The super-high resolution shots that Google were taking of Sydney this Australia day are now online on Google Maps:

Queenscliff Bay, Shark Bay, Bondi Beach, Manly Beach, Luna Park, North Bondi, A Helicopter, Tall Ship, Fort Denison, Circular Quay.

Unfortunately they couldn’t get photos of everywhere they wanted due to air traffic control restrictions, and some people aren’t happy with the results.  Because they plane either couldn’t go where it was going to, or got there later there probably won’t be as much of the deliberate showing off that was expected. Although there is some.

Dell computers launched Dell IdeaStorm, a forum where you can suggest improvements to the Dell product line and vote on other’s suggestions.  There’s no real surprise about what the top five suggestions are:

1. Pre-Installed Linux | Ubuntu | Fedora | OpenSUSE | Multi-Boot
2. Pre-Installed OpenOffice | alternative to MS Works & MS Office
3. linux laptop
4. NO EXTRA SOFTWARE OPTION (clean Vista install)
5. Have Firefox pre-installed as default browser

These are the same things that people have been asking Dell to do for ages, and it looks like this time they may actually be listening.  The question on my mind is: Does this have anything to do with the departure of Kevin Rollins.  If Dell is now going to embrace their customer base rather than just putting them through Hell they may be able to restore some of the shine to their reputation in the tech marketplace.

The latest xkcd, Color Codes funny as always.  But the number there is the TMBG Dial-A-Song number.  Gotta love it. 

Also, did you know TMBG are releasing a kid’s book called “Bed Bed Bed” and they’ve also got a new kid’s CD/DVD called “Here come the ABCs“.  Must get these ones for my kids! There’s also their earlier kids album “No!“, such a great name for a children’s album.

Amazon links:

• Here Come the ABCs
• Bed, Bed, Bed
• No!

I haven’t really had much time to post anything this week, we’re moving house this weekend, so we’ve been madly packing. That’s alo why this post is a day late, my telco hasn’t sorted out my new phone line and ADSL connection yet.
Fortunately there’s plenty of other people out there with time on their hands…

Blogging

• Aaron Brazell at Technosailor has canceled the sale of his blog & he’s posted what he learned from the experience

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Pneumothorax is a word that is long.
They’re just trying to put the punk back into punctured lung

Kaiser Chiefs – Saturday Night

<p><em>There is embedded content here that you cannot see. Please <a href="http://blog.slaven.net.au/archives/2007/02/21/bizarre-lyrics-473-kaiser-chiefs-saturday-night/">open the post in a web browser</a> to see this.</em></p>

(This is the first in what will be a weekly wrap-up)

Development

• Mads Kristensen reckons ASP.NET is too easy - Just consider the consequences before taking the easy way. My advice is to throw away the designer and start writing code
• The infinitely useful Sysinternals applications has been released in a single download zip file. A full list of what’s included and what they do is available here.
• On the subject of lists, SQL Server Code,Tips and Tricks, Performance Tuning has a list of Ten SQL Server Functions That You Hardly Use But Should and Mike Woodring has a huge amount .NET sample code for pretty much anything you can think of
• Joe White is running a 31 day series on ReSharper.

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