We recently had a festa in Barcelonetta and some bright spark decided to use the local telephone exchange box in the piazza as the place to attach their firework display.

The end result was a great fireworks show and the box melting, frying the cables and fusing the wires.  The end result being no telephone or internet for 80% of the community in this part of town.  The trunk for my street has just been laid and connected – so I’m back online and picking up mails at last.

I looked around and tried various VM Clients before finding one that suited my needs.  I wanted something free, actively developed and a forum that was active (there’s always teething problems).  Ideally they embraced the OVF standard for VM’s and supported the “in-development” OS’s from both MS and the Open Source Community — in the end there was only one choice – VirtualBox

One of the great things about the VirtualBox client is that it supports headless virtual machine and implements an RDP interface to them.  Allowing you to easily connect & control it from both Windows and *nix.

Just point the RDP client to the IP Address of VM Host & using the port displayed – you essentially have a console connection to it.  There’s some handy extras like clipboard and folder sharing, private networks and dynamic virtual HD’s.

Posted via web from Dasher’s Dev Den

Posted via web from Dasher’s Dev Den

Support Symfony in the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards!

Posted via web from Dasher’s Dev Den

Posted via web from Dasher’s Dev Den

via phpazure.codeplex.com

An illustration of how PHP can interop with the MS Azure cloud – interesting stuff.

Posted via web from Dasher’s Dev Den

Posted via web from Dasher’s Dev Den

I constantly find myself returning to isnoop’s parcel geotracking site when I’m impatiently waiting for a delivery – the information is far better than anything you can find from the parcel delivery companies themselves.

I often wonder if user-contributions such as this end up making the companies lazier in their service offerings.

Stumbled upon (thanks Murris) on a cool US site in the Bay Area with some groovy footwear!

Google’s webmaster tools have a handy facility to provide some detailed information about web sites and blogs that you run.  To get it working you need to verify your site using either a HTML file or modifying the meta tags – not a simple thing to archive with a hosted blog.  However tigredefogo has a handy and effective tip here!

If the reported comments by George Bush by the BBC are correct then the morals & ethics of the US government are far worse than you’d expect.

Following the departure of Wolfowitz from the World Bank due to making some “mistakes” with regard to arranging the pay package of his partner – Bush wants an “American” to head up the World Bank.  Forget about putting the best qualified candidate up for the role – as long as it’s an American – it’ll be the best qualified? 

Frankly – it’s this kind of nationalistic bias – causes the bile to rise.  Doesn’t the title of the organisation “World Bank” mean anything?  Does the informal agreement that the US appoints the leader of the World Bank and Europe appoints the leader of the IMF exclude a non-American running the World Bank?

But then maybe most Americans think America is the world…

*sigh* Maybe with the falling value of the dollar – it might be time for the US to consider adopting the Euro

After reading Robert Scoble comments on FOG & DOG I found myself wondering how far it could go.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that you might be able to ask Google ‘What Job I should do tomorrow?’ or ‘Should I work for Company Bob?’

…..taken to it’s logical conclusion then I can imagine hiring managers asking Google, ‘Should I employ Fred?’ (which if Google suggested that Fred apply to Bob, the answer would be an unequivocal ‘Yes’).  Maybe one day it’ll remove the interview from the equation!

Maybe Google could start providing pre-emptive answers to questions (saving the need to actually ask the question)….

…. after all – with the volume of information they have on you, gathered over the years, they could know you better than you know yourself….

Technorati: space odyssey

2D barcodes are a great idea for quickly getting information – such as URL’s, contact numbers, etc into the mobile.

It’s a shame more mobile phone manufacturers don’t bundle the reader with every camera phone.  If you’re looking for a software application for the Symbian S60 mobile then I’d suggest looking at UpCode and the software can be found here.  The software is very robust and works with all sorts of Data Matrix codes.

It doesn’t yet support the QR Code types – or combined symbols (such as this) – but after looking around at the other software readers out there – UpCode has the widest support for mobiles.

Kaywa have been promising support for the Symbian S60 R3 OS for a while for their application – but nothing has materialised yet.  It’s a shame – their software supports both DataMatrix and QR Codes – and it’s gone down well for those that can test it.

Here is an example of a Data Matrix code for a URL.

I’m a people watcher plain and simple.  From the age of 15 I’ve always sat on a park bench off to one side and watched how people communicate with each other; both with the words they use and with the non-verbal body language.

An interesting twist however is how people communicate when the visual clues are removed – and here the blogging world is an interesting study.

I’ve found that the words people use to say something say far more about them than people realise.  Language gives far more away about a persons emotional state, their upbringing, how they perceive their status in the eyes of their peers and what they think about themselves.

The words, and importantly the combination of words they use, shed light on their anxieties, fears, hopes and their internal mental-emotional state.  By picking up on these clues you have an insight into their inner-world.

As people get older, their perspectives change – they feel the passing of the years and as they subconsciously look back on their life.  It’s a natural process of getting older and starting to see the sprinklings of grey.

Often people try to reinvent themselves in someway – and an interesting example of this is a recent post by Scoble.  Robert is a very popular blogger who, while he was at Microsoft, helped change the way that Microsoft deal with the outside world.    Microsoft owe a large debt to his abilities and, personally, I feel that during his time there he led the revolution that brought us Microsoft 2.0.  A major upgrade on the beast that was.

With the passing of the years Robert has moved onto pastures new and appears to be trying to develop more the creative side of his talents.  Many of which you can see in the interviews he did on the MSDN Channel9 site.

The Internet – the blogging world in particular – is struggling with a thorny issue.  The issue is one of reputation.  People are inherently social animals and reputation matters.  Usually reputation has bounds and is constrained; Fred has a reputation for people a great plumber, Angelo is known for his selfless energies spent with work in the society.  This doesn’t mean that you would ask Fred his opinion on the best way to make puff-pastry.

But people look to bloggers to be experts in all domains.  Why?  Is it that blogs are seen as a social dialog or social status and as such unconsciously people see blogs as measures of success?  Do blogs and the inherent linkage between them create a ‘nepotic’ or establish a network of cronyism?

The problem with trying to reinvent yourself in the current blog environment is that your previous fan-clan will always think of you as you were when they started following you – and you’ll always be known by your 80’s hairstyle and that bright pink mini-skirt.

I've never been one for tossing and turning in bed at night.  Generally I sleep like a log – out cold for the count.

However – if I wake in the night – I get up and spend a while working which usually chases away whatever demons are lurking about in the cognos.

The past month has been a little hetic with interviews and a couple of projects I am working on – hence the poor frequency of posts on the blog – and I have been waking in the wee hours more often.  In fact I have woken more times this month than I have in the last 10 years.

Tonight I cannot sleep and there are 2 reasons:

• For some reason I am worried about our neighbours who are expecting their third child anytime soon.  Each time I wake – there is usually some activity going on next door and I check our front window that separates us from the lake and also looks down onto the road into the village.  This morning I saw their car driving into the village.  I hope all goes well – if things are hotting up for them.

As to why I am worried/anxious for them….

I have absolutely no idea.  They are great people – but we aren't particularly close.  We chat sometimes when we bump into each other – they are usually very forgiving of my Italian.  Last Christmas, Settimio, the husband came up to me in the supermarket and gave me a hug & an Italian kiss (both cheeks – no tongue) and wished me Auguri (seasons greetings) in the supermarket.  Being part English (by birth) I was surprised and a little mortified and being part Italian (by disposition) I was happy to feel part of the family.  They live in a small apartment and have 2 great kids already – we sometimes hear them running around, or coming in and out – often giggling and having fun.  Last summer they were outside with Settimio, all three sitting in their swimming trunks, throwing darts at one of the olive trees with varying degrees of accuracy.  I was a little worried about my car parked next to the olive tree….  But only a little.  A car can be fixed.  A bubble of happiness – playing in the sunshine on a summer day after a cooling swim in the lake – stays with us forever.  Even for me seeing it from the outside.

I guess what started me thinking of the above was Tforcram's post on where he and his wife are and the amazing and thought provoking Ventoletta at the Ventbox.

• The second reason that I guess is an upcoming interview at Microsoft on Friday with the VSTA/VSTO team.  The onside interview is renowned for being intense – so I've been brushing up on my knowledge and researching topics I haven't touched in a long time.  The hard bit, I guess, is that I am interviewing for an SDE and a PM role with them.  The Product Manager (PM) role I feel fits my skills/experience/apptitude better – my coding in C# – for the Software Design Engineer (SDE) role -is, as I said on the phone interview, a little rusty. 

There is a lot, and I mean a LOT, of info out on the Internet on various websites, Wikis and blogs from people who have been through the Microsoft interview process.  I'm compiling a list of the resources I found most useful and I'll publish something once I have docked with the mothership.  The most helpful so far are:

• Tyler - A top to bottom writeup of the how/why/where and when
• Sellsbrothers
• Youngpup
• TechInterview
• The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing

I've also discovered the Safari bookshelf by O'Reily – a great resource of current and past books on a whole bunch of topics.  Great for swotting on topics you haven't touched in a while – or for just keeping yourself fresh with tech and tech thinking.

Finally – I stumbled over a couple of things over the past week that have been helpful. 

The first is OneNote from Microsoft – a superb app for taking and making notes.  It's been a big help in keeping the paper trail to a minimum.  It's web savvy – so you keep all your references when pasting from websites when you need to supplement your own notes.  It's a little quirky in places with some of the functionality not being intuitive but stick with it and you'll find yourself using it all the time.  It's so easy to use and incredibly useful.

The second is a quote that I found on Joel'swebsite that I think is relevant to those in the IT environment:

Thomas C. Gale, the famous Chrysler automobile designer who retired in 2001, meant when he said that "Good design adds value faster than it adds cost."

Having a tough day? A collegue pushing you over the edge?

Take a break and read the inspiring and strangely relaxing Ventbox.

Not only is she a superb writer – each post looks superb.  I’ve been a fan for a while and when the day is grey and my mood is in the bowls of the earth – I feel strangely uplifted.

Keep it up Ventoletta! You keep us all sane.

A friend stumbled over Paint.Net and sent me the link. 

Simply: WOW!

Includes x64 support!

Does anybody know if it’s possible with the Hosted WordPress blog (on WordPress.com) to an image thumbnail in the RSS feed?

An echo,

     or a play on words.

          To be chisled out of butter.

          A butterfly can change the world,

     a hatter,

or a nutter?

I’m vain,

     you claim.

As I stop and stare,

          at my hair.

But all I really do,

               when I stop,

Is make sure my hair,

                    is still there.