I ran across a great illustration of why pair programming works on the agile blog here and I wanted to be sure others see it as well:

Clear, quick, and concise, I think I like it.

The illustration is by NetObjectives. Here's the original.

From day one Microsoft has had a central focus on software development, and in programming especially.

With the XBox 360 release quickly approaching, I noticed one important oversight in the XBox 360 platform...

If you look back to the Atari 2600, one of the cartridges Atari released was Basic Programming. This allowed the end user to create their own applications and games for the Atari 2600, albeit very limited ones.

Microsoft has released dozens of programming languages for almost as many platforms, everything from desktops, pda's, tablet pc's, smartphones, and even watches.

I think there is a huge untapped pool of possibilities for end user created content.

Maybe something like a .NET Compact Framework for XBox 360. It seems like an absolute winner to me. I'd think Microsoft could port Windows CE to XBox 360 even if it required an emulator to run. I also think it is a move in and of itself that could push XBox 360 to the lead in the console wars.

Now the question is how to make it happen...

The company I work for Taylor Data Systems has just recently become a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner.

Gold Certified Partners represent the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies, and have the closest working relationship with Microsoft.

We specialize in Windows Mobile solutions for enterprise level applications. We've worked very hard to make it to where we are and it is nice to have a little lime light now.

We're having our next geek lunch on Friday, December 2, 2005. The time and place are 11:15 am at El City Grill in Florence, SC. Please feel free to attend if you are able to make it.

We're having a geek lunch on Friday, November 18, 2005. The time and place are 11:00 am at Jack's Restaurant in Florence, SC. Please feel free to attend if you are able to make it.

This free service that Google is offering really impresses me. I see how it benifits Google, but it is a real service that many folk pay premium dollar for. And it appears that Google isn't holding anything back with quality either.

Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You'll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Of course they are still not available to purchase yet. But you can take the system for a spin.

They have the Call of Duty 2 game playing in the kiosk. Seriously considering preordering a system after only playing for a short while.

Florence, SC too far to travel? Then take a look here:

http://www.frappr.com/xbox360kiosks

Frappr has a map with listings of XBox 360 Kiosks all over the country.

Developing for Windows Mobile 5.0-based Pocket PC and Smartphone
http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/downloads/default.aspx#wm05

If you are looking for the latest version of ActiveSync, needed to build mobile applications in Visual Studio 2005 look no more:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/4/5/c45f8f83-6383-43d7-840b-cb9638484e4d/setup.exe

Artificial Artificial Intelligence

Amazon has a new Web service, the Amazon Mechanical Turk, which allows developers to make queries against "real, live human beings".

What does this mean for the future of Captcha? Social engineering is one thing but how long until Web sites have to defend against an organized and commercialized army of "mechanical Turks"?

"Workers" pay "Requesters" to perform "Human Intelligence Tasks"

A typical human intelligence task might be entering the license plate text from the car shown in a photo. This represents a task that can be very easy for a human being, but extremely difficult for a computer.

I guess it does open the possibility for artificial, artificial, artificial intelligence where programmers write programs to perform task that people "think" are difficult for computers to do. Anyone interested?