Humberto's Thoughts [Humberto Lezama Guadarrama]

Uno mas.. pero muy especial

2009-05-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

No puedo creerlo, ya paso un anio mas en mi vida! y que manera de festejarlo, estrenando house en compa;is de muchos amigos queridos, mi adorada esposa y, por supuesto, cookie :)

La reunion estuvo super padre y la comida soberbia!!! Nancy se apunto un ultra mega 10 con mil y un platillos mexicanos que fueron el deleite de todos. Para cerrar con broche de oro, un face-off en el postre con un pastel de tres leches cortesia de la chef Clau (aka chinchirrin special) y un pay de queso cortesia de Bere...mmmm creo que el pastel gano (porque tenia mi nombre je je je).

Muchas, muchas gracias a todos, me hicieron pasar un excelente cumpleanios!

Snow!!

2008-12-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

Everywhere around Seattle!!.... I would say that about 60-70% of all Microsoft employees in the Puget Sound area ended up working from home today. My wife and I lived in Pittsburgh before moving to Seattle so we are used to the snow... however I can’t be anything but impressed on the amount of snow it fell today; it was pretty bad. If you add that to the fact that Seattleites are very ill prepared for situations like this (I mean it usually doesn’t snow that bad) it turned out to be one of the most peculiar days we’ve experienced here.

Not to pick on my neighbors but it was fun to watch one of them attempting to drive with a road fully covered by snow… he moved about 20 meters from his drive way and.. .well, lets say that neon is still parked in the middle of the street since 9am (it is now 7:30 pm). (And not he didn’t have an emergency, it was pure curiosity combined with a lack of common sense… I mean 2wd, no chains, sport tires…that is just asking for trouble).

The personal downside that we encountered is that our dog got so excited with the snow that he decided to run and run and eat and eat snow…of course he ended up throwing up and a bit sick but he is fine now. Other than that I think I actually enjoyed this day.

Seems that tomorrow conditions won’t improve much; good thing the remote access is holding up so far :)

When a break is needed

2008-11-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

I surely need one.... I don't know, sometimes work can be so time consuming that it doesn't feel right anymore. I love what I do but Gee... sometimes is just too much.

Good thing thanks giving and december holidays are coming; this time around I'm reeeeaaaallly looking forward to them.

Felicidades Luis Daniel y Sofia!!!

2008-07-23T09:55:00.001-07:00

Al parecer la mayoria de nuestros amigos se pusieron de acuerdo y decidieron tener BBs todos por la misma epoca .

Muchisimas felicidades para Luis y Violeta por Luis Daniel y muchas felicidades tambien para Erika y Carlos por Sofia :)

Mmmm como que el universo quiere mandarnos un mensaje... he he, sera acaso momento de encargar? Naaaa... todavia no he he he.

Wii component cable

2008-07-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

In spite of reviews stating that the Wii component cable didn't help at all I purchased one for my 37 LCD TV and what a difference!! Images are crisp and vivid as opposed to blurry and washed out with the normal RCA cable.

I highly recommend getting the component cable if you have a HDTV. If you have a SDTV you probably won't notice the difference.

Something obvious but that still some people may be missing; once you connect the wii using the component cable you have to manually switch the resolution to 480p, otherwise the image will look the same or even worse as before.

Cookie aprende a ir al banio

2008-06-15T10:33:00.001-07:00

Pues parece ser que despues de varias semanas nuestro perrito, Cookie, ya aprendio a ir al banio. Fue genial estar en la sala y ver como de repente cookie se levanta y corre a la puerta, agarra su correa con la boca y me la da.. y despues corre directo a la puerta, rascandola para indicar que queria salir; y efectivamente mas tardamos en salir que llego a su lugar preferido e hizo su asunto :)

I hate car dealers

2008-06-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Why is it that purchasing a new car has to be such a distasteful experience?

Dealers offer their fancy web pages where you supposedly ask for a quote and what do you get in return? Nothing... just a bunch of junk email urging you to visit them TODAY... it doesn't matter that you answer their emails and give them specific details of what do you want... no, they have to have you right there in the dealership so they can play all sorts of annoying selling games.

Why is it that buying a car can't be like buying a pizza? Seriously... I know exactly the car I want with all the options that I want and I know the maximum price I'm willing to pay... so, let me pick the damn car and click "purchase"!!!

The irony... the software that I help develop as part of my daily job gives these folks more tools to provide a "Better" customer experience... yeah, sure.

Cumpleanios

2008-05-26T09:25:00.002-07:00

Este fin de semana festeje en compania de varios cuates mi 2x cumpleanios.... muy muy divertido el asunto, ya tenia tiempo que no me reia tanto.

Desde hacer el ridiculo marcando el celular de alguien sentado enfrente de mi (por error) desconocerle la voz y llamarla "Bere" y esa persona hablandome en ingles, desconociendome la voz y pasandole el telefono a su esposo diciendole... "creo que es para ti" he he he... Hasta 4 chavos(yo incluido) cantando "Electricidad" de 'lucerito'... Dios, que oso! :)

Este tambien fue el primer cumplea;os que "cookie" (nuestro perrito) paso con nosotros... una maravilla de creatura... se porto super bien con las visitas y estuvo muy tranquilo...lo que no saben es que lo tenia drogado.. ja ja ja... naa para nada muy bien portado el chamaco.

Ale, Mary, Clau (Bere II), Bere (I), Ale (hija Bere I y Edgar), Spider, Juan, Francisco, Edgar y por supuesto, mi adorada Nans.... muchas gracias!! me la pase muy muy padre.

P.D. Me deben 2 cojines de 500 dlls.
P.D.2. Ahora si, ya me voy a jugar Halo (Por fin!!!) :)

Cookie!

2008-05-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

That is the name our puppy :)

We just got him a couple of weeks back. He is an adorable fur ball :)

Gosh... training is difficult.. it requires patience which I have none he he he. Anyway, I'm confident things will go smoothly.

Crazy Weather

2008-04-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

To be hones I haven't had a chance to look at how the weather world wide looks like but around Seattle is crazy vato!

Rain, Snow, Wind, Sun, Heath.... all in the same day!!!

I miss home :(

Semler

2008-03-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

WOW... this guy is amazing. If you have 10 minutes, watch this video... I couldn't think of a better use of your spare time.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gJkOPxJCN1w

More Cowbell

2008-03-03T21:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I laughed so much... do your friends look like the cowbell guy when playing rockband? I probably do :) he he

http://crackle.com/c/Funny/SNL_Blue_Oyster_Cult/1540034

The escape

2008-02-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

From reality... keep reading books, keep working late, keep surfing the net, keep watching tv and playing video games.... everything but to face the world.

Welcome Yahoo...

2008-02-01T10:53:00.001-08:00

No, as of today (2/1/2008) Yahoo hasn't accepted Microsoft's offer but they will. As myself and thousands of other people predicted it... it happened.

Gee... I wonder how things will change around here (Redmond). We'll see.

UPDATE: Yes, yes.. I was wrong :/

Skiing at Snoqualmie

2008-01-29T17:45:00.000-08:00

Couple of friends and us went skiing to snoqualmie west summit... pretty fun! I only fell once!!! (yes still on green trails only he he). Snow was fresh, groomed... weather extremely comfortable. Other than the long waiting lines for the lifts the place is highly recommendable.

Yes! :)

2008-01-24T14:25:00.001-08:00

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/24/news/companies/earnings_microsoft_msft.ap/index.htm

Amazon Fresh... refreshing

2008-01-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

Today we received our first Amazon Fresh order. Overall, quite satisfactory experience.

Convenience: Excellent. Their website is pretty well designed, you can easily browse and pick the items that you want. The delivery options are pretty convenient... we chose pre-dawn; before 6:00am in the morning we already had our groceries at our doorstep. Packaging was formidable and even the containers were nice looking. All the items arrived in pristine condition.

Quality: Fruit, poultry and fish were pretty good; certainly better than what I would chose by myself (I'm not good at picking stuff on the supermarket). The rest of the stuff was standard, meaning that it would be equivalent to get the stuff anywhere else (e.g. a bag of chips was a standard bag of chips as you would expect).

Prices: They are lower than Safeway's and higher than Fred Meyer. As an introductory offer, Amazon takes care of the sales tax.

Are we going to shop again on Amazon Fresh? Probably... to be honest supermarkets are less than mile from our place and we like the on-premise shopping experience he he. We were mainly curious so we decided to give Amazon a try... who knows, maybe in a bitter cold day we will order again... or maybe we become so busy (e.g. lazzy) that we end up being fervent customers.

Nice Effort Seahawks

2008-01-13T16:33:00.000-08:00

The did what they could... the Packers were just too good for them and the weather didn't help. Anyhow, I feel happy for the Seahawks, they had a solid season even though they lack any real superstars. BTW, my wife and I had the opportunity to go to the last game here @ Seattle Vs. Redskings... being at Qwest field for a play-off game was AMAZING... never being in a louder stadium in my life.

Bill Gates farewell at CES

2008-01-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

Hilarious! You gotta watch this.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=be9075bb-df0a-41c9-8d86-7ded46627e26

Beware of "Midas"

2007-12-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I had my breaks inspected by a "Midas" shop because of an annoying noise. They told me that pretty much everything was in extreme bad conditions and that I needed to replace calipers, rotors, break pads, etc…all for about $1500. The diagnostic made me quite suspicious since I had the car inspected a month before and the breaks were in good conditions. So I took my car to a Firestone shop and guess what? The breaks were in perfect conditions; my breaks were in almost “brand new” conditions according to the mechanics; to get rid of the sound they did had to resurface the rear rotors for about $120 but told me that it was strictly optional, that my breaks were in perfect working conditions. I agreed to resurface the rotors and the noise is gone now; I’m pretty happy with the Firestone service and will probably take my car to them every time I need servicing

So, beware of Midas. By doing a bit more research online (which I should have done before going with them in the first place) I found that it seems to be a common practice of Midas shops to tell you that you need to do a bunch of expensive repairs when, in fact, your car might be in pretty good shape.

Before agreeing to do any expensive repair, take your car to another shop and get a second opinion.

Guitar Hero III...tomorrow!!

2007-12-19T20:29:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow I'll finally get my hands on a copy of Guitar Hero III with the wireless guitar. I had to pay an undisclosed amount of money for it on ebay... hope it is worth the deal; if not I'll have to seek revenge from the friends that introduced me to the addiction (GH2).

On a side note... We (the CRM Team) got our new release out the door last friday :) ...as a reward we will have a couple of extra days of vacations [Insert video of Borat saying: "Nice"]

Black Fridat @ Best Buy

2007-11-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

My wife and I accompanied a couple of friends on black Friday to Best Buy… what an experience. The 4:00am awakening was well worth the deal just to witness the line that extended from best buy to the nearest store half a mile away. We stand in line for about half an hour and got free donut while we were waiting.. it was fun. After we finally entered the store, although really crowded, people were ordered; our friends got what they were looking for (a gorgeous 42” HDTV) at a really good price. All in all, a cool experience :)

The only complaint was that I got the wrong version of the 300 DVD. Instead of picking the special edition I chose the normal edition and got charged full price instead of the black Friday price; the cashier wasn’t kind enough to let me know my mistake. Fortunately I did realized of my mistake the same day and got chance to exchange the DVD and get a refund back.

My wife hates Halo 3

2007-11-30T15:47:00.000-08:00

I can't help it... the damn thing is addictive!

Halo is... simply adictive

2007-11-19T21:38:00.000-08:00

I've been playing Halo 3 matchmaking on xbox live for the past 2 weeks. The thing is really addictive. I still suck at the game but it so funny to tagteam to kill the opposite team. I wonder if my fingers (and my brain) will ever be fast/precise enough to become a decent player in this kind of games :)

The push to get Titan out the door.

2007-11-19T21:37:00.001-08:00

Oh boy, ...almost there... almost there :)

Back at Redmond

2007-11-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, I forgot to mention that we are finally back at Redmond. The Visa stuff got sorted out :)

New Zunes

2007-11-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

You got to admit that these devices are so much better (than the previous version of course he he). I’m not a “device” guy, meaning that I don’t have any personal music player; I just hate to carry stuff around. Every time I look at my old brick cell phone I tell my wife “That is it, I’m getting a new phone.. one of those all in one”.. but there isn’t yet one that convinces me… the Iphone is close, pretty darn close.. if it would only work with exchange natively.
Anyway, back to the point, as I said, I’m not a music player guy but…but... I’m definitively getting a Zune 2.0.. a flash version, 8 GB probably. It looks cool, is light, nice capacity, excellent navigation, pretty good software, FM tuner (that is a BiiiiG plus for me).
Definitively a step on the right direction.. now we have to start running J

Still waiting for our Visas

2007-11-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

I miss our place :( ... Come one U.S. Embassy!.. hurry up.

Visa approved and almost delivered

2007-11-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

:) 48 hours more or less so that I can pick-up my approved visa; yuhuuu!.

We are still waiting for my wife's Visa..hopefully it will be ready soon.

Licencia de Manejo, intento 2

2007-11-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

En esta ocasion si pude obetener mi licencia permanente de manejo. .. Despues de 2 horas y media!!

Es increible la falta de sentido comun que tienen las oficinas gubernamentales. No se necesitan teorias de colas o matematicas avanzadas para darse cuenta que 15 personas capturando datos y solo una tomando fotos NO funciona.

En caso de que les interese experimentar en carne propia un tipico tramite mexicano, los invito a que asistan a la Comercial Mexicana de Miguel Angel de Quevedo de 12:00 a 2:00 de la tarde... es toda una experience religiosa :)

Licencia permanente; intento 1

2007-10-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Hoy trate de sacar mi licencia permanente en la ciudad de Mexico. Me sorprendi al enterarme de que se podria tramitar en la Comercial Mexicana. Acudi a dicha tienda y oh sorpresa, no filas, personal amable e instalaciones "decentes"

El problema? Su "sistema" de computo no servia. Muy amablemente me dijeron que regresara otro dia :/

En fin, al menos, no me hicieron perder mas tiempo del estrictamente necesario.

CRM and Silverlight

2007-10-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

I finally got the chance to update the CRM-Silverlight sample that I posted a months back. Now itshould work fine with the released version of Silverlight 1.0.

Check the details here

The point of no return

2007-10-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today my wife and I embark into what will constitute a milestone in our lives...we have already passed the point of no return; there is no turning back. No, it has nothing to do with our personal life but with present and past employers instead.... we will cross fingers and wish for the best.

Wii-speed

2007-10-25T20:37:00.001-07:00

WoW, that was fast. I shipped my wii to repair on monday and got it back today (3 days after). True, their repair office is pretty close to my place but still... really efficient customer service.

I can go back to keep losing against mi wife in wii tennis :)

Silverlight streaming ; it worked.

2007-10-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it turned out to be quite easy once you figure out that you have to manually create the manifest file.

Here is the final result, in my MSDN blog :)

When technology gets in the way of productivity

2007-10-20T11:21:00.001-07:00

I have this nice screencast of a not so discoverable feature that we are going to release with the next version of CRM. I want to share it to the world...so, what do I do?

Mmmmm the easiest way would probably be to post it on youtube or directly to my blog; mmm bad idea, let's do something more "professional" (read complicated); lets try MSN soapbox or even better, Silverlight streaming.

Soapbox,
Easy to use, the vide uploads fine BUT, the quality is abysmal.. you can't distinguish a thing.

Silverligth streaming
Ok, it is asking me for .zip file with my “Application”; how do I generate that? Go figure. Let’s try downloading the expression encoder. Ok, now I have a bunch of files; lets zip them and upload… mmm no, still missing a “manifest.xml” Grrrr!. To be fair, Silverlight streaming is still in Alpha; chances are, usability will be greatly improved with the next release.

So, I still haven't been able to make it work; I have only invested around 20 minutes or so but that should be more than enough to get things going. I’ll let you know when I eventually upload something that works.

Wii/Xbox ratio

2007-10-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago I finally got an Xbox; I don't know, my wife and I were having dinner near a video game store and we were talking about the low video quality of the wii and how cool the Xbox games look.. so I got one.

Friends usually ask me, and what is your game time ratio now? how much time do you spend on the Wii vs Xbox?

A: I would say, 60% Xbox, 50% Wii...but those numbers are deceiving. If instead of looking at raw time spent I (somehow) factor the "enjoyment" time the Wii beats Xbox by far; and I ONLY play a single game on the Wii (tennis)... it is just amazing to play against my Wife (btw, she beats me all the time)

Anyhow, lets see how the ratio moves as we acquire more games for both systems. And no, I still haven't played Halo 3 he he.

Crm4 (Titan) NDA lifted

2007-10-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

The NDA that prevented partners and others from disclosing details about the upcoming CRM release (codename:Titan) has been lifted. That means the product team members can also blog about it.

I would say Titan will be a pretty damn solid release with a bunch of multi's:

-Multitenant: Share the same web front end across independent organizations
-Multilingual: Support for multiple languages according to the "users" preference
-Multicurrency

There are also many new features and enhancements; my personal favorites:

-Enhanced relationships: Naturally, my favorite one since I’m the customizations PM J. We now natively support n:n relationships and also increased the number of entities that will allow new custom relationships. This is a pretty BIG DEAL; you can also now customize some of the UI behaviors associated with those relationships.

-Workflow. Based on Windows Workflow Foundation our workflow team has made an amazing job of bringing the power of workflow to end users. The workflow designer has been moved to the Web client. Also now workflows can be individually monitored by end users; which means that there is a clear visibility of where (in which stage) a certain process is.

-Reporting Wizard: Not an expert on designing reports using SRS? No problem, the report wizard will let end users to create pretty powerful reports using a simple and intuitive web interface.

-Unified architecture for plug-ins and enhanced support for more entities and messages. This is a large topic that is hard to summarize in a few words but in short we now have a single architecture for synch AND asynch plug-ins that can work online or offline (using the offline platform).

-Metadata API. Finally a programmatic way to modify the CRM schema (entities, attributes, relationships). The Metadata API is now r/w.

There are many more cool things in this release and I’m sure you will see tons of blogs and news about them.

Planning...

2007-09-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

I'm in my 15 minutes break from planning. Designing new features is a lot of fun but is pretty damn hard. You may think, well, why don't just do what customers asked you to do the last version the exact way they asked you to do it? A: We would never do anything innovative; besides, what one customer wants is what another customer hates.

True, your main focus while designing features is to satisfy a customer need, but the way you satisfy that need is equally important; you can do what everybody else is doing or you can open the doors to something that customers didn't even think of before.

Simple, powerful and intuitive...that is the way a feature should be. Example? Google, Excel's Autofilter, Vista's search menu.

My twin soul

2007-09-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

Today, I found my twin soul.... my brother. I didn't realize before we had so much in common which is shocking in a way...in a good way I guess; now I know.

Coolest Websites?

2007-09-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

Do you have any examples of sites using the latest, coolest Ajax (Web 2.0) controls/techniques? Post them here!

How do you identify a Web 2.0 site? Well, basically such sites seem to load all the information they display "on the fly" without the need to load another page.

Take for example a site like http://www.kayak.com; when you start by inputting a “From” city it will autosuggest you as soon as it identifies relevant matches. Once you hit “search” it will progressively populate the results table which you can filter out right there… pretty much like if you were using a traditional desktop application.

Netflix.com is another great example of Ajax enabled site. Whenever you add a movie to you queue, an inline dialog appears suggesting you similar movies.

Got any cool examples?

From Design to Microsoft

2007-09-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

I've just finished the book "UI design for programmers" by Joel Spolsky which my manager recommended me. Other than bad jokes, the book is actually pretty good. It is full of "obvious" facts that nonetheless aren't so obvious until you actually read them; all in all, a recommendable book.

Book aside, Joel is one of those guys that hates to love Microsoft… he worked at MS, still has many friends on the company and yet he regularly insist on attacking the company/products in his blog posts; sometimes with a good reason behind, sometimes out of absolute nonsense. Maybe I’m a bit like him…

After going to my first company meeting (a whole stadium full of Microsofties, imagine that!) I realized why I feel the way I do regarding Microsoft... it is hard for a company of this size to get things right in all areas... some product teams are a disaster, others are marvelous; which inevitable leads you to love and hate the company.

At the end of the day, I feel me happy of being part of one of the most powerful software companies in the world (like it or not :P ) and help to shape its future to, what I hope, would be a better Microsoft; more open, more “standard” and more customer focused. The really good news here is that I’m not alone… did you know Microsoft hired about 12,000 “new” employees just in the past year?... lots of new blood that will be put to good use and are not afraid of give love or hate when its needed :)

3d Holograms

2007-09-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

Impressive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2VusJwGTQQ

Sit back, relax, and rethink your life.

2007-09-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Am I in the right place? Should I go back? Does it worth the effort?

Y me pregunto, que hago aqui :/

A PM's day

2007-08-29T20:25:00.001-07:00

What are the Program Managers @ Microsoft up to? Sometimes I ask that question myself, what did I actually do today?

Following a colleague’s advice, I decided to log one day of my Program Management life; I’ve omitted many ‘must do’ activities such as having breakfast, lunch, etc :)

6:30am Conf. call with India Developers
7:30am Read news/posts on the CRM space
8:00am Email
9:00am Feature related meeting
10:00am Bug triage/Project management
11:00am Feature design
1:00pm Bug triage/Project management
1:30pm Email
2:00pm Bug triage/Project management
3:00pm Technical training
4:00pm Community/newsgroups
5:00pm Bug triage/Project management
6:00pm Feature design
7:00pm Email
8:00pm news/community/newsgroups

Fun?...a bit I won’t lie; I like my job for the most part :)

Windows Validation (WGA) problems and solution

2007-08-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

There seems to be problems with Windows Genuine Advantage servers this weekend. The net result is that your copy of Windows may not be recognized as"valid"; Don't panic! just go to http://www.microsoft.com/genuine and click validate.

Even if you cannot re-validate your copy of windows you will not lose data and your machine will not shut-down.

More info on the topic:
http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2055180&SiteID=25

2007-08-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Blue Angels @ Seattle :)

Enterprise 2.0

2007-08-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

I encourage you to read the latest issue of "Architect Journal" (number 12 once it comes online) http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/arcjournal/default.aspx. It has a bunch af interesting articles about Web 2.0 and its relation with the Enterprise... and ideal lecture for CRM folks :)

The revenge of “shadow copies”

2007-08-15T14:52:00.000-07:00

Do you remember that I recommended to turn-off shadow copies in a previous post?… well, today Vista made me pay for it; actually, to be precise, it was not Vista but Office. Long story short, my Office got unusable and wasn’t even able to uninstall it.. so I said, “well, I will just use system restore”… WRONG!!, I forgot that I had turned off the system restore functionality (by turning off shadow copies).

So, the obvious question is… why did Vista bundle system protection (restore) with shadow copies?? :/ Why can’t someone have system restore capabilities without having shadow copies? (just like in XP) ... :(

Pandora; it's your music

2007-08-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

There are very few pieces of software that I really, really like... Pandora is definitively one of them; it is beautiful. I would say the best internet radio out there.

Good design, excellent usability, excellent sound quality and adaptive algorithms that truly learn as you educate the software…lovely.

For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure to play with this software, please please please, give it a try; it is absolutely free. www.pandora.com

I’m so glad that Pandora is now also going to be available on cell phones (sprint)…I just hope one of the major carriers (e.g. AT&T) picks it up soon.

Titan

2007-08-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

There are so many cool things about the upcoming MS CRM realease, codename Titan... too bad we are still not supposed to talk about them.

Grrrrr!

What is with people updating their status?

2007-08-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

I kind of understand why people want to keep their "status" updated in applications such as Messenger... I mean, if you are away you want to signal that, perhaps, you are not going to be answering any time soon.

But, updating your status in places like Facebook... I don't get it :/

Pon mi mano donde te duele...

2007-08-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

...no tengas miedo, no creas que no se puede.

Superaquello

Video Game Euphoria

2007-08-05T20:27:00.001-07:00

It appears that my wife and I have a deficit when it comes to video games...we didn't play enough of those in our childhood and now we are catching up :)

The funny thing is... did we get an Xbox? mmmm NO! I got a Wii.... the little thing is so funny and so addictive. To be fair we are also planning to buy an Xbox...the Ellite version seems tempting.

Mac Vs Pc Rap

2007-08-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

Hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkrn6ecxthM

Vista disk activity, turn off "shadow copies"

2007-07-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

Annoyed by Windows Vista constast disk activity? If you have a desktop you may not even notice, but in a laptop it is utterly annoying.

To me, turning off "shadow copies" resolved my problem. Right click on computer, properties, go to the system protection tab (wait a few seconds) and uncheck your hard drives. Read the help file if you need more info on "shadow copies" which is basically a small version control system that, in my case, was not needed.

Why is it "on" by default... well, because is a feature right? they had to turn it on otherwise who would use it? ;)

Shipping is the #1 feature

2007-07-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

Ha!

!@#$#$! RAM !

2007-07-14T21:38:00.001-07:00

Never. ever buy Corsair "value" RAM; it almost completeley destroyed my wife's laptop. What appeared to be a corruption on the OS (you know, Windows XP still has issues) it turned to be a corrupted RAM module.

It was in fact a bit hard to diagnose at first since the OS booted properly in "safe" mode and the errors when loading in "normal" mode were consistent; the screen freezed always on the same "step".

Gladly, something weird happen between reboots; Dell diagnostics found an error r/w the "RAM"... the actual weird thing is that the test failed only once; once the machine rebooted the RAM test was passing just fine.

Anyway, long story short, the problem was a faulty "value" RAM module from Corsair. I tested the same module on another laptop and the damn thing almost messed up my whole system with corrupted memory that produced buffer overuns and errors in applications that never gave problems before.

Thankfully both laptops are up and running now; with 512 mem less each (since I changed modules so that each laptop had at least 1 Gb) but working :)

Ancient Blindness

2007-07-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

“Ancient Blindness”

Too many words, too little meaning,
so much time, most of it wasted,
senseless babblings that get drawn in foolishness,
foolishness disguised as experience,
that gets in the way of brilliance.

Bad place, bad time, too much nonsense?
or simply the wrong route,
a way that leads to nowhere,
and at the same that will get you there.

Look at me when you talk,
don’t blind yourself and see that I’m better,
and so the day will come,
when I’ll make that you regret it.

Are screams the only sounds you listen?
So be it, you got me screaming,
Wake up now!
I may still hear you

Dynamics CRM Program Managers Cook!

2007-07-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

Not only we design great software but we prepare delicious meals :) he he he..

http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2007/07/06/our-pms-design-great-crm-software-but-can-they-cook.aspx

Cheers

A forever unprofitable Xbox?

2007-07-05T21:52:00.001-07:00

Will the Xbox ever make money?

It will, eventually; The trick is to keep breathing [is that from a song? :) ]

Here is the strategy that almost every aspiring platform follows:

Get to the market, get as many consumers as you can, keep them happy by giving away free or subsidized hardware and once you have your platform deployed in a decent amount of individuals then start charging for the value added "content" you deliver through it.

The Xbox hardware was never meant to be profitable in the first place; it was meant to open a door for MS to get closer to your "home"... outside the office. Still, 1B to extend the guarantee... Gee, I won't watch the stock markets tomorrow.

IPhone

2007-07-02T20:38:00.001-07:00

Ok, I give up. It is too much the temptation to write something about a new gadget everybody is talking about. The thing is cool, no doubt about that. I've been eagerly looking for critics about its flaws but to be fair...they seem minimal.

Apple did it again and the whole computing/telecommunication industry will certainly benefit from the IPhone; I've been waiting for a similar device for years and Apple seems to be giving the final push to a sector that have been dragging its feet for years (at least on the user interface aspects).

No, I don't think I will get an IPhone. I will wait from the competitors response, one that includes "real" impact applications such as a browser that supports flash and silverlight, a decent document reader (pdf and xps), office and of course, exchange. IPhone 2.0.... maybe?

Will Microsoft come with a Zune Phone?...mmm highly unlikely.

Will Motorola, Nokia and the Blackberry makers hit Apple back with a similar product? You bet.

All in all, I welcome the IPhone.

Silverlight and CRM

2007-07-02T07:29:00.001-07:00

For those enthusiast interested in SilverLight (MS answer to Flash/Flex) I have recently posted a small sample of how to use it in conjunction with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The original post as well as the link to the download can be found here

Cheers

Clearer sound at a low price

2007-05-31T21:27:00.001-07:00

I finally decided to replace my old's car factory speakers. I went for two pairs of "Crunch" speakers that, as it is said from where I come from, "ni en su casa los conocen"-"they are not even know in their own home". Still, they do a good job; hopefully we will replace them, along with the car :), in a year or so.

Is Speed What Matters?

2007-05-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

I recently read a post on a public blog: http://blog.sforce.com/sforce/2007/05/search_beyond_t.html

The statement that shocked me was: "...Google speed for all information in the system..observing that Google's search results are more valuable because they're fast than because they're exactly what you want (which they usually are not)." Really?

Is speed more important than accuracy? Or is it that people is not really looking for something specific enough that a bunch of good enough results suffice?

An if speed is what matters most then... why live.com hasn't yet surpassed google? its speed is perhaps even faster than Google.

The truth: Google results are damn good AND their are fast.

Will Microsoft buy Yahoo?

2007-05-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

My oppinion: it is not going to happen, at least not this year. Why?

Different cultures
Duplicated services
Yahoos don't like their CEO (mmm there maybe a coincidence here actually)
Yahoo stock is still overpriced (yes, even with the money they have lost in the past year)

Why not this year and maybe next one? If Yahoo keeps falling behind Google its stock can reach a very attractive price point for Microsoft.

Golden Gardens @ Ballard

2007-04-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

If you are ever around Seattle's North area I highly recommend to go a check out Golden Gardens@ Ballard; nice quite place with beach, grass grounds and lots of wind; ideal to fly your kite, or is you are more venturous, do windsurfing :)

The paradox of my work

2007-04-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

Friends have asked me, are you pro-open source?... my answer, YES!. Then they ask me... well, then why you work @ Microsoft? My answer.. well, because I'm also pro-commercial software.

Unlike radical folks that can only be in one extreme or another I trully believe that both worlds can and should co-exist together.

I would being dishonest if I don't admit that there are still certain attitudes inside MS that I don't like but for the most part it is an amazing company that is truly commited to unleash people's full potential...and make tons of $$ on the process he he :)

Lastly I always get the..."but then, why not Google?"... my answer... "...yeah, why not.. perhaps one day...I certainly like free food he he he"

Los errores del pasado...

2007-04-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

...terminaran por regresar y causar problemas; mejor has las cosas bien desde el inicio :)

Saving bucks by keeping your heater warm

2007-04-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

When I first heard the suggestion of putting a blanket around my heater I thought: what??!!!

After painfully findind that indeed our apartment water heater is an electric one (I know, I should have noticed it before duhh! ) and receiving 100+ dollars bills each month for electricity I decided to dig into the blanket suggestion.

It turns out that there are special blankets (jackets) for water heaters that make them be more efficient and reduce the consumption of electricity (supposedly). So my wife and I decided to purchase one in home depot... hopefully our electricity bill will get reduced a bit.

Despues de un dia nublado...

2007-04-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

...otro dia nublado!!

Cuando el verano pasado me comentaron que 60% del tiempo llueve en Seattle me resisti a creerlo. Estaba yo en lo correcto, es 90% !!!!!!!!!! :(

Como odio a los pitufos, que diga, los dias nublados he he

Micro-speak is...well, interpret my silence

2007-03-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

Probably you may have heard that inside Microsoft there is something called micro-speak that is nothing more than the "way" in which people communicate with each other using acronyms and shortcuts... I must say that I HATE IT! .. it is just ridiculous sometimes. I haven't had to consult a glossary so many times a day in my life :/

Ordered Chaos

2007-03-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

Ordered Chaos...That was the first impression I got when I started to work fulltime at Microsoft Corp. I’m a new member of the Dynamics CRM team; an awesome assemble of people, all of them smart, all of them peculiar (in a good sense), and all of them with tons of stuff to do everyday working in one of the most unorthodox environments I have ever being at.

You may have heard that the work atmosphere at MS is atypical in the sense that they expect you to drive your own work (and the work of others too); specially if you are in a Program Manager position as I am. Well, this is true to the EXTREME. They literally let you find your own way with as little couching as possible. Don’t get me wrong, they do help you a lot but you have to seek your own help.

The first week with the team I honestly doubted if wanted to work in such a fast pace environment with so much ambiguity. Although I previously did an Internship here the circumstances were not quite comparable with those of a full timer. Everybody seems to think that you already know what you have to do. The assumption is: if you don’t ask questions then you must know the answers.

So you may think: “then simply ask questions.” Well, it’s not that simple. From my point of view an integral part of being successful at Microsoft, or anywhere else, is how efficient are you to assimilate tons (yes, I’m not exaggerating) of information and use that to find your own answers. Once you have a background then you are good to go with your peers and enrich your knowledge with their ideas. A PM at MS, at least in Dynamics CRM, is supposed to be everything and nothing at the same time:
A leader; but you are not the boss of anybody.
A coordinator; but you are also part of the working crew.
A technical folk; but you are not the subject matter expert
And most importantly a decision maker that is held accountable for the success or the failure of any of the projects he/she is involved with; always making sure that the value proposition that your product should deliver to your customers is kept.

Fortunately by the second and third weeks of my work here and was able to keep up with the pace and started being productive; actually I’m quite happy because even arriving at the very end of the milestone I’m going to be able to have a couple of features shipped with the product J.

It’s really nice to, little by little, blend with the team and realize that the order that I was looking for is inside the chaos of everyday work.

Time to slow down?

2007-03-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

I look back and think... is it time to slow down my life? Will I be pushing myself and the people around me too much? perhaps.

A cheap and nice HDTV

2007-03-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

I know I know; I'm a lazy blogger. But well, no excuses, I'll just leave it like that.

Here is something that TV fans might find interesting. After months (literally) of research my wife and I decided to buy an HDTV. The winner was a ViewSonic N3751w that we purchased in http://www.newegg.com. The price was unbeatable, the quality is good and the shopping experience at newegg was flawless as usual (and no taxes!). Is not the best TV out there but is certainly the best deal we could find.

Give it a try; so far we are more than happy with our purchase. HDTV programming looks AWESOME.

Happy shopping.

Financial Blog

2007-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

A close friend has just started a new blog on financial topics that I highly recommend. The blog is in spanish so is very suitable for individuals like me that are relocationg to USA and are starting to wonder what the heck are terms like FICO :) this is the URL http://trabajandoyahorrando.blogspot.com/

Posted in the above blog is also a link that I replicate here; it is a videa that gives a universal tip that will lead you to never have financial problems... "DO NOT BUY STUFF THAT YOU CAN'T AFFORD" :) Check out the video, it is hilarious http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/41738/

Hello Seattle; a new era begins

2007-01-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

Well, this is the fifth time my wife and I relocate in less than two years, kind of crazy uh?. Hopefully this time we'll stick around in the same place for a while; to be honest this relocating business is fun at first but quite exhausting and stressing; specially when your budget is limited because you end up saving on things that seem a good idea at first but turn up to be time consuming (and tiring he he); assembling dozens of pieces to get an IKEA furnished apartment is not precisely how I wanted to spend days and days of my holiday time :/ The bright side is.. our apartment is wonderful and the furniture looks great yuhuuuuuuuuu!

Last Week at Steel City

2006-12-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

Here we are, end of the road. This is my last week here at Steel City. The master just ended and I'm already missing CMU...one gets used to the pain je je :)

Where will I be next?... yeap, seems that all paths lead to Redmond.

Merry Christmas to Everybody and best wishes for the upcoming 2007.

Open Source Contribution

2006-10-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Yeap! It's officially out. I just released my firefox extension "Advanced Bookmark Search"(v 0.2) :). Give it a try and let me know your comments. If you want to improve it please go ahead! all the code is licensed under MPL/GLP/LGPL

http://hlgeniusos.blogspot.com/

Got a NintendoDS!

2006-10-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

So far so God. Graphics are nothing impressive but still nice. The sound is amazing for such a little device and the screens are sharp and bright.

The whole idea is to purchase another DS and play games with friends and of course with my wife (she loves to beat me playing tetris :) )

The only thing that I regret is that I should have waited a couple of weeks until my mini-1 exams are done he he :)

Boring I-Pods

2006-09-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the amazing update that Apple has done to their I-Pods and I-Tunes.. Isn't it WoWW? Of course not.. same old stuff. Of course more capacity and less size but.. nothing "really" new under the hood.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/12/technology/apple/index.htm

Praising Microsoft...

2006-09-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

A recent article written by David Kirpatrik today in Fortune Magazine comes handy just after I wrote my post "Why the world hates Microsoft?".

The article "Praising Microsoft and Attacked by Wolves" exposes some of the thoughts of Microsoft haters and, in my opinion, how they miss an undeniable point... without Microsoft the Personal Computing experience wouldn't be as advanced as it is now.

Check out the article here

The Service Buzz!

2006-09-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

The service buzz

Saas, Outsourcing, CMMI... Ringing any bell?

No?, Well, is all about services. Experts are saying that the money now is on services, on reaching the so called "long tail" of the market; on continue the revolution of the world ultimately transforming everything into a big service whose delivery platform will be know as THE MATRIX!!! :)

Well, the last part of the above is a bit exaggerate and of course not true but still the big buzz about services is indeed true and I strongly recommend my readers (yes, believe it or not I have readers although they are a bit shy to post comments he he he he :) ) to keep an eye on the terms mentioned at the beginning of this post.

If your have any doubts drop me a letter and I'll be glad to confuse you a bit more or, more seriously, to redirect you so some really brilliant guys on the topic.

Quiznos Sub; Sub-Service

2006-09-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

Have you been in a Quiznos Sub lately? Well, I have, and it is sad to see how their customer service gets worst everyday. I didn't know that a chicken carbonara sub included such a 'bad mood' face from the staff. No wonder why subway is taking over Quiznos.

Why the world hates Microsoft?...

2006-08-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

...or at least, some times it seems like that :)

I must confess that I have been in the side of those that hate Microsoft; now, I'm in a neutral position; I neither love it nor hate it. They have done nasty things but they have also made enormous contributions to the IT world.

Some might say that the reason of the shift in my thinking is to have worked in Microsoft for a while, and is true of course! ; But not just because of the fact per se but because I now try to look at many different perspectives at once.

Below are the most common complains that I hear about Microsoft and what I think of them

The blue screen of Death!-Dude, the number of such screens is almost 0 nowadays! So come on, leave your 70’s wig at home and live on the present

Linux is better, and free!
False!
-Linux is for geeks, period. (I’m a geek so no big deal). Even that I openly admit that there are versions of Linux that are quite user friendly nowadays (such as Ubuntu) they are still far behind in usability terms. What “normal” people can achieve with them is minimal. Geeks love to tweak stuff, normal people just want to move on as simple as possible; Linux doesn’t allow “normal” people to do that and whomever claims otherwise lives in a world of complete self denial.

Now the server arena is a different story basically cause most server admins are indeed geeks; so Linux is getting really good positioned here and will continue in that way, no discussion about that. But enterprise class servers will rarely use a “free” version of Linux, and usually the admins in charge of those servers don’t have precisely modest salaries so, there is no such thing as “free” Linux on the enterprise (cheaper, perhaps) .

I hate Microsoft products because they have:
-More viruses
-Bugs
-Driver problems
-3rd party software problems

If you are a good observer what would be the summary of the above complains? I hate Microsoft because everybody uses it! Bingo!. Products that are installed in 97% of the PC’s of the world (such as windows) are of course going to be more prone to have problems being discovered; Why? Dahhh!! Because every body uses them so everybody has their hands and eyes on them; it is that simple; you can't really hate something that you haven't tried.

Most people complain that Microsoft always rolls out mediocre products and then patches them making the life of users and admins miserable. I say, this is true, but everybody does it!!, the problem with Microsoft is that everybody notice their mistakes because everybody is watching them all the time!

The bottom line whether you like it or not is that thanks to Microsoft most of the IT world keeps rolling, not as smoothly as it could, not as secure as it could, not as cheap as it could….but it rolls! And that is what most Microsoft Haters can’t tolerate.

Fortunate for Microsoft, as we say in my home country:
"Del Odio al Amor hay solo un paso / From hate to love there is just one step :)"

Back to school!

2006-08-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

Yeap, tomorrow I will continue to do my master at Carnegie Mellon University; it will be my last semester :). Hopefully this time I won't be as busy as the last two semesters and I will be able to do fun stuff like taking a photography course or play basketball more often.. we'll see

Will I join the empire?

2006-08-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

For those who are close to me you already know what I'm talking about :) I got an offer from a company that I may accept shortly.. I'm still thinking about some issues though so my professional future is still uncertain [insert twightligth zone music here :) ]

Microsoft Simplicity

2006-08-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

Hilarious!

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=david_pogue&flashEnabled=1

Ride the ducks!

2006-07-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

My wife and I just tried "Ride the ducks" of Seattle las week. It was lots of fun; A recommendable experience without doubt. I will post some pictures soon in my personal blog at msn :)

Extending MA with RSS

2006-07-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

I recently posted an article in the Microsoft CRM team's blog pondering the use of RSS for marketing automation. I have received quite interesting feedback on the matter. I encourage you to read the CRM team’s blog and enlighten me with your opinions.

http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2006/07/14/665717.aspx

UCR alive

2006-07-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

I feel quite proud that a project that started as an academic one ended up being implemented in production.

The UCR (UIMA Component Repository) team that I had the fortune of being part of built the basis for http://uima.lti.cs.cmu.edu

This wiki contains a nice picture of the team :)

http://durazno.lti.cs.cmu.edu/wiki/moin.cgi/11-792/UCR

Spanglish

2006-07-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

Asi es, este blog contendra comentarios en ingles (la mayoria) y en espaniol, como no!... si eres pochofobico: toma tu mouse, dirigelo a la esquina superior derecha de la ventana y sin titubear da click en la X :)

A little bit of me

2006-07-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Since my plans to share my profile on my msn space failed I would like to give some details about me.

--
I'm Mexican, happily married and my wife's name is Nancy.

I did my bachelors degree at "Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey CCM" (aka Tec, ITESM, Boreeeeegooos!!)

I'm currently a Master's student at Carnegie Mellon University graduating on December 2006 (MISM program). As part of the my master, I'm doing an internship with Microsoft Corp for the summer.

Back on blogger

2006-07-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

After a failed attempt to move my blog to MSN spaces I'm back here :). I would like to share the whole story with the public but I better refrain my impetus he he.

So now:

Blog: http://hlgenius.blogspot.com/ ->HERE
Pictures and other stuff: http://hlg00.spaces.msn.com
Old Homepage (out of date): www.lezamax.com

Miscrosoft CRM goes Live!

2006-07-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

You may wonder what the heck that has to do with Humberto. Well, I’m working as a Project Manager intern in the CRM team at Microsoft Headquarters and I feel excited about the upcoming release of Microsoft CRM (codename Titan; yeah, I love to put ‘codenames’ everywhere I can :) ).

CRM Live will be an online version of MSCRM hosted in Microsoft Data Centers, so users will just have to sign up for an account and they will be ready to go; like if they were signing up for a new email account.

To tell the truth I have no direct connection with the ‘Live’ part of the product yet. My work here has been focused on *** with the marketing automation parts of the system. Yeah the *** are confidential information :( . By the way, I feel me pretty good because yesterday I officially completed my first feature spec; of course there will be some minor adjustments to it on the way but is pretty much done :)!!

More info about the team I work with can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/default.aspx

Superman ZZZzzzz

2006-07-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

While watching the most recent Superman's movie I remembered why I didn't see the previous sequels... they are boooring :P. Too much hearth, too little action.

Buzzwords in today's tech world

2006-06-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

Have you heard about the following terms? Are you a tech guy?
If your answers are both NO, then your are fine. But if your answers were NO and YES, my friend you are lost (just as I was with some of the terms a couple of months ago).

AJAX
Wiki
Windows Vista
Windows Live
Grid Computing
Webservices
XML (and all the derived languages such as RSS)
Sharepoint
Blogs (I bet you know about this one now :) )
Ray Ozzie