Delicate Genius Blog

We’re getting close to making some decisions and announcements around REMIX 2010 so stay tuned.

But before we lock it in, we’ve got a bazillion ideas for awesome stuff that we can do to make this REMIX the most awesome and interactive yet. However, I need your help for we, the REMIX team, are but mere mortals.

Think, what crazy cool and amazing stuff would you love to see as part of the REMIX experience… on location, during the event, post the event, on the site, on the social medias, the sky’s the limit.

We could go nuts with whatever tech you reckon would work for your (or our existing) ideas… Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 Series (or mobility in general), Augmented Reality, Surface and whatever else you reckon would make REMIX an awesome and unique place to be for delegates.

If you have tech chops and want to get involved and help us make some amazing experiences drop me a line (michael.kordahi@microsoft.com).

-mk

For those who weren’t able to be part of the magic at Ignite Sydney last Tuesday, the video of my talk (and all of the others) is now online.

Some related links …

• BlindSearch
• Fuji Photo from the stage
• Voting app used on the night
• IgniteSydney
• Other IgniteSydney videos

-mk

Why the hell not.

http://www.zazzle.com.au/im_with_delicategenius_tshirt-235110909728562388

-mk

Last week I wrote a little site called TwitterVote. TwitterVote allows you to use Twitter for the purposes of voting.

A few people have asked me about it and if they can use it. Well, here it is, feel free to use it whenever you want to conduct a vote or poll using twitter.

It’s very simple to use. All you need to do is type a URL that matches your vote.

For example the following URL…

http://twittervote.fejus.com/?hashtag=nowplaying&keywords=madonna,cher,prince,gaga

…will yield the following page

That’s all there is to it, simple and obvious really. The hashtag parameter tells it what hashtag to look for and the keywords parameter is a comma delimited list words or names that it will search for.

So, in this instance, a successful vote/tweet for Madonna would look something like “#playingnow madonna”.

There are few optional parameters that you can pass down that will modify the way it works…

&count=3 – use this to limit the result set to only show the top 3 results.

&state=names – use this to have the page not show the results but rather the keywords. at any time, you can click on the screen and toggle the results and list of keywords. This is particularly handy when you don’t want to reveal the results but want people to see who/what they can vote for.

So, a complete example would be http://twittervote.fejus.com/?hashtag=nowplaying&keywords=madonna,cher,prince,gaga&count=3&state=names.

It’s also worth noting that once all the votes are collected, the page will continue to poll for new results every 10 seconds. It’s pretty cool to see the results change live.

Also, remember that if people are not sharing their tweets publically, they will not show up in the search results.

That’s it, drop me a note if you use TwitterVote and found it useful.

PS jQuery, I love you!

-mk

The very cool Isabelle Gramp has kindly Avatar’ed me, not to bad me reckons! Thanks Isabelle.

-mk

The current version (without the indoor and worldwide telescope, but with streetside and flickr) can be played with here – http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/?mkt=en-us

The lovely folks over at Ignite Sydney have accepted my submission to speak at the next event.

My talk is entitled “Everything I know about you”. I will be talking about what I’ve learned about us through the lens of 1.7 million queries on BlindSearch.

Come and support me.

Ignite Sydney 4
Time: Doors open 5.30pm for 6.30pm start
Date: Tuesday, 2nd March 2010
Where: Oxford Art Factory – 38 Oxford Street, Sydney

Register here.

-mk

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” — Henry Ford

I have had this quote in my head all day today.

-mk

I’ve got mixed feelings about the iPad. on one hand it’s a beautiful purpose built device, and on the other, it has its deficiencies… no flash/silverlight, no webcam, no multi tasking, no widescreen, closed os etc.

However, Andy Coates got me to thinking about the Eee PC T91MT that we used as a demo machine during our Windows 7 media demos later last year.

Feeling less in love with the iPad all of a sudden.

So, things about the Eee PC T91MT, check it …

8.9” Multitouch display.

Convertible keyboard for proper text input (unlike many other convertible tablets, this keyboard locks into place quite solidly)

Runs Windows 7 so you get all of the Win7 touch lovin: gestures, handwriting recognition etc

Runs Windows 7 so that you get a full OS meaning your can run almost any app that you already run today.

Ohh, and it also means you can run Silverlight, Flash and anything else you damn well please.

You want eBooks? It runs Kindle for Windows, a very awesome multi touch Windows app.

Webcam, 32GB SSD.

Weighs 960g.

Did I mention it runs Windows 7? Yes, from memory Windows 7 multitasks :-)

Ohh, yeah, forgot to mention, it usually sells for $685 or less.

So, for less than the cost of an iPad, you get a fully functional tablet with a fully functional operating system at a very compelling price that you can buy today.

Food for thought, no?

-mk

Today marks the end of an era for me at Microsoft. Today was Shane Morris’ last day.

I couldn’t let it go by without reflecting on the past 3 years.

For the past 3 years Shane has done nothing but make me better, not only professionally but personally. He pushed me far beyond what I ever expected from myself and the worst part is, the bastard didn’t even do it on purpose. He is just being himself.

At almost every major great event in my time at Microsoft so far, Shane has been there with me, pushing me to do nothing short of awesome. Whether it’s our work on REMIX for the past 3 years, our trip to AiR, our running of AiR locally or the dozens of Microsoft internal initiatives or even getting hospitalised, Shane has demonstrated that awesome is something you are and not something you do.

I’ll miss having my on-tap psychologist/high-five buddy/spell checker (you never did tell me the difference between – and -).

Shane, you are the most generous person that I have ever had the privilege of working with. You have also set the impossible standard for what a great working relationship should be and I now look forward to continue to be inspired by you “outside the firewall”.

-mk