microsoft

This afternoon I received the following email from Arrow, regarding the Snapdragon Developer Kit for Windows:

Dear Valued Customer,

Please see this important message from Qualcomm:

”At Qualcomm, we are dedicated to pioneering leading technology and delivering premium experiences to our valued customers. The launch of 30+ Snapdragon X-series powered PC's is a testament to our ability to deliver leading technology and the PC industry's desire to move to our next-generation technology. However, the Developer Kit product comprehensively has not met our usual standards of excellence and so we are reaching out to let you know that unfortunately we have made the decision to pause this product and the support of it, indefinitely.

This weekend I wanted to create a new App in Azure so I could help a local nonprofit automate one of their donor relations processes via email through Office 365.

So I tried registering an app by visiting the App Registration Portal. I signed in to my personal Microsoft account, clicked 'New registration', then was greeted by this page:

I thought that was a bit strange, since I shouldn't have any restrictions... but then I noticed it listed [redacted] School as the reason I couldn't do this.

Last week Microsoft started selling their $599 Windows Dev Kit 2023, formerly known as 'Project Volterra'.

I got my hands on one after a little bit of a shipping delay, and promptly started tearing it down to see what's inside. You can click here to browse the entire Twitter thread where I posted pictures of the box contents and teardown, or view it below:

In spite of Microsoft's cryptic announcement of Project Volterra, and Qualcomm's continuous lineup of 'flagship' ARM SoCs for Windows, Microsoft is still behind the 8-ball when it comes to ARM.

Apparently, in 2016, Microsoft entered into an exclusivity deal with Qualcomm. That's why all official 'Windows on ARM' devices use Qualcomm SoCs. At the time, Apple hadn't yet pulled off its third major architecture shift for macOS, from Intel X86 to ARM.

Looking back, products like the Surface Pro X and the myriad ARM for Windows laptops, were basically built to a budget and for portability above all else. They were never competitive with Intel/AMD-based computers. Microsoft seemed to think ARM would always remain in a niche, only used for light, mobility-first devices.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed when running apt-get upgrade on one of my Pi projects that a new repository was added.

It was a little odd, because Linux distributions don't typically 'inject' new repositories like this. And it was even stranger because this particular repository was for VSCode, from Microsoft.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation just posted an article to their blog about Visual Studio Code coming to the Raspberry Pi—but that post didn't address any of the controversy surrounding this change.

There's also a video that goes along with this post: Is Microsoft Spying on your Raspberry Pi?

What Happened

In late 2020, Microsoft released a version of VSCode compatible with the Raspberry Pi.

June 6, 2018 Update: I've also posted a video of the SSD replacement process, embedded below:

I recently purchased a used Dell XPS 13 (model 9360), and I chose to purchase the base option (with 128 GB SSD) since it was cheaper to do that and upgrade the SSD to a larger model (500 GB) aftermarket than to buy a higher model XPS (I bought this model: WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD).

[Update: I've been playing around with Windows 8 Pro for a few hours since receiving it from Amazon (Win 8 Pro is only $66 on Amazon!), and I have a few more observations:

A recent interview focusing on my involvement in open source development (mostly centering around my work with Make Web Not War website:

Interview - Jeff Geerling - Open Source Catholic

In the interview, I speak about my involvement in Drupal, and my appreciation for a variety of different open source projects. I'm glad Microsoft is putting some resources behind sites like 'Make Web Not War', and I hope they continue to reach out into different developer communities.

In yet another example of Microsoft copying Apple's user interface concepts, the latest update to the Xbox 360's dashboard/Xbox LIVE integration now uses the same 'slide-to-left-to-search' user interface paradigm that started with Apple's iOS 3.0. Watch for yourself in the video below:

With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's been taking some great steps in a new and innovative direction in UX/interaction design... but it seems their design teams still copy off Apple when they need to. Of course, there are worse companies to copy from—at least they're not copying Android!

About a month ago, when I was settling down with my wife to watch a quick episode of Cake Boss via Netflix, I turned on the Xbox 360, but all the sudden, I received (for the third time on this Xbox) a nice present from Microsoft: the dreaded red ring of death (RROD).

"Not to fear!" said I, "I'll get a free warranty repair, like I did the first two times this happened!"

Little did I know. Luckily, however, I found a guy via Craigslist who repairs Xboxes and lives in St. Peters, MO (not too far from here!).