Work Related on John's Random Review

What I work on: Azure Monitor Workbooks

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:05:16 +0000

The last time i posted a “what i work on” was almost exactly 2 years ago. And you know what? I’m working on the same thing: workbooks! but Workbooks has changed a ton since that last post.

Two years later…so much has changed!

Wait, first things first: what is "workbooks"?

A workbook is a canvas. The author can put all kinds of things in it that query data from various Azure data sources, present that data in interesting ways, arrange the layout to their liking, and configure how users can interact with them.

What I work on: Application Insights Workbooks

Wed, 21 Jun 2017 22:40:37 +0000

Recently, I’ve been working on Usage features for Application Insights in the Azure Portal. Our new usage features are still in preview mode, and include Users, Sessions, Events and Retention tools. A person would normally use them to look at how users use their websites or app, what they click on, how often they come back, etc.

Users Tool

The users/sessions/events tools are very similar, showing you charts and grids and such about how users are using your website or app. You can filter and slice and dice and split, and save them and share them and pin them to dashboards and everything. (when you save them and pin them to the dashboard, they’ll show you a count matching your filters, so it’s possible to make a bunch of tiles on a dashboard that are like daily/weekly/monthly users of subsets of your site/app)

What I (used to) work on: CodeMap debugger integration

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 05:10:48 +0000

Every once in a while, you run into one of those problems while debugging where you just don’t get what’s going on. you’ve stepped through the debugger 10 times, and you see it happening, but you just don’t know why.

I ran into one of those a few weeks back, while porting one of my apps to windows 10, where sometimes, when you clicked the back button, nothing would happen. if you clicked it a second time, it went back to the page you were on. And when this state was occurring, there were some other strange things going on that weren’t quite right. I’d been stepping through it over and over, and i got to a place where the same breakpoint was getting hit 2 times, with the same stack when i navigated to the page in the first place. This seemed like a very strange thing. i couldn’t for the life of me figure out how that was possible. did i find some strange subtle bug in the Win10 UWP framework? I figured that to be highly unlikely, i was certainly doing something subtle myself. So i thought, “Hey, self, you used to work on debuggermap, i wonder if there’s something i’m not seeing here..”

What I’ve been working on: Open Live Writer

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 18:32:35 +0000

It was announced this morning that what used to be Windows Live Writer has been forked, modified, and open sourced under a MIT license as Open Live Writer. Prior to Facebook, i used to post a lot more stuff here on my blog, and when i did, i did most of that posting using WLW. Microsoft stopped actively developing it after the Windows Live Writer 2012 release and most of that team was moved to working on making apps for Windows 8. I still used WLW after that, but slowly over time the plug-ins i used stopped being supported, and it became a little bit harder to use. And Facebook made it easy to post little things, and life always has a way of finding other things to do. I always mean to post more stuff here, and i probably have 10 or more unfinished drafts either as WLW .wpost files, or saved as drafts in WordPress.

What I work on: CodeLens (VS2013 RC!)

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:19:18 +0000

As of yesterday, the Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2013 is now available! (And, MSFT changed its mind, so if you have an MSDN subscription, you can also download Windows 8.1 RTM!)

The feature my team (and others) has been working on, CodeLens, has undergone some major updates and cleanups since the preview. To see the most of it, you can go to MSDN’s page about CodeLens.

Here’s just one little picture including some of the new stuff. for the rest, go to the MSDN link above!

Another new office!

Sun, 21 Jul 2013 18:03:16 +0000

This one is much bigger than the last. Unfortunately, it isn’t a single office. it would be pretty awesome if it was. But my team (and most of the rest of the team that makes Visual Studio) is now in “Team Rooms” in the newly remodeled Building 18. Team rooms are the new hotness, apparently. I think that every team in b18 (including managers, etc!) are all in team rooms.

What I work on: CodeLens!

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 17:19:11 +0000

Today at the //build/ conference, Visual Studio 2013 was announced and shown in preview form (and download!). And once again, my group (well, my group plus our larger team) made the front page of visualstudio.com:

In Visual Studio 2013, when doing c# and vb, you’ll get extra “indicators” above your methods that give you kindof a “heads up display” of things about that class/method/property. The first one shows you references to the method, if you’re also using TFS it will show you which people have touched that method and in what changesets. Its tfs history on steroids! If you’re also using the built in unit testing features, that method will also show you an indicator that shows which tests test that method, and how many are pass/fail. If you click on any of the indicators, you’ll get a popup that shows you the details, and each details popup window has more useful info and actions you can do with that reference, or that changeset, or that unit test!

What I Work on: Code Map Debugger Integration

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:48:05 +0000

In the last “what I work on” post, I talked about the Code Map feature that was new in Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate (Update 1). It has turned out to be a very popular feature (as it should) because it is super useful!

After people have used Code Map for a while, one of their first requests is “how do I get debugger information into this map?” There are ways to do it, where as you step through code, you keep manually doing “show on code map” on the method you’re in, but that gets very tedious.

What I Work On: Code Map

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:17:06 +0000

Yesterday, Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 shipped! So I can officially talk about what I just worked on. Much of it has already been available in preview form and CTP releases and such, but you don’t want to get in trouble! :)

I joined the Visual Studio team back in April, just as work was finishing up on Visual Studio 2012. As part of that release, the VS team was moving to much more agile release schedule for updates, so here we are, about 4 months after going gold with an update with lots of fixes and cool new features!

Random things about working at Microsoft for a year

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:27:02 +0000

While I’ve only worked there for a year, because I was “acquired” in an “asset” in an acquisition, I have 11 years of “service” for things like vacation and office placement, so that’s handy. In no particular order:

I've installed Windows a lot in a year. 2 different versions of Windows 7 a total of 9 times, 2 different versions of Server 2008 3 times. (And 3 Win7+1 Server2K8R2 installs at home!) Although i haven’t installed windows in several months, though.
I’ve installed Visual Studio 2010 even more. Probably something like 20 different internal builds on 3 machines and several VM’s. Although since the RTM version was available, i haven’t had to install that anymore either. Visual Studio 2010 is so much better than 2008. After using Eclipse for years, i’ve gotten used to so many of the built in features there that i was really surprised that visual studio doesn’t have similar functionality. There are some add-ons that add a lot of the refactoring things and other tools, but like visual studio, most of them are not free.
It's amazing how many IM conversations i have. At rosetta we would have just gotten up and walked over there instead of using IM. Communicator at MS works way better than it did at Merck. Even the desktop sharing works really well. At Merck, the old version of netmeeting we were using was pretty finicky.
I’ve had 4 different offices (not counting the conference room we worked out of for a week+)
There’s an email mailing list (or 2) for anything and everything. The email alias often has a name that makes no sense unless you know what the codename of a product was 5 years ago. And with all the email, there are still a ton of people with no email etiquette whatsoever. And there are people that have 30 lines of crap in their signature.
Across 4 computers and 2 VM’s i’ve had exactly one bluescreen, and it was in the windows2008 server installer. (apparently it didn’t like the USB headset i had plugged in!)
I use OneNote all the time to take notes. I’d never used it before. And the 2010 version of OneNote makes some other things even easier. I only write on paper now when i go to meetings and don’t take my laptop, or if i’m sketching out paper prototypes. Sadly, it looks like the mobile version of onenote is pretty crippled compared to the full version. i only see numbered and bulleted lists, when i use the other tags like checkboxes and colors all the time.
C# as a language (and the .net framework in general) is pretty awesome. Especially LINQ and lambdas. Likewise, WPF + the xaml language and bindings makes it trivial to do a lot of things without much (or any) code. The visual GUI designer tools in VS2010 and Blend are the first ones i’ve used that don’t generate horrible horrible code. And the binding functionality makes hooking data up to controls trivial.
Expression Blend + SketchFlow are pretty awesome. I need more time to learn them both, as they’re way more powerful and useful than i’m using them. But there are some things that take like 2 seconds in Blend that are painful in visual studio.
There is a HUGE amount of available training. Classroom, online, books, everything, and most of it that i have used as been very very good.
like half the people I know have iphones. windows phone 7 looks cool at all, its just so far behind/away. Apple has released 4 hardware revisions and major OS versions in the time its taken MS to do 1? Since my first gen iphone is effectively a dead end now that it is no longer upgradable, I’m waiting for it to be worth my time to buy a new phone…
The company meeting at Safeco field is crazy. Last year had lots of great stuff, with Windows 7 and Office 2010 coming. This year’s should be interesting, with Win Phone 7 and Kinect coming soon. It would also be cool if they gave some more Windows 8 details.
I’d say like 33% of the people I know/have met are hardcore pro MS people. Another 33% are just there for a job that pays the bills. Another 33% are pro MS but realistic about the areas where we could be doing better. That last 1% is a crazy rabid anti microsoft bunch that thinks we’re on the wrong track completely about everything we do no matter what it is. We could be curing cancer and they’d still be upset.

Yes, Rosetta (aka Merck Seattle) is closing.

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:02:02 +0000

By December 31, 2009 (nine, not eight), the Seattle Merck “lab” is closing. But Rosetta Biosoftware isn’t technically the lab, so there are other plans in the work for Rosetta Biosoftware and GEL Operations. We don’t know all the details yet, so that kinda sucks, but i’m not too worried about it right now.

Its kinda sad: in a ~3500 word press release about Merck’s 3Q2008 earnings, its single a whopping sentence:

This is what happens when i leave my desk at work.

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:11:11 +0000

Go away for 5 minutes, and look what happens. Delicious goods appear!

Our users aren't stupid. They just don't have time to be curious!

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:01:49 +0000

John Gruber at Daring Fireball:

IPO!

Sat, 18 Mar 2000 03:44:33 +0000

For those of you that check this page, here’s some more good news: Rosetta Inpharmatics is going Public! Thats right! We filed our S-1 on friday (3/17)! Check out FreeEdgar for the whole deal! It is a very exciting time to be in a hightech/biotech company!

This post recovered from my really old blog on the internet archive @ http://web.archive.org

Promoted!

Thu, 16 Mar 2000 03:43:31 +0000

On the other good news front, I also got promoted! I guess working 70+ hours a week will get you that! Crazy. I’m now a “Senior Developer”. Rock on. Check out Rosetta’s Website for all the goods!

This post recovered from my really old blog on the internet archive @ http://web.archive.org