Microsoft's CTO, Ray Ozzie, posted earlier today about his views on SSE, of the Simple Sharing Extensions to RSS and OPML that Microsoft recently published as an open draft specification (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike model). Ozzie knows a lot about sharing information - He created Lotus Notes and was the founder of Groove, a terrific and innovative collaboration platform that Microsoft acquired not that long ago.

He describes the problem with sharing and combining loosely-coupled information.

"As an industry, we have simply not designed our calendaring and directory software and services for this 'mesh' model. The websites, services and servers we build seem to all want to be the 'owner' and 'publisher'; it's really inconsistent with the model that made email so successful, and the loosely-coupled nature of the web."

So he's talking about how to extend RSS and OPML to allow synchronization.

"There are many great item synchronization mechanisms out there (and at Microsoft), but we decided we’d never get short term network effects among products if we selected something complicated – even if it were powerful. What we really longed for was 'the RSS of synchronization' ... something simple that would catch on very quickly."

Note that this is not the same stuff that's gluing RSS into the core of Vista and whatnot - rather it's a simple way to mesh, communicate and synchronize information from multiple sources in XML. It's nifty, simple and smart. I think I've got my mind wrapped around it now. Very cool. Geeks, read on:

• The SSE draft spec is here
• A SSE FAQ page is here

Just read a blog post over at HinesSight (a great Oregon-based blog, by the way) called "I pick up a hitchhiker." You know that feeling when you read or see something and you can literally feel your stomach bottom out? You know, the one's that stop you in your tracks and show you that your little world is not so bad after all?

Yeah, it's one of those. Read it, and remember as you go through like to take the time to stop, to take a personal inventory now and then, and to do what's right and good.

Another of the new Windows Live series of services officially launched the other day - It's Windows Live Custom Domains, and essentially it allows you to use the great Hotmail email services with your personal domain name.

All you have to do is go to http://domains.live.com/, specify your domain name (which you must already have registered), make a change to your DNS settings for the domain (the service will let you know what the settings are - this is the most complicated part of the whole deal), and create email accounts (which become passport logon accounts for the system).

I created a mail service for blogaholic.net (a domain which I have yet to launch, maybe someday) and added an email account, logged in and was sending mail - all in less than 10 minutes. Suhhh-lick!

Serious about Security

The service is really darn cool (seriously, if you're looking for the power and convenience of Hotmail and the uniqueness of your own domain name, it's hot), but the one thing that stood out to me the most was the client security Microsoft has built into the account setup process for this service. Yes, I know - basic security tools, blah blah... But it's become the rule more and more lately, which deserves mention. It's a terrific sign that the company is building better security - and better user tools to enable and teach effective security - into their services.

For example, when I created the greg@blogaholic.net email account, it required me (as the administrator for that email domain) to set a temporary password. In other words, if I create accounts for others (yes, just let me know), I only know the password they'll use to log into the account the first time.

Once I logged in to activate the email account and start using it, I had to provide the temporary password, and it required me to choose a new one and confirm it. But even better than that, as I typed the new password, a color-coded "password strength" bar showed me the complexity strength of my password. It went from Red (weak) to Yellow (so-so) to Green (strong) as I typed. Nice! That's what we need more of - simple, powerful tools to help end users be more secure in real time. Great work, whoever decided to put that in, and to whoever built it. It's quite effective.

[UPDATE: Apparently this is a feature that shipped earlier this year and was included in the LCD package and which was PM'ed by Trevin in Windows Live Identity Services - cool! Looks like I found another blog to subscribe to!]

On the same page, the user has the option to set their password to expire every 72 days. Unfortunately, that box is not checked by default (it really should be), but the fact that it's available is very good. Hopefully they'll change their tun and check that box by default, and let people un-check it of they don't want it. I'm always a proponent of more-secure-by-default.

If you want to find out more, Omar Shahine (Lead Program Manager on the HotMail front-door team) has info here and here, and the Custom Domains team has a blog here.

A couple months ago I took early delivery of a ThinkPad X41 Tablet PC, and I like it a lot. There are a few things I'd improve (like maybe offer a faster proc and faster hard drive spin speed as an option, and possibly higher resolution video), but overall it's great.

But I ran into my first problem last week. The "push-through" latch - which sticks out of the machine's screen either on the screen surface side or the top surface side, depending on whether you've rotated into slate mode - broke and fell out. So not I have a Tablet without a latch. Luckily, the lid tends to close shut. he only real problem is it also tends to rotate if you push on it the wrong way.

Looking at the base side of the latching mechanism, it appears something in there broke. Not good. And the thing, is, all I've done with it is open and close it normally... No torture, drops, hard landings, hard closings or anything.

Bummer. Seems like the convertible Tablet PC latch market needs a better design. Someone out there should design the perfect latch, patent their Really Good Idea and run with it.

Recently I've been targeted by teenagers who are suddenly waking up and wanting to learn about things in their newly-discovered/interesting world. Well, okay so maybe it's a phase, but hey - you take advantage of these periods when they present themselves, you know? Often the reason for the Q&A is a science fair project, or else it's that magical "how do you hack computers" series of questions. Science fair projects I can help with. Hacking? Not quite so willing. But I'm always game to help people learn more about computer security and IT.

One thing that keeps modern teens and kids interested in learning is something that reads well, is on the Internet, and doesn't present itself like a text book. That's why I really, really like "How Stuff Works" (howstuffworks.com) as a resource for adults and kids to learn about cool things and, well, how they work. The power of the site is that it takes complicated topics and makes them understandable.

The How Stuff Works site has been around since before the Internet became uber-popular. I can remember reading lots of great content there many years ago. A guy names Marshall Brain (no joke) was the originator of the site and idea. His related books (appropriately titled 'Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works' and 'Marshall Brain's More How Stuff Works') are terrific for teens and younger kids. He's also written other great books. Parents should pick up a copy of 'The Teenager's Guide to the Real World' for every kid on the planet.

Anyhow, HowStuffWorks.com is one of the most visited sites on the Internet. you can learn all kinds of cool stuff there, explained in ways anyone can understand. That's what makes it so great. Here's a few examples I've sent various people lately:

• How Lasers Work
• How Network Address Translation (NAT) Works
• How Firewalls Work
• How Web Servers Work
• How Internet Cookies Work
• How Wi-Fi works

Jeremy Zawodny linked to the Warning Label Generator, where you can make fun warning labels (what else?) of your own creative design:

Eh, forgive the creative wording. Hey, it's accurate.