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Marc Holmes

The Unauthorised Autobiography of Marc Holmes

Microsoftie thinking about dialogue with developers. Brit in Seattle. Windswept and Interesting.


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Filed under: xbox

Upgradez

(Nicked this picture from Stevecla – looks like an advert for Cyberdyne Systems. I’m going to put a chain lock on the TV stand just in case..)

I’m back at work tomorrow after a few days off recharging batteries/dumping the kids with the grandparents. This afternoon I managed to get a couple of hours to continue tinkering with the tech set-up at home.

Mainly this involved downloading the new blades for the XBox (looks very metro-y now) in preparation for the arrival of the Kinect(which means my kids will be able to do video calls to the Grandparents really easily too!) and hooking up the new laptop to the Windows Home Server via the Zune software and Windows Live Photo Gallery in preparation for the arrival of my Windows Phone 7.

Man, I think I just geek bloated on all of the upgraded stuff that’s happening. It’s nice, not least because it means I can ditch iTunes and all things “i*”, but also because it feels just a bit “meh” now.

Oh – also squeezed in an order for a Kindle. I know, I just had to have that second slice of pie. Burp.

via Writerous

Age of Empires Online

I’ve no idea how to squeeze in play time these days (I’m struggling on the second bit of Lego Harry Potter…), which is a shame as there are so many great games available like Settlers of Catan on the XBox (I’ve always wanted to beat Martin Fowler at it…) or even on Surface.

Last time I played Age of Empires 2 (not the most recent version, but the best I reckon) was in the early days of broadband with the little blue Alcatel squid thing as an ADSL router which would tend to drop connection frequently (typically when my laptop decided to power down the USB port randomly).

This being strategy, it was no surprise that my strategically minded colleague, Gareth, who was ‘Head of Strategy’ (I think) thus proving those credentials tended to be victorious. My main recollection is building a fantastic city, smart, flexible army, and then being stomped all over the park by War Elephants.

Anyway, this announcement that AoE is going all MMORPG-y means I’ll dust off the “battle mouse” one more time…

via Writerous

How Do I Get A Job At XBox?

32d7

My friend Tom works developing on XBox (which makes him sound like an imaginary MySpace friend, but he's not...). You can tell it's a cool job because when I say things like "Ooh... so what does the next UX iteration look like?" and "How does that Natal thing-y work?" he gives a little chuckle and says "I can't really say anything". Meh.

Anyway, he mentioned that XBox have an "engineering blog" a little like the IE Blog or the E7 (Windows 7) blogs which are some of the best "how does it all work internally (process and software)" blogs we have.

Didn't know that and it does have some cool content (see this post on the Avatar technology - excellent). Posts seem to be a bit infrequent, but the very latest "How Do I Get A Job At XBox?" might be of interest to a few people...
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