LiveSide - Interview Blog : Interview

WL Movie Maker PM Mike Torres Part 2: a LiveSide interview

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:25:00 GMT

In this second part of our interview with Mike Torres, a PM for Windows Live Movie Maker, we talk a bit more about how WLMM was built: the weekly meetings with teams from Office and Windows about how to best use the Ribbon; on the hard choices any software developer has to make; on some of Mike’s favorite features; and on reaction to the release.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

LiveSide with Mike Torres Part 2 (on our Facebook Fan page)

Mike mentions a couple of specific “tips”, one on the time zoom feature. It’s in the lower right corner:

Moving the slider zooms in or out, pretty basic but good to know. He also mentions some keyboard shortcuts. Along with the usual ones like Ctrl-X to cut and Ctrl-V to paste, these shortcuts can make editing a bit easier:

To	Press

Play or pause

Space or K

Go to the previous frame

Go to the next frame

Trim the video so it starts at the current point in the video

Trim the video so it ends at the current point in the video

Split the video into two items at the current point in the video

Windows Live Movie Maker is a great free program that makes quick work of “telling a story”, and allows for a bit more creativity once you learn your way around. We’ve had fun with it, and will definitely be using it more in the coming weeks and months.

WL Movie Maker Program Manager Mike Torres – a LiveSide interview

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:36:00 GMT

Windows Live Movie Maker version 1.0 for Vista and Windows 7 was released nearly two weeks ago, and we gave you an early glimpse of it when it first came out (and even before that). Today we were able to head over to Redmond and talk with a longtime LiveSide friend, Mike Torres about Movie Maker, and take the product for a bit of a spin at the same time.

Since we’re uploading to YouTube, we split the interview into two parts to keep under the 10 minute limit YouTube imposes. In the second part of the interview we’ll show you a few tricks Mike pointed us to, but in part one we talk to Mike about his history at Microsoft (you may remember him from Spaces, but he’s worked on a number of Windows Live projects), about building WL Movie Maker from the ground up (as in every line of code is new!), and about program management in a project like this:

UPDATE: OK so our ability to upload .wmv files to YouTube is borked, with or without Movie Maker. The .wmv I created in Movie Maker works fine locally (and ok in this self-hosted Silverlight player), but any wmv I upload to YouTube has audio sync issues. Happens from 2 computers and numerous files here, maybe it's our account, who knows. TBH pretty tired of dealing with it right now, but here's the video, for now):

(Please visit the site to view this media)

LiveSide.net with Mike Torres – WLMM

In order to keep under the 10 minute limit, and to try out WLMM a bit, I snipped out a bit in the middle where we talked about using Windows DVD Maker to create DVDs, and if you can use 3rd party dvd makers. You can, you just have to save your movie and then load that into a dvd creator.

We’ll have more on Windows Live Movie Maker in part two.

Windows Live 2009: Pierro Sierra on shared data experience

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:59:00 GMT

We hope you’ve enjoyed our discussions with some of the program managers working on Windows Live, we really appreciate the opportunity to get to sit down and talk to them, and appreciate the opportunity to bring them to you.

Our last interview of the day was with Piero Sierra, Group Program Manager for Shared Data Experience. We ended up talking for a good twenty minutes on camera, and since we try to keep these video interviews around 10 minutes or so I broke this one up in to two parts.

In part one, Piero begins with a quick definition of shared data experience (sdx), his team is responsible for SkyDrive, Windows Live Sync, and Windows Live Toolbar. We started out talking about the differences between Live Mesh and Windows Live Sync, talked a bit about SkyDrive, and then Piero described one of his favorites, Windows Live Toolbar:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

In part two, Piero talks about the uptake of the new services without getting too specific about numbers, we talked about what it means to run these services the scale of the internet, and then touched on how FolderShare has been transformed into Windows Live Sync, and some hints of what’s to come now that the move to Live ID and the inclusion into the Essentials suite has taken place.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Hopefully we’ll be able to continue our discussions with the people who bring you Windows Live, again, we really enjoyed our day of meetings, and look forward to doing it again soon.

Windows Live 2009: Jeff Kunins and Windows Live Social Experience

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Jeff Kunins is a Group Program Manager for Social Networking for Windows Live, working on some of the features of Windows Live that cut across what used to be separate products. Working on Spaces and Groups, Profile, What’s New feed, and the 3rd party web activities are some of what Jeff’s group focuses on. Jeff sees Windows Live Wave 3 as “the birth of Windows Live as a suite”, more than just a set of products with a single name.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

We like how Jeff explains where we’re at with Windows Live today, that 10 years ago search was able to simplify the “cacophony” of information on the web, and now 10 years later Windows Live seeks to simplify the cacophony of the many and different social networks we find ourselves immersed in. Good stuff.

Windows Live 2009: Omar Shahine part 2 – People in Windows Live

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:46:00 GMT

While Omar Shahine has been kind enough to talk to us (twice) about POP3 support in Hotmail, it’s not really what he works on. Omar has been busy down in Mountain View, California, working on Hotmail, and the People features in Windows Live Wave 3. In the second part of our chat with him, he gives us a quick overview of the new features in Wave 3 dealing with people. Omar explains that contacts updates are now automatically “dynamic” (before Wave 3 it required an opt in), so that when you update information in your profile the people you give permission to access that info will be kept up to date.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

In the next few weeks we should be seeing some new stuff in Hotmail: POP3 access of course; web messenger, and even a few surprises. Keep an eye out, and of course keep checking back with us here at LiveSide!

Windows Live 2009: Rodger Benson on Windows Live Photo Gallery

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:51:00 GMT

In our next interview, we spent some time with Rodger Benson, a program manager working on Photo Gallery talking about facial recognition, new upload limits for photos on photos.live.com (or Spaces), how Photo Gallery works with the suite (for example: picking face names from your address book):

(Please visit the site to view this media)

We’ll get the last two interviews up as soon as we can convince Soapbox to play nice ;)

Windows Live 2009: Colin Anthony and Emmanuel Miranda

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:11:00 GMT

Up until Wave 3, Windows Live has been a suite pretty much in name only. In Wave 2, services were focused, some were culled, in order to make some sense of the seemingly random slapping of the Windows Live moniker on any piece of code that walked by (remember Windows Live Barcode?). In Wave 3, not only was the look and feel of the online experience cleaned up, but internally teams started working on a single product: Windows Live, instead of a number of separate products with a common name.

In our next segment, Colin Anthony, Senior Program Manager, Custom Experience Platform team, and Emannuel Miranda, Developer Lead for the same team, talk about Home.live.com, shared experiences across the web applications, and how the way they look at their work has changed:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Previously, we chatted with Windows Live Senior Director Ryan Gavin, and let Omar Shahine explain a bit about POP3 – we’ll have more from Omar soon, and hear from 3 more Windows Live managers.

Windows Live Messenger Program Managers talk Wave 3: Part 3 of 3

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:59:00 GMT

In the first two parts of our interview, we talked to Alton Kwok and Brian Moudy. In this part, we talk to Marisol Ontaneda about design, and then we get into an overview of what it means to be a program manager. We really enjoyed our session with Alton, Brian, and Marisol, and want to thank them again for taking the time to meet with us.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Just a note about the videos: Sorry about the mess, MSN Soapbox, which I wish we could count on to use, wouldn't play nice at all last night and it took me til now to get the files uploaded. I won't go through all the gory details, but this was way too hard.

OK anyway, we have MSN Soapbox videos of everything up now, so you can watch without needing Silverlight (although go get it!), and/or link or embed the videos. Hopefully we’ll get this mess sorted out soon.

Part 1: Alton Kwok on Messenger conversation window, pawns, and more

Part 2: Brian Moudy on Messenger Groups

Not to take anything away from our talk with the Messenger guys, they were great, we'd love to do it again. Any other Windows Live teams want to talk we’d love to talk to you, too!

Windows Live Messenger Program Managers talk about Wave 3: LiveSide interview part 2 of 3

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:15:00 GMT

In part one of our interview, Alton Kwok talked about some of the new features in the new Messenger beta, including an interesting history of “the pawn”, and how it finally was replaced in Messenger Wave 3 with “the chiclet”. Next up is Brian Moudy, who works on Groups, and is “incredibly excited” about the possibilities:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

(While we get our video hosting all figured out, here’s a couple of screenshots of Alton, Brian, and Marisol):

I’ll have part three up soon, where Marisol talks about design, and the group talks about what it means to be a Program Manager. Good stuff.

Windows Live Messenger PMs talk Wave 3 Part 1
Part 1 wmv

Windows Live Messenger Program Managers talk about Wave 3: LiveSide Interview Part 1 of 3

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:14:00 GMT

Today I ventured to Microsoft's Red West campus to talk to three Windows Live Messenger Program Managers; Alton Kwok, Brian Moudy, and Marisol Ontaneda. It was great getting a chance to talk to them about Windows Live Messenger and Wave 3.

In this first part of the interview, I ask the three to introduce themselves, and then Alton starts off by talking a bit about contacts, pawns, and What's New:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

(about 7 minutes)

(here's a link to the file, in case you want to download: just right click and "save target as": Part 1 wmv )

I'll have parts 2 and 3 up shortly, just don't ask me about Soapbox or Expression Encoder anytime soon ;).

Our interview with David Treadwell of Windows Live Platform Services at Mix08

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:49:00 GMT

Microsoft is betting heavily on Software + Services, the concept that all the power of the desktop will not go away when services are introduced, rather that storage and computing power, local to the user, will continue to play a big role in how we use computers. For the past couple of years, David Treadwell has been working along with Ray Ozzie and others to develop what has been known as Windows Live Core, now Windows Live Platform Services. This platform, which we will be talking quite a bit more about shortly, is the beginnings of a transformation at Microsoft - not switching from Software to Services, but bringing services along as an integral added piece to software. David Treadwell is the Corporate Vice President for Windows Live Platform Services at Microsoft, and we talked to him at Mix08 about the platform, and how it relates to Windows Live.

01 00:00:34         Windows Live Platform Services defined: A developer platform for services, blended with client: the best of both worlds

02 00:01:23         Messenger Services Library API: A good example of the Software + Services model

03 00:02:57         Integrating a front end for Messenger into a website

04 00:04:03         The Windows Live Platform: Comparing it to the PC file system in the 80’s; working towards an ability to create a service just like creating an application

05 00:07:36         Identity Services and Interoperability: What’s different from Passport and Hailstorm

06 00:10:39         Issues with ID services: Spam

07 00:11:52         Is Microsoft turning towards an Open model?

08 00:13:12         Advertising? Artificial barriers to keep users will fail in the long run

09 00:14:38         Microsoft is serious about Software + Services

8mb mp3 download - 17 minutes and 20 seconds