SANAZ says...

Talking about all good things come to an end!

Tue, 15 May 2007 21:29:53 GMT

Quote

all good things come to an end!

I am listening to 'All good things come to an end' by Nelly Furtado as I write this blog post. No, not planned. It just happened to play randomly on my playlist - timely for this post.

This is a bittersweet moment as I reflect on what start.com accomplished from it's inception in February 2005, helping pioneer ajax homepages and gadgets on the web. We accomplished great things both in terms of technology as well as being an agile small team and connecting with our customers. A successful incubation project that evolved to live.com. Unfortunately it is now time for us to retire start.com as our incubation ground for live.com. Effective next Tuesday, 5/22/07, start.com will redirect to live.com.

Are you an active start.com customer and want to keep your feeds?

1. if you don't have the 'add content' gadget, add it by hovering on the logo and clicking on 'add feeds and gadgets'

2. click on 'advanced' within the 'add content' gadget

3. at the bottom you'll see the option for 'click here to export your feed subscriptions to OPML', click on 'here'

4. save the file locally

5. you can import this file to live.com or your favorite rss reader

To import to live.com:

1. click on 'add stuff' in the upper left hand corner

2. click on 'advanced options'

3. browse for the opml file next to the 'import OPML file' option

4. once imported you'll find your subscriptions under 'my stuff' within the 'subscriptions' folder

Sanaz Ahari on behalf of the start.com team

Lead Program Manager, Live Search

Adieu Dane

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 13:51:21 GMT

It was early October 2005, redwest cafe, my first 1:1 with Dane Glasgow our new general manager replacing Hadi Partovi. my opinion prior to the meeting 'this guy has big shoes to fill' :). it was an interesting meeting, i wasn't going in to the meeting with the best attitude, distraught over the news of Hadi's departure.... it didn't help that Dane talked about a hot button of mine, staffing. i'm a huge believer in very selective hiring, less is more. Dane kept on insisting that our team of 4 working on start.com was short-staffed, he was right :) that was the only on edge interaction i had with Dane...

Fast-forward 1.5 years of working together, and i'm extremely bummed to see him go. I have learned a lot from Dane, constantly pushed by him and most importantly inspired by him. Dane is the type of leader that we need more of at Microsoft, at only 30 years young he infuses a fresh perspective and understands building services. But 8 years is a long time to be at any company, and i understand his decision to focus on his family and other passions.... best of luck!

Debunking myths about the "Third World"

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 06:34:21 GMT

I've watched this video 5 times and find it absolutely amazing. I hope to give a talk as captivating as Prof. Hans Rosling's one day.

cute alert

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:32:06 GMT

hamster + broccoli = adorable :)

who's your celeb look alike?

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:24:26 GMT

myheritage is a really fun site! good design and cool technology..

upload your pic, the face recognition software does its thing and boom you'll get a list of top 10 celebs that look like you! not sure i agree with this analysis - mandy moore ?!?!. but it's fun nonetheless and claire forlani is one of my favorite actresses :)

Carmen takes a dive

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 06:16:20 GMT

carmen electra takes a dive on the runway @ MAX Factor fashion show... pretty funny :) hope she's ok.

the urban satchel

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 01:38:08 GMT

you read it right... the $150,000 purse from Louis Vuitton. I can create a knock off of that one pretty easily: a water bottle, marlboro pack, spearmeant guym, tully's cup... is this a freakin joke! I hope the money's going to a good cause.

What is FAD in GeEk world?

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 05:42:54 GMT

you hear the term FAD and you think of skinny jeans, bell bottom jeans, platfom shoes, ripped jeans, etc...

what is FAD in the software world? ... software that doesn't evolve, stagnant, same and hence lame. software that leaves you high and dry, a good start, and good rythm that doesn't keep on singing. a beat that doesn't go on. something can go from hot to fad and back to hot. the difficulty of the 2nd transition from fad to hot is correlated with time. the more time you take to react, the harder it is.

with that definition - dear bloglines i declare you a FAD you can certainly become hot again if you act quick, but a former FAD, google reader has outdone you taking the hot crown. thanks, it was good using you.

i know what you're thinkin - don't be a hypocrite. yeah, Live is tip toeing on the FAD line. we need to execute, we've left our customers and analysts high and dry. we're working on it, there are many passionate smart folks wanting to build the best services for our customers. but it's a cruise ship as Berkowitz mentioned, maybe we just need to split to rowboats (headed in the same direction) and let our customers see the real passion of the ppl behind the software.

Processes Gone Wild

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 04:26:23 GMT

understanding windows vista reliability mechanics... listen to the vista reliability team talk about how they re-architected some of the fundamentals of the OS to close the feedback loop for crashes -> error reports -> fixes. all about data collection, watson, error reporting, etc.. pretty interesting stuff. ever wonder what it means when an app is hung? how to detect a hang? what can the OS do about it? wonder about that 'not responding' message on apps? watch this interview. and oh yeah... that's my brother :)

GeeK ChiC: TXT SBUX

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:13:48 GMT

It's Wendesday morning and you're somewhere in Mountain View on a Biz Trip. Need coffee or even better need Grande Soy Extra Matcha Green Tea Latte. Where is the nearest Starbucks? Need not worry just send a text message with the area's zip code to MYSBUX (or 697289), and a list of nearby Starbucks stores will pop back.

I'm an avid GOOGL SMS user, but this custom starbucks SMS thing has potential especially if they sent store hours and whether they have drive-thru.

where there's a will there's a way...

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 16:42:00 GMT

everyone can dance...

the story behind the interview and tips

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 15:42:05 GMT

A few weeks ago, on a Friday afternoon after a really long week @ work I got a one line meeting invite from the Microsoft PR team asking me that they needed to meet with me on Monday. My first reaction "crap, did I blog about something I wasn't supposed to blog about" :) , I was too tired though and I decided to just wait till Monday.

Fast forwad: Monday - a short conversation on the phone and it turned out they wanted to ask if I was intereted in interviewing with Fast Company per their request. I was flattered and of course said yes. The interview was set for a few days a later, as a phone interview.

Tips for phone interviews: stand up or walk around, don't sit during the interview. It really affects your energy and tone. the downside, it's harder to take notes, but it's better not to take notes unless absolutely necessary.

General interview tips:

- 1. know what you're going to say before you say it. 2. be crisp and to the point. another way to say it: formulate your thoughs, make a point and stop. don't try to fill moments of silence with thought ramblings :)

- If you don't know the answer, just be honest and say you dont know. Don't try to wing it.

The interivew was one hour long, and touched on a varity of topics. Everything from my personal beliefs and principles for software engineering practices, to gadgets to Microsoft and search. David Lidsky interviewed me and the hour felt more like a great conversation than an interview.

A week later it was photo time! :) Where Annie Marie took some photos of me @ work and @ Archie McPhee's (super funky toy store in Ballard).

Long story short - the article is now in the April issue of Fast Company that just hit the newsstands :)

Talking about Listening

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:18:18 GMT

Kamran a good friend of mine recently had a post about 'listening'... I'm a strong believer in Kamran's statements. This is something I personally try to follow (I'll be the first to admit I have not mastered this art, but it's definitely a goal of mine) and needless to say I seek friends and co-workers with similiar characteristics.

Quote

Listening

> an email message inspired this posting ...

Listening is one of the most important forms of art. I personally learn through listening and to a lesser extent reading and observing. I've always believed in the power of words and the way the message is framed -or- the discussion is structured.

I believe good listening makes it easier to build trust, rapport, and confidence. Listening is time well spent in my view. Listening is not just what we heard, it's also what we understood. We can express that we're actually engaged in the conversation and we're paying attention by:

"Attending": By head nods or eye contact. This shows you are paying attention to the other party. We should never look around when someone is talking to us without providing explanation.

"Paraphrasing": By reflecting back key words and messages. We should reflect back the content and the emotion of what the speaker is saying. Paraphrasing shows that you have understood the main message.

"Summarizing": or recapping is used to call out the main points and provide focus to the conversation. I try to summarize after several pieces of information have been disclosed.

"Clarifying": By asking questions. I think this ensures understanding and gain more detail about the subject. I make sure to clarify information that is vague or unclear before proceeding to the next point.

............. We should listen, let the words swirl around our heads, and then form an opinion.

funny stuff

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:38:58 GMT

speech recognition isn't really intended for perl scripting, but this is a good laugh nonetheless :) (thanks omar)

Search: it's just getting started

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:28:50 GMT

We're just scratching the surface with search. Why? Well let me give some examples. I was just going through my site's traffic and searches queries that end up at sanaz.spaces.live.com...

query: what is the highest building?

I really don't think my blog post actually deserves the 2nd spot. the results that have a lower ranking than my site give better more authoritative answers. the ideal answer should be a result page that give the list of tallest building with option to drill down by geographical location. at least that's the ideal answer from an end-user's perspective.

query: cool google talk emoticons

once again my site is the 2nd result, a blog post I did for google talk specifically. well my post is just a review, i don't actually about "google talk emoticons" , here's an example where search engines generally do an elementary job of identifying entities and intention.

query:spaces.live.com

this one is actually just terrible. my space is the top result for the query spaces.live.com! flatterring .. eh, maybe. but, man that's definitely not what most customers are looking for.

these are just some examples. this is the stuff that motivates me. we've got big complicated set of problems to solve as an industry.

it's like i'm in college all over again

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:05:09 GMT

theme of the week: lack of sleep, actually it was last week too :)

Talking about the Windows Live Messenger campaign

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 07:11:13 GMT

Make a difference!

sanazified?

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:30:21 GMT

It's Friday and my whole team is at work cranking on specs! yeah, I have a pretty badass team..

a snippet of our conversation over pizza tonight:

Ajay says: 'oh yeah , my spec is sanazified'

Me: huh. puzzled look.

Jason and Mike: laughing and nodding in agreement.

Cristina says: 'oh yeah mine too'

Betsy says: 'wait what does that mean. is that a good thing?'

5 minutes later and a majority rule of 5 against 1 (me being the 1 - yes I'm a boss that supports democracy :) ) voted for sanaz as a verb and an adjective... we'll see if it sticks :) back to specs.

Check out collections!

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:45:46 GMT

We were working through some gallery glitches, collections approval process is now cranking and there are lots of awesome collections on gallery already!

Check out my entertainment gossip page :)

update: check out my tech fix collection

I want a pug

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:26:04 GMT

As most of my friends know I LOVE cute little dogs, especially pugs. Now my friends will also go out of their way to not let me get a dog as I'm not home all that much. Wouldn't it be cool to have one of these little ones and bring it to work! :) (courtesy of cuteoverload)

Movie List: Movie List

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:58:21 GMT

Book List: Book List

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:58:04 GMT

james frey: A Million Little Pieces
one of my all time favorite books, even if it's been partly exaggerated :)
Dan Brown: Da Vinci Code
great page turner - better than the movie :)
Arthur Golden: Memoirs of a Geisha
This novel refuses to stay shut, I read it over a weekend only putting it down when overcome with the need to sleep. Most captivating.
Elie Wiesel: Night
Elie Wiesel's terrifying memoir as a Holocaust survivor. Great read.
khaled hosseini: The Kite Runner
amazing book - must read
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
Different and engaging despite a slow start
malcolm gladwell: Tipping Point
great book to have handy... all those references to mavens, connectors, etc are from this

Custom List: my favorite sites

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:11:36 GMT

my favorite sites

Cute Overload
cutest animals, never fails to put a smile on my face no matterhow stressed I am :)
Pandora
the best custom radio station! love it, love it!
Read/Write Web
great articles about web 2.0
Valleywag
silicon valley gossip.. hilarious.
TechCrunch
latest tech news and web 2.0 stuff
YouTube
with over 35,000 videos uploaded everyday, you can find pretty much anything here.

Custom List: wishlist

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:11:36 GMT

wishlist

Book List: books

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:11:36 GMT

books

James Frey: a million little pieces
vivid and engrossing...two thumbs up
Dan Brown: da vinci code
loved it
David Allen: getting things done
in progress
Sue Monk Kidd: secret life of bees
in progress
Khaled Hosseini: the kite runner
loved this book... highly recommend it
Malcolm Gladwell: tipping point
in progress

Custom List: other

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:11:36 GMT

other

technorati profile

Blog list: Blog list

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:11:36 GMT

steve rider
start's main dev... a perfectionist yet totally laid back
kris barton
my super cool boss
scott isaacs
start.com architect - always has funny stories
mini
scoble
start.com blog
my project's team site - don't you love start :)
live.com blog
karen luk
spaces pm, shopping partner :)
trevin chow
passport guru, coffee addict
mike torres
spaces lead pm, msn/windows live fan boy :)
bubba
aka bubbar, always has something to say no matter the subject

Custom List: disclaimer

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:11:36 GMT

disclaimer

This blog consists of my personal opinions on various topics anddoes not represent my employer's views.