i only use gmail as a shell for webmail...mainly because i thinkthought their spam filter was awesome.  giving credit where credit is due, it is good, i generally find only relevant mail in my inbox.

but i've been getting a TON of russion spam lately.  why on earth does it not recognize that as spam?  why can't i input a setting (like outlook) that says anything with these languages are spam?  but okay, i can maybe get past that -- but since i go through every russian spam message, select it and click the "report spam" button that gmail provides, i would think it would recognize a pattern.

nope.  damn you gmail...figure it out.

i'm in redmond the rest of this week for the 'microsoft web dev technology' summit.  similar in nature to mts, however much more web developer specific (hence the name).  there are about 25 people here from various non-msft technology worlds, mostly php (with a hint of java/rails/css).

john bland is here and had this first comment regarding some of the microsoft people he's met:

All of them were cool. I honestly thought they’d be ultra techie or something but, well…some are techie but none ultra, most of them are very open to other worlds, etc. So far, it is a pretty coo experience.

some others that are here are: adam trachtenberg, christian wenz, wez furlong, jason gillmore.

it should be a good few days of content and conversation -- i'll do my best to post the good stuff...

i just got done watching podtech's video of the acrobat 8 demonstration from rick brown. 

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i was frustrated that the only video format was quicktime...a far cry from scoble's days at channel9 offering various formats.  i have to ask myself if he wasn't editing/producing on a mac these days if he'd be disgruntled about a singular format as well -- i always pegged him for a crusader of options -- podtech gives me only one experience...and it just so happens to be the one i hate.  i don't have podtech though -- just quicktime.  in order to view a MOV file i have to download the quicktime player, which i think is badware.  the "player" is really an app that installs a system tray, startup program, monitors background updates by default (without asking me if i want it to), etc. -- just not a friendly app (do a search on live.com or google for qttask.exe and you'll see others that hate it).  why can't it be just a plugin like flash?

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but i digress...

anyhow, i watched with anticipation of something incredibly cool with acrobat.  at the end of the show (which was great widescreen quality btw aside from my complaints above -- i ended up watching it on my mac), i just let out a 'huh' as the roadmap of acrobat confused me.  maybe it is because i view acrobat as an app for the pdf format -- creation (acrobat pro) and consumption (acrobat reader).  now, i think their reader is bloatware compared to using foxit reader (which has a v2 out btw), but i've always admired the pro version for creating pdf documents, adding better security, and enabling pdf docs as forms.  but the video demonstrates features that start to confuse me.

probably the largest is the collaboration aspect.  at the end of the video rick brown demonstrates the collaboration service.  think webex, livemeeting, whatever your online collab service of choice is.  that's right, fire up acrobat and start an online meeting.  huh?!  isn't that the tool i use for pdf documents?  i don't think i'm alone when that is my knee-jerk reaction.  maybe collab has been in acrobat for a while and i just didn't know about it -- but that's the point isn't it?  rick talks about using the collab to annotate/review documents (other features in the v8 product), but i really can' t help myself but think that most companies won't use it for that.  don't most organizations use acrobat to "finalize" their document?  they'd likely have it in some word processing (word, openoffice) format and do document reviews using that format combined with existing collab infrastructures (i.e., sharepoint, documentum, etc.).  then the finalization may involve a portable format, hence pdf.  maybe i'm way off here?  i just simply haven't seen customers using acrobat/pdf for any other purpose but forms and finalization/portability of documents...and that's across a wide spectrum of large/med/small customers over the course of the past 10 years.

will big organization see acrobat as a collaboration tool for documents (thus putting more reliance on pdf as the primary format, not just the final format)?

the other thing that i think bothered me was the form creation demonstration.  while i think it was very cool, i think there was something that was glazed over.  now, i must admit that microsoft generally has great features that rely on other products...let's get that out in the open.  but rick demonstrated the forms functionality and another adobe product opened up (a designer which name escapes me).  so now the pdf form creator has to use two tools? 

i'm just generally confused at the roadmap of acrobat as a product.  i see it as becoming what i think ipod is becoming -- something it wasn't designed for...and will be too many features when someone wants the simple features.

some of the features were things that office has had since v2003.  content redaction? word has it.  xml-based form creation? infopath has it.  i'm not complaining, i think when best practices are used from other vendors it is a compliment in disguise.  apple seems to think microsoft "copies" -- they might come off more friendly if they note that they've identified some best practices in usability that others are leveraging.  i could go on that for a while (yeah, spotlight is cool and live search in vista is awesome because of it i think; but time machine?  we've had volume shadow copy for a while -- it just never had a sexy name or cool UI to use...and btw, time machine is very cool branding).

maybe i'll 'get it' soon enough -- but ask yourself.  the last 100 times you interacted with a pdf, was it more than reading and filling out a form?  for me the answer is defiantly no.

who really owns a social network?

when we moved into our neighborhood, my wife decided to rally some troops and organized some women around the 'hood for various reasons.  she started a babysitting co-op where the currency is popsicle sticks and communication is done via a yahoo group.  you need a babysitter for 2 kids for 3 hours?  send a note to the group and within hours (usually minutes) you'll have someone willing to take you up on it...that will be 6 sticks please.  it has worked out great and is totally self-sustaining.  the neighborhood has virtually free babysitting for those times you need it during the day, etc.

she also started another group for simple social networking..."friends" they call it.  it has grown to over 120 people in our little community.  my wife started it and is the owner of the yahoo group.  people know to go to her to get on it or contact her to recommend people to be on it.  not that she's a control freak (i don't think), but she just was the default originator of the idea and hence the defacto owner.

recently, the group is growing and faceless "friends" are engaging in conversations.  i'm not on the list, but i know it has been helpful in the community identifying safety concerns, finding recommended repair services, organizing parent play groups, etc.  even at times people have sold their belongings through the list.  and therin starts the rub.  until everyone has snopeit installed on their machines, people will undoubtedly forward spam.  spam from "friends" is even worse.  it creates that sense of weirdness in your belly about how to react to it.  do you send the person a note?  or do you just delete it?  (i just delete.)  my wife's group started getting spam.  people complained to her and there may have been this expectation to fix it.  they sought her guidance to fix it.  pleaded to send a note to the group.  she did.  she "suggested" some guidelines regarding spam.  it seemed to work, people apologized and the spam has subsided.  it is now a part of the signup process (i think the disclaimer/guidelines is now a few paragraphs :-)).

now the problem has been sale items.  i think everyone appreciates the opportunity to know about a great handyman (service) who is inexpensive and does great work, or a plasma tv (product) that someone doesn't want anymore and is letting go for a few hundred bucks.  but does the same level of excitement exist for a toy tonka truck that has been used and sitting in the kids toy closet for the past year?  apparently not.  these "garage sale" items have become a new sore spot with the network...and again, my wife is sought out for fixing it.  she quickly suggested "sale item saturday" where people would post one (1) message on saturday listing their items for sale.  everyone agreed.

saturday came.  someone sent a message (this being the same person that caused some concern to begin with).  no responses.  sunday came.  no responses.  monday came and that person posted that the saturday thing didn't work and she wasn't selling her stuff fast enough.  so tuesday came and a post for a costumer for $12 was sent.  oh the flurry of emails to my wife.  fix it again, they asked.  she asked my counsel.  i asked her to differentiate the scenario of the handyman, tv, and costume for me.  she couldn't other than she *thinks* that the complaints stem from people not wanting "crap" but they are willing to filter through the "good stuff."  i told her to ignore it and other people would.  like most times, she didn't listen to my advice.  she posted a reply to the individual (and to the group) restating the purpose for sale saturday messages and that the goal was not to clog peoples' inboxes.  she made an intented-to-be humoristic jab that the list was not a virtual garage sale and to use ebay/craigslist for that purpose.  well, that person hasn't posted since (i told her i think she's cursing my wife in her home).  she asked about starting another group for sale items.  i told her that was a bad idea...then where do you draw the line.  i had similar discussions with the organizers of AZGroups when the lists started diverging and now there are i think 5 or so you can choose from.  for me it is easier to just delete if i don't want it, but that's just me i guess.

my wife was frustrated because people weren't willing to vocalize their opinion (btw, they all praised her privately for her gestures) and wanted someone to "own" the problem to fix.  i don't think my wife wants to be the sole owner of this, but again, she became the defacto owner.  it's been an interesting time seeing her be a part of these social networks.  she's a yahoo group wizard now...she moderates, rejects, etc. like the best of them.  it has been amazing seeing her leverage technology more in her life without me prodding.  she consistently checks her email now (about 2 years ago she checked it once a month), she has 3 yahoo groups she manages.  she's all about the online ticket systems, etc.  just the other day she organized the internet groups together to capitalize on bulk order pricing and got 30 cases of peaches/pears (all we wanted was a half a box).

anyhow, i think my point here (if there was one -- i'm writing this on a plane to kill time and not think about the 2 hours left) is that if you start a social network, it is yours...regardless of what anyone says and unless there is a coup, you own it.  it blossoms because of your efforts and dies because of your lack of care...don't think it doesn't.  for my wife, hers have blossomed and that is a result of her as well as the community coming together and really proving value in the networks.

some of my friends joked that the "friends" list was getting too anonymous and that they should start a new group "actual friends" :-)

i've been playing around with some voice recognition stuff and decided as a test i'd leave my phone on voice announce for a few days to see what it does.  this has helped me learn a bit more about windows mobile 5.0 features, laugh a lot, and learn how voice command/text-to-speech determines certain things.

i'm reminded of the onion's hilarous radio bit about "voice-activated gps system takes top gun soundtrack fan into the danger zone." here it is:

powered by ODEO

pretty funny (at least to me).

here's just some dump of what my experience has been so far with my mobile device..

• i work in the "desert mountain" district and we use DM as an abbreviation -- so my meeting reminder announced that i had a "west region deutsch mark marketing meeting"
• windows mobile 5 default announces email subjects that are marked urgent -- that was cool
• acronyms and abbreviations will never get it right: ASP.NET was recognized as "ASP" (as in asp-en), so it just didn't sound right...maybe there should be an option to announce all caps by letter rather than attempting to make a word out of it?

i also started looking at voice recognition in vista.  it is built-in and pretty interesting.  when you start it up you get a fob at the top of the screen:

 

when you say "start listening" guess what...it starts listening.  i can then say "start, outlook, new message, to, t-i-m..." you get the picture.  it worked remarkably well (i don't have a benchmark i should admit because i've not used - or had the need to - speech recognition before.  when i don't want it to listen anymore i say "stop listening" and it stops.

i thought it was cool so i started to show my wife.  i had a word doc opened and started speaking...

• "i love you lisa" result: i love you leaf
• "you have a sexy body" result: you have a sexy David

okay, so it needs work :-) -- i think that is because i didn't go through any training exercises that it asked me too -- that and my microphone sucked.  at least that's how i'm justifying it since i don't think david is sexy.  it reminded me of when we bought a popular luxury car (which is subsequently sold after 4 months) that had voice activated navigation.  it sucked.  bad.  i would say "call 555-1234" to dial a number and it would repeat "showing post offices."  the only thing that worked well was telling it the temperature you wanted your air to be.  "find gas stations" resulted one time in "nearby chinese restaurants" -- man it made me angry.

at any rate, check it out if you have vista rc1 installed.