Misha Birman

Talking about Share with Windows Live Messenger

mishabirman — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:53:54 +0000

Quote

Share with Windows Live Messenger
Misha Birman

Hello world!

mishabirman — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:55:27 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Enabling xp_cmdshell in SQL Server 2005

mishabirman — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:08:44 +0000

By default, xp_cmdshell is disabled in SQL Server 2005 for security reasons. We are currently using xp_cmdshell in tsql scripts to build prediction data, so I must enable xp_cmdshell on my SQL Server 2005 instances. There are two ways to enable this option: Surface Area Configuration tool or sp_configure. Enabling this option via Surface Area Configuration tool is rather straight forward. Here is the script to enable xp_cmdshell in SQL Server 2005 via sp_configure:

EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure ‘show advanced options’, 1

RECONFIGURE

EXEC

master.dbo.sp_configure ‘xp_cmdshell’, 1

RECONFIGURE

Facebook Takes The Fast Lane To Boring

mishabirman — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:11:58 +0000

Now we are talking!

Windows Live Search….

mishabirman — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:51:54 +0000

In June, Google Sites retained its lead in the U.S. core search market capturing 61.5 percent of the searches conducted, down slightly from 61.8 percent in May. Google was followed by Yahoo! Sites (20.9 percent, up from 20.6 percent in May), Microsoft Sites (9.2 percent, up from 8.5 percent in May), Ask Network (4.3 percent), and AOL LLC (4.1 percent).

Full article: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2337

I wonder if this the direct result of the press we got from Microsoft-Yahoo love affair? Or maybe cashback.live.com caused this? Regardless of what caused this I am very happy to see our customers searching through us.

What makes a great PM?

mishabirman — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:47:46 +0000

What are the characteristics of a great PM?

I think there are 2 things that enable a PM to become a great PM:

Very good understanding of a customer perspective of your product
Very strong advocator and defend ideas to the product team

Caltrain is not my friend

mishabirman — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:13:40 +0000

I stopped driving to work. If I could not to drive at all I would do that. I have 2 cars: one is parked at home and the other is parked at the office. I have 2 bikes and the motorcycle. Finally I have a long skateboard. Total of 18 wheels, but I am still not happy with my commute to work.

The goal is to stop driving at all, but its hard considering i am training 3 days a week and there is no public transportation to get from San Francisco to the boat house. For few weeks now I have been driving to the Redwood city caltrain station from the boathouse, parking at the caltrain parking lot and taking 7:30 train to Mountain View. The other 2 days I drive/ride to the caltrain station and take train.

But for last 2 weeks Caltrain has been giving me headaches. Its always late and it breaks down a lot. For example today all trains from san francisco to san jose are halted in san bruno because of a broken tain.

IPhone is not for me. I stick with my Blackjack

mishabirman — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:17:50 +0000

The new iphone is out. There was a long line at the Apple store in Palo Alto. Despite the 104 degree heat the line was getting longer. People are in line for the new 3g iphone – the dream has arrived.

I have been using Windows Mobile since the Motorola mpx 200 came out. There was no hype and no lines. Since then I have had half a dozen windows mobile phones and its clear to me that it beats iphone. at least i will get a next generation windows mobile phone before i consider an iphone.

Today I use my Blackjack 2 to:

Manage my entire life. One look at the home screen and I know what’s up for the day
Triage mail.. mostly deletes and quick/emergency replies
Manage my calendar which is solely in corp Exchange (includes personal stuff which I mark personal)
Manage my contacts – I keep two lists:
Manage my personal email
I use it as a music player
I tether to my laptop for internet connectivity.

While iphone looks cool here is what makes me stick with windows mobile:

When replying to a corp email on the iPhone, it doesn’t show up as replied to in Outlook on the PC. Now I have no idea what I’ve already responded to when I get back to my PC. HORRIBLE for the email triage scenario!

You can’t flag messages like follow-up, color red, etc.

When deleting a message on my personal (IMAP) email server, it doesn’t delete it from my server. This equates to basically ZERO triage capabilities. (Apple did not include IMAP expunge command in their client – bug or simply omitted – not sure which)

I constantly had to tell the mail client which account to send the message “from.” You’d assume if you were replying from personal it would use your personal address. Nope.

Switching between mail accounts required like 6 taps. Annoying.

Going to mail folders to move a msg, etc.. it shows ALL folders expanded, and you can’t collapse them. I have a ton of folders. Moving a message is a disaster with no expand/collapse.

It syncs mail whenever it wants to. I had personal mail set to sync manually. It syncs when you open the mail client. (I didn’t tell it to do that!)

In contacts, the search wasn’t anchored at the top. If I happened to be at Zach Zimmerman, I would have to scroll to the top to search for Buck Brown. Not cool.

It syncs ALL contacts folders in your mailbox – specifically it sync’d the folder I didn’t want on my phone, and I had no way to control it.

Calendar – you can’t:
o Create a request and invite others
o Create a recurring meeting
o Color things based on type (personal, etc)
o Do free/busy
o Change time zone of meetings

Tasks – doesn’t sync from Exchange – luckily I don’t really use them at all. I am sure there are people that use this feature extensively (who can’t on an iPhone.)

Notes – doesn’t sync Notes folder from Exchange. Don’t really use those either actually.

No Home Screen! Looking at the home screen shows a ton of cool things to do: Facebook-which rules, iTunes, Safari-a browser that actually works well on a mobile device, and so many more. Problem is the clock is miniscule and I had no idea what time my next meeting was unless I clicked into the calendar.

Battery life – horrible – not even 1 full day. Solution: turn off 3g (no thanks- so I can miss calls while syncing email???)

No Picture Text Messaging (MMS) – are they serious?

No tactile keyboard – touching the screen keyboard was decent for typing. I am way faster on WM keyboard devices.

No copy/paste

No tethering. Not allowed on iPhones. No explanation as to why.

No SD slot – makes transferring data more difficult.

Pre-paid SIM – using one is not possible. Your iPhone is locked to a specific SIM. You may use this SIM in other non iPhones like a WM6 phone.

AT&T charges $15 a month more for absolutely no reason for same plan calling/data/text features. No explanation for you here.

Coach says I need to do this

mishabirman — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:32:21 +0000

3:49.02

:53.8	250	1266	27
:56.4	500	1139	26
:58.8	750	1043	26
1:00.2	1000	990	24

3:53.01

:52.1	250	1364	30
:58.6	500	1048	27
1:01.3	750	953	25
1:01.1	1000	960	26

Netgear SPH200W

mishabirman — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:14:20 +0000

I do not know what I was thinking when I got the Belkin WiFi Skype phone, but once I opened the box I realized that the product is missing key features. So I decided to return it to Fry’s and get the Netgear sph200w. One thing that caught my eye was the tmobile hotspot support, which belkin lacks. This morning I went to a local Starbucks to try this phone out and was not able to get it to work. The phone wont connect to the tmobile network and it will not tell you what is going on and how to fix it. The phone just wont connect. Back to Fry’s this weekend. I wonder if there is anything else I can try?