Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express (Beta) Now Available

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express (Beta) is now available for download. Have a nice trial

Finally the schedule of Microsoft International Recruiting Trips

Priya Priyadarshini of Microsoft JobsBlog has published a post with the schedule of Microsoft International Recruiting Trips for the rest 0f 2006. I am so happy that this finally happened because I was one of the people who asked for that and this reminds me of the time I was desperately waiting for any news about Microsoft recruiting trips to Egypt before I get the Offer. I hope that this post be a periodical post say every quarter in order to keep the link alive with the international candidates.

Pluto’s no longer a planet

They finally took that decision, Pluto is no longer a planet and the solar system consists of only 8 planets.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14489259/
The main reason for that is the size of Pluto and its moon Charon because they are part of a sea of other objects that occupy the same region of space.

When will the text books get updated to reflect that?

JobsBlog: Are you really looking for a new job?

Jim Stroud of the Microsoft JobsBlog Team published a post that shows the state of many job seekers. http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/2006/08/23/715386.aspx

Many people stop at complaining about their jobs without trying to do any change in their skills or seriously search for a better opportunity. I say to them all please stop being miserables and try to make a difference. No one will care to make your life better more than you.

Jobsblog contains a lot of information about jobs specially at Microsoft. I also recomment Jobsyntax which is operated by two ex Microsoft recruiters who established jobsblog at the first place.

Windows Live Writer and New Blogger Beta

I have upgraded my blogger account to use the new beta service announced by google http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/08/new-blogger.html.
The new service has many new features and use Google Account for login. When I tried publishing to my blog using Windows Live Writer I do not see my posts on the blog or even on the list of posts under blogger settings. I tried re creating the account in Windows Live Writer but it failed to log using Gmail Account username and password and when I used my old blogger login it could not download the blog style and any new posts are not published although when I use the open feature I find the un plublished posts existing.

XNA Game Studio Express

Today many tech-news sites are talking about the new XNA Game Studio Express which is a new tool based on Visual C# Express 2005. You can get more details from:

http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/gamestudio/

I have worked on 4 game related development projects and I really understand how difficult is it to produce a game specially with the variety of tools and technologies available. The real difficulty in Games Development is not in the software development but in the integrated services such as graphics, modeling, music and testing.

I am looking forward to using that tool and who knows may be I would blog some day about my new XNA Game

How can spam harm us? one answer is Session fixation

It seems that installing Windows Live Writer will encourage me to blog more often :-).

I always hear the question how can spam harm us in addition to increasing our email review headache? I came across a security issue that involves phishing spam using what is called Session fixation Security Watch: Session fixation - CNET reviews.

You can read more about phishing through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing and always remember to use spam and phishing filters and not to open any URL sent to you from someone you do not trust.

Windows Live Writer

Today I have installed a new tool from Microsoft which is Windows Live Writer I am using it now to compose this post. I am a big fan of using desktop applications and this blog writer seems really nice.

Wasted Work Time

Today I came across the following article that talks about the wasted work Time in U.S.
http://www.salary.com/careers/layoutscripts/crel_display.asp?tab=cre&cat=nocat&ser=Ser414&part=Par632
How much time do we waste here in Egypt?