Most of you know I’m pretty very well connected into Microsoft. Mostly because it’s been my playground for the last few decades. I’ve been an MVP since 2003, and Regional Directory since 2011, and my company is an Approved Vendor with Microsoft that gives me corpnet access. I’m on email list after list, and have access to too much NDA information. I’m grateful to be considered a trusted resource from Corporate Vice Presidents, to Product Managers, to Regional Offices etc.

Ya, ya, so what’s the point?

Well, I was thinking …. with all the access I have into Microsoft, who are the most helpful people (to me)? It turns out the same group of folks that are out in the field working with you (named “The Audience”) are the same group of folks that I find most helpful. Their official title is Evangelist, but you can think of them as the kick ass Concierge you met at the last 5 star resort you saw on TV. You know the staff member that knows everyone, and will stop at no end to find you that special over night dry cleaner? That role … is the role that Evangelist play at Microsoft as the inward facing representatives to Microsoft.

So with all the over 100,000 people employed at Microsoft, if you don’t know your Developer Evangelist for Microsoft that serves your area and expertise, you should. Ask someone, find them, hunt them down, email them, Tweet them, Facebook friend them, and get to know them on a first name basis.

In no particular order, these are the four most helpful people I know in Microsoft. If you ask me a (Microsoft) question that I don’t know, 90% of the time, one of these folks is going to be my go-to email.

Call it smoke, call it gratitude, call it whatever you want. I call it public thank you.

So …

• Daniel Egan ( [email protected] )
• Michael Palermo ( [email protected] )
• Bruno Terkaly ( [email protected] )
• Ricardo Villalobos ( [email protected] )

Thank you! You all make my life easier, and are always willing to research, help, introduce, correct, and guide me towards the solutions I’m looking for.

I was on a plane yesterday reading my Kindle, and the guy next to me says something like “I used to have a Kindle, but I left it on a plane”, while he was pointing to the Seat-Back Pocket. And another time this week, I saw something on TV about the volunteer staff that work at airports, that have thousands and thousands of found items, that they simply can’t return. Not that they don’t want to, there is just no way to, because there is no Personally Identifiable Information ( also known as P.I.I. ) on them.

Then I started thinking, what if I left my Kindle behind, how would someone return it, assuming that they wanted to? Sharpie? Maybe. Here is a better option. Shown below is the Amazon “Manage Your Devices” screen shot, where you’re allowed to name your Kindle Device. As you can see on the right, I have named Jamie and My Kindles, with both our name, and our Cell phone number, so if someone turns it on, they’ll see the P.I.I. where hopefully they’ll return it.

I thought this was a good enough idea to write about, and hopefully let others know!

As you see pictured here, the MacBook Air power button is just above the Delete (which really is backspace) button on the MacBook Air keyboard. If you’ve ever seen me type, you know I use the backspace key a lot! Once I accidentally pressed the power button, which wasn’t too painful as it put my machine into Sleep mode. I just closed the lid, opened it again, logged in, and it came back to life.

But then I thought …. What if I was on stage? …. and I had a moment of silence. how bad would that be, and how awkward would it be to explain to the audience what just happened?

So I jumped into power settings, and set the Power button to do nothing. If you’re a presenter, using MacBook hardware, you might consider doing the same? This may be a good idea, no matter what laptop you’re using. To be honest, I 99.9999% of the time, just close the lid, and when I do need to shut down, I do it from the Start Menu anyway. So the button is only representing danger to me.

#Disable #Disable #Disable

 

Eric Sink (@eric_sink on twitter) has written a great book on Version Control Software, titled Version Control By Example. It showed up on my desk again this morning. I say again, because I keep letting people borrow it, and they keep returning it 🙂 I figured with it’s popularity, I could record a quick video book review, and post it. So here it is.

Great job Eric, it’s a great book. Easy ready, very informative, and sometimes funny (if you can be funny in a DVCS book?).