I spent some time today trying to figure out why PowerPoint 2003 was throwing errors when trying to open a file that was created on a PPT 2003 system, edited by a consultant off-site, and emailed back to a staff member, where it conveniently and immediately broke.

The error displayed when trying to open the PowerPoint file indicated that a part of the file appeared to be missing. I had seen this error before, back when PowerPoint XP was brand new and in beta, when trying to open a file that was generated in the new version of the application but then edited in an older version (like PPT2000 for example) and shipped back to the original owner.

The knowledge base didn't really get me any further than my memory did, but it turns out there was a patch released for Office 2003 that puts functionality in place to work around the fact that the consultant had edited the PPT 2003 file in PPT 2000. It's available from Office Online in the downloads section.

Now, it's nice to have the patch/fix, but since it's more of a high-quality band-aid than a true solution, we will be upgrading the consultant's computer the next time he's in the office.

Remember one thing: It's never considered to be in keeping with best practices to edit files in multiple/different versions of Office programs, especially when it can be avoided, and especially in those programs that do a lot of multimedia and embedded content (PowerPoint, Word, Excel). You may not always know the problem exists (like in this case where the consultant is using their own computer system and working off-site), but if you do know it's just not worth the risk or the software savings to use the older version: It costs more in lost time to report, troubleshoot and fix the problem than it costs to install the right software.

Lesson learned: When a consultant comes on site, be proactive and make the time to ask them briefly about what they will be doing with any shared computer files and what programs they will be using while they work. Had I done that in the first place, the problem would have been resolved before it ever happened.

By way of KC Lemson, RSS feeds for all of you Exchange pro's with information you can't help but need:

• RSS Feed that points at the root of all the blogs registered for Exchange [i.e. a notification of newly registered Exchange bloggers]
• RSS feed for links to recent posts on the Exchange blogs
• RSS feed for Exchange KB articles
• RSS feed for KB articles authored by Exchange MVPs
• RSS feed for Exchange downloads

I wonder how many Exchange admins use RSS readers and feeds - if you think about it, there's some competing technology there. Or maybe it's a high percentage. I wonder if my Exchange admin is on the RSS bandwagon? ;)

No sooner had AOL and Yahoo announced they were bowing out of the corporate instant messaging game, Microsoft announced that when it releases Live Communication Sever 2005, the product's ability to support other external instant messaging servers will extend to hook up with the AOL (AIM/ICQ) and Yahoo IM networks.

This is great news for business users and IT implementers. Finally instant messaging has real, broad possibilities in the enterprise for multiple forms of communication among a broad and differentiated set of users. Communication outside the firewall will become a real and worthwhile pursuit. The limits that have prevented effective use of instant messaging are slipping away, and in today's collaborative world that's a real plus.

The current version of the Microsoft's business IM server, LCS2003, can already be connected to the MSN public instant messaging network (for an additional service fee). The next version of the platform, dubbed Live Communication Server 2005, is now in beta, and it already supports a technology concept called "federation," which allows different companies (for example partner companies, or service providers and their customers) to securely interconnect their LCS servers across the Internet. LCS uses the SIP protocol (Session Initiation Protocol), which is an established public standard for initiating and conducting communications between nodes on a network.

Okay, but then what?

Of course there will need to be even more to offer in this product down the road, and once can guess at what that might mean. I like to guess because I eat this stuff and have dreams of grandeur about where these products could go and how they could grow. My bet is on better collaboration and meetings. Microsoft's recent meeting-related investments in SharePoint (meeting workspaces) and the relatively limited but growing functionality in the current IM product seem to point that way (IP phone integration, as well as white-boarding and application sharing with clients on the LAN). Recent additions and improvements are terrific, but there is certainly room for improvement on these recent advances.

In the past there was NetMeeting. More recently, Microsoft has invested heavily in building and acquiring new communication technologies, not only on the IM front, but also with its purchase of a company called Placeware, which is the technology platform driving the company's popular LiveMeeting service. Much of the same collaborative functionality you get from LiveMeeting is available in a more rudimentary way in LCS and separately on the public instant messaging networks. But, until the unified IM clients are available, the newer technologies are limited in their reach between organizations.

But services live LiveMeeting and conferencing competitors like WebEx, Genesys and others offer much more robust and powerful capabilities that could - should someone make the bold move - be made available to the corporate IT crowd behind the firewall as a part of a server such as LCS 200x, sometime in the future. It's a logical next step - by that time, more advanced services will undoubtedly be available and locating that functionality in the server behind the corporate firewall will be a logical move. Business would benefit from self-hosting a voice and data conferencing system based on IP voice and collaborative IM technology that federates with other corporate systems privately, as well as with the public networks recently announced.

At least we can hope!

If you're an MSDN subscriber and use RSS to stay informed of things, you'll almost certainly want to add this feed to your OPML list:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/rss.xml

Updated as new subscriber downloads are made available.

KC Lemson relates a story about how imprecise terminology can lead to mistakes, and points out in the end that such mistakes can be avoided with a little proactive thought. I know I have been tripped up in conversations where I assumed the terminology being used meant the same thing to the person I was speaking to as it did to me, only to find out how wrong I was later. KC has a good lesson and story: 

"... To him, this was basic vocabulary. He knew that registry keys are on the left-hand side of regedit and have folder icons, whereas registry values are on the right-hand side of regedit and have different icons depending on their type. To me, “registry key” was just a part of the vernacular I'd learned and there were different types of registry keys, such as DWORDs, strings, etc."

Hi, my name is Greg, and I can't type to save my life.

It's been five minutes since my last typo. I have been typing since before I can remember. I've always had troubles getting the words right, and from an early age I knew I was just different than the others. I guess I just never learned. I can spell just fine, I just can't type.

That's why I love ieSpell, a program I discovered accidentally when I started using dasBlog for my web log a while back.

This is a great Internet Explorer add-in. It's free for personal use, it works well, and it helps me fix my typos so I look less stupid (note that I won't place full responsibility for whether or not I look smart on a computer program - that would be unfair, after all).

My blog software's web interface has a rich-text editor that does some simple HTML formatting and takes advantage of ieSpell if you download and install it, which is cool. But once I have it installed, I get to use ieSpell anyplace in IE where I might need it. For example, what if I am writing a comment in a HTML text box on someone else's web log? I can use ieSpell to check my prose in the form text box before I click the submit button on the page. So, as long as I'm not saying anything completely idiotic from a opinion or factual standpoint, it makes me look smart(er). I like that.

Update: ATTWS/Cingular customers with newer model RIM devices (like the 7290 for example) may find this method does not work. If so, call your service number and tell them you want them to activate your HTML browser on your device. It will be like wireless magic, and you'll be all set.

WAP browsing not working well for you? Feel the need to see the Google graphic when you go to do a search? Are the sites you're trying to browse simply broken when you try to view them on your RIM device in WAP mode? If you have a RIM Blackberry with the newer software, do this (mine's a RIM 7280 on AT&T Wireless, your mileage may vary):

1. Go to the M-mode web browser.
2. Choose Options.
3. On the keypad, type “RBRO” (without the quotes). An additional five or so menu items will appear.
4. Click on “Browser Configuration.”
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and look for the “Constrained Content Mode” field. Change this from “WML Only” to “Unconstrained.”
6. Click the wheel and choose “Save Options.”
7. Again, go to “Browser Configuration.”
8. Scroll down a few lines from the top to “Content Mode.” Change it from “WML only” to either “WML & HTML” or “HTML only” (your choice).
9. Click the wheel and chose “Save options.”
10. That's it. You can now browse HTML, graphics and all - just make sure your bandwidth allocations won't mean a big bill at the end of your billing month!

http://groups-beta.google.com/

The beta is on for the next version of Google Groups. Not only does it look a lot like GMail, when I go to the site, it logs me on with my Google GMail account ID automagically. I can mark topics with a star () and then click on the "My starred topics" link to do a quick search list of anything I've previously flagged with the star - a lot like the way it works in GMail, go figure.

Plus, I was able to create a new group right there on the groups web site, in about 2 minutes. Worth keeping an eye on.

It looks like come September you won't have to wait for a day or two or three anymore for Domain Name Service changes on the big-two TLD's to propagate when you add a domain (and possibly when you make a DNS change - still trying to figure that one out) on the Internet. All I can say is - what's taken so darn long?

In an email notice, Matt Larson of Verisign says:

"VeriSign Naming and Directory Services (VNDS) currently generates new versions of the .com/.net zones files twice per day.  VNDS is scheduled to deploy on September 8, 2004 a new feature that will enable VNDS to update the .com/.net zones more frequently to reflect the registration activity of the .com/.net registrars in near real time.  After the rapid DNS update is implemented, the elapsed time from registrars' add or change operations to the visibility of those adds or changes in all 3 .com/.net authoritative name servers is expected to average less than five minutes."

What that means is fast propagation of .com and .net DNS registration information on the primary Internet domain servers. From the Verisign DNS Rapid Update FAQ page:

How long will it take from when I register a domain or make a change to an existing domain on my registrar's web site until I see the change in DNS?

It depends on how the registrar's systems work and how long it takes the registrar to communicate your request to the .com/.net registry. Once the registrar successfully submits a command to the .com/.net registry, the new domain or changes to an existing domain should be visible in DNS on average within five minutes.

It happened this evening. I am sitting here, trying to figure out (without getting out of my chair)  what the darn thumping sounds are around the outside of my house, and I realize all of a sudden that the moths are out in force tonight for the first time this year, and they're hitting the windows as they try to get to my interior lights.

What a weird feeling - it took me a while to figure out what the noise was. Sounds like there are a lot of them out there. Early July - that's about right. Time to put the bug lights in the outside fixtures.

Just noticed two goofy mouse games while trolling through the RSS quagmire this weekend. By way of utterlyboring.com:

A Better "Hold The Button"

Remember Hold The Button, the game that challenged you to see how long you could hold down the button on your mouse? This game is just like that, but the button moves.

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Random Stuff

I just ran across a great blog entry by John Porcaro, a Microsoft Group Marketing Manager. He has some great ideas about writing your performance review - specifically the self-review. His key points and advice should make anyone who participates in a formal review process want to click on over and get his recommendations.

His article contains the details, but the outline of his advice is:

• Take time to reflect
• Think of your review as a living resume
• Be thorough
• Go with metrics
• Make it about YOU
• Don’t worry too much about missing an agreed-upon deadline
• Don’t forget the “extra credit”
• If there’s something negative to say, bring it up yourself
• Sometimes mistakes can be the best thing
• Realize that half the equation is perception
• Don’t sweat the review
• Ask your manager to edit some of their negative comments
• Don’t put it off until the last minute

Employee reviews can be (and when done well, are) a very useful tool, and present a real and valuable structured opportunity to learn what the next stage of growth is in our careers. It's important to place a level of import on your part of the review process that shows how important your career is to you, especially if you want others to take your career as seriously as you do.

This is interesting. Funny how the brain works (or doesn't, as the case may be).

Say the color of each word out loud, at a normal reading pace (Note: Don't read the word out loud - speak the color out loud):

YELLOW       ORANGE     BLUE     BLACK     PURPLE     BLACK     GREEN     PURPLE     GREEN     ORANGE     BLACK     PURPLE     YELLOW     RED     YELLOW     ORANGE     RED

A co-worker approached me not-so-recently (read: months ago) and asked about setting up a Terrarium server for developers at our company. It's a great idea - just a little hard to accomplish becasue my round tuit has been so heavilly taxed as of late. BTW, there is a public server available here. But we want to be able to do an internal version.

Anyhow, that's my community commitment (no more goals for me - just commitments) for the month. An official company game to give everyone interested the opportunity to grow as a programmer and learn more about .NET programming.

About Terrarium:

"Terrarium, a sample application built by Microsoft®, is game for software developers that provides a great introduction to software development on the .NET Framework.  In Terrarium, developers create herbivores, carnivores, or plants and then introduce them into a peer-to-peer, networked ecosystem for a survival-of-the-fittest type competition.  The game provides both a competitive medium for testing your software development and strategy skills as well as a realistic evolutionary biology/artificial intelligence model for evaluating the role that various behaviors and traits can play in the fight for survival.  Terrarium also demonstrates some of the features of the .NET Framework, including the Windows Forms integration with DirectX® for generating powerful user interface (UI); XML Web services; support for peer-to-peer networking; support for multiple programming languages; the capability to update smart client, or Windows-based, applications via a remote Web server; and the evidence-based and code access security infrastructure that protects participating computers from the mobile code they are running."

Pascal Belaud and family just has their second child, and made a very creative announcement:

• PRESS RELEASE: version 2.0 is now officially available

I laughed - and had to share.