Live With Ani

Being around RD's is just special!!!

So what are RD's? Well you can find out about the program which Kevin Schuler of Microsoft runs, and guess what he was a RD too. Read about What a RD is and how to become one. If you want to hear from the RD's themselves and see what they are up to and who they are the 140, the proud the RD's.

This is just an amazing group of people I love being around anytime I get a chance, they are not only technology savvy, have been around Microsoft stuff in most cases longer than I've been alive, but they also have a lot of fans. Being among them is like being among the developer stars! There are more PhD's, book authors, trainers, successful business men and women on this one table combined and we only had 20 who could attend last night.

You can see me way in the back and Kate Gregory who is a super Guru in C++, she delivered a 400 session in C++ at Tech Ed 2008 Orlando yesterday. She had 50 people attend, and I told her it's because of her name and how cool she is and how well known she is, can you imagine a super duper tech talk in C++ that deep.

So a bit of history, the sessions at Tech Ed are numbered mostly 200 are semi technical, 300's show and compile code and 400's not only code on the fly and compile but if they run into errors they fix them super fast. So can you imagine doing that with C++? Only Kate.

Anyway, the table is full of super cool people. And the best part is I get to hang with them again today and show them our http://webmaster.live.com product and the http://search.live.com/developer sites.

For those of you who don't know these super cool people here goes the list: Scott Golightly, Richard Hundhausen, Jaser Elmorsy, me (Ani), Eurico Bras, Scott Stanfield (from Vertigo), Carl Franklin (from .NET Rocks), Fernando Guerrero, Jonathan Zuck (front and center), Dr.Neil, Kate Gregory, Tim Huckaby (from Interknowledgy), Jonathan Goodyear, Ken & Tricia Spencer, Brian Noyes, David Starr (the main guy for the biggest code camp to day!), Chris Menegay.

If you want to find out more about what Code Camps are, read the manifesto from Thom Robbins and learn how to run your own check this out.

Live Search Webmaster Center Frogs coming your way!

So what am I talking about? Get yours at SMX Advance 2008 or Tech Ed 2008! If you are attending either of these two events, come find our Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Center team and get your flying Frog!

and leap into better search results by submitting your sitemap to Live Search Webmaster Center! See you soon!

Look for the Get cashback Tag: Get Cash back from Live Search!

And you thought you only bought software from Microsoft, well not you can get cash Back!

What this means to you is you can find out what the prices are at common stores then get extra cash back on top of it and creat an account so you either get cash in your paypal account, sent to your bank or a check in the mail.

So check it out, here's how you:

Get Cash Back from Live Search

You can do it in one of two ways, easy way is to go to: http://search.live.com/cashback/ and search thru the products that have the Cashback ability enabled.Or as you see in the picture to the right below just search for the product you want on http://www.live.com and search for a product, if the company's product you search for has joined the program as a customer you will see the Live Search cashback, tag where you can click to get a screen to compare prices and get cash back!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So after you click on the  Live Search cashback, tag you will go to a screen where you can search for the shoe (or whatever product you want, that offers this service which will grow as we go) then once you click on the Compare Prices button you will see the screen showing comparative prices and how much cash you will get back if you order thru Live Search cashback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can then use your Windows Live ID to log in and setup your account and get your cash! COOL huh?

 

Check out more relevant articles at:

Microsoft To Launch Cash-Back Search Engine

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft & Google: Curling event, did you know?

It was pretty cool to get together both webmaster teams ours and Google's and hold a curling event. I think a blast was had by all, I'll share the photos and you can be judge. Here is what the Curling Event flyer looked like:

and here are a few photos of Vanessa Fox, Nathan Buggia, Jeremiah Andrick, Todd Friesen (VP of Search Strategies at  Visible Technologies) and everyone else.

   if you were expecting to see who won, well we can't tell you it's a secret! But we can tell you, we had a blast.

Did you know Curling has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1924? For those reading this who know of women interested in this event, I found out there is a good chance a woman can get to the Olympics fairly quickly given there are not many women curlers out there. So if you know of anyone who wants to participate in the Olympics, and can work a little, they just might get the chance with curling.

Check out Granite Curling Club (1440 N 128th Street Seattle, WA 98133) they were great!

Microsoft Sales team video

Gosh sometimes when things like this come across your desk and you hear people outside of Microsoft think everyone at Microsoft has seen this, you gotta laugh! :)

Well I think this is a pretty funny and cool video. Check out The Microsoft's Sales Team rocks video:

Microsoft's Sales Team Rocks

Thanks to the Google Inside blog:

Little funny things in life

You would think these types of things would not happen to a Microsoft employee but you would be wrong. What am I talking about? Well we have this fantastic shuttle service we/anyone can use when they are on campus to go to other buildings on campus or to other Microsoft locations. They are fantastic Toyota Prius which are environmentally friendly and the drivers are very nice.

Well this week this incident has happened to me twice. I get picked up by the shuttle from my building and head to the building I am going to, the process takes longer than 30 min when if I drove it would have taken 10 min. But here is the best part, the driver gets lost and doesn't know where he is going, or takes me to the complete wrong direction. Well this is really funny! And I am late for meetings.

I am not so much concerned about being late for meeting with my peers and colleagues, but when I'm late arriving to the EBC (Enterprise Briefing Center) where I am to give a presentation to large companies such as the Fortune 1000 from around the world, I am just red faced and embarrassed.

Well, today I got off the shuttle at a near by building and ran to the EBC, because to wait until the driver took me there would have been another risk of being later more than 10 min. Keep in mind, this is just this week, I have been using the shuttle service for the last 1 year and they are GREAT, they even have candy and humorous friendly drivers!

Just a little bit of my life at Microsoft I tough would be fun to share :)