Microsoft Build 2023 TL;DR

1. Bing Integration with ChatGPT: Bing has been integrated into ChatGPT as the default search engine, allowing for real-time queries with up-to-date results, fresh content, and citations. Users can directly access webpages sourced by Bing from these results.
2. Plugins in Bing and ChatGPT: The presentation announced a new interoperability feature between ChatGPT and Bing for plugins. The same plugins can now be used in both platforms, and an example was given of using Zillow and Instacart plugins to search for houses and create a shopping list.
3. Edge Browser and Bing Chat: The Edge browser now supports Bing Chat, allowing it to pull information, like ingredients from a recipe on a webpage, and generate a shopping list using the Instacart plugin.
4. Windows Copilot: A new feature called Windows Copilot was introduced. This tool gives users suggestions to increase productivity and enhance user experience on a PC. The tool allows users to adjust system settings, switch to focus or dark mode, and manage window arrangement with one click. It can also invoke plugins, such as playing a playlist from Spotify.
5. Microsoft Fabric: Microsoft announced a unified data analytics platform called Microsoft Fabric. It combines compute and storage, integrates the full analytics stack product experiences, unifies governance with analytics, and brings a unified business model across all analytics workloads. The platform includes OneLake, a SaaS data lake that stores data in an open format for diverse use cases like training machine learning models, visualizing data, and running SQL queries. The unified experience provides data professionals with all the tools they need.

Becky got me the ultrawide monitor as a holiday gift. It was a complete surprise. She noticed my 3 monitor setup and my love of clean aesthetics at my workstation and decided to get me one. It is a thing of beauty and it leads you down a path. You start living the ultrawide monitor life. You carry yourself differently. Your friends all notice the difference. You join new online communities. And, you try to overcome some of the challenges that you may face going in this direction. Here I will share my journey. Maybe this will help you decide to go down this path or help you. Let me know if you have any tips and tricks that you have learned.

PowerPoint

I am going to start with the worst part of owning a single ultrawide monitor. PowerPoint has no idea how to use the screen. You are either forced to go full screen or to use windowed mode. If you share a presentation on a Microsoft Teams or Zoom meeting, you can’t just share the whole screen. Your screen will look really strange to all of the normal width dunces out there. Your best bet is to present in windowed mode. You lose the ability to see your presentation notes, but at least the presentation works for online meetings.

Join an Online Community

Join r/ultrawidemasterrace on Reddit. This is a community of users who get it. We are better than normal width monitor users. But, really, this online community is about sharing tips and tricks, issues, wallpapers, photos of our setups, memes, and cryptocurrency advice. Some people take this stuff seriously. Not me. I don’t have a problem. I can stop anytime.

Wallpapers

Desktop backgrounds and screensavers just don’t look right all stretched out. The only solution is to look for ultrawide wallpapers. I like to browser r/WidescreenWallpaper and Google Image Search. Find a wallpaper that fits your screen resolution. It will just look a lot better.

Games

You are going to love gaming on an ultrawide monitor. Some games take full advantage of the extra pixels on the side. The game will feel immersive as more of your peripheral vision has something to process. Not all games support ultrawide monitors. There is a Steam community that tracks ultrawide support. Research the game you want to play first to make sure you can take advantage of your ultrawide screen. You deserve it now that you are living the ultrawide monitor life. My favorite game so far for my ultrawide is The Outer Worlds.

Window Management

The last piece of advice that I have for you on your ultrawide journey is around window management on a Windows PC. When you have a multimonitor setup, you don’t have to think too much about this. The separate monitors help you manage the windows. With one monitor giant monitor, you have to plan out how you are going to use the real estate. I use some paid software called DisplayFusion. There is a trial to see if works for you, but I get a lot of value out of this utility. I use DisplayFusion to split my monitor into three areas. Windows now snap into their place without always wanting to go full width. The windows will remember where they were placed so you can get reliable window management. I also use DisplayFusion to create some virtual Windows taskbars. I think that it is ridiculous to have a 49″ long taskbar running at the bottom of the monitor. I snap mine to the right side. Then, I use DisplayFusion to put a second taskbar on the left. These virtual taskbars will show the apps that are in those virtual monitor areas so you don’t have to chase down where your apps are anchored on the taskbar.

Godspeed on your journey. Let me know if any of this helps you or if you have anything to share. I am always looking for ways to enhance my already awesome ultrawide lifestyle.

My super simple solution for tracking server disk space is to use Windows PowerShell and ThingSpeak. I went to the trouble of releasing the code to GitHub so that you can try this out for yourself. This can be used on any Windows Server as long as you can execute PowerShell scripts. ThingSpeak gives you a place to store data from anything. In this case, I am sending my disk-free space to ThingSpeak once per day by scheduling a Windows Task.

Check out the open-source code on GitHub!

Chris Hernandez of Microsoft posted on his blog, “One of the main goals with Windows 7 in general has been to be better than Vista.” Chris’ quote scares me. Being better than Vista is not what I am looking for. I want an OS that makes me want to upgrade from XP. XP has served me well and I want a clear upgrade path. What are the killer new features? What makes Win7 an “upgrade”?

I have been using Windows 7 on my laptop for a few months. I do like some UI improvements, but compared to XP it misses the mark. Compared to Vista, Win7 is better. Although, Win7 requires pretty good hardware to install where XP is able to install on my pieced together machines with parts 8-10 years old in some cases. I hope by the time Windows 7 is on the shelf, someone figures out that we are not looking for an upgrade from Vista, we are looking for a real upgrade to XP.

The new version of Wireshark includes more protocols that it will decode, supports 64-bit Windows, and has GeoIP integrated support. Also, Wireshark works perfectly with my passive network cable. Visit www.wireshark.org to download the latest version and learn more about it.

“Clearblue” has released a digital version of their pregnancy tester. My girlfriend, completely fictional to make a point, and I was discussing the ramifications of a digital pregnancy test. One day the test will be dependent on an Operating System to drive the user interface. It might even have Windows on it.

In your critical moment, of whether you will be with a child or have more time to yourself – unshackled by a disappointing version of yourself, the pregnancy tester will crash giving you an ambiguous result.

Take a glimpse of the future. You have been warned.