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 ...

Figuring out if mail is SPAM or what words are offensive is difficult, even more difficult is the problem of avoiding false positives. Most of this I knew, but I never spent to much time on the details. While following an internal discussion I learned that there is actually a name for some of these problems - The Scunthorpe Problem. A good mix of of the problems can be found on this Wikipedia link.

btw - now I'm wondering if mentioning the Scunthrope problem will put this enrty on some blacklists, I hope people are learning from others experience (hahaha - fat chance)

Found it on slashdot ... not only was finally someone able to make use of SETI (to retrieve the wife's stolen laptop), but the wife acknowledges this with the comment: "I always knew that a geek would make a great husband" !!! .... does this mean I qualify too?

Late - but better late then never  - the SuperBowl being over, half of the discussion is about the game, the other half is about the ads during the game. If you pay $2.6Million for 30 seconds, you better show something memorable. The internet gives everyone now the ability to take a look at the ads. I don't know all the sites publishing the ads, but iFilm has the 2007 Ads here, you can also see Super Bowl Classics, the Most Popular, or the 'banned ads'.

And this years ads? Perhaps you can say, more of the usual? Car company commercial are still booooring, and go so far as destroying the advertised car (dropping it off a helicopter) or want you to feel sorry for a robot (some unemployed workers might think differently). I mean these are the memorable car commercials to me, not because they are good, but because I find them questionable...

The good commercials are not surprisingly the same as in the past: beer commercials! - the Best one perhaps by Bud? But hard to say. On the positive side, Coke finally back with solid commercial(s) (where did Pepsi go?), on the negative side SalesGenie stands out. What are they doing? Increasing sales or what? But not by advertising.

The half-time show? Prince - I don't like him too much ... but 'Purple Rain' (which I actually like) got a new meaning during a soggy half-time show. Also, the act while you saw him playing his guitar as a shadow against a huge fabric looked 'strange', not as bad as Janet last year, but if you want to be offended, you might be able to .... don't know, perhaps I'm over-analyzing ....