Let’s start with the most important item: Food.
Ø The
systems and networking (SN) group normally eats lunch together between 11:30
and noon (We are often joined for lunch by Rick Rashid, Senior Vice President
in charge of MSR. Rick likes to eat on the early side.) It’s not an
obligation. But it’s an opportunity to talk about what’s going on in the group,
Microsoft, and the world.
Ø
The SN group has a two informal reading group meetings on
Tuesdays in 112/2005. Free lunch! On alternate weeks, we have the
Network Reading Group and the Systems Reading Group. Srinivasan Venkatachary
(Cheenu) handles the mailing list for the former and Atul Adya (Adya) deals
with the latter reading group. There are 2 Outlook Folders for these reading
groups under \User Groupware\Business Functions\Microsoft Research\Systems and
Networking. The web pages are http://msrweb/sn/OSReadingGroup
and http://msrweb/sn/NetworkReadingGroup
Ø
Every third Tuesday, there are Storage Lunch meetings that are
organized by Felipe Cabrera (Cabrera). At some point, we might move the reading
groups to a different day of the week.
Ø
Every Fourth Thursday, Marvin Theimer (theimer) organizes joint
lunches between the SN and the database groups.
Ø
Richard Draves (RichDr) meets Jim Kajiya on the second Wednesday
of the month after lunch. So he needs your monthly reports from everyone (including
interns) by that morning.
Ø
We need to add something about the SN lab.
Ø Every Microsoft building has copy room (usually one per floor) that has office supplies and photocopiers, which you can use to your heart’s content. No need to ask permission.
o
If you need special office supplies that aren’t in stock in the
copy room, then borrow the catalog in the copy room, find what you want, and
email msradmin to order it. If you’re worried that the cost may be out of line,
ask your manager.
Ø
Every Microsoft building has a kitchen (usually one per floor),
with hot and cold drinks (all free), and vending machines (not free).
Ø
Every Microsoft building has a mail room (usually one per
building). Ours is on the north side of the first floor of building 112. Follow
the signs.
Ø
Every group of Microsoft buildings has a cafeteria. Ours is on
the first floor of building 112 (on the south side of the building). Check the
signs there for hours.
Ø There
is an ATM in the Building 112 Cafeteria.
Ø Microsoft
runs a (free) shuttle service between buildings. Just go downstairs, and ask
the receptionist to order you one. In bad weather, they’re popular, so leave
extra time. If it’s after hours, there should be a sign on the receptionist
desk telling whom to call.
There are four different types of campus shuttles: A, B, C, and D. Information
on shuttle service can be found at http://commute/msc_03b.html. The most
important rules are: Our buildings are part of the "West Campus."
To go between our buildings and the Main Campus, take shuttle A. To go between
our buildings and the company store, take shuttle D.
Ø
There’s an “Inter-campus” shuttle. In particular, it goes to the
Bellevue Place office in downtown Bellevue (the intersection of NE 8th
St. and Bellevue Way), which comes in handy, say, when you’re returning a
rental car to Avis and need a ride back to the main campus.
Ø
Microsoft provides a free Metro FLEXPASS, good for free
bus travel using Seattle public transportation throughout the greater Seattle
area. Ask the building receptionist to obtain your FLEXPASS.
Ø
Parking is free throughout the campus, with no special procedure
for getting a parking spot. Just avoid the spaces marked for Visitors or for
Car Pools. In building 112, the only Microsoft employee parking is underneath
the building. Do not park in the outdoor lots that are owned by our corporate
neighbors (e.g., Honeywell).
Ø
You can find people (e-mail, office address, and phone) using the
Outlook address book (on the Tools menu).
Ø
The Company Store is in Building 127. Visit there soon. They have
books, clothes, and heavily discounted software. Interns have a software budget
of $350.
Ø
Printers – They’re in the copy room. The network path to each
printer is shown on the printer. Write down the path and use
Start/Settings/Printers/AddPrinter on your machine to connect to it. There are
also printers in the hallways that you may want to use. Scanners and other
equipment available.
The main printers for our group are RESEARCH\112S2ndS and RESEARCH\112S2ndD.
These correspond to the same physical machine, but the first prints
single-sided and the second prints double-sided. The printer is located at the
south end of our wing, in the corner opposite our lounge (right in front of Richard
Draves).
Ø
The preferred method for installing applications under Windows
2000 is by Start/Settings/Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs - Add New
Programs. All Microsoft products and products for which we have a site license
should be available through this method.
Ø Help at MSR - You can send mail to the following mailing lists if you need help:
o mailto:msrsupp: Technical support
o mailto:msradmin: Administrative support
o
mailto:rwebsupp: Support for MSR web
pages
Ø
http://itgweb - ITG is the internal
systems support group. Their web page has answers to commonly asked questions
about systems problems and has pointers to software you can download. If you’re
having systems problems, you can call them for immediate assistance. Their
phone support (x65000) (often called “Help Desk”) is excellent … prompt and
expert.
Ø
http://msrweb/msrsupp, email:
msrsupp - This is the web page for Microsoft Research’s own internal systems
support group. They have software downloads that are specific to MS Research;
they can back up your machine, burn CDs, and distill Postscript to Acrobat. If
you’re having hardware problems or need equipment, these are the folks to
contact (not ITG).
Ø
http://msrweb/toybox - If you
want to check out a laptop for a few days, you can go to this site.
Ø
http://msrweb/tools - For
internal tools used for the MSR web pages, e.g., if you want to edit your
personal information for the MSR web pages, use the Me Tool.
Ø
Please, if you want to install non-Microsoft
products at work beyond those listed here, ask your supervisor. It’s quite
important that someone knowledgeable checks the license agreement of any
software before you use it ¾ especially
source code, because using non-Microsoft source code at work can
infringe on intellectual property rights.
Ø
http://products/public/Products
- All Microsoft products can be installed from these sites.
Ø
File://products/public/mmproducts
- Microsoft’s multimedia products, such as Streets&Trips 2001, Dilbert, and
Pinball.
Ø
\\sitelic
- Installation kits for some non-Microsoft products for which we have site
licenses can be found here, such as ERwin (DB design), Winzip, and AfterDark.
See also http://itgweb and click on Software
Downloads on the left pane.
Ø
You have dial-in access to the corporate network via RAS. http://itgweb/ras
Ø
http://autodl is a web site for
enrolling yourself to some of the mailing lists, e.g., you can add yourself to
Felipe Cabrera’s (Cabrera) Storage Lunches mailing list. A good way to start
out is to search for someone you know in the SN group and see his/her mailing
lists.
Ø Other software:
o Ghostscript - http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
o Adobe Acrobat – http://www.adobe.com
o Emacs – \\heckerma3\emacs or http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html
o MiKTex – a version of Tex/Latex for Windows, http://www.snafu.de/~cschenk/miktex/
o TextPad – a good text editor for Windows - http://www.textpad.com/download.html
o See http://www.zdnet.com/swlib/win95.html for a variety of Windows 95/98/NT shareware
Ø
http://msrweb - This
Microsoft-internal web site provides an overview of the Microsoft Research
division for Microsoft employees
Ø
http://www.research.microsoft.com
- This is the Microsoft Research external web site.
Ø
http://www.research.microsoft.com/sn/
- The root external web page for our SN group.
Ø
http://camweb/
- Web site for Microsoft Research at Cambridge, UK.
Ø
There is also an Outlook public folder for the SN group: \User
Groupware\Business Functions\Microsoft Research\Systems and Networking.
Ø
Microsoft likes to avoid bureaucracy. If you think it’s harder
than it should be to get a certain something done, ask someone who has been
around longer than you. There may be an easier way.
Ø
http://hrweb/intern/ -
There’s lots of useful information on this web site, which is targeted for
summer interns.
Ø
http://msweb - This is the corporate
portal to all employee-related information. It points to information about
travel, training, facilities, security, libraries, employee benefits, travel,
etc.
Ø
http://hrweb/Benefits/
- Get an MS PRIME card to get discounts on museums and many businesses. The
Employee Events category lists specials on particular events.
Ø
http://msrweb/msradmin -
This site augments http://msweb with administrative
information that’s particularly relevant to Microsoft Research, such as hotel
directions, the research library, vacation/sick reporting, and organization
chart. It’s mostly oriented toward permanent employees, but there’s a little
intern-specific information.
Ø
http://earnings This is where you
sign up for direct deposit of paychecks and expense reimbursement. It also
contains a log of your paychecks. There is a link to this page from many other
HR pages.
Ø
You can get help with the different features of your phone/voice
mail from http://itgweb/phones
Ø
The Microsoft Research Library is in 113/1041. (See also http://msrweb/msradmin and click on
Information on the left pane.) It’s locked after normal business hours. If
you’d like access outside of normal business hours, ask another member of the
research group for the lock combination.
Ø
The Microsoft Corporate Library is in building 13. Their catalog
and many periodicals are available on their web site, http://mslibrary/
Ø
Books that you need from Microsoft Press can be ordered from
//msmarket.
Ø Most product groups have internal web sites that describe their current work and product plans, have downloads of pre-release software, etc. Some useful ones for people here are:
o http://pgportal - Great source of information for different product groups
o http://sql - Information on SQL Server
o http://mscominternal/backoffice - also has information on SQL Server
o http://com – COM, COM+ (including Microsoft Transaction Server)
o
http://xmlweb
- XML-related products
Ø Microsoft offers many courses for employees. Also, many past lectures have been recorded and can be viewed on-demand. See http://mste for details. Some recordings you may be interested in:
o In the index pane on the left, look in Training/’On-line Talks and Events’. In the right pane, under ‘Title, speaker, or series’, type “ecs” (enterprise computing series). There you’ll find lectures on many database products. In particular, look for ones on Sphinx (SQL Server 7.0), Microsoft Repository, TerraServer, Plato, and COM.
o
In the index pane on the left, in Training/On-Line Courses,
you’ll find Phil’s transaction processing course.
Ø
When browsing internal web sites, you’ll see references to
projects or projects based on code names. You can find definitions for many of
those code names at http://msmuseum/codenamespull.asp
[1] If you have additions or corrections to this document, send email to Atul Adya (Adya).
This information has been adapted from a document written by Phil Bernstein (PhilBe).