Charlie's description of the next big thing to come to home entertainment nails it. I can't wait to be able to plug in a media server with a giant hard drive for my burned DVDs and CDs and my cached TV and radio programs to be made available, along with live TV and live Internet/AM/FM/XM radio, at any PC or TV in my house. I've already begun preparing.

Here. I've been reading ActiveWin for years to pick up various Windows news tids and bits, but have never been mentioned 'til the MSDN Tour. On the other hand, I'm not sure how my boss is going to feel when he learns that all I do (when I'm not giving tours) is blog and collect information about the Microsoft interview process... : )

Matt Powell has posted a quiz about MSDN based on the video tour Channel9 posted yesterday. These questions were kind of embarrassing:

“1. According to Chris, what does PAG stand for?

“2. What does PAG really stand for?

“Extra Credit: Of the 100 people that make up MSDN, how many of those people are part of PAG?”

I knew that the odds of me getting the PAG acronym right were small, but I think I got the *spirit* of it right… I haven’t been this sheepish since Sara, the Matriarch of MSDN, had to remind me that I was a Content *Strategist* not a Content *Specialist* after my first public posting. : )

In the 2nd installment of my series rebuilding Solitaire using Longhorn technologies, I dive into 2 of the 5 Avalon families, specifically controls and panels, and build something that is at least approaching how Sol is supposed to look.

If you're interested in what the deepest, darkest jungle of MSDN looks like, take a gander. I was only able to explore a few of our hallowed halls, but did manage to sit in Sara's chair and pretend to run the place. : )

Here.

This seems a nice change from the tedium of paying taxes to the man:

“Rick Rashid, a senior vice president at Microsoft, will be online to take questions about innovation at Microsoft and the company’s research and development efforts. … Join Rashid online on April 15 from 12 to 1 p.m. ET for a discussion on Microsoft and its current research plans, goals and challenges.”

It looks like you can submit your questions in advance and that this is the same place where the chat will happen, but it’s darn hard to tell.

Here.

The one where I find a half-way point between where we are in our development environments today and self-writing, self-maintaining, self-fixing super programs.

P.S. Just to set your expectations, this style of description for Spout entries isn’t going to stop after the last episode of Friends. : )

Robert Scoble and I walked around MSDN last week with a camera and here’s the first snippet where I talk about my experiences building Solitaire for Longhorn. Watching it now, it seems to me that I need to chill a bit and maybe take a breath now and again. : )