Our sister-organization, the CMIC (Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center) published its first newsletter, good info and overview about the work happening in that research lab. (Here)

There is a fun, educational and entertaining series of videos (5 videos) with Robert Krulwich on the NPR web site, focused around 'Carbon', the 'magic' behind the carbon molecule, and the impact carbon has on global warming. Highly recommended, and you can check it our by clicking here.

Here at the EMIC a colleague wrote a very cool utility to check and manage the content of you certificate store.... If you ever wanted to figure out what certificate is where (or just check how many certificates are 'hidden' on your machine), check out this tool (here).

Number 23 was an entertaining movie, Joel Schuhmacher created an interesting movie with enough suspense, and Jim Carrey was able to carry the story very well, much better then I would have thought. Unfortunately I seem to be the minority here... but I don't care.... The movie was released in the US on 23 - Feb - 2007, not a bad timing if you look at the title of the movie.... How can you do not the same for the DVD release, no, it is released on 24 _ july - 2007 .... what is the point in that??!

There is an 'unrated' edition of the movie at Amazon. I wonder how this is different from the version shown in the theatre....

It has been very quiet on this blog for the last few month, don't know, but I just couldn't find the energy and excitement to post. Now this - makes me very excited. A colleague mentioned my excellent results in the XBox360 game GuitarHero2. I was a little bit surprised when he told me that I'm the number 39 in the world wide ranking! As a proof:

Unfortunately there is no reason for me having this standing. I'm a mediocre player at best, in all honesty, I have no idea how anyone could reach a career score of 2Billion in the game. The most simple explanation - a bug in the game. I'm sure the 'live' folks are going to fix it soon, and I will be near the bottom of the pile again ...

still, nice to see to have reached #39 of 540470 participants.

Looks like Virtual Earth updated imaging in Germany (as usual this seems to be an ongoing process and new areas/pictures are coming online all the time). The offices of the European Microsoft Innovation Center can be seen here, we occupy the top floor in the strange shaped building at the corner of the street.

Just learned that our neighbor has started his own event organization company. I'm sure he does an excelltent job doing so, check his offering out here.

This is really 'neat' - in the US you can create your own postage stamps with your own pictures, check it out here. A nice personal touch on Thank-You letters etc. Cool business idea IMHO

Couple of days ago I watched 300, for those living under a rock: the movie is based on the comic by Frank Miller (yeah, the same one who did the Sin City comics) which rendered the Battle of Thermopylae in a comparable short graphic novel. From my perspective this one gets 'two thumbs up', the story is not the most complex and exciting (honestly - there is just not too much story hidden in the novel), but the distinctive visual style of the novel is transferred brilliantly in the movie. It looks brilliant, and although the story is thin: it is 'entertaining', but be warned, not for the faint of heart - lots of blood and violence. If you can stand that, see it in a good theatre, don't wait for the DVD.

Sidebar gadget are often 'useless', as are many of the gadgets for other technologies (Mac, Google, Yahoo, et.al are included in this evaluation). I'm not saying there are not some useful once, but how many clocks, battery displays, and picture viewers do you need?

Anyway, I installed a very good one ;-) The "Calvin 'n' Hobbes" gadget, and I promised to myself I won't use it more than once a day ... otherwise I would spent all day just readin Calvin 'n' Hobbes comics. While on the topic: get the Complete Calvin and Hobbes Box Set, it looks great, very well done, and gets you all Calvin & Hobbes available. I got it as a gift from my wife and kids past Christmas - priceless!

Weeks ago, the iPhone has been the big news - oh, I'm talking about the Apple iPhone, not a product by Cisco or so ... but to keep going on the story: it looks nice, perhaps it will also work well. I don't think it is or will be the best phone on the market, or the most bang for your $ or Euro, but it is a version-1 product, and I'm sure Apple will not stay still and future versions will improve.

In line with my thoughts, a comic in the style of the Apple commercials ...