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I went to the Microsoft Innovate day for ISV (independent software vendors) yesterday.

We had a great look at a number of key new technologies in the web and application space.

Specifically, Silverlight, Azure, Expression Blend, Windows 7 and the whole concept of cloud computing.

One of the awesome new things in Windows 7 is the ability to add a VHD as a volume, and make it bootable. It will boot with only a very tiny overhead, making VHDs that require lots of RAM accessible on machines that couldn’t previously handle them. Awesome! That’s the killer app for me, but there’s also lots of eye candy – and very useful eye  candy too, the use of vector graphics makes scrolling and zooming way faster and much better. Search goes another notch higher from the already awesome offering inside Vista. Search is one of the killer apps for Vista over XP by the way.

I was able to network with the boys from Microsoft afterwards, having a drink and a chat with these fine people, Christian Longstaff, Michael Kordahi, Andrew Coates, and Doug, Joel, Bronwen and John. Was a great day – full of learning, humour and general passion for the technology and software being developed with one great purpose, to help people. And I scored 2 free t-shirts!

Here’s some pics.

And Angus Logan poked his head in but went and hid in a cubicle.

PayPal can be used to send and receive payments online. Once you sign up for PayPal, you can send money to anyone with an email address or mobile phone.

You can use money from your PayPal balance or from another payment method of your choice, such as bank account, credit or debit card.

Recipients are then notified by email that they have received a payment from you. Simple.

What are the benefits of using PayPal?

It's trusted
PayPal is a leading online payment provider that offers fast, easy and secure payment.

It's easy
PayPal enables virtually anyone with an email address or mobile phone to send and receive money in real time.

It's preferred
PayPal is the most preferred way to pay online, supported by Australian online shoppers.*

It's private
PayPal never shares your financial details with sellers or online stores.

It's convenient
You can add bank, credit or debit card or use your PayPal balance to pay for any purchase, you choose.
*Source: Nielsen Consumer Report 2H 2007 and 1H 2008.

The text for this article was taken from an email sent to me by PayPal. I receive no affiliate payments or commissions from PayPal and received nothing for posting this article. This is simply an explanation for you.

Time to unload the browser again. And I have some great stuff for you all this week. Starting with some geek humour as well as some new toys and news.

Geeks are Sexy post a YouTube video of the Big Bang Theory and Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, their use of the extended version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Check it out!

HP has suddenly become an Excel Tips website! These three pages were linked in their last newsletter.

• Go chart crazy with Excel 2007
• Excel tip: make printing easier
• Excel tip: Data entry made easy with AutoFill

Some great news on the Windows Live front.

First of all A note about Hotmail, SkyDrive and Photos storage space from LiveSide advising that there is now a massive 50GB o free space online available to you as follows:

I have had all sorts of problems getting the 8GB of DDR3 RAM  to run in my new Striker II Extreme board. In fact getting the board o run at all has not been easy

It started with CPU INIT errors, and the progressed to BSOD once I got it to POST to BIOS (though couldn’t even get that to happen consistently) and then i started getting CODE INIT errors ( a code that doesn’t even exist in the manual). I gave up and took it back to the shop and they have replaced the board and are attempting to get a stably running system for me. Beyond this blokes skill level! When you read some of these forums below you will se why. So if you have come here looking for answers tot he Asus Striker 2 Extreme Motherboard CPU INIT or CODE INIT errors then read through all these forum links below.

Picture Credit AnandTech Review