Richard Sprague WebLogThe future, and why I'm at MicrosoftThe Future Bill Gates- June 28, 2008 Lots of news this week about Bill Gates' last day at Microsoft, but most people don't realize how un-Bill and un-Microsoft it is to spend time reflecting on the past, so the goodbye meeting I went to on Friday morning was a little out-of-character. (Tears!) The most interesting parts, in fact, were the discussion about the future. Bill noted that he expects his priorities at the Foundation to remain roughly constant for the next 30 years! Global Health, U.S. Education,...http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2008/06/28/the-future-bill-gates.aspx My new Tilt- June 18, 2008 After many years as a Treo user, my battery finally died and I was faced with a choice: get a new battery (for something like $50) or buy a brand new phone. Talk about an easy decision! So which one to get First, I had to choose a carrier. I've been on Verizon for a long time, but my need to do international travel eventually forced me to switch to AT&T (and their GSM network). Then I looked at the various AT&T phones (yes, including iPhone) and ultimately...http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2008/06/18/my-new-tilt.aspx I want Hi-fi phone calls- June 5, 2008 Once you've spoken with your young son or daughter on a wide-band telephony connection, you'll never want to go back to your old POTS (Plain Old Telephony Service) phone line again. Children have such high pitched voices that the upper frequencies get chopped off and it's hardimpossible to distinguish your boy from your girl. I've wondered for many years why the phone companies don't offer wide-band, 16khz audio for phonecalls. I can sort of understand how upgrading the entire...http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2008/06/05/i-want-hi-fi-phone-calls.aspx Tinkering and plunging- June 5, 2008 I admit that I'm often more of a tinkerer than a plunger when it comes to new technologies like Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and insert your favorite web2.0 example. I'm a tinkerer because I sign up for just about anything new that comes along, especially if I see it from one of my friends or others on my blog roll. But I just tinker with it, enough to get the basic idea, so I can be conversationally knowledgable about it ifwhen something becomes relevant later to my day job. Plungers...http://blogs.msdn.com/sprague/archive/2008/06/04/tinkering-and-plunging.aspx |