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Launch WindowIn my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas...a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. |
   
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Tuesday, September 30, 1997
I just got back from watching a satellite broadcast of the Internet Explorer 4.0 launch. That's the product I work on, in case I didn't mention it before. The team had its big signoff party a week or so ago, but tonight was the public launch at Seybold, a big conference at San Francisco.
They did a good job with the speeches, and I especially enjoyed the elementary school teacher, Laura [?] Toon, who demonstrated how all the new features in IE4 would make the "internet field trips" her kids already do more fun and engaging.
So it really is a good product, and I recommend it to those of you using Win32 or Mac platforms. Unix versions are in the works, too.
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We had lunch today at an Italian restaurant, about ten of us. We were taking out my manager, who is taking the next three months [!] off. I had the task of getting a present, and I decided to make a card rather than buy one. I liked how the card turned out. I took a piece of very thick watercolor paper and and wrote "Bon Voyage" and her email name, which I thought gave it a nice Microsoft touch. Then I stamped a multicolor border of polka dots around the edge, in a semi-random style. Plenty of room for us all to sign.
My former officemate wrote something I thought very funny: "When you go to Italy, be sure and take lots of spaghetti sauce. Then, whenever someone says 'Prego!' give them a jar of the sauce. They love that!"
The gift I picked out was a big hit, both with my boss and the rest of the gadget-o-phile techies there. It was from the Sharper Image, the Deluxe Travel Companion. This charming name denotes a combination smoke alarm, motion sensor, alarm clock, flashlight and thermometer! Unfortunately the smoke alarm and motion sensor half didn't seem to work correctly, so I need to return it and get one that does work before she actually leaves town.
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In other Microsoft matters, there is an article at Salon Magazine by a former contractor. We must have worked in parallel universes. She and I must have started at the same time, and we worked in the same buildings through most of the period she talks about, but I didn't know her. I really don't know why she was so unhappy. I've had a blast at Microsoft. Anyway, I responded to the article in their Table Talk section.
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Someone wrote me about how he considered the people whose journals he reads as friends, even though he has never met any of us. Some that he reads don't even know that he reads them. I think that is part of the reason I started this journal. To just read is a one-way connection. Writing my own story, and communicating with other journalers, completes that loop. We can find the same phenomenon in APAs (Amateur Press Alliances, see Michael Rawdon's APA page) and zines. Responding to what another has written is the basic interaction of fandom. "Price: the usual" means I'll send you my stuff, if you write back and tell me what you thought.
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