Another double digit unsuccessful phone calls to Virgin, numerous looks ups of flight status on the web, and numerous flight status calls using the automated answering system, the same result:

• Call system: Flight delayed till 11pm
• Email from Virgin: Flight cancelled
• Web site: Flight Cancelled and delayed till 11pm
• Trying to talk to a person: futile

Enough with the uncertainty, I say! We packed our bags and headed to the airport. Called the cab company, busy for 15min. Then on hold for another 10min, while standing out in the cold, trying to flag a cab down (non came by). Finally talked to the cab company: “We don’t have any cabs downtown. You should try flagging one down.”  Ok, I will do that….

Went inside to warm up, and was ready to admit defeat. Let’s just stay home and keep on trying to get thru to Virgin.  Walked outside one more time, and a cab appears in the distance. Finally on route to the airport, fully expecting to be standing in line for 2-3 hours before we could talk to anyone.

$42 cab ride later, we walk up to the Virgin counter, with zero lines, huh?

“We have a cancelled flight and want to rebook”

“We don’t do rebookings, here is a card with the virgin phone number.”

“We’ve been calling for hours, and can’t get thru, that’s why we came to the airport.”

“Any rebookings that are being done are for 12/30 and later.”

“Seriously? Our planned return flight was for the 29th.”

“Yeah, there are not earlier rebookings. We are only doing refunds here.”

“Well, then may I proceed and get a refund” ….

$-320 cancelled flight.

$42 return cab ride home.

xmas vacation to and from round trip in less than 45min – priceless.

Now let’s see if we can get a refund for the rental car….

Today is the day of the flight. I understand airlines are having challenges dealing with the weather induced delays and cancellations. But is it too much to ask for Virgin America to provide accurate and clear information? Let’s see, what am I supposed to understand from the below flight status on virginamerica.com?

Who can tell me, is my flight

1. Cancelled, or
2. Delayed till 11pm

the status clearly shows both! Cancelled in bold red print, as well as clearly an “Estimated departure time” of 11pm today.

“Dear Virgin America, what should I do? Head to the airport and curse you? or stay home and forfeit my flight?”

Well, why not talk to a Virgin America employee and ask them for clarification. Easy enough, right? Well, no. “FAIL” number too. Calling 877-359-8474 today at 8:04am, 8:21am, and 8:39am, each time asking to speak to a “person”, I head the transferring beep, followed by a ringing, and than a recorded voice saying “Your call cannot be completed at this time, please try again later”.

Are you kidding me? Is this the best you can do Virgin America?

Joe posted about his quest for the perfect notepad replacement. It seems this is a quest everyone is actively or passively on. Since I am normal like everyone else, I've been on the same quest passively. I've tried TextPad, MultiEdit, SlickEdit, Notepad2, Notepad++, and other. I've avoided emacs and vi since "life is too short to recompile your kernel every time you want to list a directory™". (ok, shoot me: I don't dream of bash scripts, I don't chmod my .pain file. Instead I chose to live with other pains, like constantly flickering/refreshing/redrawing of windows desktop – how do I track down which apps send paint message for window 0 again?)

Joe mentioned that he can't put his finger on why some editors don't feel right. For it's based on the keyboard shortcuts and performance (startup and commands). Here is why:

• I use Word (Outlook) for editing emails 100 hours a day
• I use OneNote to capture todo lists, ideas, notes and things I want to remember
• I use Visual Studio (General keyboard mapping) for writing most code

I've already trained my fingers a multitude of keyboard shortcuts for these apps, and they are getting tired of learning new ones. I prefer to minimize mouse usage when I am writing. So I really appreciate it when applications share common keyboard shortcuts. Most get the basics like cut/copy/paste and selection via Ctrl-Shift-Arrows right. But when it come to

• Ctrl-Shift-Up/Down to move (selected) lines up/down, or
• Ctrl-M,L and Ctrl-M,O and Ctrl-M,M for toggling outlining, or
• Ctrl-K,D for reformatting indentation
• Ctrl-K,K and Ctrl-K,N for setting and moving among bookmarks, or
• Ctrl-. and Ctrl-/ for bulleted and number lists
• Ctrl-1 for setting a todo
• Ctirl-I for starting an incremental search

They all disagree. Or why please why? I know why. Those are not in the 80% use case. So when those features were added it wasn't obvious whose shortcuts to copy and hence the legacy problem was created. Why should a developer disgruntle his loyal long time users by changing the keyboard shortcuts on them? I remember when Visual Studio (2003 or 2005) changed quite a few default keyboard shortcuts. It took some practice, but I finally learned the new ones.

Sure I can "customize" every editor up the yingyang, but then I have to do that on all my computers (which is a pain) and then I can't use anyone else's machine. Don't you hate walking up to another machine for debugging or code review and you can't do anything b/c it's customized differently? Or you can't tell anyone else how to use a feature b/c you customized it differently? That's why sensible default are so critical, and customization is a copout that should be avoided imho.

And why does every app need its own extensibility technology?

But, what's not right with Joe's new found darling named         e     ?

1. When I set it to be the default IE view source editor (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\View Source Editor\Editor Name) and view source on a page that doesn't have a recognized extension it doesn't apply syntax coloring. I have to hit Alt-Win-Shift-H-1 to get html syntax highlighting
2. Mouse scroll wheel doesn't work – WTF? Apparently they were introduced in the late 90ties. It's 10 years later and applications still don't detected their existence? I can probably enable it by recompiling my kernel… (yes I am a hypocrite – I do use the mouse to get a quick overview of a file)
3. Mono-spaced default font – Haven't we been using GUI interface for over a decade? Hasn't it been almost as long that we've been using proportional spaced fonts? How often do you really need to align text with spaces? Courier just isn't for me. Having to switch every editor's default font to Segue UI is just lame. Can all editors please agree on a standard regkey that I can set once? (That includes Visual Studio)
4. Wrong Ctrl-Tab ordering. Anyone using they keyboard will be used to Windows' Alt-Tab MRU ordering. Any application that uses left-to-right Ctrl-Tab ordering is just wrong. Firefox, does it wrong. IE by default does it wrong! (fix it in Tools|Options|Advanced|Use most recent order when switching tabs) Visual Studio fortunately does it right by default

And there is one more issue that's not e's problem but rather mine. I shall not try editors with a lunix past. Let's move forward and try embracing PowerShell as the command line scripting instead of asking to install cygwin.

If you read this far, I have to tell you that I am impressed. I don't think even I will re-read this far. Mind you, I am fully aware the above of over exaggerated preferences that can be fought over religiously, so instead of agreeing and disagreeing with me, maybe the only use of this post was for you have more thoughts that help you express what's wrong with your editor of choice.

Now get back to "always be shipping"!

Why is it so hard to find a printer? All that I need:

1. Color
2. Non-Inkjet
3. Duplex
4. Wireless
5. Flatbed scanner

Is that really too much to ask for?

• I want to print color! It doesn't even have to be picture quality, but if it is, it sure would be a nice bonus
• I hate inkjet! My current printer is ink. I already had to buy several print heads b/c they dried out. They cost $50 or so each
• I need duplex. I could say I want to save trees – sure, sure – but I hate printing out pages to read and having the stack be twice and thick and heavy than necessary
• I've had 801.11b since 1997. Since shortly thereafter my printers have always been locked in the closet and accessed via wifi
• I need a scanner to make regular copies and scan in my picture from years ago. An automatic document feed is nice, but definitely not necessary

Is there a printer that matches the minimal requirements?

Why would anyone ever want anything less as a home printer?

I've looked at my referral log and noticed that a number of people are reaching my spaces blog after doing a web search for "feed synchronization". Anyone look for information on troubleshooting feed synchronization in the Windows RSS Platform and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) you should take a look at my post at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam/archive/2007/01/08/feeds-not-updating.aspx

On Tue I read Fil's post about the sad state of online advertising. He basically hints at the reasons why there are so many crappy-low-quality ads online, while they don't exist in physical world. The reasons?

1. Money – placing a prominent ad in the print edition of NYT is way too expensive
2. Money – the NYT would never allow a low quality ad on their pages b/c then high-end advertisers like luxury companies as Tiffany would not place their ads anywhere near low-quality ads since it reflects negatively on their brand

He concludes that

But it turns out that Tiffany's and other high-end advertisers don't advertise on the web — because there's no appropriate online advertising surface out there for them.

He goes on to explain the side-effects of luxury companies missing from the online ad market.

However, I was reminded of Fil's post when I read Dave Winer's post "What is Web 3.0?" today. In it, he postulates that Web 3.0 (the next step) is:

Imho, the next step after that, I hope, is the professional media fully embracing the new media, no longer see it as a threat to their continued employment. See amateur public writing, the former audience who is no longer silent, as sources who can get attention for their ideas without going through an intermediary.

I read this to mean that Web 3.0 will be the time when professional media will participate and embrace the online word fully. However, assuming Fil's statement is true, and then I see the following line of thought:

• Professional media will adopt the online world once they can pay there will with high-end advertising.
• High-end advertisers will come, only once they have an appropriate online advertising surface.

Accepting this line of thought for a moment, it means that whoever wants to make Dave Winer's Web 3.0 happen will have to provide a high-end-online-advertising-surface or HEOAS for short.

Fil, can you deliver the HEOAS for us and are you with Silverlight up to that task?

Feel free to hold a match to the straw man I created and point out my flaws in reason…

I spent the last 3 days in Vegas to speak at the Mix07 conference and I felt like the Seinfeld episode where everything evens out for Jerry:

Jerry : Yeah, I know; like yesterday I lost a job, and then I got another one, and then I missed a TV show, and later on they re-ran it. And then today I missed a train, went outside and caught a bus. It never fails! I always even out!

Kramer called him "Even Steven".

On Sunday my flight to Vegas was delayed, and then when I finally reached the Venetian to check in they offered me their top of the line $600 more a nite suite for "just" $100 per nite. I graciously declined. It's not like their normal rooms aren't adequate. A couple minutes later the guy checking me in at the front desk says "we've upgraded you to our hospitality suite, complementary. Sometimes good things happen when you check-in late at nite!" So I ended up staying at this for 3 nites. Very shabby indeed! Delayed flight evens out with an upgrade.

One of the reasons I was so late in checking in aside from the delayed flight was the taxi line. Even at midnight on a Sunday, I ended up waiting for 45min to get a cab. There were plenty of cabs and the line was moving, but it just took that long to get hundreds of people to jump in cab and get on their way.

On Wednesday after my late checkout at 1pm I asked to hold my bags at the concierge. Apparently quite a number of people do that at the Venetian. Instead of a small room where they store people bags they have a "secure" facility outside the entrance and instead of a couple of bell guys retrieving your bags they have like 20 runners that fetch bags in a mass production. But the sheer numbers they have to handle meant I had to wait 7min. When my 3.5 bags arrived, I handed my runner a $5. The only other bill I had was a $1, which would have been an insult… When I handed him the tip, he asked me where I am going, and I motioned to the cab line. He stopped me from taking my bags of the cart and said "let me take you there". While walking towards the long line for taxi cabs (probably at least a 25min wait) he said "you are the first one to give me a tip in a long time!" I was very surprised, "really?" (Apparently, after blowing hundreds of dollars on hotel rooms and life savings at the blackjack table, people are too cheap to pony up a couple bucks after having had their bags stored for them?) Turns out he didn't walk me over all the way to the cab line, but instead stopped a couple lanes short and flagged down a cab for me that had just dropped someone off. He loaded my bags, sent me on my way and saved me that hassle of waiting in line. Thank you Mr. Bell Captain!

It all evened out for me…

Why is web 2.0 so lacking? Take sharing pictures as an example. Of course we all use flickr which is the premier web 2.0 picture sharing site. But does it really beat the alternative emailing pics?

Let's start with the premise of why we all like to share pictures. We like to share them b/c as human being we like to collect mementoes of our lives so we can own and store and later retrieve our memories. We all might have various mechanisms for doing just that, but I believe for many it comes down to putting all pictures into some folder (or hierarchy) on their harddisk.

Sending pictures as attachments from your harddisk and putting pictures that you receive via email onto your harddisk while cumbersome is something we've all learned how to do. The only impedance is the attachment size limits that the popular email services impose. Esp since each email service impose different sizes, you never know how many pictures to send.

Flickr and 4.5 billion similar picture sharing sites make you believe they solve this problem for you. Assume you pay the $25 per year for the flickr pro account which allows you to store of full resolution image on flickr.

First - I have to suffer thru getting my images uploaded. The html upload is as much torture as adding attachments to emails. Even when using the "handy" flickr uploader tool, it uses 100% CPU and is terrible at managing network bandwidth. That combined with the prevalence of asymmetric bandwidth (drastically lower upload bandwidth from most US ISPs/cable modem providres) it takes ions eons to upload the after number of pictures from a weekend trip. It's about 500 pics at 5 mega pixel. You basically upload over night, except that the upload tool doesn't handle failure gracefully and doesn't provide resume.

Second – Once the pics are finally uploaded I am not done. I still have to annotate, rename, and set permissions on most pictures. Pictures without a clever title are just lame. That takes another ions, even with the snazzy flash based flickr picture organizer feature. No finally my friends can find out about my pics via the RSS feeds (which don't provide full resolution enclosures, and only enclosures after one manually changes the URL)

Third – Now let me be on the other side of the coin. I just saw that my friend uploaded new pics. Great, but how am I going to get those pics onto my harddisk next to my pics from the same event? I need to click on each picture to get to the "show all sizes" link. Click on "show all sizes" then I click on "show original resolution" link, and then I can right-click the full resolution image and select Save As. Yeah!!! I finally got one image on my harddisk

Fourth – but wait, the picture file name is some random large number, not the image title? Where did the comments go? Names of people in the picture? Where was the picture taken? When was it taken? All that information is part of the picture that needs to be shared. Looking at pictures without that information is like watching the new bruce willis movie in black-and-white without sound.

In summary: Web 2.0 sux for sharing pictures

Here are the key requirements of sharing pictures

• Full resolution pictures (you never know when you'll need the extra pixels)
• Titles
• Simple upload of a folder/ multiple images
• Continue on upload error (try the next image)
• Resume gracefully on error (let me restart upload without starting from beginning)
• Comments (inside jokes which bring the pics to life)
• Tags (location, names)
• Permission (define which images are private, friends-only, public locally before uploading)

Extra gravy

• Music
• Slide show including display times and transition effects

True, using a desktop for storing pictures on your harddisk is so 1980ies. The web 2.0 way to store all your pics exclusively "in the cloud" and to hope that your chosen provider doesn't go out of business and takes your pictures with them. The true web 2.0 way of sharing pictures is to create your own mashup of your images from the various places that you and your friends upload images. Assuming the images are tags appropriately, then you could use the tag-feeds to get the images.

Is there a picture mashup site that makes that easy for me? Easy for "my mom"? Does it know how to pull in comments, tags? Does it honor permissions? Does it allow me to pick entire sets including individual images while filtering out others?

In the end, I don't think that's doable for the "my-mom" type of user… Or can you point me as your mom's mashup web 2.0 picture sharing site?

I thought so…

It was finally time, to kick off my MSDN blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/w

You can imagine the topics will be related to my work on RSS and the Windows RSS Platform, and feed reading in IE7.

Using the RSS Platform on Windows: Syndication Goes Mainstream

• video cast
• pod cast

 [update 3/17] Yes I will be asking to have my name spelled correctly :)

MS: Forget OPML, Use Windows RSS

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

February 2, 2006, 1:40 PM

With the first public preview release of Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft has outlined its plans to bring RSS into the core of Windows, opening up APIs and a "Common Feed List" for all applications to access. The advantage, the company says, is an end to bothering with OPML thanks to a unified storage for feed data.

OPML, or Outline Processor Markup Language, is an XML format for outlines that has been popularized for use in exchanging lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators. For example, a user can export a list of feeds from one location into OPML and easily import them into another application or Web based service.

Microsoft is hoping to do away with that process by creating a full-featured "platform" for RSS directly in Windows. While RSS will be natively supported in Windows Vista, Microsoft is also extending the same support to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 through Internet Explorer 7.

Although some may be wary of Microsoft controlling the central repository for RSS feed lists, the company says there are a number of advantages to such integration. The company also thinks the features will help transition RSS from a niche technology into mainstream use.

"When you discover and subscribe to feeds in IE7, it adds them to the Common Feed List and the new subscription is available to other applications. Not only can the user benefit from multiple applications using the Common Feed List, but we expect that over time, online services will provide tools that synchronize the Common Feed List with their services," explained one IE program Manager.

Such compatibility would allow for users to access their subscription list not only between applications, but also when roaming on other computers. Some online RSS aggregators have offered such functionality, but require a Web browser be used to browse feeds.

"So far, Microsoft doesn't appear to be trying to hijack RSS but more provide a platform for extending subscription capabilities to other applications. How Microsoft proceeds will be telling and demonstrate the extent of commitment to standards, particularly with IE 7," Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox commented to BetaNews.

In addition to the Common Feed List, the Windows RSS Platform is comprised of two other components: Feed Synchronization Engine and Feed Store.

These components will provide support for every major RSS and Atom format, along with a number of extensions, directly through Windows APIs. Applications can take advantage of bandwidth-friendly downloads of things like podcasts through Windows' Background Intelligent Transfer Service, and access feed data as objects or a raw XML stream.

Microsoft says it plans to announce further details on the API, features and implementation of the Windows RSS Platform over the coming weeks. A special RSS team blog has been setup specifically for this purpose.

"RSS potential looks promising, but, buttom line, there needs to be revenue opportunity, whether making or saving money. Microsoft's RSS platform is a step towards making that opportunity real," added Jupiter's Wilcox.

As I was perusing the microsoft IE blog today, I came across a post titled “Windows RSS Platform.” I’ve since dried off my keyboard, but I have to confess my reaction was darned close to a spit-take. Anyways, while I’m sure this has been written about extensively in the past, I sure missed it.
Apparently, this was something that was originally going to be released with Vista:

[…] The RSS functionality in IE7 is “powered” by the Windows RSS Platform. The Windows RSS Platform API encapsulates 3 main components: Common Feed List, Feed Synchronization Engine, and Feed Store.

The RSS functionality in IE7 is built on top of these components. While we previously announced that the Windows RSS Platform would be available for Windows Vista, we are extremely pleased to announce that the Windows RSS Platform will also be available as part of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows XP 64-bit.

Ok, then we get the standard “building block architecture” paragraph. Markitecture tends to make my eyes droop… However, plowing on, the author writes a paragraph that I know I could’ve written and I perk back up:

Like many of you, I’ve been running several RSS applications (aggregators, pod casters, etc…) for some time and am subscribed to close to 100 feeds. Each time I start using another RSS application I play the “game” of OPML export and import. This quickly becomes a hassle, especially when I lose track of feeds because I subscribed to or deleted feeds in different applications and hence my feed lists are no longer in sync.

Amen Walter, sing it! From there, the post goes on to explain how this vision will make your life better and your teeth shiny and clean. I think there’s even baby bluebirds flitting about in the background…

Ok, seriously, I think this is pretty damned progressive for Microsoft and am very interested to see how it works out. Because, if they don’t get it right, you can bet someone else will take this exact same conceptual idea (feed store, feed synch engine and common feed list) and run with it. That common feed list notion is pretty wild and very interesting.
The RSS Team Blog is some interesting reading too. They talk about Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) in a few of their articles.

I have a project from work in mind that would benefit from SSE: Keeping two different issue tracking systems in lock-step. Ours and a clients’. Problem is, they’d both need external interfaces to make it happen. Mine can output RSS and has a non-rss input API. Dunno about the other, but if we ever get the time to give it a go it would sure be interesting.

Walter from the IE7 team has posted a great piece of news on the IEBlog today. The Windows RSS Platform, which is supposed to be a part of Windows Vista, will now also be included with IE 7 for Windows XP and Server 2003.

I attended Amar Gandhi's session on "Windows Vista: Building RSS-enabled applications" at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC '05) in September last year, and was impressed by how simple and powerful the platform and API is. Integrating RSS capabilities into applications becomes a breeze, so developers can focus their time and attention on additional features and other important aspects like useability. The common feed store and the sync engine are also great for end-users because they essentially allow you to maintain one single feed list that can be used by every RSS-enabled application on the system, rather than having to subscribe individually in every one of them or having to manually import and export OPML files. You can read my report on the RSS platform from the PDC to find out more about all this, in case you missed it the first time around.

While one can argue that back-porting features to XP that used to be Vista-exclusives undermines the upcoming OS, there's still so much more to Vista. I think this is a great move. If the RSS platform were a Vista-only feature as originally planned, we'd see fewer developers actually making use of it since it would mean their apps would be restricted to Vista. Now that it's available on XP, the probability of it being widely adopted suddenly becomes much higher.

This looks great.
Suddenly I’m defending Microsoft. No one can deny they’re providing some really cool tools lately like SSE.
I’m hoping this functionality will be available to scripting folks as well as Window’s application developers.
Something like a Greasemonkey API.
Common Feed List looks really cool for the OPML community. It allows you to share your Feedlist among apps and computers locally or across the web!
We’ll see.

[...]

Continuing along the standards track, IE 7 Beta 2 Preview essentially showcases the full extent of Microsoft's RSS platform. I imported my feeds, via OMPL file, with no trouble. The common feedlist mechanism should make RSS feeds available to other applications, in theory enabling new uses and maybe even some commerce.

[...]

Windows RSS Platform

Hello, Walter from the land of IE Program Managers here. You might have seen or read about the RSS functionality in the user interface of IE7 Beta 2 Preview. There is a bit more to it then just letting users subscribe and read feeds from the IE7 user interface. The RSS functionality in IE7 is "powered" by the Windows RSS Platform. The Windows RSS Platform API encapsulates 3 main components: Common Feed List, Feed Synchronization Engine, and Feed Store.

The RSS functionality in IE7 is built on top of these components. While we previously announced that the Windows RSS Platform would be available for Windows Vista, we are extremely pleased to announce that the Windows RSS Platform will also be available as part of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows XP 64-bit.

The Windows RSS Platform is available to any application. The idea is that applications can utilize the Windows RSS Platform to become RSS enabled without having to re-implement basic RSS building blocks. This can significantly reduce the time and effort application developers have to invest in order to integrate RSS into their programs.

That’s all great, but what does that mean? And why is a Windows RSS Platform a good idea? Glad I asked ;) Let me tell you about that.

Like many of you, I’ve been running several RSS applications (aggregators, pod casters, etc…) for some time and am subscribed to close to 100 feeds. Each time I start using another RSS application I play the "game" of OPML export and import. This quickly becomes a hassle, especially when I lose track of feeds because I subscribed to or deleted feeds in different applications and hence my feed lists are no longer in sync.

This is where the Common Feed List of the Windows RSS Platform can help. Multiple applications can read, add, or delete from the Common Feed List and hence are "sharing" the user’s list of subscribed feeds. IE7 is one such application. When you discover and subscribe to feeds in IE7, it adds them to the Common Feed List and the new subscription is available to other applications. Not only can the user benefit from multiple applications using the Common Feed List, but we expect that over time, online services will provide tools that synchronize the Common Feed List with their services. This will allow roaming of the user’s subscription list not only between applications, but also between computers.

But wait, there’s more!

I mentioned two other components above: Feed Synchronization Engine and Feed Store. Together with the Common Feed List, these components allow application developers to include support for RSS feeds without having to becomes an expert in RSS formats, synchronization schedules, enclosure downloads – or even XML(!).

Here’s what the Windows RSS Platform provides for developers:

• Support for every major RSS and Atom format, as well as many popular extensions.
• Background scheduled updates.
• Support for server-friendly technologies like conditional GETs and RFC 3229 for feeds.
• Bandwidth-friendly enclosure downloads using Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).
• API exposing a simple object model for feeds as well as direct access to the raw XML stream.

All of this functionality is available as shared technology as part of IE7 on Windows Vista and down-level. As a developer, including RSS support in your application can be amazingly easy.

I’m sure that many of you are interested in more details of the API, features, and implementation. Over the next few weeks we will post about those on the RSS team blog. Head on over and leave us your comments and questions.

 - Walter

This morning Microsoft has released a public beta of version 7 of their Internet Explorer web browser, aimed at developers, although I’m sure a lot of tech-savvy and adventurous users will download and install it as well.

This release is significant for publishers who provide RSS 2.0 feeds for their content because this is the first Microsoft release that includes comprehensive support for RSS not only on the producing side, but also on the consuming side. Until now, Microsoft has not shipped an RSS reader, and now they have, for Windows XP, a operating system with many millions of users. Their aggregator, and the underlying platform, is likely to be used in very large volume, likely becoming the most-installed aggregator.

It’s also signficant in that Microsoft has been a staunch supporter of the “really simple” approach to syndication. Their aggregator, of course, has to support all the flavors of RSS that are out there, but they have worked closely with the community to be sure that they were correctly using the formats and protocols that are already in wide use. As we move forward, the target can get smaller, making it easier for all developers on all platforms, not just Windows, to support RSS. Because Microsoft is such a powerful force in the software business, this practice can’t help but influence others, in a positive way.

Further, the Microsoft offering includes support for RSS 2.0 feeds with enclosures, making it a powerful engine for podcasting applications. This may create a diverse community of applications, far beyond the small number of “podcatcher” applications that are currently available.

Since I am primarily a Macintosh user these days, I have not installed the software myself, although Microsoft offered to let me try the software before its release. Even so, I am confident that they have done an excellent job of supporting RSS, and have added strength to the growing community of content providers and technology developers building on the format.

Last weekend we went to Gnomedex 5.0 (http://www.Gnomedex.com), a conference on blogging. It was the main event for us (Rss team) since we announced the RSS support in the LH platform that we are creating.

If you missed it you can read up on it on several blogs posts as well as press articles. Even main stream print media picked it up.

You can read and listen to our words on the IE blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie), RSS team blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam ) as well as our channel 9 video (http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=80533). To satisfy my own vanity you can skip to the following spots in the video to watch me, me, me, me, me:

• 41:00min Amar asks me to explain the photoblog screen saver 

At Gnomedex Jane, Amar, and I were in a podcast show recorded on site. I haven’t found the link to it yet, but hopefully will.

Let me know what you think.

Dave and John laughed when they determined that my l33tspeak is abismal... hence I spent my time to learning. I am getting pretty good!

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