On the Independence day itself, I met up with my friends Eugene and Puneet to grill dinner and relax in their backyard. We decided to forgo the crowds of downtown Seattle fireworks and instead watch the local neighbors shoot off their "less-than-legal" fireworks. The next day we had another large grilling party and made gourmet burgers with every possible topping you can think of: 5 cheeses, sauteed onions and mushrooms, veggies, olives, pico de gallo, and more! We finished off the day by listening to Puneet play his guitar (he has been playing for 10 years and is very talented!). As we all lay spread out on blankets in the grass listening to guitar music, I found myself incredibly thankful to have met such wonderful people this summer.
This past week at work has been much busier. As of last Friday, I have officially completed the first half of my internship. To formalize my review, I had a special 1-on-1 meeting with my manager to talk about the progress towards my project. It sounds like everything is going on track! Microsoft was also buzzing this week about the announcement of the new Google Chrome Operating System (OS). In a nutshell, Google is proposing that the computer user's main experience should be centralized around the web, not the local desktop environment. To be fair, Google has a point. I have heard numbers that users claim 70% of their computing experience is on the web. This number quickly converges to almost 100% when the user population is defined to be younger. While I have heard and talked with many Microsoft employees internally about this announcement, I am not at liberty to reproduce the conversations online. However, I can say one thing with full confidence: We, the world, know nothing about this new OS except some 100+ words released in their official Google blog. Nobody has seen any code yet. And let's be clear, the current Microsoft Windows OS has been in development for 25+ years and includes millions of lines of code and thousands of developer hours. The Mac OS has been in development even longer (closer to 35+ years, depending on when you start counting). You really should not misunderstand me; if there is a single company on the planet that could build a "lightweight" OS from the ground up in a few years, it would be Google. But still, the world has a right to remain skeptical about their recent announcement. Will it be a major threat to Microsoft? Again, I can only speculate as an intern, but I would now say no. Google Chrome OS (at least version 1.0) will be no more threatening to Microsoft Windows than Bing is threatening to Google search.
My last 2 days at work have been spent in employee training with all of the other Windows User Interface Program Mangers (PM). It was surreal to be sitting with so many brilliant, creative people learning the process of designing a user interface for the next one billion people. The room was littered with post-it notes, white-board drawings, and sketches. There was also tons of free food and snacks provided, with the office dog Brutus acting as the Microsoft vacuum for all the crumbs. I learned something funny in the training session that I would like to share with you now. In the early 1900s, Thomas Edison had an idea to invent furniture made of concrete because it would be cheap, easy, and last forever. While Edison may be known as a great inventor today, he had many bad ideas as well. I am particularly grateful that his concrete furniture didn't become a hit, because I am really enjoying writing my blog on a squishy bed instead of a concrete box!
This afternoon I am off to play sand volleyball with my coworker Jason. I miss everyone at home, and will see you all in another 6 weeks!
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