Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an anti-piracy system, created by Microsoft, that enforces online validation of the licensing of several recent Microsoft products. Validation takes place when accessing several services, such as Windows Update and downloading Windows components from the Microsoft Download Center.

WGA consists of two components: (1) an installable component called WGA Notifications that hooks into Winlogon and validates the Windows license upon each logon and (2) a browser plugin (ActiveX control in IE) that checks the validity of the Windows license when downloading certain updates from the Microsoft Download Center or Windows Update. WGA Notifications covers Windows XP, Windows Vista and current versions of Windows 7. It does not cover other versions of the Windows NT family, such as Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or the Windows 9x family. In addition to more recent version of Windows, the ActiveX control also validates Windows 2000 Professional licenses.

Website Traffic

As of February 2010, the genuine website serves over 26 million unique visitors, and more than 41 million page views per month.

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an anti-piracy system, created by Microsoft, that enforces online validation of the licensing of several recent Microsoft products. Validation takes place when accessing several services, such as Windows Update and downloading Windows components from the Microsoft Download Center.

WGA consists of two components: (1) an installable component called WGA Notifications that hooks into Winlogon and validates the Windows license upon each logon and (2) a browser plugin (ActiveX control in IE) that checks the validity of the Windows license when downloading certain updates from the Microsoft Download Center or Windows Update. WGA Notifications covers Windows XP, Windows Vista and current versions of Windows 7. It does not cover other versions of the Windows NT family, such as Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or the Windows 9x family. In addition to more recent version of Windows, the ActiveX control also validates Windows 2000 Professional licenses.

Website Traffic

As of February 2010, the genuine website serves over 26 million unique visitors, and more than 41 million page views per month.

My experience

During my time as part of WGP, I worked with a team of developers to create the Windows 7, and Office 2010 legalization platforms. I was also responsible for maintaining the database of products and prices which were used by the website to sell legalization kits to victims of software piracy.

• Software & technologies - C#, XML/XSL transformation, ASP.NET Web Forms, WCF, JavaScript, HTML, CSS
• Browser plugins - Integrated ActiveX and plug-in controls to deliver validation results
• Maintained legalization flow - Performed maintanance and content updates to existing legalization flows
• Product catalog - Sole maintainer of internal database (and accompanying suite of tools) containing product and pricing information for selling genuine software kits to mature and emerging markets
• Localization - Integrated localized site content in 38 languages; working closely with a team of localization vendors to ensure final content was correctly translated in time for scheduled releases

Major Projects

• Testability refactoring - As part of the wind-down after the Windows 7 release, I refactored a large part of the genuine site to allow for testability. This refactoring also included developing a suite of unit tests for many parts of the genuine codebase that previously lacked test coverage.
• Windows 7 legalization and validation flow - Released February 2010.
• Office 2010 legalization and validation flow - Currently slated for release alongside Office 2010.

PayScale Inc.

PayScale, Inc. (payscale.com) is an online salary, benefits, and compensation information company which was launched on January 1, 2002. The company was founded by Joe Giordano, a former Microsoft and drugstore.com manager, and John Gaffney.

PayScale was developed to help individuals obtain accurate real-time information on job market compensation. The service works via the Internet by enabling individual employees to submit their job profile and salary data, which is then compared to others in similar fields. As millions of indivuals utilize this service each month, the company claims it is able to use the volume of information statistically to determine accurate real-time salary information.

PayScale generates revenue by selling aggregate data and web services to employers, aiding companies in determining accurate market rates for hiring, benchmarking and budgeting, and by targeting advertising to employees that visit its web site.

Website Traffic

As of February 2009, PayScale.com serves 1.2 million pages (as seen by google), over 16 million salary profiles, 2.2 million unique visitors, and more than 10 million page views per month.

My experience

During my time at PayScale, I was involved in the development of several key components, which are still in service today. I worked on several major PayScale products, including My PayScale, The Research Center, and PayScale Professional.

• Software & technologies - C#, ASP.NET Web Forms, ASMX/WCF Web Services, JavaScript, AJAX, HTML, CSS
• Dynamic charting services - Interactive charts and dynamic UI elements created from scratch with GDI+, and the dotnetCharting library
• Front-end development - Created numerous AJAX/JavaScript data driven UI elements
• Full-cycle development - Multiple projects and releases. I was involved in over 40 product development cycles in my 4 years at PayScale
• SEO optimization - Made use of SEO best practices & optimizations

Major Projects

• Yahoo HotJobs Integration - In colaboration with Yahoo Hotjobs, I developed a salary & chart service. This service takes job/location information and returns a custom chart developed from scratch using .NET's GDI+ interface. This service is still in heavy use; as of April 2010 the site averages 300 hits a minute, and has seen peak loads of over 1600 a minute.
  • See it in action - hotjobs.yahoo.com/salary 
• PayScale Insight Upload Profiles - Multi-stage import/export mapping wizard for bulk insertion/updates of external HRIS data into the PayScale system, and vice versa.
• My PayScale Application Platform - Rich & wizzy AJAX based UI powering a robust set of web services with tight integration into several core business technologies.
• E-Commerce integration - Redesign and implementation of PayScale Professional subscription model (including recurring payments) using VeriSign’s Payflow Pro web services. Customized affiliate pages which allow partners to resell PayScale products with little to no development required.