I went back to work for a vendor that’s located at Microsoft’s Redmond campus two week ago. Here are a few things I’ve noticed:

1. As I’d expect, nearly everyone runs Windows Vista. I’m the only person in my group of about 65 people who still runs Windows XP. A friend of mine who is a developer there told me that his group still runs XP so I guess I’m in good company.

2. Few people run Firefox. At least I’ve noticed very few people so far. I recall reading a while back that Microsoft was blocking Firefox users from reaching the internet. I’m not sure how they would do that, but it’s not true at all.

3. You can now order lunch from your desk and it will be delivered to you.

4. Google seems to be on everyone’s mind. In the same way Apple and then Netscape used to be.

5. From the lunch rooms to the athletic fields to the perfectly manicured lawns, Microsoft has a beautiful campus.

6. I’ve never seen so many BMWs in one area. I see very few American cars, but when I do most are beaters.

7. I’ve not seen a single Zune in two weeks. But I’ve seen dozens of employees walking around campus with the white headphones attached to an iPod.

8. It must be a requirement that when you attend a meeting with someone from Microsoft, they bring their laptop along. This can be OK at times or very annoying when they’d rather IM or do email during the meeting. I just bring my Moleskine to meetings now.

9. In spite of the huge, sprawling campus, Microsoft can’t find enough space to hold all their employees. Many employees are doubled up in offices. Some people in our group at doubled up in very small cubicles.

10. The biggest change I’ve noticed in the short time I’ve been back is that the employees seem more grounded and less arrogant than I remember. Maybe it’s because many of the young kids now have spouses and families and are not looking to work around the clock like in years past. But it’s taken away some of the passion and excitement I remember too.

Check out these cool Silverlight Flash demos of this new product from Microsoft. It’s as if they took a computer and put it in a table with touch sensitive glass cover. Then they hired the beautiful people to move stuff around. It reminds me of the sit down games of old like Miss Pacman and Dig Dug. Remember those? You’d find them at pizza joints although there was a 50/50 chance it wasn’t working.

Has anyone heard how much these are going to cost?

Here’s a speed test from my home in Auburn, WA on Qwest DSL. I’ve had DSL with Qwest for the past two years and can only remember one or two times when my service has been down for more than 30 minutes. I could get Comcast’s service here but at over $50/month it’s not that Comcastic! That’s only $5 less than I pay for my local phone line + DSL service.

How fast is your connection and what do you pay for it? Test it here.

I’m going to wear it on the next casual Friday.

Digg is one of the few sites I visit each day. Sometimes I’m after the latest tech news. Other days I’m looking for wacky YouTube videos. But lately I’ve found myself checking Digg Spy quite frequently. There’s something voyeuristic about watching real time Diggs coming in on the screen. This is a great way to uncover interesting articles that never make the front page.

“Giant Cat Sized Rats Have Invaded Florida” article just arrived. Gotta run!

May 30 UPDATE: Official Beta Link now available from Microsoft

I decided to install the leaked version of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 this afternoon. The changes are subtle, but I like the look so far. I will have to wait for the Mess Patch to come out so I can strip out all the ads and crap it includes, but it’s not bad. The install was uneventful which is always a good thing. Here’s how I did it:

1. Exit all the way out of your current version of Messenger.

2. Download the program and language .dll from here. It’s the post at the top.

3. Once the install is finished, you’ll have to exit out of the program once more in order to overwrite the English language .dll you downloaded.

Here’s a screenshot.

It seems like every WordPress user is using the Akismet, Popularity Contest, WordPress Database Backup and such plugins. These are excellent plugins that nearly everyone either runs or has tried. I decided to focus this list on my favorite plugins you might not have heard of before but I’ve found to be just as valuable.

WP-Postviews – Very simple plugin that tells you and your visitors how many times each post has been viewed. Look just above the title of this post to see it in action.

Registration Blacklist + Spambam – Even using Akismet, I still received thousands of spam before I installed both of these plugins. Now I get none.

Share This – I’ve tried other social bookmarking plugins but they were either ugly or too complicated. This one is simple to use and doesn’t confuse your readers with a line of tiny little icons. Click here for an example.

aLinks – This plugin is amazing. It takes keyworks or phrases and turns them into links pointing back to Amazon or eBay. I great way to take advantage of their affiliate programs. Whenever I mention iPod in a post, it will automatically link back to Amazon using my affiliate code.

My Video – With this plugin, you can add YouTube, Google and Metacafe video directly to your blog. This is one of easier video plugins to install.

Whenever I iron an item of clothing other than pants, I somehow feel I’ve sold out to the man. I’m not sure why, but it’s true. Nordstrom has a nice line of shirts that need very little, if any ironing. I recently purchased a few pair of Dockers that also don’t need much ironing. But I still own several, mostly cotton items of clothing that require a fair amount of ironing.

I hope in my lifetime I’m able to purchase both casual and dress clothing that require no ironing. Whenever I pull out the ironing board I figure I might as well iron everything in my closet that needs it. I inevitably look back and wonder what I was thinking when I ironed a t-shirt or pair of Levis.

Lifehacker pointed to a list of the 20 signs that a pink-slip could be coming your way found at the Wise Bread blog.

I enjoyed reading through the list and found the following signs most interesting:

#7 – Do you now have less responsibility than the intern? – I’ve worked at a few places where the intern did a lot but others where all she did was answers phones.

#8 – Has your office, cubicle or working space recently been down-sized? – To this I’d add, “Has your work space been moved to an entirely different wing of the building, as far away as possible from the management team?” If so, it may tell you how much they value your department or team.

#9 – Do people whisper more, or does the conversation change as you approach? If your only interaction with management is behind close doors, you might want to polish your resume.

#15 – Are you finding it almost impossible to get approval or ‘buy in’ on projects? Or does your manager reject your projects because they interfere with other projects?

#16 – Have you recently been asked to work on a “special project?” If you’re interviewing anywhere and your potential boss just came off a “special project”, be very worried.

I’ll add one more to the list.

#21 – Has someone recently been hired to fill a job nobody in the company understands? If you and your coworkers are sitting around a year later wondering what this person’s job is, you’re working for a company that needs direction in hiring.