It has been a while… AdCenter at 70%

It has been a while since i have written on my blog.  I just have been busy with work.  They were right, "enjoy the free time you have now b/c later on you won't have any time", which is so true.  Last week i was at work till 6:30pm, which is not actually that late but spending more than 10 hours a day in front of computer is lot.  But i enjoyed it, i am not complaining that i had to work till 6:30pm.  In fact, today if i had stayed past 7 i would have gotten free dinner from Thai Ginger.  But unfortunately, i finished up most of my work during the day.

Today i was introduced to a new SMA and after i was introduced to him, he said, "You are very popular man on the internet".  I was like oh crap, he ALSO read my blog.  I don't know if i mentioned this in my earlier blogs or not, but my "Microsoft Interview" blog has been read by lots of people including my boss's boss's boss and lot of managers.  Mainly because it was about the interview process at Microsoft.  So, i guess its a good thing that people have read my blog about the interview process at Microsoft.  I hope it gives them (managers' and potential hires) the insight into the process.  So that being said, i guess it is an interesting/weird feeling to be a "famous man on the internet".

Alright AdCenter has increased its traffic to 70% and the word in the streets is that it will go to 100% pretty soon.  I would really like to see how the quality of traffic is when it goes to 100%.  My guess is, it will decrease a little b/c number of advertisers will increase thus increasing competition thus increasing CPC and lowering CTR, got it?  Great… 🙂  I got no other updates about AdCenter.  Things are very busy at work, we are preparing for the flood gates to open, bring it on baby 🙂

Oh this amazing thing happened earlier this week actually.  There was a discussion going on at WebmasterWorld about IE 7 and public bug database.  And in the code of one of the pages there was a comment by a frustrating programmer:

* html .StupidIEMarginHack {
margin-right: 1px;
When i saw this on the forum i thought it makes Microsoft look bad and i realized that heyyyy i work at Microsoft, so let me see if i can get in touch with someone about this.  So i did.  I found DL about IE and i posted this on there and before end of the day, i got a message saying this has been fixed.  And best thing about this was that the programmer who did this out of frustration of coding admitted that he/she did this, it was honest mistake, i think that was really really awesome.  So i think they are going to update this next monday, so it won't be there next monday.  I think it was sooo awesome that i was actually able to get in touch with someone who was in charge of this and brought their attention to the problem, i love it.  It just made my day.

So that was the highlight of my day, may be a week.  Oh i get so bored on weekends, so i have subscribed to NetFlix.  So basically i have found a better, more constructive way to waste my time and money.  Plus i am so behind in movies.  I just finished watching Kill Bill 1 and 2.  If you got any suggestions about good movies, feel free to let me know.  I don't think people actually read this blog except the post about Microsoft Interview.  Oh welll… 🙂

Tejas

LIVE.COM – Its aLIVE

CHECK OUT LIVE.COM

Amazing functionality has been added to it.  I saw a demo of it earlier today and its amazing.  You gotta check out the image search, i saw the demo of it at the end of jan or beginning of Feb and it rocked my world, very impressive.  I am testing it out right now and of course it has some bugs, thus it is BETA.

Wait till you see Beta Mail 🙂  Mobile is good too, point your mobile browser to mobile.msn.com.

I wish i could write in detail about all the new features and gadgets on Live.com but i need to hit the bed.  Try it out for yourself.  Oh ya, don’t forget to click on the arrows on the right side of the stock ticker 🙂

Oh, i forgot to mention Project Oragami.  I think this project/product has received lot of press and i am really impressed with how MS chose to introduce this product.  This is a classic example of pull strategy kids.  It will create a demand in the market and it also creates some kind of excitement/buzz in the industry of what this product will be.  Check out:  channel9.msdn.com on Thursday to learn more.

Lot of exciting things to come from Microsoft in the future.  Now, i understand why Google has been successfull in coming up with new products fairly quickly, b/c the way i understand it, product development cycle of the software/product on the internet is so much shorter than the software/product that you would ship.

And so, it has begun 🙂

Tejas

Almost 2 months

It has been almost 2 months since i have started working at Microsoft.  It does not feel like that at all.  Last week i learned that my first post titled “Microsoft Interview” was read by lots of people here at Microsoft, including leads, managers and manger’s managers.  Which i think is a good thing.  It was so widely read because of my detailed encounter of Microsoft Interview process.  I think that post gave them good insight into what candidate feels about it.

Last week there was TechFest here on Microsoft campus.  I had pleasure of listening to three lectures and visiting various demonstrations they had.  Lectures were alright, but in one of the lectures i saw a product that our research team in China is working on.  You probably might have heard about it.  Demo went something like this.  It was a scene from “Sexy and the City” and two characters (i don’t know their names) were walking down the street and talking.  And when you rollover your mouse over the two ladies, you can see the price of the shirt, shoes, etc they were wearing and if you click on them, you can go directly to the advertiser’s site.  Now, how cool is that?  Some other demos i saw were pretty awesome too.  I don’t think i can discuss them on my blog, but some of them blew me out of water.  One thing i want say is that competitors better be prepared, because Microsoft is coming…

Other thing, two weeks ago, i went to a presentation about Vista.  It was more of a technical presentation, but it was nice.  I got to see the UI and lots of security features, it was nice.  I was reading a nice article about Vista and how it has so much better security than XP, unfortunately i lost the link.

One of many benefits of working at Microsoft is that, you got to see what’s coming up and you can even test out the products even before they come to the market.  I can run Vista on virtual machine if i wanted to.  Other day, i had a feature request (more of a question) about IE 7.0 and i did some search on intranet and i was able to talk to someone who worked on the browser.  That is just amazing, don’t you think? 

Another big news, AdCenter 3.0 is going to be open for advertisers only for 3 hours tomorrow morning 6am to 9am PST.  So if you really want to get in the AdCenter and don’t have an invitation, here is your chance.  And unlike Google, when we say, it will be open for 3 hours, we will be open for 3 hours, our servers won’t crash, b/c unlike Google, we are prepare to handle the load.  here’s the link:  http://adcenter.msn.com.  Oh i forgot to talk about “ContentAds” (it’s not a secret and everyone knows about it, therefore i can talk about it here.  Here’s the proof.)  On Friday, there was a presentation about this program by one of the PMs, and it was pretty cool.  What i can not talk about is the planned release date of this product, b/c i don’t think it is public yet.  So, its gonna be cool, let me just stop there, before i reveal too much.

This blog thing is pretty scary stuff.  You don’t who’s reading it.

Also, MSN Live went to beta last week, check it out:  http://travel.msn.com.  Oh, also, have you checked out: http://preview.local.live.com/, its a killer feature, marvelous.  When i first saw this, i was like damnn, that is really cooool.  let me tell you why, it is cool.  Looking up directions using map and actually driving are two different things.  Now, with this new feature you can actually see what the streets are like and you can get the view from the street level.  This is just an amazing feature addition to the local.live.com, way to go.

Alright, i think that’s it for now.  I will be going to Dallas on 16th for the weekend to visit family and friends, because i miss Dallas, never thought i would say that.  Today Mavs lost against Phoenix, sux.  San Antonio and Phoenix are only two teams that can stop Mavs from going to Finals, but unlike last year, i think Mavs have good team this year to beat these two teams and reach the finals and win it all.  UT won against OK today, woohoo.

Later. 

Tejas