MsCyra's Technology Blog

What I learned at Microsoft Part III: Understand the rules

Cyra Richardson — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:26:31 +0000

This is a sparring program, similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. It has the some basic rules, rules like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different that the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken. Understand? -Morpheus The matrix The [...]

What I learned at Microsoft Part II: Choose to be Jesus Christ or James Bond

Cyra Richardson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Jesus Christ Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? [They] all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, [...]

What I learned at Microsoft Part I: Ego

Cyra Richardson — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:58:23 +0000

e·go [ee-goh, eg-oh] noun self-esteem or self-image; feelings: Your criticism wounded his ego. Like a child.. Like a little child going to kindergarten on the first day, I walked into the Microsoft New Employee Orientation (NEO), humbled and intimidated. In my mind, everyone at Microsoft in the early 1990’s were technical gods. In my mind [...]

Bye Bye Microsoft

Cyra Richardson — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:05:55 +0000

Just a few minutes ago, my manager and I announced to the team that I would be leaving Microsoft.. here’s the email After 20+ years at Microsoft, Cyra has decided to chart a new course outside of Microsoft. I can’t hope to outline all the accomplishments and achievements that Cyra has contributed to Microsoft [...]

I say Flagella, you say Flagellum

Cyra Richardson — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:45:08 +0000

Shwisssssh! Slap! The flagella of a sperm cell smacks you in the head as it passes you. You realize that you are a sperm cell – and that if you don’t make it to the egg before the speedy Gonzales that just passed you – you will die here in the vagina! Your flagella starts [...]

Book: The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies…

Cyra Richardson — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:53:22 +0000

The reviews for The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels were generally good, but I found the following commentary by Peter Leerskov “The Strategist, www.lace.dk” pretty useful and made sense for folks involved in a significant organizational change: 1. PROMOTE YOURSELF. Make a mental break from your old [...]

Learning learning

Cyra Richardson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:09:11 +0000

“What do you mean you’re ‘teaching him to read by having him read’?!?” At the time, Jeremy was just learning to read and was having a little trouble. He was working hard, but they were not teaching him any sub-lexical (phonemes or letter sounds) reading skills. So the whole family worked together on letter and [...]

MSDN Home and Hub Beta 2

Cyra Richardson — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 23:07:03 +0000

Version 2 of the MSDN Home and Hub gave us the opportunity to improve some of the videos, but to really focus on the professional developers that were focused on staying up to date – rather than on-boarding or cross boarding. The MSDN News Page was the combination of editorial strategy to align across teams [...]

Silverlight.net site beta release announcement

Cyra Richardson — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:26:00 +0000

This is a copy of the email that I sent to the teams about the updated beta.silverlight site. As we prepare to move out of beta and into the production release, it seemed appropriate to have some of the background information posted. My work on MSDN, has really forced me to look at the workflow [...]

More automatically please!

Cyra Richardson — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:44:13 +0000

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help. Ronald Reagan 40th president of US (1911 – 2004) It never fails to surprise me when software does not do something that it is smart enough to do – but doesn’t. In the midst of [...]