as these...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/29/2007
History of Programming Languages
I saw this on someone's wall a while ago but just now ran across it on the web. This is a chart of...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/26/2007
Recommended Reading for New Test Developers
I've previously written about how to teach yourself to be a test developer. That post included an...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/24/2007
How Much Memory Does Vista Need?
With Windows Vista coming soon to a retail channel near you, one of the important questions to ask...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/22/2007
Back To School
When I'm not trying to deliver the next great operating system or spending time with my family, I'm...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/19/2007
The Fat Man Speaks
George Sanger, aka "The Fat Man," is interviewed by The Escapist. George is the founder of Project...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/17/2007
Hiring Great Testers - Tester Roles
In my mind, there are basically three roles on a test team. These three roles are: developers,...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/16/2007
Hiring Great Testers - Series Index
I'm going to be doing a series not on testing but on the people that carry it out. This will be a...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/16/2007
Duplication of Effort Is Good?
I was in a meeting the other day deciding what to do next in our testing efforts. Several times...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/14/2007
Letting Test Drive the Process
When I read the term "test driven development" I usually think of the process of developers writing...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/08/2007
Printer Problems on Vista x64
I've decided to take the plunge and I'm running Vista x64 on my primary home system. So far things...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/07/2007
I'll save you some typing...
If you are one of those who read this blog directly in your browser and not through an RSS...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/07/2007
Interview With Office Test Director
Tara Roth, the newly annointed director of test for Office, was recently interviewed by Channel 9....
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/03/2007
Project BBQ Reports Are Available
In October of last year I flew to Texas to attend what is called Project Bar-B-Q. It is promoted as...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/02/2007
Welcome to 2007
Just a quick note to say welcome back to work. I'm sure, like I did, that many of you had some time...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 01/02/2007
Functionality Over Elegance
I'm reading Where Wizards Stay Up Late which is a book about the people that invented the internet....
Author: SteveRowe Date: 12/26/2006
Merry Christmas
By now you're all probably stuffed full of food and staring at a pile presents not to mention...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 12/25/2006
Secret Santa is NP-Complete
Every year my group of friends undertakes a Secret Santa gift exchange. When we started we each drew...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 12/19/2006
None of Us Is as Dumb as All of Us
That's the subtext on the "Meetings" inspirational poster from Despair.com. What it means to me is...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 12/18/2006
The State of PC Audio
One of the things I own at Microsoft is test development for audio in Windows. For Vista we did a...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 12/06/2006
What To Unit Test
Several months back I wrote about unit testing. Following that I received a question from a reader...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 12/01/2006
Bug Taxonomy
When you get toward the end of a product, you have to make the tough calls about what gets fixed and...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 11/10/2006
Vista Goes Gold!
Windows Vista--the product I've been working on for much of the last 5 years--has finally shipped....
Author: SteveRowe Date: 11/09/2006
Is the Internet Really That Powerful?
About 2 weeks ago Serenity won a Hugo award. If you haven't seen this movie or watched the TV series...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 09/11/2006
What does "RC1" really mean?
With the recent release of Windows Vista RC1, I have seen many comments on places like Slashdot and...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 09/07/2006
Management Styles
Joel Spolsky, of Joel On Software, has a series on management styles. He details three styles of...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/26/2006
Cool Live.com Search Feature
I was watching an internal presentation about Live Search today and ran across this really cool...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/23/2006
Interview with Clayton Christensen
The Innovator's Dilemma is an eye-opening book that everyone in the technology industry should read...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/23/2006
LSharp Discussion Group
I've been playing a little with Lisp lately. Unlike many other single-sourced languages these days...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/19/2006
Back From Vacation
I spent the past few weeks on my Grandparents' farm in upstate New York. When I think of New York I...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/19/2006
HD-DVD Looks Better Than BluRay
I was in Circuit City the other day and they had a beautiful Sony SXRD television set up playing...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/02/2006
HD-DVD Podcast
Our Vice President, Amir Majidimehr, gave an interview to XBox Live's Major Nelson. He and one of...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 08/02/2006
June Monthly Podcast Update
It's been a busy month (thus the last listing and the sparse postings in June). No new podcasts were...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 07/07/2006
DX10 Interview
The ExtremeTech Podcast for last week was an interview with one of the DirectX 10 architects, David...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 07/07/2006
Welcome the Audio Fool
I'd like to welcome a member of my team to the world of blogging. His blog is called The Audio Fool....
Author: SteveRowe Date: 06/21/2006
VOIP - Ready for Prime Time?
About two months ago my wife and I decided to take the plunge and try out VOIP. Economically it made...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 06/20/2006
Prescriptive Advice For Successful Unit Testing
At the beginning of the Vista (then Longhorn) project our team decided that we would implement unit...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 06/15/2006
Introductory Lisp Books
I've been doing a little reading about Lisp lately. In particular, I've read two books on the...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 06/14/2006
Making Hard Choices - Which Bugs Do We Fix?
We just shipped Vista Beta 2 and we are now on the march toward shipping what we call RCs or Release...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/28/2006
May Monthly Podcast Update
Another month, another list of podcasts. A few new ones this month, nothing really fell off of the...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/26/2006
Real Estate Finally Goes 2.0
Just a few weeks ago I was searching some real estate listings and it struck me how poor the mapping...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/18/2006
Testing Systems
This is the third in my series on test harnesses. In this post, I'll talk about systems that do much...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/18/2006
I used a Dremel to upgrade my PC
As you might recall, about 5 months ago I built a pretty cool Media Center PC. I have been...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/13/2006
Advanced Test Harness Features
In a past post I talked about the basic functionality of a test harness. That is, it should be...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/07/2006
Cryptography Podcast Series
Security Now just concluded an amazing podcast series on the subject of cryptography. Steve Gibson...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 05/05/2006
Test Harness Basics
A short while back one of my readers asked what a test harness was. I will answer that in a pair of...
Author: SteveRowe Date: 04/28/2006