This summer I was offered an intern position at Microsoft.  I can’t see why anyone would ever pass up the opportunity, regardless of how they felt about Microsoft products.  I’ve been working for about a week, and I can already tell that the benefits available to a full time employee (or an intern) are far superior than anywhere else I’ve been.  Not to mention the interesting and intelligent people that are literally everywhere.

I was placed on a team called Windows Experience (or WEX), as a Software Development Engineer (or SDE in Microspeak).  As can be determined from the name, this team encompasses much of the user-facing development for Windows.  Some of the core groups within WEX include Media Player, and HomeGroup - the new networking technology in Windows 7 which aims to simplify sharing files and devices over the network.

The Redmond campus is a big place, it’s actually split into several sections.  I was told that Redmond North Campus (top) was at one time an insurance company that Microsoft bought out when in need of more space.

Being that this is the World Headquarters for a company that has an annual revenue of over 60 billion dollars, there is quite an elaborate shuttle network to move employees around the campus, and the surrounding Seattle area.  This is just one of many cool perks that seem to be rare elsewhere.

Any receptionist can arrange for a car to pick up and drop of an employee within a couple of minutes.  They sat to estimate up to 15 minutes, but in practice I’ve never waited more than 5.  Microsoft says this saves more than 20,000 gallons of fuel each year.

Aside from the on-campus shuttle connect, Microsoft has created one of the largest private bus networks in the world, named the Connector.  The Connector is fleet of  WiFi equipped coach buses which travel from points in the surrounding county and Seattle, to the Microsoft campus.  Employees, contractors and vendors are encouraged to use the service.

After only experiencing life as a Microsoft employee for about a week, it’s tough to make a decision on whether or not this is the best place to work ever, but it’s sure shaping up to be better than IBM and Intel already.  I’ll continue to update with some of my experiences throughout the summer.

New Features/Changes:

• More intuitive dialogs.
• Run at Startup
• Check for updates (removed broken Updater plug-in)
• Enabled/Disabled on menu
• Fixed internal plugin (ShowConfig, Plug, Enabled/Disabled)
• Lower memory usage under some conditions

Download: GlobalCommand 3.1 [Zip]

First off, the menu now contains some useful options:

• Quickly Enable/Disable automatic updating.
• Manually update.
• View settings.
• View past sync history.

Clicking on View Status Messages will yield the log window:

Updates and Errors will be logged for review.

Clicking on Settings from the tray menu will invoke the all new Settings dialog:

Select the Twitter URL — no need to find your RSS link, just enter your profile URL (e.g twitter.com/davux) and it will be resolved for you.

Choose an update interval, and select whether or not you’d like to cause an update event when a reply is found.

You can also now create a list of words to “ignore.”  These words will automatically reject the tweet regardless of any other settings.

Choose to update Digsby, and or execute a command, or write to a file when an update is found.  DigsbyStatus.exe is no longer required, and a focus bug has been resolved.

DigTweet can now automatically run when windows starts up, and can also optionally start updating upon start.

Updates will be passed down in the form of a message informing you that a new version is available.

Enjoy!

Download: DigTweet 1.2 [ZIP]

Examples:

Send a message:

aim:goim?screenname=davux

Output: Send Dave a message!

Add a contact:

aim:addbuddy?screenname=davux

Output: Add Dave to your contact list!

Note:  Alternate aim:// links are also supported.
Usage

This Flexibility works great on message boards and community sites where single-click access to an alternate communication medium is advantageous.

The Catch

This program (like many of my Digsby enhancements) works by simulating a user, and due to some limitations in Digsby itself, I’m unable to gracefully get around this single limitation for the software.  I hope that for most people, it would be trivial.

You must have your AIM account as the primary account in Digsby.

This means that your AIM screen name must be the first one listed when you view your accounts.  You can view your accounts by clicking on Tools and then Preferences and select the Accounts tab.  You can move the account by simply dragging it up or down.

Note: A restart is required for these changes to take effect.

The Software

DigsbyGoIm is easy to use.  You’ll need to install it just once, and it will work without any extra interaction on your part.  There is no need to start run it manually.  Clicking on any aim: link will launch it, and in turn, Digsby.

Once downloaded, copy the executable to a location which you will not accidentally delete it.  The program will register itself to that location, and if you remove or delete the file, links will no longer be handled.  If you do decide to move the program–don’t worry.  Re-running the executable to install will update the references and links will be handled at the new location.

Double-click DigsbyGoIm.exe to install.  You will be prompted with a set of options.

Selecting YES will install the handler.  Note that this will overwrite any current AIM link handler.  You will need to reinstall AIM in order to recover your old link handler.  AIM will continue to function properly in all aspects other than handling links.

If you are using Windows Vista, you will be prompted to elevate.  This is a one-time action and is required in order to add the registry entry to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT that will allow this program to register itself to handle links.

That’s it!  Links will be handled now, and you can enjoy not having to copy and paste screen names to send messages.  Note that addbuddy link identifier will not actually add the buddy to your contact list, but rather just invoke the Add Contact dialog, and fill in the name.  You will have the option to select an alias and click Add. Also note that the message parameter will be ignored for goim links.

Download

DigsbyGoIm 1.1.0

New Features:

• Choose to ignore replies so they don’t end up as your status message.
• Choose the update interval.
• Run graphically or from the command line.
• Save settings between sessions.

Due to some of the limitations of .NET, I’ve compiled two versions, one for strictly graphical users and one for mixed-mode users.  The two versions are functionally equivalent, however the console version will flash the window when launching, whereas the GUI version will not attach to the console window which it is launched from.

Screenshots

Download

DigTweet 1.1 Graphical (Recommended)

DigTweet 1.1 Console

Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0 is required.

DigsbyStatus is included.

It isn’t a full XML parser and could probably be broken pretty easily by other RSS feeds, so I wouldn’t recommend trying that.

Using the utility is easy, just make sure the DigTweet.exe and DigsbyStatus.exe are in the same folder, and pull up a command prompt.

DigTweet.exe RssLink

So for example, to sync to my feed, I would enter:

DigTweet.exe http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14261383.rss

You can find your Twitter RSS feed at the bottom of your personal page (not your homepage, that link will go to a feed of everyone’s status).

If you like, you can make a single-click batch file. Just open notepad and enter the following:

DigTweet.exe http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14261383.rss

Change the RSS path to your own, and save the file as StartDigTweet.bat. Be careful to not have ‘.txt’ appended to the end by notepad. Click this file and the window will open. You can largely ignore what it’s saying, just minimize it and go on with whatever you’d normally do. Tweets are only updated ONCE, so if it changes the status, and you switch to something else, it won’t be overwritten until a) you restart DigTweet, or b) you have something new in the “top slot” in your feed. (Note: deleting a tweet will cause a sync on the previous tweet)

You can grab a copy of DigTweet today.

I set to work figuring out how to set the status from outside the application.  I went with the same approach that I had used before, simulating a local user via Win32 Window messages.  This is a great solution because it doesn’t interfere with any actions that a user may be performing locally - you don’t even know it is happening.

I broke this project up into the two logical components, the part that gets the twitter feed and the part that actually does the work of setting the status.  What I’ve come up with is a little command line utility to set the status.

It can be used like so:

DigsbyStatus.exe "This is my new status message"

Or, to clear the status:

DigsbyStatus.exe ""

Quotes are needed as to simulate a “blank” argument.  The status classification can’t be changed, so you will still be available or away based on the protocol and the last state of the computer.  I figure someone else might find this useful to, say, update status based on some unsupported media player.

Download: DigsbyStatus_100.zip [10KB]

I’ve been using Digsby since it came out in February, and I’ve had the Widget attached to my Facebook profile, but I’ve added it here now.

The Digsby Widget is a little flash application that allows users on a website to directly contact you via Digsby.  This is my widget for this site:

When a user clicks the object to enable it, they show up on my Digsby contact list.

Just type into the widget to send a message!

It’ll show up on my computer, just like a regular IM window:

I’ve never seen anything like this in any other IM client, and although it’s not really all that useful for many people, it’s certainly a cool feature.  Feel free to strike up a conversation with me!

Every time I get on the MAX and ride for more than a few stops, I hear this message, and it always strikes me as a really strange thing, and I couldn’t figure out why until a few days ago.  The message is spoken by a woman:

Proof of payment and a validated fare are required on MAX.

A sentence that you might hear on any other transit system without strict access control (VTA, for example uses an honor system).  I’ve been using the MAX twice (or more) per day since May 31st, and I’ve never had my fare checked.

Anyway, this voice sounds just like the woman that narrates the intro scene in the original Half-Life, I could completely imagine her swapping MAX for The Black Mesa Transit System.  I can’t be the first person to have thought this, Portland is a pretty nerdy area, more than a few people have played Half-Life around here.