I recently left Microsoft to take a job at Google. I will be working on mobile phone software. (I should I mention that I never owned a mobile phone until now. I'm such a cave man!)

 

I will miss working on the Xbox, and even more than that, I will miss working with the people on the Xbox team and in other parts of Microsoft. But after seven years and two complete product cycles (Xbox 1 and Xbox 360), I felt it was time for a change. I will be working out of the Google Kirkland/Seattle office, so at least I should still be able to keep in touch with my ex-co-workers.

 

I hope to continue this blog, but I'll have to see how it goes. Blogging will probably be extra light as I come up to speed in my new role.

 

It's been quite interesting to learn a new non-Microsoft tool chain. Google eats its own dogfood, the same as Microsoft, so for the past two weeks I've been using Google's search, mail, and text editor instead of Microsoft's equivalents.

 

Switching from Outlook to GMail is probably the most dramatic change for me. GMail sure is different than Outlook. I miss Outlook's ability to sort folder contents by sender (which makes it really fast to read through checkin emails). But Gmail has some nice features that compensate, like the conversation threading.

 

I'm quite surprised to find myself using and liking GMail's built-in chat feature. I was always wondering why people used chat instead of email, and now I am starting to see why. It's especially nice that GMail automatically archives past chat sessions. Most of my chat traffic is me asking someone "how do I do blah?" and someone replying "do this, that, and the other thing". It's great to have a record of the conversation to refer back to later.

 

One smart thing Google has done is use very short memorable names for internal site URLs. For example the internal GMail URL is "m", and the internal bug tracker URL is "b".  These short cuts make it very quick to navigate to different web sites, and it also make it easier for someone to verbally transmit a URL to another person.

 

Oh, and the free food really is nice, especially on the main Mountain View campus. I must have gained five pounds since I started.