On December 7^th, 1995 something extraordinary occurred at Microsoft.  For years our primary focus for software development had centered around narrowly scoped features that centered around the isolated experience of the personal computer.  To the extent connected experiences mattered it was always in the context of corporate networks.  The idea of a personal network in a home connected to a giant world-wide network of computers wasn’t a scenario that factored into our planning.

Until that day.  On that day a memo from Bill Gates to the entire corporation arrived in my inbox.  It laid out in precise terms how we’d come late to the game on the Internet experience and we would now be focusing all of our energy on it.  It was a galvanizing event.  A ship as big as Microsoft turned overnight.

The power of such a memo is easily diluted.  If used too often it loses the effect.  If used for small issues it can lead to too much energy being applied to something.  Bill didn’t send another memo of its like for a while, but when he did it had the exact same effect.

On January 15^th 2002 Bill sent a memo to all employees entitled “Trustworthy Computing.”  In it, he articulated the case to pivot all our efforts in creating what was then the .NET platform to lead something he termed “Trustworthiness in Computing.”  Casting computer security against the industry and the world at large (including the terrorists attacks of 2001) Bill laid out key pillars of this effort: Availability, Security, and Privacy.  He tied the impact that a security vulnerability has to trust in Microsoft and our products.  He then made what I believe was the most fundamental change in our development methodology that would achieve the goal of more secure software:

“So now, when we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security. Our products should emphasize security right out of the box, and we must constantly refine and improve that security as threats evolve.”

The greatest impact of that memo is that I see younger people today in the industry read that line and shrug and say “well of course.”  But the computer industry was very different at that time.  People rushed to focus on features first, not just at Microsoft but other companies as well.  In general, my experience with software developers across the industry in the late 90’s was that security audits were routinely seen as a “tax” on development, and anyway if someone exploited a bug as an attack then that’s a crime and the law should handle it.

Bill’s memo transformed overnight the mindset of our development to think as much about misuse of features as use of them. That security was a fundamental aspect of software quality.

Today, security is at the forefront of software development.  Computer security is very much a journey, not a destination; much remains to be done.  But I look at the world of software and development today and I see a much different world than in 2002.  It’s fair to say that much of it started with a memo from Bill Gates on January 15^th. Great work is still occurring every day, and to celebrate an amazing ten years the Trustworthy Computing team has made a special post, you can read about it here.

Almost 30 years ago probably one of the more formative events in my life occurred. My father left my mother, and shortly thereafter my stepfather entered my life.

Independent of any other emotional or parental changes, one singular part of that transition has affected me above all else: My stepfather introduced me to rock and roll.

I’m overstating it a bit, I’d been soft rocked by adult contemporary as a child.  But regular rock and roll was the devil’s music, and I was repeatedly told by my father I was going to hell for purchasing my very first cassette tape: Queen’s The Game.  In our house it was mostly gospel, Mickey Gillis, the Gatlin Brothers, The Oak Ridge Boys, or Streisand and maybe, just maybe, those out of control rebels The Bee Gees. Neil Diamond was also allowed, sparingly.

When my mom first met Ted, my eventual stepfather, we were still struggling as she was a single parent trying to cope with her new situation and raising three boys.  Once they started dating, we got to visit his apartment.  At that time, I believe Ted’s album collection had reached close to 1000 albums. 

You have to understand just how much physical space 1000 vinyl records takes up.  It’s just gargantuan. His entire place seemed to be one large record storage area.  And he was a fan not just of classic rock but of the modern stuff I normally wasn’t allowed, some classical, jazz, etc.

When I was 11 I got my own self contained record player with speakers.  And Ted immediately began to give me all his older stuff (so that he could justify buying new copies).  His system was a high-end adjustable automatic turntable with tracking, connected to massive Cerwin Vega speakers via an amp.  Mine was a two speed manual unit with small tinny built in speakers, so the fact I had hand me down worn copies of his LP’s really didn’t matter.

What mattered is that while I wanted Michael Jackson and Taco, what I got was Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen, Poco, and an education into classic rock and roll that, lacking the albums I wanted, I had to play because they were the only albums I had.

Over the next year I bet I was the only 11 year old in early 1984 listening to Dylan, Brinsley Schwarz, Jethro Tull, Beatles, Stones, and my Stepdad’s favorite, It’s a Beautiful Day and Blood Sweat and Tears’ “Child is Father to the Man”

Fast forward to today, my stepfather’s marriage to my mother lasted almost two decades, but they eventually divorced.  But he’s probably one of the most profound influences on my life and my appreciation of music.  I still remember once I got a cassette recorder system that recorded from the phonograph.  I made a general mix tape for myself of my favorite stuff that got spied by an older kid in middle school who grabbed my walkman. 

“Cream?  Led Zeppelin?  not exactly new age music” he mocked as he read the tape label I worked so hard on.  My Depeche Mode and Duran Duran cassettes were in my backpack still but that was ok.  I look back on it now as a validation, not that the modern music at the time was bad, but that I was capable of enjoying it all.

This Christmas I thought of that time in my life.  My stepdad’s vinyl collection is long since sold and he’s relocated to his hometown of New Orleans. On a whim I hit Amazon. I sent him the following:

An Audio Technica Automatic Turntable (has an amp)
Logitech 2.1 Z323 speakers (has inputs for the turntable amp)
Blood Sweat and Tears, Child is Father to the Man

Along with cables to make sure it would all work.  I sent him this note:

Almost 30 years ago, you introduced me to so much music via your record collection. Included in this package should be everything you need to start your record collection over again. Much love and merry xmas, Stepto and Rochelle.

I hope he likes it as much as I think he will.

I hope he knows just how important his gift of music was to me.

I hope my brothers remember to send him more albums as their part of the gift.

I hope.

For years I’ve been using either store bought meat rubs or creating general purpose meat rubs from the Intertubes.  Recently Rochelle and I have been getting a meat package from our local farm drop.  It contains locally raised grass fed beef and pork, chickens, etc.  For the first time I got a cut of side pork.  Basically the easiest and quickest way to explain what side pork is would be to call it uncured, unsmoked bacon.  The cut is fatty, but with a little more meat than bacon. 

To deal with the lack of curing and smoke you can do two things: cure and smoke the cut, or season and cook it.  I chose the latter.  The cut came pre-sliced, so I chose to marinade the slices for 8 hours in a mixture of 90% Apple juice and 10% Garlic infused Tabasco sauce. I decided on an oven roasting cooking method so I wanted to season each slice with a rub. 

Now, as I mentioned there’s a bazillion general purpose rub recipes out there.  Most of them are variations of black pepper, chili powder, paprika, onion powder, sugar, and salt.  I didn’t deviate too much from that basic foundation, except that I added a special ingredient that yielded a really great rub that tastes better than the general purpose ones I’ve been making for years. 

The secret ingredient?  Habanero infused cane sugar from Flavorstorm.  This created a rub with bite, but not the normal bite of cayenne pepper.  I omitted brown sugar and garlic powder (two common bbq rub ingredients) because for the amount of rub I wanted to create, I figured that I could better focus on onion as a flavor and use regular sugar so that the habanero would power through even only using a tablespoon.  I also substituted Ancho Chili powder instead of regular chili powder.  (I do this for most recipe’s that require chili powder.  I find the ancho chili powder to be a nice change of pace.  Ancho chili powder is just ground dried pablano chilies, but the powder has a slightly sweeter taste)

I hate “secret” recipes, so here you go:

1/2 cup paprika
2 tablespoons black pepper
2 tablespoons onion powder
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 tablespoons ancho chili powder
1 tablespoon habanero infused cane sugar
2 tablespoons regular cane sugar

Shake it up good in a container to mix it evenly.  It doesn’t have a strong salt component so you can be ok using a little more rub so you get that onion and that sweet ancho chili and  habanero flavor to come through.

I’ll let you know how the side pork turned out.  Enjoy!

Tonight I am proud, very proud, to release the audio version of my book, A Microsoft Life.  This edition is called “A Microsoft Life: The Audiobook Expanded Edition with Bonus Material and Surprises (Abridged), with a forward by Wil Wheaton. A forward by Paul and Storm. A forward by Mike Phirman. A forward by Len Peralta, A forward by Larry Hryb, and a forward by Joel Watson”

I am BEYOND EXCITED to tell you it’s now available at Bandcamp. It’s 13 dollars, NAY!  $12.99! Go here to get it, then come back!

From the moment I released A Microsoft Life people asked for an audio version of it. That was fine by me because I have immensely enjoyed actually performing stories from it at spoken word events and at w00tstock. So I invested in some audio equipment (a q-mic personal audio booth and Blue Yeti microphone) and got to recording and learning the ins and outs of producing audio. At the same time, I knew this was going to have to be an abridged version of the book. Some stories in the original work relied on visual gags, and others just didn’t make sense to perform (like some of my speeches, which are widely available on YouTube.) So I picked my favorite stories to perform, and recorded those.

I felt a little bad about the audio version having to be abridged,  then I remembered “hey! I know a bunch of famous people! I wonder if they would like to contribute!” So I had some very good friends each record a Foreword for the book.

I’d like to think that my audio book has the most forewords of any audio book ever. It’s, quite frankly, FOREWORDTASTIC.

I created a couple of new content bits, and I wrote BY MYSELF* an original song and all the chapter intro music. Ok, on the chapter intro music I cheated a lot and used Garageband. In addition to the tracks I included an outtakes reel, some scans of the original drawing my friend Mark did for the cover, a .PDF copy of the FULL text of the book itself, and some pictures of Remington.

I learned a lot and had a great time producing this edition of the book. I pretty much did it all on my own except for the forewords of course and the final song, so if you spot amateur mistakes then yup, that’s me. I’m an amateur at this.

Here’s the track list:

• 1. Introduction 04:22
  2. A Foreword by Wil Wheaton 04:08
  3. Introduction the Second 09:30
  4. Genesis 07:39

• 5. Genesis 2 09:37
  6. A Foreword by Len Peralta 01:26
  7. On Bill Gates 09:09
  8. The Great MS-DOS 7 Caper 10:04
  9. A Foreword by Storm, of Paul and Storm 02:00
  10. That One Time, During the Windows 98 Launch 08:26
  11. Sydney, Where the Bare Ass Spankings Lie 12:09
  12. A Foreword by Mike Phirman 02:57
  13. Perspective 06:03
  14. A Foreword by Joel Watson 03:07
  15. Don’t be a Dick 06:29
  16. I got the PAX 26:37
  17. A Career in Infinite Repose 05:46
  18. A Foreword by Paul, of Paul and Storm 02:59
  19. Outtro 01:33
  20. A Foreword by Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb 03:43
  21. Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse and John Drake – The Legalese (A song) 05:03

•  

Now this next bit is very important: Two thirds of the proceeds from the audio book will be going to Child’s Play, in keeping with the blog entry I wrote here.

Let me say that again, 2/3’s of the proceeds will go to Child’s Play. The remaining third is basically for recouping a little of the money we spent on taking care of Remington. For everyone who originally contacted me to donate to Remington’s treatment, not only can you do that but you can help sick kids as well! I’m handling the donation directly because if I do it that way, Microsoft will match dollar for dollar the amount I donate. I also plan to keep the blog and my twitter updated with the running total to keep me honest and you can see the progress.

There’s so many people I want to thank. First of all I absolutely want to thank Mr. John Drake of Harmonix for his audio work, as well as Paul and Storm, Mike Phirman, Wil Wheaton, Len Peralta, Joel Watson and Larry Hryb for their incredibly funny and clever forewords. It was insanely generous for them to lend their names and time to this project. What started out as kind of a funny joke took a more serious turn when Remington got sick, and knowing that their time will most likely result in increased funds to charity makes me feel really really good. As always I want to thank Rochelle, we managed to keep each other sane both during the recording process as well as Remy’s illness. She had to endure periods of time where I had to insist on absolute silence in a house with several dogs and a cat. No easy feat.

Lastly thank you guys. Your support during the past two months has meant the world to me.

So all this has been really long, I hope your download of the book is complete. It will be appearing on other venues like iTunes, etc at the end of the year. But for right now the maximum return on dollars for charity is through Bandcamp. While iTunes and Amazon MP3 and Zune may be convenient, I urge you to use Bandcamp and add the book manually to your library.

The kids will thank you for it.

So wow.  Lots to catch up on.  First off, meet Eowyn Marie:

Eowyn is Remington’s little sister.  She’s 16 weeks old.  By coincidence on the day he died, Remy’s breeder took her back from the family she’d been placed with because they basically could not handle raising a puppy and were just having too many difficulties.  So essentially she needed a home.

Normally Rochelle and I would not get another dog so soon.  However the breeder made sure we knew that she was available just a few days after Remy died.  (As an aside we absolutely adore our breeder Jane.  And she does have some dogs available.  email me if interested) We’d talked it over quite a bit, it felt weird to get another dog so soon.  We didn’t want to replace Remington.  And we had talked over getting a rescue dog instead.  We decided to wait a little bit and see how we felt.

Roughly two weeks after Remington’s death, a rescue opportunity opened up.  A beautiful male Golden Retriever was found wandering in the Duvall/Carnation area.  He was in great health and 4 or 5 years old.  A short term foster house was nearing their time to put him into the animal control/rescue system but wanted to find another foster home instead.  So we took in this boy, who the fosters had named “Rufus”.  It just really didn’t feel right to think about getting a puppy when a happy healthy dog needed our help.

As soon as we met “Rufus” we knew someone had to be looking for him.  He was just in too good a condition.  Beautiful white teeth, handsome coat, good weight, and had been well socialized and trained.  But his lack of collar and lack of tattoo or microchip confused us.  We were further surprised when we discovered he had an extremely rare and expensive surgery to bypass kidney stones blocking his urethra.  No one in the King County area had performed that surgery on a Golden in the past year. We had him examined by our local vet and he had a minor bladder infection so we got him some antibiotics, but even our vet was mystified.

It was a puzzle.  On the one hand you obviously had owners who had spent a lot of money and time on this dog.  On the other hand all the normal tell tales of good ownership in terms of recovering should he be lost weren’t there.  The lack of collar bothered me deeply.  My only explanation was that he must have gotten out of it, which just reinforced to us that someone was looking for him.

So, TO THE INTERNET!

We scoured Craigslist and other sites but no good.  We called local shelters and looked for flyers.  Nada.  As the days went on, “Rufus” was really happy in his new home.  He responded well to being called “Rufus” and we decided if we could not find his owners we would keep him. He got along great with our other dogs and just fit right in immediately to our family.

When we picked him up as I mentioned we knew someone was looking for him.  Inside Microsoft we have several email groups for many of the cities in the Snoqualmie river valley, including ones for Carnation, Duvall, and Monroe.  I had sent an email blast out with his information and picture.  On my way home from work, I got a call from a woman who said she got my information from a person who saw my email.  I was able to get her to confirm the details of his surgery, and we learned the boy’s name was “Zeus” which explains why he responded to “Rufus”.  I’m sure the first time Rochelle called him Zeus he was all “Finally you’re pronouncing it right!”

Apparently this dog was more the husband’s dog than the wife’s because he hopped into his truck immediately and made it to our house in ten minutes.  The family had just moved to Carnation from Idaho, where Zeus’ procedure was done. Hence no one in Washington knowing about it. The children had taken off his collar and he had jumped the fence.  Not knowing his surroundings since they just moved, Zeus had just taken off to explore and got lost.  The family didn’t appear to be Internet savvy, and being new to the state had no idea their resources for finding him.

When the front door opened and Zeus saw his papa…well I wish I had filmed it.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog or a human so happy together.  The husband had been completely wrecked by Zeus running off and had spent 2 weeks trying to find him.  The owner just hugged him and rubbed him while Zeus wiggled like a puppy and whined in happiness and licked the poor guy to death.  We handed over the medication, told them no charge just please get Zeus microchipped, and sent them on their way.

After that, deciding to get Eowyn was easy.

So this was the happy Epilogue to Remington’s story.  As I mentioned his life was too short, and his ending was sad.  But we knew we had an opportunity to give his little sister a home. And somehow her being related to him, available just when we needed her, and that we had just helped out a dog in need made it all seem to click. 

We said our goodbyes to Remington at a nice little memorial service at his favorite dog park. All Remy’s friends were there that he played with, and our friends too.  We ran the dogs tired, fed them special doggy cake, and in general had a great time.  Rochelle and I spread Remy’s ashes at each of his favorite spots in the park.

The next day we left for Vancouver.  At first we told ourselves we were still going to be hesitant, we’d visit first and talk it over and bring her home the next weekend if it was right.

Within seconds of meeting her we knew we were going to bring her home.  She was so much like Remington but in completely unique ways.  Jane agreed.  We brought her home yesterday.  So say hello to Eowyn!

I told you all that to tell you this.  The original release date for the audio version of my book, A Microsoft Life, was supposed to release on 10.12.  I had a number of post-production things to do to it, however between getting Zeus back to his owners and work and now Eowyn that sucked up a lot of my time.  The good news is that the book should be complete within the next 48-72 hours.  As a reminder, 2/3’s of all proceeds will go to Child’s play.  If you would like to pre-order you can do so here.  I’m not making a big deal about it just yet because I’m finishing up the announcement mail.  But if you *really* want to, the pre-order gets you immediate access to 4 tracks.

If all goes well I’ll do another post with a formal announcement and information etc.

Meanwhile there’s a puppy to play with!