Guess who’s gonna be a daddy?

Dec 262005

I’m finally "allowed" to say it because we told our parents. I’ve known for a month actually. Heather is 9 weeks pregnant with our first child and I can’t be more excited. I even made a stocking for "Number One" mostly as a joke but I put an absolute beginners C# (programming) book in there too.

Heather has been constantly sick but hopefully that will subside soon.

Of course this changes things for the wedding, and we’ll probably have to do it sooner than expected. We’re thinking about doing it in Vegas with immediate family present then having a reception back home. Who knows. Need to get TEO 3 out first.

I’m really happy to be starting a family with her. I can’t wait until "D day"!

AutomatedQA AQTime 4

Dec 232005

When you see how fast TEO 3 is (yes even in the first beta) you can thank the folks over at AutomatedQA. This profiling tool is very intuitive and is probably the best performance profiler I’ve ever seen. I took a few hours to tune up TEO 3.0 tonight and made about an 85% speed improvement opening new and existing items.

Sorry I haven’t posted much. Been busy with Christmas, TEO, and sick as a dog for the last week. I have a pretty big announcement to make (about my personal life) on Saturday so stay tuned.

Microsoft wants me to change TEO’s name…

Dec 082005

Well after over 2 years (and a visit to MS and interaction with many many employees), Microsoft’s legal department just decided that Tablet Enhancements for Outlook is a violation of their trademark. I’m no expert in trademark law, but I’m sure they have grounds for what they’re asking, but it’s retarded.

Why? Because it’s not like I’m calling it “Outlook Tablet Edition” or something like that. The name is very descriptive of the fact that it is an add on for a specific Microsoft product. In fact, the descriptiveness of the name has probably been a key factor in how popular it has become.

Furthermore, it is not in competition with anything Microsoft is doing and in fact it improves upon a product which has neglected Tablet PC users for 3 years.

So anyway I have no ability to fight this and I’d probably lose anyway so it’s time to think of a new name. Some suggestions I’m making are:

  • Tablet Enhancements for Bullies
  • Tablet Enhancements for Thunderbird
  • Tablet Enhancements for iCal
  • Tablet Enhancements for your favorite personal information manager that Microsoft makes (oh wait, can’t use that trademark either)

No matter the result, less copies of TEO will be downloaded. I’m glad someone is making $300/hour to work on this case.