Thought for the Day

Back when I started doing writing contracts for Microsoft, when you wanted to learn a new technology, you'd search MSDN until you found the right article. This was usually named "Getting started with technology X." I taught myself ASP entirely from MSDN articles.

Over time, these articles dwindled away. It's now much harder to find newbie-targeted user friendly content of this sort. That's frustrating if, like me, you're always having to learn new technologies on the quick.

Enter newtrain. The newtrain is "non-traditional" content delivery through blogs, webcasts and the like. The newtrain gives you content with a human voice. You can interact with it; ask questions, get answers.

On the other hand, you've got to work a bit harder. No, I take that back. You don't have to work harder, but you do have to be more engaged. That's only fair, though. The people writing the blogs are engaged with the technology every day.

I predict that this phenomenon is going to help Microsoft a lot as it grows. Not only does it mean more credibility, but I'm willing to be it'll mean better products.

So my thought for the day is to open up some RSS feeds. Get engaged.

.NET for Office Blog
Office Zealot

It's amusing to reflect that writing the title to this post caused a small thrill of transgression. The MS manual of style prohibits using company or product names in the possessive. Actually, it's not so much amusing as slightly pathetic.