No posts in a while because I've been repaving my machine again and changing a few things.
I don't think I blogged this yet, but back in July I was asked to take over the management of the p&p development team. It is an honor to be given the opportunity to manage these guys. They are an amazing team and I hope I can serve them well.
I'm finding management at a big company to be unlike anything else in my experience. I used to laugh at the managers who seemed to be so busy. They don't actually write code, so why are they so busy. I know know at least a bit more about what we do. :) Yes, we probably do go to too many meetings, and as I get settled in I'm going to try to eliminate a bunch of those, but being a good blocker for your reports and looking out for the best interests of your larger team takes a lot of work.
I mentioned that I've repaved my machine. I decided to go ahead and take the plunge into Vista and Office 12 beta. So far, I really like it. There are lots of little things in Vista that really are nice from a usability standpoint. So far I'm enjoying IE7 although I would like to see some more speed improvements.
Same goes with Office 12 and the new ribbon bar. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you commit yourself to it, it is suprisingly simple and straightforward to do the tasks you want to do. I really really like the new Outlook. The integrated search is killer, new search folders rock and the categories and coloring are great. I already blogged about how Outlook 12 has influenced my email triaging system, so I won't torture you with that any more.
Also, I've made the move from BlogJet to Windows Live Writer. First of all, it is free. Secondly, it has been updated in the last year (BlogJet 1.6 "Lime" was released almost a full year ago and is far from perfect). I'm really enjoying Writer and love that it has a published SDK for plugins and have already installed the Tag4Writer plugin. I need to think about what other interesting addons I might want.
And of course I've been spending too much time playing World of Warcraft. Although even that addiction has changed... I've been spending almost all of my time in game standing in one place.
Why? Because what I've really been doing lately is writing and publishing game addons. It is a lot of fun and since I'm now a manager with no coding responsibilities, it helps fulfill my "geeky" needs. I've published two addons so far at my author portal on wowinterface.com and am working on a few more. This should help extend my MMORPG addiction a few more months. Hopefully it will last me until the new LOTRO ships. :)
As a final catch up, I want to say that I am very aware of the problems this blog and the others I host have been having. Brad Wilson and I are looking at how to do something about that, so there may be some more changes on that front soon.
Tags: Microsoft, Windows Vista, World of Warcraft, Management, Live Writer
