Ideas and Thoughts

Yesterday evening saw the 2nd ever Microsoft "CoffeeTalk", a new informal and intimate event designed at getting closer to us admins who don't have time to travel across the country to go to larger events! Exeter's QueenStreet Starbucks filled up quite nicely, and we got to meet a wide spectrum of industry attendees.

Martin Parry and Viral Tarpara presented on Sharepoint for Developers and Microsoft Sharepoint Search respectively. Despite the limited time we had, a lot of ground was covered and I now know a bit more about all of the tools and programs that are sitting unused in our Microsoft Action Pack folder! Many thanks to Viral and Martin for an information stuffed evening. And the free coffee

I hope Microsoft continue these smaller get-togethers, it's great oppertunity to demo new technologies and to see how other organisations are putting MS software to work. I'd love to see a whole host of topics such as windows server 2008, administering windows vista for business etc.

Viral used the ZoomIt presentation tool aid, something which I will be putting to use in my University presentations soon!

Grisoft has bought Exploit Prevention Labs and their software "LinkScanner", which checks the safety of websites before allowing access to them. This is going to be part of AVG's internet suite, and will also be bundled with AVG's Free Edition

I only just noticed,but the Hospital Records podcast is back to full strength, with two new releases (#46 and #47) from the Coleman himself.

I finally got Lego Star Wars for the Wii (I had to get Game to refund my pre-order, and then I purchased the game from GameStation in town) - the Wii controls don't add anything to the game, as all they do is replicate button presses! It looks pretty much the same as other games, there is a bit of slowdown in places, but it's a good timewaster.

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii is excellent. You don't need the gun attachment (i think it would probably make playing the game harder!), two player is great fun, and the graphics are simply gorgeous. Lots of people are slating it, but they don't realise that it was never intended to be anything more than an on-rails shooter.