plaxoed!

It also seems that Windows Live Expo has gone public. Navigate over there and take a looksie

I had early access since they let ex-MSFTies in, but it wasn’t really useful for me since I’m in the bay area and not too many people around here had early access. Now that it’s open, it’s Craig’s List vs. Windows Live Expo… let the games begin! Lots of MSN stuff seems to be shipping pretty quickly nowadays; check out the new Virtual Earth Streetlevel (via Scoble). Uh-oh, maybe those days where it took MSFT 2 years to ship anything have been replaced by a leaner, meaner team. Hmm… Redmond’s not looking so sleepy anymore…Note to self: never count Microsoft out.

Take a look at the new visual design for Windows Live Messenger (I see they haven’t updated the ideas.live.com page with the new visual design yet)

Much better than the last version in my opinion. I wonder if they’ve fixed bugs and added features too

I hope Google interview candidates aren’t using Google Maps to try to find their hotel while they’re in Mountain View… take a look at this screen shot:

AFAIK, the Hotel Avante (a common place for Google to put interviewees up for the night) is actually a few miles up the road from where Google Local/Maps thinks it is.

My Audiovox SMT5600 hasn’t been doing so hot (frequent reboots, spotty reception) and I also wanted to check out the new Windows Mobile 5.0 “Magneto” OS so last week, Rose helped me order a Cingular 8125. So far, it’s working pretty well; I was able to load up Agile Messenger and Virtual Earth Mobile, but I’m still looking for some apps I had on my SMT5600 that I can’t seem to find the installers for anymore (I used to have Pocket Streets & Trips and SmartPhlow, a traffic tracking app for the Seattle area).

It also took me a while to figure out how to load up a new root cert. For our OWA server, we use a root cert from Starfield (which in turn is signed by ValiCert) and it’s not one of the pre-installed certs. Eventually, I figured out how to do it; if anyone else is in a similar situation, here’s what I had to do:

1. Open up our OWA site in IE
2. Double click on the “security lock” icon, which pops up a details dialog about the SSL cert
3. Go to the “Certification Path” tab and double click on the certs above our cert in the tree
4. Go to “Details” and click “Copy to File…”
5. Export the cert in “DER encoded binary X.509 (.CER)”
6. Copy the .CER file to my phone via USB cable
7. Navigate to the file through File Explorer on the device and run the .CER file

This installed the certificate on my phone and now I’m able to access OWA/OMA without a security dialog popping up. This also solved my ActiveSync 80072FED error code.

I also had to jump through a look to get WiFi to work. Normally, if you have a WiFi connection, it supercedes connecting through EDGE/GPRS. However, it seems that Cingular inadvertently screwed WiFi by putting in a proxy for all web requests. Here’s how I got WiFi to work for me:

1. Start -> Settings -> Connections Tab -> Connections
2. Advanced Tab -> Select Networks
3. Edit… the “MEdia Net” connection (which is in the first drop down, the connection to use when connecting to the Internet)
4. Uncheck the “This network uses a proxy server to connect to the Internet” box in the Proxy Settings tab. This deleted the value in the Proxy Server text field, which for me used to say “wireless.cingular.com”

EDGE/GPRS still works fine for web browsing, so I’m not really sure why had the proxy setup in the first place… anyone out there have any ideas? Should I put it back when I’m on EDGE/GPRS?

I went to the TechCrunch meetup #5 last night and it was was a pretty kicking party. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel were there launching their book about blogging, Naked Conversations, and a bunch of companies who sponsored the event were giving demos. The party was at Mike Arrington’s place in Atherton and given the neighborhood I was suprised that the cops didn’t come and shut the party down. His street was lined with over a hundred cars and it must’ve been pretty loud for his neighbors.

I snapped some pictures, but they didn’t turn out too well since it was pretty dark out there. Look it’s Dave Sifry in the green jacket

Here’s Scoble and Shel signing books like crazy

And some friends from SimplyHired!

Check out the rest of my photos from last night on Flickr, or check out all the photos tagged “techcrunch5″

If you work at a tech company in Silicon Valley, or you’re just a geek, subscribe to the Lunch 2.0 blog and join us as we meet up during the week to network during lunch. The idea is that we’ll travel around to different companies and chat about new companies, technology, current events - whatever suits our 2.0 fancy! Today, we went to Yahoo for lunch; tomorrow, who knows?

Rose made me a Valentine’s Day package that was quite yummy: cookies, brownies, and a nice card

She told me later that the cookies were actually healthy! No fat and she only used half the amount of sugar the recipie called for. Amazing!

Meanwhile, I sent Rose some e-cards, flowers, a book, and some headphones - how un-creative *sigh*

I rarely do these things, but Adam tagged me and hey, it’s a good exercise to get the juices flowing this morning…

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Associate Product Manager at Google
2. Program Manager at Microsoft
3. Software Engineer at IBM
4. lowly peasant at Abercrombie and Fitch

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Napoleon Dynamite “You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I’m wearing these bad boys? Forget about it. ”
2. Office Space “Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can’t see me, heh - after that I sorta space out for an hour.”
3. Shawshank Redeemption “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
4. Memento “You see I’ve got this problem, I can’t make new memories”

Four Places I’ve Lived:
1. Seattle, WA
2. Bellevue, WA
2. Ann Arbor, MI
3. Troy, MI

Four TV Shows I Love:
1. Family Guy
2. Simpsons
3. Sopranos
4. Seinfield

Four Places I’ve Vacationed:
1. Taiwan
2. Hong Kong
3. Whistler, BC
4. Austin, TX

Four of my favourite dishes:
1. Chicken Shwarma from Med. Kitchen in Bellevue
2. Chateaubriard from Met Grill in Seattle
3. Spicy Korean tofu soup from My Tofu House in SF
4. Double-double from In-n-out

Four sites I visit daily:
1. My Bloglines feeds
2. Live! Mail beta
3. Internal Plaxo Sharepoint server
4. who vists sites anymore? with RSS the feeds come to me bwahaha!

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Seattle (maybe in Redmond, MSFT Building #8 )
2. On any mountain snowboarding…
3. Europe! never been there before
4. In bed… zzzzzzzzz

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Rose
2. Terry
3. Dennis
4. Dru

Hehe, Rose sent me a funny documentary about it: yellow fever.

Somehow I managed to escape the problem

This past weekend, I got to check out HookSlide in concert. Dan had gotten free tickets from his co-worker, Mayank, who is a member of the 4 person ensemble. I’ve done some vocal stuff throughout college and I was curious to see what level an independent group like this would be at - after all, I’ve heard some pretty bad indie bands at local bars and etc.

Well, all my expectations were blown away! HookSlide is only 4 guys, but their depth of sound and arrangement complexity is simply amazing. Check out some of their sample tracks, it’s really cool stuff