I had an idea back in the 80's of a portable book that would have a great screen, that would be connected, that had access to all the books. I thought that the biggest obstacle was to get the authors (or rather the publishers) to believe in electronic books, and that the copyrights was my biggest challenge. Hey, I even started the drawings for the patent (ok, give me some slack, I was young then), but I never actually made any serious attempt. Then, I bought my first handheld, a Casio Cassiopeia E10, I thought that the screen wasn't great and it wasn't connected but still, I was amazed. I showed it to my friend Andy, and he was amazed, and that was almost 10 years ago.

Now, when I look at the Kindle, I see that Jeff Bezos has another idea that is far from new, but he has some points. He aimed for a great screen and he aimed for connectivity. I still think that he missed out on the first one (even if a bunch of authors say it's great, I'll wait for the color display ), but he really got it on the second. I agree with Rob Tiffany on all points, but as a WM developer, it's the connectivity that gets me. I'm tired of reading all the connectivity small print ("...Connectivity and synchronization may require separately purchased equipment and/or wireless products...") on many WM pages. On an event back in 2000 I asked if Microsoft would enter the operator business because I believed (and still do) that the operators don't understand what an open wireless Internet can bring to everyone (it doesn't have to be free, but free us from abuse). I still ask the same question when I see they offer great devices without specifying the operating system. What is that? If I could reformat any phone (Nokia, etc) and install WM, they did have to inform me, but now I'm almost always stuck with what the manufacturer and/or the operator put in there. How could the mobile phone industry go so wrong?

Please Microsoft, the operators is not doing their job, let us free, get our users an open Internet...

As you may have seen so far, there's a lot of love on my blog !

Even since I started programming (yes, it was called that back then), I always wanted to share my apps. It was always a great pleasure to see someone starting up you application and start trying it out. When I started to work as a developer, it was natural that my colleges got the code, rather than the binaries, as I wanted feedback both on the app and the code. Then the code sharing got organized within source control, version handling, and even configuration management systems. It was even easier to share, and we worked together on the same code, but I always felt that the tools was a limitation. I've used everything from raw CVS and SourceSafe to ClearCase, and I've had problems with them all.

First of all, they are no fun! For me, code is fun, and I want my code to stay in a fun place. A place where I can follow its development, its growth, its progress, and even its problems and issues. When I saw the TFS the first time, I thought that Microsoft was on the right track (as usual), and using it was more fun than before. But still, something was missing, and when CodePlex came around, there was an idea of how it could work. Then I saw TeamPlain. They put the extra effort in creating a great UX, and now the code was treated with respect and it was really fun.

Just check out the bug report on the left - that's fun!

I want to follow the progress of my code on a site like this. The fact that it was built on WSS is even better as it gives me even more "for free" (like free-text searching, site management, ability to extend and customize it using a standard approach, etc, etc).

Then, when I saw that Microsoft went and bought the creators, and made it available as a free download called Team System Web Access (TSWA), I was in heaven. Even if there's always more to dream about, there is already a lot to be grateful about too.

I haven't checked out the new features in VS2008 TFS, but I guess I won't be disappointed as I suspect that TSWA is already included.