I am backkkk :)  After seeing some cool demos at company meeting last week lot of my colleagues installed Vista.  And seeing Vista on their computer and how cool it looked, i decided to give it a shot.  So today i installed Vista on my computer along with new version of office 2007 and so far this baby rocks (considering it has been only few hours since i have installed it).  The look and feel of it is pretty good.  So far my favorite feature is “Switch Between Windows”, it is soo awesome.  I have to yet to explore this OS so i’m sure i’ll have lot more favorite features.  This OS is supposed to be lot more secure and cooler than XP.  You will hear more about my new favorite features of Vista as i continue to use this OS.  After using office 2007, i did not wanted to go back to 2003.  I’m sure i’ll have same exprience with Vista.

I did not attend last week’s Company Meeting because content was going to be the same as the conference i attended in Orlando, plus it was really cold and rainy that day.  So i decided to stay indoor and work at my desk along with lot of my colleagues who went to MGX.  However, I missed the speech by BillG and demo of Zune, which i will watch (recording of the meeting) online at later date.

Have you noticed something lately?  Microsoft has been releasing one thing or another almost every week now, which i think is great.  First came SoapBox (to compete with YouTube), then today came Wallop (Social networking site).  It doesn’t matter how many products any company comes out with, now a days important part is how well users adapt these new products and how fast content is generated by them.  I have not used Wallop, but from what it seems, it is combination of MySpace, Facebook and Cyworld.  Again, i believe success of any online product now a days depends on how well the target market responds.

Vista does seem pretty cool, try it out: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx

Tejas

Wow it has been looooooong time since I have written something on my blog.  I had few friends from out of town over the labor day weekend so i was little busy showing them around.  Seattle is beautiful in summer, it is the best time to visit.

So today is 5 year anniversary of 9/11.  I am sure lot of people who were in States or anywhere in the world for that matter 5 years ago, remember exactly where they were on 9/11/01.  I was in my last semester of college, about to go to my Finance class and then to my powerbuilder class.  A friend of mine called me and asked me to turn on the TV.  And i saw on the news how first plane hit the plane and my first thought was, wow did the pilot fall asleep?  I thought it was an accident.  And then i heard about the second plane and WOW.  This is not happening.  All the people.  How can you fly a plane into a building full of people?

On my way to 9:30am finance class, i heard someone talking on their cell phone about the plane crashing into a building.  A prof made a small announcement about the incident.  Went to my 11:00 am powerbuilder class and professor didn’t even mention it.  Went to library after lunch and everyone was around the TV and it was just unbelievable.  How can someone plan this and kill thousands of innocent people who had nothing to do with what’s happening in other parts of the world.  These are the normal folks, like you and me, family people, trying to make a living.  I was in front of TV all day long. 

Killing innocent people.  All in name of religion - how ridiculous is that?

Tejas

Live team released “Windows Live Writer” on August 13th.  So far reviews have been great.  This is what TechCrunch had to say:

“What does differentiate Live Writer is that they’ve released an API that allows developers to extend the capabilities of the software to publish additional content types.”

I have been dogfooding Windows Live Writer for the past month and I have enjoyed it.  And guess what i am writing this post on Windows Live Writer :)  It is easy to use, no funny HTML code and it is just plain straight forward.  I wish they had made FrontPage that way.  There are couple other things that I’m dogfooding too, so lot more “stuff” is coming down the pipe.  Of course you will hear it from me only when it is officially released.  Microsoft is releasing so many stuff now a days, its just difficult to keep track of it, in other words, there is so much innovation going on at Microsoft that it is kinda difficult to keep track of it all.  Also check out this cool site: “Windows Live Gallery“, i just discovered it.  Also, if you are using “Windows Live Mail” (formally known as Hotmail), it has gotten somewhat better then when it was first released.  There is more space now to read your messages.  I still believe Gmail is better email product for consumers then Hotmail (no offense Live Mail team).

Another great news is that AdCenter went live in UK and is doing well, thank you for asking.  Also, you gotta check out “Microsoft adCenter Labs”.  We have internal version of this site and i use it everyday.  So it is collection of tools developed by our brilliant team in China.

Mannn, this post is all about new products coming out of Microsoft.  Like i said, there are so much innovation going at Microsoft its kinda hard to keep track of stuff.  On the other note, my school has started today.  I am taking two classes this semester and assuming i do well in these two classes i will only have 3 more classes to go till i get my MBA.  So it should be hectic semester.

Also, to be more transparent, here is my MSN messenger sn (shahtejas00@hotmail.com) just in case someone wants to ping me with any comments or questions or suggestions, etc.  Not so ready to give you my home address just yet 

Until next time take care.

Tejas

This news came out week and I think it is bigggg deal.  Myspace has gained lot of popularity in such a short period of time.  Last time i read, 8% of traffic was MySpace traffic.  That is really powerful.  It was public knowledge that MySpace was talking to Google, MSN, and Yahoo regarding who will provide the search results and ad on MySpace.  And again Google has come at the top.  I think that is really good news for Google.  I was hoping MSN would win this deal, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.  It would have given MSN lot of visibility and would have increased its market share.

On the flip side, this also could mean Google advertisers will be getting lot of unwanted clicks since MySpace’s demographics are college going 18-24 year olds who are not that interested in purchasing any products.  No doubt this is a great deal for Google.

SES (Search Engine Strategies) conference was held last week in San Jose, California.  I will get the details of the conference first hand from the people who were there tomorrow.  One thing that puzzles me is that, Google has Google Dance, Yahoo has its own party and i think Ask also has its own party.  What i don’t understand is that how come MSN doesn’t throw its own party?  I just don’t get it.

Oh i was introduced to few new hires last week and again i found someone who has read my “Microsoft Interview” post.  So when i was introduced to him, he was like, i have read your blog entry when i was preparing for the interview at Microsoft, sooo funny.  Anyways, i hope it is helping people better prepare for the interview and give better understanding of the interview process.

Tejas

Oh i forgot to mention, i’ve finally installed Office 2007 on my computer.  And this baby rocks.  I like the look and feel of the UI.  It might just take some time to get used to the ribbon.  Below are the screenshots:

Excel 2007

Word 2007

Powerpoint 2007.

Oh also, if you don’t like the color you can change it.  I have yet to explore all the new features of excel, outlook, powerpoint, access, word, publisher.  After seeing the Demos at MGX, i had to have Office 2007.  It has not given me any problems as far speed of the computer is concerned (your experience may vary).

DOWNLOAD OFFICE 2007, let me warn you though, file size is really big (440 MB) so speed of download will depend on how fast/slow your interet connection is.

I have not yet installed Vista on my computer, but i will one of these days and you will know when that happens.

Tejas

Last almost whole week I was in Orlando at MGX conference.  MGX stands for Microsoft Global Exchange.  Theme of the conference was “People Ready”.  So Tuesday was travel day and few of us took red eye on Monday, so we had whole day Tuesday for ourselves.  We were staying at a hotel inside the World Disney Resorts, called Swan.  On Tuesday we got to Orlando at 7:30am EST and we went to Magic Kingdom that day, which was fun.  Then on Wed, we had a training at Walt Disney world about “Service:  Disney Style”, which was about how Disney treats its customers (guests) and how to provide top level of service to customers at our organization.  They also gave us behind the door tour, which was awesome.  I thought the best part was how they call their employees, “Cast Members” and not an employees.  And how they have “Onstage” and “Backstage”.  So it was a great experience and main takeaway was “Bump the Lamp” which is like going out of your way to do things for customers’ satisfaction and them not knowing about it.  Its the small things you do for your customers and how you should pay attention to the detail, even though no one is ever going to pay attention to it.  So that was a great experience.  There was a party at “Treasure Island” for our group and it was fun.

On Thursday, we had all hands at TD Waterhouse Arena, where Orlando Magic play.  They had blocked out half of the stadium.  So when i got there at 8:30am, the arena was packed with 15,000 people.  Yes, 15,000 people.  That kinda blew me out of water and gave me perspective of how i am small part of such a huge and diverse organization.  They had representatives from our offices around the world, Italy, UK, France, India, Hong Kong, China, Russia, Germany to name a few.  And this conference was for Sales and Marketing, it didn’t even include our programmers.  Once we found a seat (all the way at the top), breakfast was already in our seats and the stage was amazing.  I felt like i was at some concert (i will put up pictures soon).  All hands was all day event, discussed wins in FY 06.  Here we saw some cool demos of Office 2007 and Vista (download them if you get a chance).  And there was a party at “Secret Location” and it was fun, Friday was my Birthday (don’t ask me how old am i), so i stayed there until 12:15am and went back to hotel.

On Friday, we broke up into sessions and had our division all hands and we discussed our achievements in FY 06 and plans for FY 07, which was great as well.  It was great to see people from our international offices and put faces to the names.  Then again there was party on Friday night at “Studio 24″ and it was fun and again it was awesome.  It was one of the best parties i have been to.  They had red carpet rolled out for us and had all kinds of food including sushi, Chinese, pizza, you name it.  Music was great, overall i felt like a royalty.  When your company rolls out a red carpet for their employees and treats them like kings/queens, you really want to work for that company and make sure it it successful.  Microsoft knows how to treat its employees right, may be that is why it is one of the best companies to work for.

On Saturday, for half day we broke into small sessions and for other half we had another all-hands at TD Waterhouse.  And this time we got a great seats thanks to some people on our team who got there early and saved the seats for rest of us.  That’s call team work ladies and gentlemen.  In this session we discussed FY 07 and how we are going to kick some rears.  Heard speeches from Ray Ozzie and other top exec team.  Bill G couldn’t be there because he was in Africa doing charity work.  This was the first time i heard Ray Ozzie speak and it was great.  This guy is one of the person who is going to replace Bill G in 08.  I was really impressed by him and his vision and I am pretty sure company is going to be in good hands when that transition happens in 08.  At the end of the speech he received well deserved standing ovation.  They saved Steve Ballmer for last.  Whenever he comes out he brings out this storm of energy.  He is also a great speaker and very enthusiastic, he will pump you up.  If you have heard him speak in person, you know what i mean.  He was full of energy and at the end, he got off the stage and started giving high-fives to everyone.  And guess what, he high-fived me, yeah baby (See the pics of Mr. Ballmer below).  As one of my team member puts its, that’s as close to Ballmer as we are gonna get, haha.  It was an awesome experience and see how much energy he has and how greatly he feels about this company.  He also talked about Zune, i was expecting to see a prototype of Zune but that didn’t happen.  Talking about Zune, here’s the ad of Zune on YouTube.com, I’m not sure if that is the teaser for Zune or not.  So after the all-hands, there was another party/concert at Universal Studios.  They had reserved the entire place for us from 8pm to 1am.  They had a concert by Jewel and of course all the rides were open for us.  And they had fireworks and laser show and over all it was awesome.

On Sunday, i flew back and that was the end of an awesome MGX.

On the other note, i was introduced to two new employees this week and both of them said, they read my blog about “Microsoft Interview“.  Hmmm, how interesting is that?  I guess that’s a good thing huh?  Wait a second, i see Google Ads on my post, i didn’t put them there.

So like i said in my previous post, even though i have been at Microsoft for 6 months, i still feel like i am new.  Reason being things are constantly changing for good, so if you enjoy change, this is the place for you.  This is my only 4th post this month, but these posts are long.  So if you are reading, thank you for making it all the way to the bottom of the post.

See you all next time.

Tejas

Wow, I can’t believe it.  I have been working at Microsoft for 6 months now, wowwww.  That’s just crazy.  Honestly, it doesn’t feel like 6 months, I still feel like I just started working here couple of months ago.  Time just flew.  Last year at this time, I was working for an insurance company in Dallas.  Not in my wildest dream I would have imagined that in July of 06 I will be completing my 6 months at Microsoft.  It’s just crazy how things happen.  Seeing ”Microsoft” on my badge and on the door of the building still brings a smile on my face at times, who would have thought that a dude from India who moved to States when he was 14 and went to an ordinary high school and an ordinary university would be working for Microsoft.  I certainly didn’t

It has been a great journey.  One of the reasons, why it still feels like only couple of months is how things are constantly changing, especially my group/division.  I was telling my mentee that change is the thing that makes me want to come to work on Monday mornings.  So you gotta love change, granted it can be frustrating/challenging at times, but that’s the best part about it, isn’t’ it?

So what have I learned in past 6 months at Microsoft?  I learned to organize myself (still working on it).  I learned that it’s awesome to work with smart ass people, who are cool and open.  I finally learned how things can be done with positive enforcement.  I learned that how fortunate I am to be working at Microsoft.  I learned to not only find problems but also to find solutions for those problems.  I learned that Microsoft actually cares for its customers and is trying hard to listen to the needs of it customers.  I learned that even though I want MSN search to be better tomorrow, it can’t happen that quickly, I gotta have patience.  I learned that I TOO can make difference.  I learned that one person can make difference in the world.  What else did I learn?  Let’s seee…  I learned that your life can change quickly and things you never imagined can happen to you or to anyone, be it positive or negative.  I learned that now I am addicted to working on two monitors.  I learned to play darts.  I learned that it is soooo awesome to stay close to work.  I went for hiking for the first time in the past 6 months.  I learned that Microsoft is amazingly diverse place with amazing people coming from all around the globe.  And if people with diverse background can work together, may be world leaders and find a way to work together too.  I played softball and flag football for the first time and I also had an interception in the flag football game.  I also learned that weekends are boring.  I learned the secret of smart people and the secret to become smart is, are you ready for it?  Be passionate and be detail oriented about everything you do.  And finally, I learned that I am still learning and still need to learn a lot about things and about myself.

Can’t think of things anymore, it’s kinda late.  I hope next 6 months will be as adventurous as the previous 6 months have been.  If I think of anything else in the morning, I will add to the list.  I will be in Orlando for the rest of this week for a conference, should be interesting.  I read on Robert Scoble’s blog that may be I should put my email address, full name and phone number to make my blog more personalized, which makes total sense.  Let me think about it.

You all have a wonderful week ahead.  As always feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions about anything.

Tejas

Hello everyone,

Yes i know secret to a good blog is to blog often and reply to posts as soon as possible.  I do see a small spike on my blog traffic whenever i do post.  I would love to know the number of people who are reading this blog using RSS.

Anyways, so what is the best way to remain customer focused?  I think it is “to provide excellent customer service for a product that everyone offers.”  Everyone tries to differentiate themselves by level of service they provide, don’t they?  But i think trick is to know what your competitors are doing and do all the things they are doing and may be take it one step further.  I think it is about surprising your customers with new things and do things for them that they don’t expect.  For example, i went to mall today for some clothes shopping.  I was at Dillard’s i think.  And i asked a person working their for the location of the nearest dressing room.  So she pointed me to the right direction (all stores have dressing rooms and all people who work at stores will guide you), but this lady asked me if i was sure about the size of the shirt i was about to try on.  I was like, well i am not sure that is why i am trying it on.  She said, let me take some measurements of your sleeve length etc.  So she did and adviced me that shirt i was about to try on would be a good fit for me.  Before i continue on to my trip to dressing room, she said let me take these pins out of this shirt.  I thought that was nice; and right there i became loyal customer of hers.  Reason being, i didn’t expect her to take the pins out of the shirt for me.  Then, i tried second shirt and again she took the pins out of the shirt for me.  I thought that was awfally nice. 

So let’s analyze it little further.  She achieved two things here:  1)  She provided a level of service i wasn’t expecting (taking pins out of the shirt, as simple as it may sound) and 2)  she avoided some tedious work of folding unfit clothes left behind by customers.

After i made my purchase, i went to “Express for Men” and i went to try on a shirt.  And an employee working their pointed me to the dressing room and handed me the shirt.  At that point i wanted that employee to take the pins out of the shirt for me.  But of course, he didn’t.  So important thing to think about is:  if i were to buy a same shirt from two different stores with the same price, which store would i buy it from?  Of course, Dillard’s, b/c that lady surprised me by her level of customer service.  So, if a customer were advertising online on AdWords and AdCenter at the same time and spending almost equal amount of money, i want that customer to spend more money on AdCenter b/c of MY level of service.

So the question i pose to myself and whoever reading this is:  How can i surprise my clients with great level of customer service they are not used to?

If you are a customer how would it feel like to be surprised?

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, a small lesson in customer service.  Now i have to implement my own advice and find a way to surprise my clients :)  Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated. 

Tejas

Yes i know it has been long time since i have written on my blog.  I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend.  I went for hiking at Wallace Falls.  2.75 miles of hiking, i’m so proud of myself.  This was the first time i went for hiking, so whenever i talk to someone i make sure to i point out 2.75 miles of hiking up the hill/mountain and 2.75 miles of coming down :)  That place was beautiful and only 30 miles from my place.  This is the beauty of Seattle, things are so close by.

Anyways, someone commented to my previous post that, i should write more about Microsoft and Google and not about sports.  So lot of things are changing and i’m sort of busy being a “mentor” for a new hire and all the meetings and client requests and studing, exams, assignments, etc.  So download IE 7.0 beta 3.  They have included this cool feature, where you can move the tabs around.  Guess what, before this feature came out, i posted on the internal IE forum that, “moving tabs around would be a cool feature to have” and now we got that feature.  How awesome is that?  All because of me (at least that’s what i would like to think).  But IE 7.0 Beta 3 is better than Beta 2, so let’s see what else can be improved in the browser. 

If you’d like to see any feature, leave me a comment and i will make a feature request on your behalf, how does that sound?  I seriously have no idea how many people actually read this blog, oh well.

Moving on to AdCenter.  I use this product on daily basis and yes i know it needs lot of improvement and they are working really hard to make those improvements.  So, if you have any complaints about AdCenter or would like to see new feature, write me a comment and i’ll make sure it gets to the right people.

Oh yesterday, i wanted to see what day is Labor day this year, so i can make some plans.  So i went to http://search.msn.com/ and typed in: Labor Day.  And boom, it told me right way, that Labor Day was on Monday Sept 4th.  Its like it knew what i was looking for.  So then i thought let me see what Google gives me and to my surprise it didn’t tell me what i wanted to know.  So my point is, MSN Search is getting better, but its not there yet.  I think Search engines should just know what users are looking for, simple as that.  I think ASK.com does better job then MSN or Google or Yahoo.  I like the ASK’s ”Narrow”, “Expand” or “Related Terms” features, it is great.  ASK has improved soooo much over the past couple of years.  I think MSN and other search engines should be more concerned about ASK gaining market share then anything else.  Now that we have ASK’s ex-CEO, let’s see how MSN’s market share improves.

So that’s it.  I read this awesome quote by Einstein, it goes something like this: “I am not smart, i just spend lot of time with a problem.”

Tejas

My job is to analyze stuff, so i am going to.  It was such a heartbreaker when you come soooo close to being 3-0 and end up loosing the finals at HOME, on your home court.  You worked the entire season, just so that you can play important games like this at home, it hurts.  I was really upset when Mavs lost, because i knew Mavs could have won, that game 3, game 5 and game 6.  But that didn't happen.

Here are my reasons why Mavs lost:

1)  Dirk was being double and tripple teamed each time he touched the ball, Mavs couldn't find a solution to that problem and didn't take advantage of the open man.

2)  Dallas coulnd't contain Wade.  He is a good player no doubt, but we just didn't have a solution for him.  He was the only player who was scoring, if Dallas had found a way to contain him, Miami couldn't come close to scoring as much as they did.

3)  Mavs didn't take the ball to the basket too many times and realied on their parameter shooting.  Which worked in the first two games, backed fired in game 4 where we lost by 20+ points.  Because the way i see is, if team is shooting well from paramater, they are shooting well, if not, game's over.  Mavs didn't take the ball to the basket enough times, so they can be fouled and may be slow the game down and may be slow down other team's tempo.

4)  Mavs didn't get fouled enough, b/c we didn't drive the ball enough times to the glass.  Just kept hoping for that 3-pointer to fall in and Dirk's fade away to work each time.

5)  Call me crazy and tell me that i'm blaming this on Refs, but i think there were lot of bad calls made in especially in this series, but that's life.  May be Basketball also should have a rule like football, where you get 2 chances to disagree with ref.

So why did Miami win?

1)  Wade is a good player, no doubt.  I think people are giving him more credit than he deserves though.  He scored 30+ points in almost each game, b/c there is no one else in Miami team who can score.  Shaq was all covered, other players were hit/miss.  Commentators were comparing him to MJ, come on nowww…  No doubt Wade is good player, but not at the MJ level just yet.  To be like Mike, you need to have consistency, year in and year out.  This is only his first year, don't insult the King.

2)  They scored when it mattered, like free throws.  Dallas was 17/17 in free throws in first 3 quarters but when it came to 4th quarter, they were 2/7 or 2/6.  Now if you can't score when it counts, there is no point.  Also, i just don't get it, how are these players paid millions and they can't shoot free throws?  Especially Centers for both teams.  I mean, both teams know that Centers' weakness is free throws, improve it.

That's it, that's all i can think now.  It was a great season for Dallas, in fact, it was an awesome season.  We came this far, we were soooooooo freaking close, but, things don't always work out the way you want them to.  One team had to win and unfortunately it was Miami.  I think Dallas played as a team, got all players involved, Miami was one man team, Wade.  Coach Johnson did an excellent job in his first year as a head coach and brought the team where it had never been, to the Finals.

In my book, Mavs still rock and it still hurts that we lost.  Life goes on.  May be next year?

Tejas