Microsoft FY11Q1 Results

How about some FY11Q1 Microsoft earnings!

My usual suspects for earnings discussion:

• Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News
• Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog
• Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org.

Once more, with feeling.

I expect that we'll have yet another break-out quarter, a better idea that Kinect is poised to be a great seller for the holidays (sell-out pre-orders and screaming Oprah audiences can't be too wrong), and some glow from reasonable WP7 reviews (oh, and yes, we all realize that it doesn't have copy and paste - and yet the apocalypse will not arrive).

So this seems like a do-over with more good news from the last quarter. Will Wall Street react with the same "Meh?"

An interesting pre-earnings release article: Sleepy in Seattle - Microsoft learns to mature.

Again, not much love for Mr. Ballmer. So, since the last quarterly earnings, Ms. Friar at Goldman Sachs dropped a bomb on Microsoft and there's been serious concern that Mr. Ballmer is clearing the executive bench at Microsoft. Or is it cleaning house? Since we're unable to criticize any mistakes our departed leaders have made, it remains a big unknown.

iPad, iPad, iPad!

Once it was "Google, Google, Google." Now it's Apple's iPad meant to be Microsoft's undoing. First of all, major props to Apple's continued success. It's been a long journey for Steve Jobs and Apple - especially for those of us who read The Journey is the Reward back when it was new. I like my iPad. It's fun. It's also no notebook replacement. I'm not even going to use it for writing tweets on Twitter, let alone writing emails. It's for screwing around, and I like screwing around... so I like my iPad. I'm blessed that I've got the spare cash for such a luxury device and the spare time to play with it.

It's a new, quick consume experience that our Tablet vision failed to realize because our Tablet vision (like all visions of that time) was so firmly shoved up the Enterprise's butt we didn't care for consumers who'd pay good money to have a fun device to facilitate their screwing around.

We continue an expensive lesson in enlightenment. And spanking: Microsoft's consumer brand is dying.

And goodness help us if Apple TV takes off. Our inability to string together a coherent TV strategy (despite having been in the TV realm for over a decade) is yet another dropped pants embarrassment waiting to happen and represents the anxiety that Wall Street has about our future despite having successes in the present.

Bloodletting

Cost cutting's slippery slope continues. I'm sure if we don't talk about continued overhead management (people, benefits, etc) that it will be an analyst question. I still believe we need to chuck about 15,000 positions (and half of our super-ballooned contingent staff) rather than continue the slow squeeze around the company that's making this an ordinary job with some extraordinary wonderful people who just haven't given up on the company. Yet. I hope that the analysts realize that continued, consistent bloodletting because a negative for hiring, and (allow me to be pro-hiring for a moment) if we can't bring in deep-talented new blood to replace the departed dead wood, our future is doomed to mediocrity.

And that doesn't get you a good dividend.

New Talent

And we're losing the battle for hiring new talent. If you review who we're losing to, it's a big surprise. You look at who is ahead of us in preference and you say, "Really? Graduating students think they are a better place to work than us?" It's a cold splash of reality that makes me - they guy who said we've turned things around and things are going great for our major initiatives - wonder if things are worse outside of the Microsoft bubble than I thought.

Frank, you're fighting an epic battle.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT -- Comments

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Device Drivers for Your Computers

Maybe many people do not know about device drivers until they need to find one, for a printer or most commonly a modem driver. Finding one driver can be very difficult to say the least if you are using HSP based modem drivers.

What is a Device Driver?

Every device, be it be a printer, modem, or keyboard, must have a driver program. Many device drivers, such as the keyboard driver, come with the operating system. For other devices, you may need to load a new driver when you connect the device to your computer. Note that in the older DOS systems, drivers are files with a.SYS extension. now in Windows environments, drivers often have a.DRV extension.

What do they do?

A device driver is nothing more than a glorified translator which fits between the device and programs that use the device. Each device be it a modem or printer has its own set of commands that only its driver knows. That bieng said, however most programs access devices by using generic commands. The device driver, therefore, accepts generic commands from a program and then translates them into specialized commands for the device.

Finding them:

Finding a driver can be very difficult as most manufactures manufacture a device and after 2 or 3 years change and make a different version. Finding a driver for your device becomes a task as the manufactures remove the drivers from their website and refuse to support them. They hope that you will upgrade to their new line of products, but there is no need if you know where to find your drivers. Try the following website which not only has more than 2,000 drivers but finds what you are looking for, free.

Remember, don't upgrade unless you want to. There is no need to buy new, when the old printer or modem worked just fine!

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PowerPoint Slide Makeover #63: Presenting organizational charts

Just a quick note to let you know that a new Slide Makeover Video Podcast based on the ideas in "The Visual Slide Revolution" is available for your viewing through the iTunes Store, online or through my YouTube channel. It is common in corporate settings to present an organization chart to show the different roles in a department. Instead of overwhelming your audience with an unreadable chart, use the lessons in this makeover to create a clear set of slides.

This slide is similar to those submitted by the participants in my workshops - someone just like you who is looking for a way to make their presentations more effective. If you want to submit some of your slides to be considered for a future slide makeover, e-mail them to me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.

If you have already subscribed through iTunes or another podcatcher, the new podcast should be automatically downloaded when you next run the program.

To subscribe via the iTunes Store, click here.
To view online or get the RSS file for other podcatchers, click here.
You can also watch all the podcasts on my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ThinkOutsideTheSlide

If you have subscribed via iTunes or YouTube, please provide your positive feedback on the videos in the Comments and Ratings areas of the service so others know the value you get from the videos.



To get your own copy of "The Visual Slide Revolution", click here.
To access quick "how-to" videos for only $1.99 each, click here.

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Virtual Job Listing: October 23, 2010

Virtual Business Specialists:Paid training and up to 50% commission per sale.

Client Services Opportunity: Sunquest-75% travel and work remotely from home.
� Do you have experience building client relationships?
� Have you worked in previous customer service positions?
� Do you like working from home and traveling?
Consider applying for a position as a Regional Solutions Consultant with Sunquest.
Preferred Qualifications:
� Healthcare IT and/or clinical lab experience preferred
� BS in Business, Medical Technology or Medical field of equivalent

Coding Specialist II-Remote: Mary Washington Healthcare
Responsible for applying the correct diagnostic and procedural codes to patient health information for correct claims processing. The remote coder must also be able to communicate effectively with the medical staff and documentation specialist to ensure accuracy and timeliness for billing and claims processing.
(Qualifications and requirements)
High school diploma or equivalent required
RHIA, RHIT or CCS credentials required
Must have 5 or more years experience in coding
Medical Terminology knowledge in anatomy and physiology required
*Please check website for additional information regarding qualifications and details of this position.

Virtual Customer Service Representative

Production Support Analyst: Virtual position working as a full time employee for Aon Hewitt.
Bachelor degree required. Please see link for qualifications and details of position.

Experienced Executive Virtual Assistant

Virtual Online Secretary Assistant: for Allied Textiles Ltd.
College graduate preferred with experience in Nursing Staffing and Home Care Operations. Please see listing for full job summary and qualifications.

*Please verify that these are legitimate positions you are applying for. Remember never pay someone to work for them! : )

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Registry cleaner is important For Windows OS

Registry cleaner is software, used to run your computer faster and smoother. Registry is the database where data of programs and windows is stored. Registry cleaning is very important for a smooth running of your computer system. Whenever you delete a file form your system, the registry does not remove this data. Then a reference to the deleted file remains in the registry. step by step as the registry gets filled up with these databases, the computer gets slower and slower in its functioning. If the registry is not cleaned up regularly, severe damage can be caused to your computer.

A registry cleaner scans the windows and finds out the outdated and incorrect information stored in your computer’s registry. The software fixes this improper information enabling your system to be error free and run faster. The software is enabled with advanced features that make your computer run smoothly and efficiently. Registry cleaning makes your computer run very quickly and also safely.

There are many advantages for registry cleaning. Your computer will have a cleaned up registry and no information in the registry will be cluttered. You can regain the lost disk space and use this for installing new software. Registry cleaning will also block the installation of spyware and malware in your computer. If your computer was having any application errors, you can see that this has been fixed after you clean up your registry. Your system will be maintained as it was in its initial stages and you can also understand your computer much better.

If you do not clean up your computer’s registry well-timed, you can features different types of problem while using the computer. When you are in the middle of doing important work related activity, your computer can suddenly crash or the system can get stalled all of sudden. This can have damaging impact on your work. Timely cleaning up and fixing of the registry will prevent you from facing such crisis.

There are different kinds of registry cleaner available. You can use the best registry cleaner available in the market to maintain the registry of your computer. Keeping your PC (Personal Computer) clean is very important if you want it to run efficiently all the time. The registry cleaner software will help you in repairing some applications that are not working in your computer.

The software uses speed detection techniques to very quickly identify the missing and invalid reference from your windows registry. After identifying the problems, the software with the use of its advanced technology can easily clean your registry. After this your computer will start functioning, like a new PC. After installing the software you can customize its different options according to the requirements of your computer.

Many online sites provide registry cleaner software for its customers. Before you buy a registry cleaner, make sure that you are aware about its different features. This will help you in customizing the features of the software according to the needs of your computer.

Instal the best registry cleaner that is available for your computer.

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New Background for Your Myspace Web Page

Not every users of the Myspace are capable of creating the web page that required to invite more number of visitors to the site. The best way is, rebuild the background on your own picture every alternative week. But if the user is not technology savvy and not really keen on experimentation, then the best way is to access resources on the Internet. There are plenty of sites that offer assistance in making the background a highly successful component of the Myspace web page.

By checking the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, you can trace the resources that can help you work on the backgrounds of the myspace page. There are multiple options to download the various complex backgrounds for the Myspace page. The first and foremost option is the free downloads from popular sites. The second and not most preferred option by the youngsters is the paid backgrounds, which is issued against a license. In the paid option backgrounds, there are a number of rich features and color schemes. Under the paid backgrounds, the users have the option of customizing the requirements as per their desires and plans. Once the payment is made to the service provider, tools and software codes are provided to the Myspace user to download the data for the background from the Internet site. It is common for these providers to make the user-friendly. If the tools given to the users are not of their personal preference, the users can go their own way in terms of opting for the color schemes. The paid backgrounds have multiple options and are issued on the basis of license. There are numerous unlicensed backgrounds available on the Internet, but their reliability is a big question.

The backgrounds are widely available on the Internet for use and they run into thousands across all links. Go through them using the search engines and download the appropriate background. The Myspace page background is available in several formats. The two important among them are paid backgrounds and free backgrounds. The paid backgrounds are rich in features and sport a number of attractive features. Though the free backgrounds are also attractive and colored in bright schemes, the have limited options and user friendliness.

The free backgrounds can be installed on the web page as whole or set in the form of tiled manner. They can also be installed in multiple formats and schemes. Check various Internet sites offering the Myspace backgrounds and themes for additional information on their use. The color mix of the backgrounds is available in various choices. The users also have the choice of mixing colors on their own.

While mixing colors make sure that the background does not resemble a riot of colors. It could spoil the entire background apart from messing up the account. The primary objective should be to enliven the background of the account and not spoil it. Exercise restrain while choosing the colors. They have to be appropriate and relate to the profile of the account holder. Any slight deviation from the color choice could mean disaster to the account page.

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Mr. Ray Ozzie and Microsoft's Chief Software Architect - So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu, adieu, adieu

A Microsoft position got retired this week: Chief Software Architect.

That used to be - quite unofficially - Mr. Bill Gates by the sheer nature of his intellect. And it led to many entertaining and terrifying BillG Reviews. A good friend of mine at the time, an architect for his team before we got all hung up about titles like that, bragged: "I've never been to a BillG review and I intend to retire without going through one." He did.

But I think he missed out. As have, unfortunately, many intellectually shallow PowerPoint B.S artists who rose up the ranks in the meantime.

When I was a teenager, one book I loved to contemplate over was a series of quotes by Robert Heinlein's character Lazarus Long. One goes like (courtesy the internet vs. hard-copy because the book is lost behind a stack of neglected Col Solare): "[...] Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield, or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome."

The rigor of a focused, intellectually deep and sturdy software development declined with BillG's departure. No more technical assistants. No gauntlet of the BillG review. On his way out of the company, Bill anointed Ray to serve as Chief Software Architect. I don't think that was Ray's idea. In fact, I can only imagine him tilting his head and saying, "Wha-?" He didn't take a broad view of Microsoft at all, but rather focused on growing the Groove momentum into other areas for the future.

As part of any enduring legacy, it will be interesting to see what happens to Mr. Ozzie's groups over time, Windows Azure especially. And I can only hope to the Good Lord above that the "I'm all in" cloud claptrap takes a retirement, too. We get it. We have The Cloud as a platform. In my mind, it makes as much sense as saying "Compilers! We're all in!" or "Layered Windows! We're all in!"

I feel with Ray Ozzie's departure that Steve Ballmer has finally asserted his complete control over the company. We've had some house cleaning this year, ranging from Mr. Ozzie to Mr. Bach & Mr. Allard to Technical Fellows to continued targeted layoffs. Perhaps this is due to the big, contemplative review Mr. Ballmer had with the Microsoft Board this year. Mr. Ballmer has hit the reset button. Do we have a Hail Mary pass, or is this Ballmer 2.0?

We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, here's hoping that the technical Presidents reporting to Mr. Ballmer can take up the custom of intellectual rigor. Because that is one custom we can't let decline anymore.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments

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PowerPoint Tip: Creating a video of your presentation from your slides and an audio recording

Today�s tip comes from some work I�ve been doing coaching a couple of professional speaking colleagues on how to create a movie of a presentation for use by their client on the web for ongoing training. It is also one of the topics I�ll be covering in my Presentation Summit session today.

To create a movie from your slides, you can go the high-end route and use software like Camtasia to record the slides and audio from the presentation as it is going on and create the movie. But this is software that you may not have and you may not be allowed to purchase and install it on your computer.

Instead, I�ve been showing them how to create a movie from an audio track and the images of their slides. It starts with recording the audio for the movie. The easiest way to record audio is using Audacity, a terrific free audio editor available here. Save your audio file as an MP3 file using the Export function in Audacity.

Next, you need to create images of your slides. This is simple enough in PowerPoint as you can use the Save As feature to save the slides as PNG images. Select to save all slides and it will create a folder of sequentially numbered slide images. The one potential issue with this method is that animation builds get removed, as the image saved is the state that you see when editing the slides. If you have used animation, you have two options. First, you can create sequentially numbered images using a screen capture utility like Lightscreen. Or, you can create your own series of slides for each animated slide. If you do this, first remove all animation from the slide, then copy and paste the slide the required number of times. Finally, remove elements as needed to create a series of slides that, when shown in sequence, appear as the original animated slide. Now when you Save As PNG images, you will get a series of images that appears as if it was animated.

The final step is to create the movie in movie editing software. If you have Windows Movie Maker already installed on your computer, you can use it. You can also download the latest version from Microsoft�s web site. I find the latest version hard to use for this purpose because they removed the timeline view. If you don�t want to install software, you can use one of the free online video editing sites, like the one I use called Jaycut.com. You add the audio track to the timeline, then place each slide on the timeline and adjust the length of time the slide is shown based on the audio track. Output the finished video to a movie file and you are ready to distribute it or post it to your web site.

Creating a video of your presentation allows you to distribute it in new ways and it will run on web sites, local computers, and even mobile devices. Use the steps above to create your first presentation video.

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All About Internet Fax Service

Are you interested in Internet fax services? The compensation of web fax services are many and subscribing to internet fax services is worth the money you spend on it. This article will help you to know all about internet fax services, advantages of online fax services, and what online fax service providers can offer to their customers.

The main advantage of internet fax services is that online fax technology makes sending and receiving fax easy and fast. One can even use the service even if he/she does not have access to POTS (Plain Old Telephone) as the internet fax services act as an intermediary to handle the fax sending and receiving process. This allows the users to send and receive faxes, especially those marked with “URGENT” anytime they want.

With online fax service you need not have to worry about providing an extra space for you fax machine. Internet fax services can save much of your office space and you can use utilize internet fax services to handle all of your specialized communication needs.

Internet fax services can save your hard earned money to purchase expensive ink cartridges or having the funds to pay the office supplier to send the faxes for you. You can send the fax messages at the convenience of your home or office.

The maximum infrastructure one may require is a computer, a reliable internet connection and an email ID.

Sending internet fax message is quite easy – what a user has to do is to simply type the message in the text space of the electronic mail and press the send button. The fax message will be transfer the network based server of the service provider, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable.

Online fax facility is offered by several companies – most of the companies ask the users to join in any of their monthly subscription packages. There are also several companies which offer free internet fax services. In free online fax services, the user cannot enjoy all the advantages or features offered in a paid internet fax service. That is there may be limitations such as only a specific number of fax messages per month or the user can only receive messages. Therefore, selecting a paid online fax service will be better for the user to enjoy all the benefits of internet fax service.

Web faxing or email faxing is an efficient technology which bridges the gap between traditional fax machines and web based communication. Internet fax services eliminate the operational cost and complexity of using fax machines and provide the users the flexibility and easiness to send and receive fax messages. After all, internet fax service is another communicating tool which makes life easier!!

Example of web to sent a doc to fax.
1. http://www.faxzero.com
2. http://www.gotfreefax.com
3. www.myfax.com
4. etc

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Recovered my Non Responsive Project Thesis

Having worked diligently on one of my thesis, when I decided to submit it, I thought of taking one last look. After all, revising your work to reduce the mistakes is always a good idea. But, the document refused to open! Instead the computer stopped responding when I booted it! I didn't know whether to be happy that I had not submitted the file in such a state, or should I be upset that all my work was not accessible, probably lost! I had worked hard, but it was all lost. A friend suggested to me that word recovery tool was possible!

Bewildered, I went to his place, and I discussed things at hand. He told me, he had faced similar problem once and had been able to repair the document and thus perform Word recovery. We went to my place and booted the system. What followed was a journey of major ups and downs.

• First of all he tried to open another file to check if the application was running fine. Word was fine. Then he tried to open the file on his laptop (he had brought that to help me!). He had two different versions of Word. But the problem continued.
• Tried to open the file in draft mode by first disabling the automatic updation of links.
• Since that didn't work, tried to insert the document as a file in a new document. But the same failed!
• Since my document didn't have anything expect text, and formatting, he tried to use the Recover Text from Any File(*.*) option. But even that didn't work in my case.
• Since I didn't have a backup of my work, he suggested to me that he had an application too that could be used for .doc recovery. I was apprehensive about trying something new, but it was a read-only application, and would not have altered my file, even if the repair it did failed. The Repair word file application had been so designed to extract all the data from that file and save it as a new file at another location, while leaving the original file as is.

And sure enough, it did work in my case as well. Though he had suggested to me earlier too, but I was apprehensive about it. Now, being the last resort, I opted for it, as my thesis was very important.

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PowerPoint Slide Makeover #62: Designing slides for use in signage situations

Just a quick note to let you know that a new Slide Makeover Video Podcast based on the ideas in "The Visual Slide Revolution" is available for your viewing through the iTunes Store, online or through my YouTube channel. If you use PowerPoint to design slides that will be shown on an electronic sign or on an internal TV information channel, use the ideas from this slide makeover to keep the slides clear and easy for the audience to understand.

This slide is similar to those submitted by the participants in my workshops - someone just like you who is looking for a way to make their presentations more effective. If you want to submit some of your slides to be considered for a future slide makeover, e-mail them to me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.

If you have already subscribed through iTunes or another podcatcher, the new podcast should be automatically downloaded when you next run the program.

To subscribe via the iTunes Store, click here.
To view online or get the RSS file for other podcatchers, click here.
You can also watch all the podcasts on my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ThinkOutsideTheSlide

If you have subscribed via iTunes or YouTube, please provide your positive feedback on the videos in the Comments and Ratings areas of the service so others know the value you get from the videos.



To get your own copy of "The Visual Slide Revolution", click here.
To access quick "how-to" videos for only $1.99 each, click here.

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Microsoft Health Care Pops a Cap in One Big Week

Wow, what got in the corporate water for this week? Coming off the glow of last week's Company Meeting Koolaid we first got hit by the Goldman Sachs downgrade hang-over, then, to channel Mr. Ballmer, "Boom-Boom-Boom!"

• Health care changes on the way.
• Live Labs gets shut down.
• Technical Fellow Gary Flake, one of Microsoft few-TED stars, resigns.
• Technical Fellow Brad Lovering leaves.
• A glassdor.com survey that shows a lowly 50% approval rating for Mr. Ballmer.
• IEB gets re-orged.
• Massive gets shuttered (like we were all looking forward to billboard ads while blowing crap up in Xbox).
• Adobe acquisition rumors.
• Matt Rosoff leaves Directions on Microsoft.

All this right on the eve of Windows Phone 7 being launched. Feels like one big... purge.

As for the Microsoft health plan changes: I haven't personally taken a bunch of time to figure it out yet. I had a fully scheduled Friday and I half listened to the Town Hall while working. My attention lapsed and the next thing I know they are talking about a Health Visa card against our Health Savings Plan we can use for paying our share of a visit to the doctor and roll-overs and portability. I realized I just missed some detailed stuff. Microsoft has set-up internal forums to help the employees figure this all out, so I encourage everyone to utilize that. But in the meantime, a commenter on the previous post added this:

OK, I just watched the Health Care Town Hall replay. Hard thing to do early on a Saturday morning.

Let's see if I have this straight. If I go with the Health Savings Plan:

1. All my preventive care is still free (to me). Annual physicals, dental checkups, immunizations, etc. - no charge. Wellness programs are actually beefed up even more.
2. For a family of 3+, the most we would have to pay out of pocket annually is $2500.00.
3. At the beginning of each year, MS will themselves add $3725 or thereabouts to my Health Savings Account...so MS is more than covering my $2500 obligation anyway.
4. Even if I have a catastrophic illness or injury, I'm still ahead $1225.

I hope more insightful minds will follow up to correct any misunderstandings I have about this, but my takeaways from LisaB's deck are:

1. Switch to HSP.
2. Lose both legs in a snowboarding accident.
3. Profit!

A follow-up to that:

Not quite right on the healthcare costs. Worse case scenario for family of 3 is:

• All your preventive care costs are covered 100% by MSFT
• You pay 100% of the first $3,750 in non-preventive costs. This is your deductible.
• After your deductible is paid, you pay 10% of non-preventive costs. This is your co-pay. You pay a max of $2,500 in co-pays per year.
• So your max annual costs are $3,750 + $2,500 = $6,250
• MSFT will pay $2,500 into your Health Savings Account each year, so your net out of pocket cost is $3,750. If you sign up for the HSP account in 2011-2013, then MSFT will contribute an additional "early adopter incentive" of $1,250. But after 2013, your max out-of-pocket costs are presumably back to $3,750
• You could pay that $3,750 out of tax-free contributions you make to your own HSA account, but then that money is locked away and can only be used for health expenses. If you don't want your money locked away then you have to pay with after-tax dollars.
• In order to come up with $3,750 in after-tax dollars, you'll need to earn about $5,000 in pre-tax dollars.

So, in the worse-case scenario this is equivalent to a pay cut of $5,000 per year. Maybe not too bad for someone making $200k, but that would be a 10% pay cut for someone making $50k.

Will increasing health care costs follow Ms. Brummel's charted path? It's interesting that the excise portion of the future ended up being a small little bump. Next: wellness - excellent idea. I love ensuring that we're all well and stay healthy upfront. But that includes affecting the ecosystem in which we live and ensuring people actually put time towards preventative health and making a place like Redmond a healthy place to live.

Sidebar: Just to whine a bit: for self-proclaimed bicycle capital, this is one hell of a scary place to ride a bike. Actually ensuring there's an infrastructure from the suburbs-to-work to safely ride a bike to encourage healthy living is some local influence Microsoft should have.

Sidebar two: Via DareO: The exciting nature of being ordinary - Sorting it all Out - one snippet: "Microsoft now looks ordinary to me."

I'm very supportive of whatever they can do about wellness (though the paranoid side of me hasn't liked the 'Know Your Numbers' campaign - who gets access to my numbers? Curiously, this extra overhead might prevent me from getting my flu shot this year).

Do I think the health changes will affect recruiting? Probably not. Do I think it will affect retention? Yes. See the above "ordinary" link. If other tech companies hold steady on their coverage then they close a big gap to hiring experienced people at Microsoft. Look, once you have a family and one or two big boo-boos (medical term) you realize: "holy crap, we are so fortunate... I love this company for caring for me and my family so well!" It's no golden handcuff, but it still anchors you.

Anchors away.

Given cut-backs like this, whether out of cost-saving necessity or not, the Senior Leadership Team has to realize there's zero tolerance now for major money screw-ups like KIN and Massive. The bumbling flushing away of millions or billions of dollars is going to be compared directly to the reduction in benefits: if this company was actually run by people who knew how to consistently achieve profits, we wouldn't be looking at these losses and saying, "Yep, that could have paid for US health-care for a while..."

All-in-all, though, I think (not having immersed myself in the details) our coverage remains a better-than-average benefit. And as long as we don't have to revert back to the Pacific Care Primary Care / Referrals model (talk about a time-waster during work-hours) I'm personally satisfied.

Regarding Live Labs being shutdown: so what's left that Ray Ozzie is running? FUSE labs? You know, the people who blew their internal reputation by hijacking and hacking the Office Web Apps for http://docs.com/ ? I would not be surprised to see Ray finding a new endeavor sooner than later. First Mesh, now Live Labs.

As for Live Labs going into Bing... what the? I've watched a lot of curious hiring and initiatives at Bing. All the best wishes to you Bingsters, but you're beginning to resemble an organization that has way too many people and now you're just creating work to keep them busy. We've seen this before, and curiously, with some of the same leadership that's in Bing now. Better to put them on a productive profit making endeavor or risk having them cut loose.

From the comments:

Let's see if the latest round of "This will bolster the stock price works." IEB re-org and benefit changes. Doubt it.

Checked with some friends in the Interactive Entertainment Business and they glumly report "We're getting Sinofskied." (Not reporting to Sinofsky, but picking up the same kind of management structure.) Ah. I've always been curious if the Sinofsky model holds up in a creative group. Now we have one big example in the making.

Looping back to Mr. Kaplan's ordinary comment: Mr. Matt Rosoff's parting post on leaving Directions on Microsoft expresses it in a different way:

In Seattle, Microsoft was where the all the best and brightest worked, had worked, or wanted to work. People even pronounced it with a particular tone of voice, hushed but awful, like people back East say "Harvard." All-caps. "Yeah, he owns a coffee shop now. But he used to work at MICROSOFT." [...] it's not MICROSOFT anymore. It's just Microsoft. Even in Seattle.

How do you feel about that? You're not ordinary and you don't live an ordinary life. You don't expect to do ordinary work for an ordinary company, do you? What needs to change?

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments

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A new definition of "win"

Ben Tomhave has a good post over on his blog

http://www.secureconsulting.net/2010/10/there_is_no_win.html

go read it. its short...wont take long, I promise.

In part I agree, you are never going to "win" by keeping an attacker out. Like he puts in the post:

Traditionally we've held the mindset that we "win" if we stop the attackers. This mindset is sheer folly. To "win" in this scenario we need to successfully defend against 100% of attacks, whereas the attacker need only succeed once (probabilistically this works out to being far less than 100%).

Instead, we need to acknowledge the nature of our asymmetric threat and realize that there is no way to achieve "perfect" security and resist 100% of attacks. To think otherwise is willfully ignorant. Instead, we must accept a new status quo based on survivability. That is, despite successful attacks, we can consider ourselves victorious in conflict merely by surviving.

Protecting YOUR important data on the network is ultimately the goal of most network security. Keeping the attackers out is a silly goal. You are one adobe/flash/java/whatever 0day away from failing to keep attackers out and thus "losing".

Surviving a network attack is not the same as surviving a mortar attack on a FOB where if I'm still breathing and have use of my limbs at the end of it i can call that a "win". In turn, its not a successful penetration test or attack if merely "get in" and pop a bunch of shells (see Chris Nickerson's Top 5 Ways To Destroy A Company talk). Its a "win" when I steal what makes that company money, extract it without them knowing, then show it to them later for the "poop in the pants" moment. A report with a bunch of screenies of shells doesn't convey the same sense of "oh shit" that the first 100 entries of their key database does. In this case while the business may have thought they "survived" they in fact "lost".

We're getting really good at teaching our clients how to catch penetration testers and their methodologies and conditioning them that this a "win" when in fact most times defenders fail to see and catch people with a modified methodology, non public tools, or "non-standard" goals.

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Steps to Recover corrupt Word 2003 document

Microsoft Word is a powerful word processor and is widely used by people all over the world. It is very easy to use. A new user needs to simply start the Word application. He needs to simply keep typing after that. To apply simple formatting, like, making a few words bold, Italisized or underlined, just requires selecting the text and clicking the respective button. But despite all the features offered by this application, it has its own set of drawbacks. For example, its files unexpectedly tend to get corrupt at times. Unless you have backup, it is very difficult to opt for Word recovery Tool.

Consider you have a MS Word 2003 on your computer, and you try to open a document, and the document refuses to open, while giving following error message:

Word was unable to read this file. It may be corrupt.
Try one or more of the following:
Open and Repair the file.
Open the file with Text Recovery converter.

Reason:
The reason behind such a behavior is corruption of Word document.

Resolution:
Open document using Open and Repair feature of MS Word. For this, in the Open dialog box of Word, choose the file you want to open, and instead of clicking Open, click on the small button at the right corner of this button. In the drop down menu, select Open and Repair. This should repair word file and help open it.
If the above step doesn't work, try to open the document in draft mode. For this, select Normal in View menu, followed by Options in Tools Menu. The options dialog box opens up. In the view tab, select the checkbox marked Picture placeholders under Show. Select Draft font box found under Outline and Normal options. This needs to be followed by deselecting the Update automatic links at Open checkbox in General Options of the General Tab. Select OK. Try to open the file after this. It should help in performing doc repair, in case the links were damaged and were preventing the document from opening.
If the problem was not because of links, then simply undo the changes made in Options dialog box to deselect Picture placeholders checkbox, and select the Update automatic links at Open check box. After this open a blank document and insert the document that you are trying to open forcomprehensive Word repair.
If it doesn't open, then you'll need to link the document. However, if even this doesn't help, open the file using the WordPad application and then save it in .rtf format. Whatever can be extracted will be saved in this file. Now, open this .rtf file using MS Word, and save it in .doc format. The only thing that you will need to do is, reapply lost formatting.
However, if all these steps fail, then you will need to opt for Word recovery software.

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A Case of the Microsoft Downgrade Blues

Oh, great, we've hit a case of the downgrades as a sequel to the quarterly results that no-one bought.

Specifically, Ms. Friar at Goldman Sachs downgraded us with a variety of reasons and expectations. From Mr. Todd Bishop: Goldman downgrades Microsoft, makes case for major overhaul. Snippet of some gold Goldman Sachs from there:

They call for three steps to "unlock value" in Microsoft's shares.

(1) A materially increased dividend beyond the recent 23% increase, moving Microsoft into the top 20 dividend-paying companies in the S&P 500 in terms of dividend yield. We believe this would open the door to a larger investor base and keep the company more diligent from a spending perspective. (2) A coherent consumer strategy that could involve paring back investments and/or divesting more peripheral assets such as gaming. (3) Market leadership in Cloud. Microsoft has a strong portfolio of enterprise data center assets and could become a leader in Cloud deployments, but the competitive environment remains highly in flux, with Microsoft still not a clear "winner," in our view.

Flashbacks to MSFTExtremeMakeover's last blog entry: Eight Years of Wrongness. Upgrade the "Eight" to a "Ten".

The more interesting follow-up by Mr. Bishop is adding up the numbers in Goldman Sachs' assessment comes up with a $30 share price vs. Goldman Sachs' downgrade to $28: Numbers How Goldman Sachs values each Microsoft division.

Now then, if this report was dated, say, 2006 I would be remarking at the exceptional smarts and bravery of Goldman Sachs to step forward from the meek institutional investor crowd that have been giving Microsoft a free ride. Instead, now that the farm's barn doors have been wide opened for a while, Ms. Friar is walking around saying "Without preventative re-enforcement and diligence of door utilization, it's possible for the horses to escape from here."

The timing is just peculiar, and is resulting in the resumption of resignation requests for Mr. Ballmer: CNBC's Fast Money Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Needs to Go Analyst. Also, Ms. Victoria Barret follows-up with Goldman to Microsoft Do Something - and reflects on her summer story Time to Break Up Microsoft.

Sorry Mr. Institutional Investor, your voice was needed years ago. You have been complicit and ineffective during the worst of it. What's the agenda here? It would have been better for a coalition of institutional investors to speak with one voice, vs. Goldman Sachs. Because... given how Goldman Sachs has proven itself untrustworthy in attempting to destroy the American economy for its own fortune (cue their extended pinky touching edge of mouth), you have to wonder if they have their own greedy agenda - are they betting against the Microsoft stock and expect to benefit from its near-term decline? Or hope to force in a Neutron-Jack CEO to wipe out half the employees and all non-profitable groups?

Or do they expect within a year for Microsoft to have had a very successful consumer cycle and then reward that with an upgrade, in the meantime having had bought up a good bit of cheap stock? Are they looking for quick short-term gains vs. a thoughtful consideration of long-term growth? I feel a baleful gaze cast on us.

And mainly: it's a very poor matter of timing for a break-up. We're about to have a mobile phone come out that actually binds the companies divisions far closer than ever before: Office, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing, and Dev Div: this damn thing is the antidote for break-up talk. WP7 wouldn't be impossible to create with a break-up, but it'd be exceptionally difficult. WP7 is pulling together huge resources that none of our direct competitors have.

Now then: stepping back to Classic-Mini mode. Would I like to spin off parts of Microsoft. Oh yes. Less money wasted and less people? It's a Win-Win two-fer. How about our health solutions group to start with? Other Fools: Online Services Division: Microsoft Time for a Break-Up?

I think it would be healthy to actually encourage spin offs. Give new groups funding for two years and then assess whether this will continue to be a Microsoft endeavor or not. If not, the group can spin off as their own new company, with Microsoft as a stake-holder, and go their own way. So if Midori is not in our future then tip the hat to them and let them take off on their own.

Back to Mr. Ballmer. If you want to end on a high-note, now's the time. Mr. Ballmer can declare victory in the continued success of Windows 7, the innovation of Bing that's rattled Google, the alignment of products around the cloud, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7. It's going to be a while until the stars set themselves up like this again. Better to go out with victory than be chased out of Salmonberg by a bunch of fed-up institutional investors wanting real dividends and stock performance. You know: shareholder value.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments

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PowerPoint Tip: An alternative to using video in a web presentation

Earlier this year a professional speaking colleague called on me to help her with an upcoming webinar. It was her first significant webinar for clients and she obviously wanted it to go well. One of the elements she wanted to include in her presentation was a video clip that illustrated some of the ideas she wanted to communicate. Today I want to share with you the approach I recommended that will allow you to get the benefit of a video clip without actually showing it during a webinar.

Why not just embed the video on a slide and show it like you do in a live presentation? On all the webinar platforms I�ve used video seems to be a big problem. In my experience, video over the web does not work well when embedded on a PowerPoint slide. It works better when played in a media player outside PowerPoint, but it still suffers from stutters due to the limitations of the bandwidth on a live transmission. The reason watching videos like my YouTube or Brainshark slide makeover videos works well is that your local computer downloads a portion of the video first so that it plays smoothly from your local computer. Live video in a webinar can�t do this.

So how can you get the benefits of using an illustrative video clip in a webinar? You use a series of screen captures from the video to make your points. Let�s start with the planning first. When you are showing any video clip, you are using it to illustrate specific points. You may be showing a demonstration of a technique or process or you may be using a video testimonial to reinforce a claim you have made. There are specific images or words you want to emphasize. Make a list of those specific spots in the video.

Play the video at the highest quality possible and pause it when you reach one of the spots you�ve made note of in the planning stage. Take a screen capture of that image using Alt+PrintScreen and paste the image on a PowerPoint slide. Make the image as large as you can without distorting it too much and crop out the controls of the video player so you are just left with the image. Once you have the image on the slide, add a callout so the audience knows what they are supposed to look for in this image. It may be an arrow and text to point out something in the image or it could be a specific quote that a person is saying that is reinforced with the expression on their face.

Keep capturing images from the video and creating slides until you have all the spots on your planned list in your presentation. When you are presenting the slides during the webinar, you can introduce the section by saying that you want to show a series of images from a video clip that illustrate the point you were discussing. You can go through the images fairly rapidly, as quickly as one every 8-10 seconds if necessary. Remember that there is a lag between when you show the next slide and when the audience sees it, so you can�t advance through the images as rapidly as you could in a live presentation.

By using a series of screen capture images instead of a video during a web presentation, you increase the quality of the experience for your audience and still use the video to illustrate the points you want to make. If you are new to web based presentations, you may want to get a copy of my one-hour video program on using web presentations effectively, which contains other ideas based on my years of using web technology to present for clients. All the details are here.

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