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Subhashini (Moderator):
Hi
all :) welcome to today's community interaction hour on blogs and
community
Subhashini (Moderator):
and
I am hoping we have some community attendance soon as well besides
the MVPs :)
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Hello everyone
Subhashini (Moderator):
Lets wait for few more minutes before we begin this chat
Abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
ok
Subhashini (Moderator):
While I take the opportunity to introduce some very interesting
experts we have today
Subhashini (Moderator):
First , let me introduce Sriram to you guys . I am sure many of you
know him
Subhashini (Moderator):
This is in Sriram's own words...
Subhashini (Moderator):
I’m
the PM for data and various other knick-knacks in Visual Studio for
Devices. In a previous life, I was interested in virtual machines
and search engines (even wrote one of each!). Of course, the only
thing I think about nowadays is data and devices. Must be the only
guy on the planet who dreams at night of databinding and resultsets
J. When I’m not dreaming up of esoteric data access mechanisms or
playing around with obscure programming languages, I read (over 770
blogs!) and catch up on Star Trek episodes. I blog at
http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram
Subhashini (Moderator):
Aint the profile very interesting ;)
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Hello everyone (again). And Subhashini seems to have a low bar for
what she considers an interesting profile :)
Subhashini (Moderator):
Next we have Deepak Gulati, very well known indeed by MVPs:)
Subhashini (Moderator):
Deepak Gulati is currently working as an ISV Developer Evangelist
with Microsoft India’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team, and
is entrusted with the responsibility to work with Independent
Software Vendors to ensure that they deliver quality products on
Microsoft platforms. He has over 6 years of industry experience,
having started his career with a small .Com start-up company,
followed by an internship term with Microsoft India and a Web
Development Lead role with NDTV. Deepak returned to Microsoft as a
Communities Specialist 2 years back to run the Microsoft MVP program
in India. He prides himself for being a
self-taught-Unix-Geek-turned-.NET Developer. A person with diverse
interests, you can take a peek at some of his interests at:
http://deepakg.blogspot.com.
Subhashini (Moderator):
let
me introduce you to the next person in our gang of experts today,
Abhishek Kant
Subhashini (Moderator):
Abhishek Kant is the Community Program Manager, MS India. He
supports communities throughout India and is an active blogger. He
blogs on Microsoft Technologies, MS communities in India and his
daily activities. You can find his blog at:
http://abhishekkant.blogspot.com/
Subhashini (Moderator):
Seems like this was the shortest profile he dug to introduce himself
;)
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
hi
Everyone :)
Subhashini (Moderator):
We
have our MVP Arun Ganesh also today as one of the experts
Subhashini (Moderator):
.
Gnana Arun Ganesh, a Microsoft XML Web Services MVP is a .NET
Developer, Author, Editor and Reviewer, who believes Microsoft .NET
technology, is the ultimate solution to real world software
problems.
G.
Gnana Arun Ganesh is currently with Accenture (Accenture-Microsoft
Engagement, Hyderabad). He has been working with Microsoft .NET
Technologies since its initial beta version. As a .NET author, he
has published more than 60 articles on .NET technology in various
top .NET Web sites, such as eXPerienceDotNet, MSDNAA (MSDN Academic
Alliance), Developersdex, etc and conducted various .NET sessions in
colleges. He is the Co-author of the Prentice Hall PTR book, .NET
Security and Cryptography, part of The Integrated .NET Series from
Object Innovations. Being an active member of Prentice Hall’s
technical review panel, he has performed many technical reviews,
beginning with C# How to Program, written by Harvey and Paul Deitel.
He is one of the Managers of MUGH (Microsoft User Group, Hyd).
Subhashini (Moderator):
Arun is also one of the authors of ObjectInnovations.com, which
offers training course materials in fundamental software
technologies. He was the author and site personality of .NET
Reference Guide, hosting by InformIT. As the administrator of Arun
Micro Systems (2001 - 2003), he had provided online .NET guidance
all over the world.
.NET Web Site: Arun Micro Systems -
www.arunmicrosystems.netfirms.com.
He can be reached at ggarung@rediffmail.com.
Subhashini (Moderator):
And
myself , Subhashini Simha , MVP lead will be today's moderator for
this one hour packed with information for all you guys
Subhashini (Moderator):
So
just before we begin , a quick glance at the chat rules
Subhashini (Moderator):
Chat Procedures:
This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will
respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that
there may be some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of
information or because the information is not yet public. We
encourage you to submit questions for our Experts.
Subhashini (Moderator):
Please refrain from sending any private messages to the expert
during the chat
Subhashini (Moderator):
These experts have some of the best blogs you would like to know !
let's get the chat rolling and get more blogging soon :)
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
Hi
guys
Subhashini (Moderator):
To
all our chat guests today , please feel free to ask questions to our
experts
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
Some of the topics we will talking about today are:
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
RSS
and OPML
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
RSS
readers and aggregators
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
Technical Blogging Resources available from Microsoft
Subhashini (Moderator):
I
would also like to ask our experts to give some insight into their
blogging skills and the best blog resources they are aware of
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Since people are feeling quite shy today, let me launch into some
gyan on what RSS and OPML are. All of you probably have favorite
sites - news, technology, comics, whatever. How do you check those
sites everyday for updates? You probably have to go open a bunch of
browser windows and hunt around to see what's new.
ArunGanesh [MVP] (Expert):
Q:
OPML Sounds new term to me....
A: OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format
for outlines. Originally developed by Radio UserLand as a native
file format for an outliner application, it has since been adopted
for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds
between RSS aggregators.
OPML is a file format that can be used to exchange subscription
lists between programs that read RSS files, such as feed readers and
aggregators.
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
RSS
solves all that by bringing the updates to you. RSS stands for 'Real
Simple Syndication'. Designed by Dave Winer, it lets you 'subscribe'
to a news source for updates. For example, let us say you want to
keep track of the latest articles on MSDN - you can just subscribe
to MSDN's RSS feed in an 'aggregator'. Your aggregator (which is
just a piece of software) will keep checking the site for updates to
the RSS feed and when there are updates, it'll display them to you.
That's the 20,000 ft view. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS for
more
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
Let
me add a word here.. Let’s say you subscribe to 700 feeds.. Then one
fine day you install a brand new beta from MS and mess up your
machine forcing you to do a clean install of your machine -
including that of your RSS Reader.. Now how do you get your 700
subscriptions back?
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
you
grab hold of your OPML file (provided you "exported" one) and you
have all your subscriptions back
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
so
OPML holds the endpoints to all your RSS feeds
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
while RSS feeds are the actual blog posts/content
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
think of OPML has a file that holds all your RSS "bookmarks" :)
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
How
OPML and RSS are different from each other?
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
Ok
hope I've answered OPML Vs. RSS
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
Do
we have OPML editors or it’s a simple xml file only?
Kaushal_MS (Expert):
hi
Anand - MSN Spaces doesn't currently support relationship between
any other formats except for images (the slideshows). you may want
to use third party websites for hosting files like savefile.com or
yousendit.com
Kaushal_MS (Expert):
Q:
I
am using MSN space for blogging info but I do not find its really
useful because it does not provide uploading sample code or
documents .Can we have all these facility in msn space
A: @ anand2004 - MSN Spaces doesn't currently support
relationship between any other formats except for images (the
slideshows). You may want to use third party websites for hosting
files like savefile.com or yousendit.com
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
Do
we have OPML editors or it’s a simple xml file only?
A: Not too many, I'm afraid. The most popular one right now
is Dave Winer's ( http://support.opml.org/ ). It is just a simple XML
file and is usually not meant to be edited by hand. Here's a snippet
out of my opml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<opml
version="1.0">
<head>
<title>Bloglines Subscriptions</title>
<dateCreated>Sat, 08 Oct 2005 12:11:55 GMT</dateCreated>
<ownerName></ownerName>
</head>
<body>
<outline title="Subscriptions">
<outline title=".NET Blogs">
<outline title=".NET From India" htmlUrl="http://www.dotnetindia.com/"
type="rss" xmlUrl="http://manand.typepad.com/dotnet/index.rss" />
ArunGanesh [MVP] (Expert):
Q:
Do
we have OPML editors or it’s a simple xml file only?
A: Check this: http://support.opml.org/download
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
mvaRK - First of all, Atom is much more than just a syndication
format. It is a publishing mechanism, an API set and much more. The
short answer is that Atom came about to fix some perceived
inconsistencies in the RSS spec. You can read more about the
motivation behind Atom at
http://www.sixapart.com/about/news/2003/06/why_we_need_ech.html
and also at Tim Bray's blog
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
ram, what is semantic web?
A: Well - we're getting off-topic from blogging but the
quick answer is that the semantic web is an effort to give structure
and meaning to the web (instead of it just being about displaying
HTML and images as it is today). However, that's an over
simplification - see the semantic web's website for more
Kaushal_MS (Expert):
Q:
Talking about MSN Spaces, I face a lot of trouble in just getting
simple things to work - even "save as drafts" is quite jittery. My
question is : Why is there no support for obtaining the template
code and making changes?
A: Aarthi, I have the same rant for the MSN Spaces team, and
I hope that will get sorted soon. a lot of people are asking about
the template editing feature. Once that's there, I’ll port to Spaces
too :)
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
I
am using MSN space for blogging info but I do not find its really
useful because it does not provide uploading sample code or
documents .Can we have all these facility in msn space
A: Why can't you just make the code a part of your normal
blog post text? Blog readers are usually not happy with having to
download additional attachments or documents
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
Is
there any way to track how many people are visiting my msn space
everyday
A: MSN Spaces has a statistics option hidden away somewhere.
I know for I've used it :-)
Deepak_MS (Moderator):
nope. this is MSN Spaces - I can catch it very easily
ArunGanesh [MVP] (Expert):
Q:
Is
there any way to track how many people are visiting my msn space
everyday
A: If you click "Settings", you can view Statistics" tab
along with Space Settings, Blog Settings Permissions, E-mail
Publishing and Storage Statistics in your blog page.
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
Atom was adopted by IETF but why aren’t we speaking of it? What is
the problem with Atom?
A: Microsoft is very much format agnostic. We have picked RSS
in the past for MSN Spaces and other websites. I don't speak for
those teams but I would wager that one of the factors was that the
Atom spec wasn't complete. However, IE7 and Vista will support both
RSS and Atom.
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
Do
we have any new updates for MSN spaces in near future?
A: I'm sure the MSN Spaces team is working hard on coming up
with cool stuff. Of course, we're not at liberty to talk about
future product plans.:-) If I were you, I would subscribe to Dara
Obasanjo's blog - he's bound to post about new features when they
get released.
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
how
do we aggregate RSS feeds from multiple locations and display it in
a website?
A: If it's for personal use, use bloglines.com or Google
Reader or our very own super-duper www.start.com.
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
why
any OS should be supporting an unmanaged information source like RSS
right from core? What’s the idea behind this?
A: Jim Allchin (Co-President of the new Platforms and
Services group) answered this very well at a recent talk. We believe
that after 'browse' and 'search, 'subscribe' is going to be the next
big verb. Instead of going after information, you'll just subscribe
to the information you want to see and have it come to you.
Our
vision behind RSS doesn't end with blogs. Imagine being able to
subscribe to a friend's photos or your aunt's recipes. In Vista, the
OS will let you subscribe to any information source. So if you
subscribe to a feed in IE and the feed happens to contain audio, the
iTunes player can pick that up.
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
I
would like to point to some of the resources that MS provides
through blogs that is very interesting:
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
1.
Blog Search Portal -
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/PortalHome.mspx
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Aarthi - apart from Scoble's book, also see his corporate weblogging
manifesto which covers the exact same thing. In short, I'll quote
Microsoft's blogging policy - 'don't be stupid'
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
Where you can search all the blogs that MS employees blog on
keywords and categories
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
some very interesting and latest information exists at the employee
blogs
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
2.
Community Buzz Page -
http://www.microsoft.com/india/communities/communitybuzz.mspx
SriramK MSFT (Expert):
Q:
I
like MSN spaces and continuing my blogging stuff with MSN spaces
.I suggest to provide more options/facilities what developers love
.I believe we DEVELOPERS use blogger more extensively and can give
more ideas
A:
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9 .MSNSpacesFeedback
is where you can send the Spaces team feedback.
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
you
can find the latest content from the MS employees selected by
editors at this site
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
content like : Recent Blog Posts: Editor’s Pick
Related Blogs
Recent Blog Posts
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
also you can subscribe to the RSS feeds available in each of these
categories
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
3.
Product Team Blogs: http://blogs.msdn.com/ and
http://blogs.technet.com/
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
A
lot of MS teams are blogging together in a team blog and talk about
their products
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
considering the timelines, its time for us to conclude the chat .
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
some of the more famous ones are from IE team and Exchange team
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
Please make a note of our experts email ids and email them for any
additional queries you have
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
And
don’t forget to visit their interesting blogs :)
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
4.
You can also get a consolidated list of MVP blogs from India and
Asia at: http://www.mvpblog.com/ and
http://www.asiacomblog.com/
respectively
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
the
MVPs are the people living in your communities and I am sure that
you know many of them already
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
their blogs contain content most relevant to the local area
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
So
I take the liberty to conclude today's chat as we are running out of
time !
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
Thanks to our experts for their time and wonderful inputs
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
5.
3rd party resources like: www.technorati.com ,
www.start.com ,
www.bloglines.com and the recent addition of Google Blog search at:
http://search.blogger.com
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
I
also thank our MVPs who took time out for this chat
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
And
thanks to all you guys who joined us for this chat today
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
and
all the MS gang who were a part of this chat
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
happy dushhera and happy blogging :)
Subhashini_MS (Moderator):
have a lovely evening
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
thanks to all the attendees for their time
abhishek [MSFT] (Moderator):
A
very Happy Dusshera to all of you |
