Inspired by this article at Read/Write Web, I decided to make a search engine out of one of my bookmark collections. Discover Semantic searches about 70 sites dealing with the semantic web (aka "web 3.0"). It covers W3 recommendations, specifications, tools, tutorials, and dozens of blogs about semweb.

If nothing else, it was interesting to see what can be done with the CSEs. I also used Microsoft Expression Web 2 Beta for the coding. Unlike the first version of Expression Web, this one's got PHP intellisense (language library and code completion) and the built-in web server can run PHP. It's a lot faster than Eclipse, which really doesn't like the size of my Symfony projects these days.

As did the other 1.2 million early adopters of the Zune.
First-Gen Zune Getting All The New Features: This is How You Treat Your Customers
Hands On with Zune 2
Microsoft beefs up Zune music and community experience
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Can't say I got much actual work done this weekend. I spent too much of it working on replacing my monitor and trying to build a media center PC to turn the old one into a nice TV.


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I'm making the decision now before thinking about it wastes any more of my time. Indecision and anxiety takes a huge mental toll on me — it always has. I prefer to be sure about the future and have as little on my mind as possible. That drives many of the decisions I make, and my passion for automating my business. Given the revenues flowing through this year, I don't feel like I'm stretching calling it a business anymore. Awio Web Services LLC is not a hobby. And that's one of the reasons I don't want to work for Microsoft after I graduate. I know I have family and friends reading this that might disagree with that decision, so I'll explain my reasons more fully. Continued »

I spend more time writing on forums than on this blog, so I'm going to start sharing the more interesting threads I participate in here as well.

WebDesignofMaine: Google is number 1. I think Google is going to take over the world. Think about where we are as a civilization, the information age, and who ever can controls that information will have a lot of power. Wikipedia is a major contender since it's more of any organized database of information than Google. But Google is striving for domination by developing so many tools that you won't need to use any other service, and how much does it cost again? Oh it's free right now. Microsoft will put up a struggle with it's massive amount of assets, but seriously, who likes them anymore?

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My team at Microsoft celebrated the end of the fiscal year with a trip to a lodge on Snoqualmie Falls. Three limos arrived at the office to pick us up in the morning for a drive through mountain scenery to the lodge on top of the falls. There, we had a 5-course brunch, followed by a walk to an observation deck overlooking the falls. I ordered a camera from woot.com last week but it isn't here yet, so these are from my cell phone. Photo set at flickr.

W3Counter.com's global stats report was recently featured on Digg.com, the community-driven link sharing site. It isn't the first time W3Counter's been voted to the top as Digg's users are passionate about technology and love to know what everyone else is using — what browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions — the exact stats W3Counter reports on. Continued »

Microsoft's MIX07 conference has stirred up the web development world with demos of Silverlight, a new platform for rich internet applications. Code-named WPF/e (Windows Presentation Foundation/everywhere), Silverlight brings the full power of WPF to browsers and eventually Xbox and mobile devices. On the surface, it's much like Flash, distributed as a small browser plugin and providing an interactive, vector-based, event-driven platform for the web based on XAML. Continued »

I somehow stumbled into a blog debate of Vista DRM today which led me to A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, a lengthy but extremely interesting look into the world of Vista's content protection measures. The author, security researcher Peter Gutmann, sums up the document as follows:

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.

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Attorney and activist Jack Thompson yesterday wrote a letter to Bill Gates blaming him for the Virginia Tech shootings. Thompson claims that Cho Seung Hui was trained to enjoy violent killing by playing Counterstrike, which he claims Microsoft developed.

Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill.

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