Chris.blog.Microsoft

Text cloud of my friends’ Facebook status updates

cslemp — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:06:16 GMT

I’m desperate to blog something work-related, but have been so busy with things I can’t discuss publicly yet that I haven’t made the time. Well, I had a brainstorm for a quick, fun, social computing-related post, so here it is… a text cloud of my friends’...(read more)

My new Microsoft gig: still as 'social' as ever

cslemp — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:00:42 GMT

So, in this economy, anyone getting a new job is great news. But more so when it’s me :) One of the more interesting green fields for social software right now is enterprise social computing. I've been lucky enough to be offered a new role in Microsoft...(read more)

MSDN and TechNet Search: now more refined...

cslemp — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:04:20 GMT

Several months ago, we did a deep-dive on MSDN and TechNet search with a dozen users . They were generally impressed, but had some feedback on a few items. We've addressed several of their concerns and more, so I wanted to outline what's better now......(read more)

Popfly gadget for your bookmark feed (or any RSS feed)

cslemp — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:28:20 GMT

Thanks to Chad Brooks, architecture evangelist, for creating a Popfly gadget that displays an RSS feed. He’s using it to expose bookmarks for the upcoming MSDN Developer Conferences . I tweaked it for my blog, as you can see in the right rail. It’s showing...(read more)

How to make your mark on the System Center site

cslemp — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:59:00 GMT

The number of feeds on MSDN and TechNet sites that are driven by social bookmarking (community members tagging relevant URLs) just keeps growing. The latest adopter is the System Center TechCenter , which has just put “links from the community” front...(read more)

MSDN at PDC 2008, or "why bookmarking is like fire insurance"

cslemp — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:32:00 GMT

After four days of speaking with a total of 269 developers at PDC in Los Angeles about MSDN Bookmarking , I have a pretty good idea what you think of it. Nearly all of the response at the booth was very positive, with a few in-depth conversations yielding...(read more)

Under the Azure skies of PDC 2008

cslemp — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:56:53 GMT

I couldn't resist getting Azure into the title of my first post from PDC 2008 . The day started with what I'm sure will come to be known as "the keynote that started it all." Ozzie's vision of what cloud-computing will do in the shape of Azure...(read more)

MSDN Social + fine-tuned SQL 2008 = speed, sweet speed

cslemp — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:27:00 GMT

Today we released an update with a number of performance enhancements, some of which I referred to in my previous post . I decided that now was a good time to compare our performance with some other leading sites that we might be compared to. I opened...(read more)

Behind the scenes of the Microsoft Social platform

cslemp — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:47:17 GMT

Image via Wikipedia I’d like to bring a little focus on some of the cool things going on behind the scenes with the Social platform that underpins our search , social bookmarking , and forums apps. We’ve spent the last month optimizing performance for...(read more)

Podcast: Tony Soper gets it! Why IT Pros should bookmark

cslemp — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:14:00 GMT

Tony Soper of virtualization user assistance documentation fame (not to mention a top bookmarker), recorded a podcast with myself and Chris Kilbourn, lead site manager for TechNet. His companion blog post is a great summary of reasons that IT Pros should...(read more)

Top 10 Bookmarkers on MSDN and TechNet for September 2008

cslemp — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:35:00 GMT

We’d like to give kudos to our top bookmarkers as of September 30, 2008. These are the people that are on the leading edge of driving new content onto MSDN and TechNet. I removed a few of the people from our own team, as they’re kind of expected to use...(read more)

More MSDN (and TechNet) Library tips

cslemp — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:51:51 GMT

John Martin posted today about a few things you should do in the library: bookmark , search with our site search and the new Code Search , try ( loband ), and contribute to the community content . I’ve got a few more hidden gems for you: Show/Hide TOC...(read more)

IE8 Accelerators for MSDN and TechNet Social and Search

cslemp — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:50:00 GMT

In the last of my series of cool new toys we're adding to extend the new MSDN , TechNet , and Expression social bookmarking sites, we've just posted a set of accelerators for IE8. Thanks to our own Tim Pearson and Husain Shambhoora for creating these!...(read more)

Shiny object #3: Live Writer Plug-in for MSDN and TechNet Social

cslemp — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:51:00 GMT

Rahul Soni, a Microsoft field engineer in Bangalore, wrote a Live Writer plug in for including “Add to…” links to a number of social services like Digg, Delicious, Technorati, and Facebook. He’s now updated the plug in to work with Microsoft’s new social...(read more)

Shiny objects for MSDN and TechNet Social: #2 Custom feed queries

cslemp — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:55:00 GMT

Continuing our series of cool new stuff you can do with our new social platform, Taylor Parsons has a post fully outlining all the conditions and parameters that you can use to slice and dice social platform queries. Here's some examples using Taylor's...(read more)