jswang@microsoft.com Still Available

I sent an email to jswang@microsoft.com, my old email at Microsoft.

Can you receive this mail?

This was my email alias many years ago.

Jian Shuo Wang

Very soon, I got mail like this:
postmaster@microsoft.com
to me

mail.microsoft.com rejected your message to the following email addresses:

jswang@microsoft.com (jswang@microsoft.com)

mail.microsoft.com gave this error:
User unknown

The email address you entered couldn’t be found. Please check the recipient’s email address and try to resend the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.

Diagnostic information for administrators:

Generating server: BY2FFO11HUB004.mail.protection.outlook.com

 

Bingo! My email address is still not occupied by someone else. Just for the record, I checked just because we were at a Microsoft gather, and some conversation inspired my curiosity.

 

I Love New Hotmail Design

Saw the Weibo of Teach Liu Run and learnt the Outlook.com, a new interface for the old Hotmail.com. It was great. I love it much better than Hotmail.com or the even worth name Windows Live Mail.

What I love is, it cut all the things the end users don’t care. They cut, cut, cut, cut, cut to an extreme that only leaving a subject line, and a big area for people to write on. That is so cute. An application should behave this way.

There are many tradeoff, and I know it is so hard in big company like Microsoft, but at least I saw one product from Microsoft that is exciting – the first time in the last 10 years.

BTW, the Tab and send option consistent with Gmail is so nice.

Microsoft Shanghai Zizhu Campus

It was a sunny afternoon (update: it quickly turns into thunderstorm tonight), and Yifan fall asleep. There is nothing for Wendy and I to do – pretty rare in the last two years, so we cherished the great opportunity to wander around. Wendy had a crazy idea, and I was even more crazier than her: I agreed.

The idea was, to drive 35 km away to Microsoft Shanghai’s new campus in Zizhu Science and Technology Center. The construction of this center is pretty important to us, since Microsoft is moving most of its technical people to that center, which, unfortunately, including Wendy.

Zizhu Science and Technology Park

Shanghai Zizhu Science and Technology Park 紫竹高科技园区 is located at the far south side of Minhang district. It is pretty far from the city. If you have some concepts of Shanghai Metro system, it is at the south end of the Metro Line #5 (to provide you some hits, Metro Line #1 is the north-south line in Shanghai. Metro Line #5 starts from the most south station of Metro Line #1. Got some idea about how far it is?).

The area became hot because Shanghai Jiao Tong University moved from it Xuhui Campus to the Minghang Campus in 1984, and continued to expand the area of the campus. I have spent 2 years studying on that campus, before I was relocated to the main Xuhui Campus. I left the campus in 1999, and got back to the Xuhui Campus in 2007, with a company setting up there.

The Change of Zizhu Park

The Zizhu Park was just a concept when I was there from 1995 to 1997. There are no buildings, and even more roads. If you check out Google Satellite map today, you still see almost nothing.

Later, some companies moved in, including Microsoft, Wicresoft (Microsoft’s joint venture, where I also spent about half a year), Intel. The area became a “real” science park. All of them was squeezed into several public buildings.

Image in courtesy of Zhou, Xiaohui

Image in courtesy of jeffwilcox

Recent few years ago, Intel built their campus there, and many people of Intel moved there. Then Wicresoft – a Wicresoft building and a campus. Then Omren…

Image in courtesy of jeffwilcox

Microsoft Zizhu Campus

The Microsoft Zizhu Campus was designed to be a huge project. The big complex consists of four buildings and a big cafeteria in the middle. The current project only includes the cafeteria and one building.

When finished, all Microsoft Shanghai technical resources will be moved there. To name a few: Microsoft Global Technical Center, Microsoft Advanced Technical Center, and many divisions of Microsoft Live Development Center. To be short, almost all the people I know in Microsoft moved there, except the Microsoft Shanghai Sales and Marketing Organization (they will move to the Grand Gateway).

Image in courtesy of jeffwilcox

Transportation is a Huge Problem

Zizhu Science Park is pretty nice. It is obviously not as popular in hi-tech companies as Zhang Jiang Hi-Tech Park. But it is catching up. The arrangement of the new Microsoft Zizhu campus is also very attractive – with VIP in-house health care, and sports facility, but the key problem of this campus is, it is too far away.

Wendy has tried every thing to find the best way to get to that campus. She tried to use normal route of A20 -> A4, or tried A20 -> Lianhua Road, or even tried to use Ferry at the Metro Line #8 station. The reason is discouraging. The campus is at least 35 km away from our home, and up to 60 km away from some of the engineers working there. That means, you need to prepare at least 2-3 hours on transportation to get there. Hmmm…. It is really to far away.

Let’s see how things evolves, when the moving day comes for the many different groups with nearly 1000 people.

Photos?

I hope I can upload the photo of the new building now, but it is still in Wendy’s mobile phone, and I am still looking for a connection cable. I will update when I have photos available.

Reading/Writing Chinese in Windows XP

This an FAQ: How to read and write Chinese (Simplified or Traditional Chinese) in English Windows XP. Many people thought people can do it only in Chinese Windows XP/2000. It is wrong. Since I reinstalled my English Windows XP, let me show you how to enable Chinese on English Windows.

Please note: This article assumes readers have only basic knowledge about the language of Chinese

By Default, You Cannot Read Chinese

This is how http://news.sina.com.cn looks like on English Windows Xp, before Chinese language package was installed.

screen-sina-without.chinese.png

Steps

  • Click Start on the task bar, and click Run…
  • Enter “intl.cpl” and click OK. This brings up the Region and Language Options.
  • Click on the Language tab.
  • Check “Install files for East Asia Languages”. Click OK when a promote box appears.
  • Click OK. You may need to put your Windows XP installation CD in your CD ROM, or locate the source in your computer.
  • Wait for several minutes until the files are installed.

Now You can Read

Going back to http://news.sina.com.cn, and it works now.

screen-sina-with.chinese.png

Steps to be able to Write in Chinese

The steps above only enable people to read Chinese. These are the steps to setup Chinese IME (Input Method Editor).

  • Click Start on Windows task bar, and click Run…
  • Enter “intl.cpl” and click OK.
  • Switch to Language Tab (these are the same as the steps above).
  • Click “Details…” in Text Services and Input Language area.
  • Click “Add…”. The “Add Input Language” dialog box appears.
  • Choose “Chinese (PRC)” in the Input Language drop down.
  • Keep “Chinese (Simplified) – Microsoft Pinyin IME” in the Keyboard layout/IME field.
  • Click OK twice.

screen-chinese.ime.png

Now you can input Chinese now. Here is a test.

Entering Chinese

  • Open a text editor, like Notepad.
  • Click on the IME icon on the right side of the taskbar of Windows. It is a [EN] icon.

    screen-ime-taskbar.png

  • Choose [CH] Chinese (PRC)
  • Enter “shanghai” and a space, Chinese character 上海 will apear in the notepad.

This is the simplest usage of IME. Really input Chinese is much more harder.

Bill Mao

screen-bill.mao-newsweek.jpg

Image in courtesy of Newsweek

Ha. Newsweek is so funny! This picture is the cover picture of Newsweek June 21, 2004 Issue.

I LOL when I see the picture because the original picture are displayed in many restaurant till now. I happened to take one in our most favorite Hunan Restaurant – Yue Yang Lou.

shanghai-chair.man-poster.jpg

Transferred to Microsoft Consulting Service

I have contemplated for some time and finally decided to put this into my blog. I have left Microsoft GTEC (Global Technical Engineering Center) and joined another Microsoft organization – Microsoft Consulting Service as a consultant from July.

This is a smooth transition for me. After working in a pure technical center and tried 6 different roles in the same organization in the last 5 years, it is time for me to step out of the green house to take more challenges in real world.

I will focus on infrastructure and will start to work on some server consolidation and Active Directory deployment projects. This job challenges me on technical side, on project management side, on business negotiation side and on inter-personal skills side. This is not a easy job since it requires much more travel and OT than it does in my previous job, but I believe the days and nights to come will add more aspect in my career portfolio.

I have moved to a new floor in the same office building, looking forward to take more challenges in this new role.

This brings two major changes to this blog:

  • Update may be slightly impacted due to travel or instable connectivity to Internet.
  • There may be more content related to my job – what Microsoft is doing in China

Let me explain the two changes in details.

Update Frequency

I believe I still can write something meaningful in my life every day on this blog. I have kept writing for more about two years, and it has become a habit to write something or at least post some pictures. So it won’t be a big problem. If I just started for half year, chances are, I will stop updating this site.

Microsoft stuff

I didn’t write too much on stuff related to my company. Fons from Chinaherald.net even wondered whether “they (the employer) called him in and had a talk“.

I have thoroughly explained the reason in this blog entry: Reviewed by ChinaHerald.net

This may change a little bit after the transfer. In the new job, my daily life will be highly tightened to the customers and the industries in China. So my life may change. It is nature that what I write changes with my life. In contrast, my previous job does not require me to talk to customer everyday – it is all internal stuff.

Another reason is, blogging is become really, really hot in Microsoft. I don’t how other companies take it, but in Microsoft, people are so smart to pickup anything new and keep up with the trends. I have talked about Blogging in Microsoft before, introduced new Microsoft bloggers like Larry and Eddie. Now, the MCS organization has adopted the practice and requires all employees (around 60) in the organization to start writing organization level blog. It is expected greatly improve communication. It is one of the most successful usages of blogging in business I have ever seen so far.

Anyway, thanks for being with me. I hope to see more surprises, and challenges the life has to offer.

Five Years in Microsoft

Today, I celebrated my 5 year anniversay with Microsoft.

June 29, 1999 is the day I formally got on board in Microsoft after half year of internship. The 5 year gave me so much. I am lucky enough to enter a company that I love from the bottom of my heart.

The division I am working at hold a grant celebration party for me. Then I got my Microsoft Five Year Award. I’d like to show off the beautiful gift I was longing for quite some time.

The Big Box

Guess what is inside this box, which was shipped from Redmond, WA to Shanghai.

shanghai-box-five.year.jpg

Let me open the mysterious box.

shanghai-open.box-five.year.jpg

Smaller Box

There is a smaller box. What is inside this colorful smaller box?

shanghai-clock.package-five.year.jpg

Uncover the box – a nice silver clock appears.

shanghai-clock.in.box-five.year.jpg

The Clock

The Five Year Service Award is a clock. Oh. If the globalization team in Microsoft ever reviewed the proposal of sending clocks as gift, they will find it is not proper in China. “Sending clock” sounds the same as “sending someone to tomb”. :-$ So people in China never send clock as gift. Anyway, I can understand. I love the clock very much.

shanghai-clock-five.year.jpg

shanghai-jianshuo.wang.clock-five.year.jpg

My name was printed on the clock.

shanghai-jianshuowang.plate-five.year.jpg

The Card

Five Year Congratulation Card signed by Bill Gates (by print, not by hand).

shanghai-card-five.year.jpg

There is a plate. I assume I should stick it onto my shirt.

shanghai-ask.me-five.year.jpg

The Party

Eric helped to took some photos of the celebration party this afternoon.

shanghai-jianshuo-uncover.jpg

shanghai-jianshuo-ask.me.card.jpg

shanghai-jianshuo-looking.at.clock.jpg

Blogging in Microsoft

Issac mentioned Bill’s presentation on blogging (one of the topics). He also comments on the blogging in Microsoft (and kindly mentioned my blog). In one sentence, blogging in Microsoft is hot and becoming hotter.

Let’s see what Bill said in the Microsoft CEO Summit 2004:

Another new phenomenon that connects into this is one that started outside of the business space, more in the corporate or technical enthusiast space, a thing called blogging. And a standard around that that notifies you that something has changed called RSS.

This is a very interesting thing, because whenever you want to send e-mail you always have to sit there and think who do I copy on this. There might be people who might be interested in it or might feel like if it gets forwarded to them they’ll wonder why I didn’t put their name on it. But, then again, I don’t want to interrupt them or make them think this is some deeply profound thing that I’m saying, but they might want to know. And so, you have a tough time deciding how broadly to send it out.

Then again, if you just put information on a Web site, then people doesn’t know to come visit that Web site, and it’s very painful to keep visiting somebody’s Web site and it never changes. It’s very typical that a lot of the Web sites you go to that are personal in nature just eventually go completely stale and you waste time looking at it.

And so, what blogging and these notifications are about is that you make it very easy to write something that you can think of, like an e-mail, but it goes up onto a Web site. And then people who care about that get a little notification. And so, for example, if you care about dozens of people whenever they write about a certain topic, you can have that notification come into your Inbox and it will be in a different folder and so only when you’re interested in browsing about that topic do you go in and follow those, and it doesn’t interfere with your normal Inbox.

And so if I do a trip report, say, and put that in a blog format, then all the employees at Microsoft who really want to look at that and who have keywords that connect to it or even people outside, they can find the information.

And so, getting away from the drawbacks of e-mail — that it’s too imposing — and yet the drawbacks of the Web site — that you don’t know if there’s something new and interesting there — this is about solving that.

The ultimate idea is that you should get the information you want when you want it, and we’re progressively getting better and better at that by watching your behavior, ranking things in different ways.

Bill’s view of blogging is, not surprisingly, from the technical trends perspective. But the perspective from employees are completely different. I observed many creative usage of blogging that is related to business. Here are some typical Microsoft Bloggers in China.

Using Blogging as MVP Communication Tools

The most successful and innovative application of blogging, according to Wendy, is Grace’s MVP Lead blogging site (Chinese site). She hosted her blog at blog.joycode.com, where almost 50+ China MVPs gather. Blogging is perfect way for announcements and event organzation. As the China MVP lead, she droved the MVP satisfaction to the third highest in the world and the highest in Asia. That is fantastic. I believe a smooth communication like blogger is a very important factor for the MVP satisfaction.

Using Blogging as Technical Evangelism Tools

Eric’s blog (Chinese site) and Dotnettools are successful technical blogging on Microsoft technology. There are many other technical blogs in China run by Microsoft employees.

Using Blogging as Personal Presence

There are also many blogging site are for personal use, like mine, Liuzhijian and Run2me… The owner happen to be working in Microsoft. Blogging has been a very hot topic.

Blogging in Microsoft Worldwide

It is very clear now that the company is encouraging its employee to start blogging. Internal blogging hosting service has been running for several months and the blogs.MSDN.com is the centralized external blogging service provider by Microsoft. Among them, Gretchen Ledgard is using jobsblog to deliver recruiting information and introduces the processes and standards in Microsoft recruiting actives. Very cool! I believe many people are interested in.

More and More MSFT bloggers

I am seeing more and more people inside Microsoft joining the blogging movement. Some quitted after two or three post, but many has stick to it for more than half years. I didn’t expected when I started my blog in 2002.

BTW, two hours ago, three more Microsoft senior employees gathered at my cubicle and I showed them blogger.com, RSS and reader. They are very excited and planned to start their own.

DISCLAIMER: This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights. 本贴子以”现状”提供且没有任何担保,同时也没有授予任何权利

Microsoft in China

This is the mail I replied to my friend seeking for internship position in Microsoft in China

Hi xxx,

Thank you for visiting my web site and your interest in Microsoft internship program. I have forward your resume to our HR manager. First thing you need to know about Microsoft in China is that Microsoft has four independent organizations in China, namely, Microsoft (China) Ltd., Microsoft Global Engineering Center, Microsoft R&D Center in China, Microsoft Asia Research Center.

Microsoft (China) Ltd. is a subsidiary focusing is on sales and marketing. Just like Microsoft (Singapore) or Microsoft (Malaysia), there are positions like sales, marketing, channel manager, product manager. Typically, they do NOT offer summary internship position. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/china. It is located in Beijing and has branches in Guangzhou and Shanghai.

Microsoft R&D Center is located in Beijing focusing on localization, localized test for Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional) version of Microsoft product. It also owns Chinese specific product like PinYin IME, Chinese word breaker? There are some summary intern positions there.

Microsoft Asia Research Center is the famous research organization, formerly held by Kai Fu Lee. It is a pure research organization and has lots of summary internship opportunities. A lot of students from Tsing Hua and Peking Univ. got internship position there. It is also located in Beijing.

Microsoft Global Engineering Center (a.k.a. GTEC), the organization I am in, is mainly the support center serving Microsoft customers around the world. We support customers in Asia region, helping other Microsoft subs in other countries in Asia. We act as escalation center focusing enterprise customers. We also support customers in U.S., with a very long product line. Recently, we began to support Europe and Australia. Besides the support business, there are more and more other opportunities so many projects are going on within the organization. It is a very successful organization led by Dr. Jun Tang. There are internship program in GTEC. GTEC is located in Xu Jia Hui of Shanghai.

Knowing this, you may want to choose an organization you are interested in and send resume to the right place.

Regards

Jian Shuo Wang

Project Manager

Microsoft Global Engineering Center

P.S. This entry was previously published on Thursday, January 10, 2002