The Game Developer's Conference is always an interesting even with lots of cool news for game geeks to get all anticipatory over.

Microsoft's released some screen caps showing off the user interface for the next-generation XBOX Guide - an entertainment gateway for users. The also describe the future XBOX experience: "games, friends, music, and more."

The sample images and more info are available here.

You can also listen to the keynote address by Microsoft's J Allard, in which he speaks about the next-gen XBOX:

• J Allard Keynote video in WMV Format
• Keynote demonstration video in WMV Format
• J Allard Keynote In MP3 Format
• J Allard Keynote In WMA Format

(found via Engadget)

Note: I am posting this entry because readers of this weblog might be interested in the job openings mentioned here. This post is my own, and is not a communication by or for my employer. I am just trying to make people aware of some opportunities that I happen to know about.

Any talented software developers out there?

The company I work for, Corillian, is hiring right now. Among the jobs being recruited at the time of this posting are two for which I have some sort of responsibility: A software development engineer with ASP.NET experience in the Security department; and a developer with experience working with and programming on SharePoint 2003 to work in the corporate IT department.

Corillian's a cool company to work at, and both positions are good opportunities (I think) for people interested in either of these work areas.

So, if you know anyone who might fit the bill (talented SharePoint programmers or experienced development engineers wanting to work on building some really cool Internet security products), drop me a line right quick and I will make sure resumes and letters get routed appropriately. See the "Contact" section in the sidebar to reach me, or apply through the web site. Details about each position are available on the Corillian web site, as well.

By the way - There are even more cool jobs open at the company right now for QA people, sales execs, project managers, system administrators and technical account managers - So if you're in the Portland area and any of those catch your eye, you might want to check them out.

Looks like BitTorrent v4 has been released. New clients for Windows, Mac and Linux.

From the release notes:

2005-03-07: 4.0.0 is now available.
Changes since the last stable release:

• All new queue-based user interface
• Many options are now modifiable from the interface, including upload rate
• Lots of other interface improvements
• Extra stats are visible, for those who like it
• Remembers what it was doing across restarts
• New .torrent maker "btmaketorrentgui" replaces "btcompletedir"
• Better performance, as always
• License has changed to the BitTorrent Open Source License
• Torrent fields are correctly created and interpreted as utf8
• Too many little things to list

A few technical notes, for those interested:

• Single port: launchmany can seed and client can download many files from a single port and thread
• Interface now uses GTK instead of wxWidgets
• BitTorrent packets are marked as bulk data to make traffic shaping easier

I was driving home from work today, crossed over Cornelius Pass Road and onto Highway 30. As I drove down the road I caught a glimpse of Mt. St. Helens, with what looked to be a standard-fare steam plume, typical of what one sees popping over the crater these days, coming out of it. The mountain dropped out of view behind some trees as I drove, and when I rounded a corner and saw it again a few minutes later, I noticed the plume was growing. Within a couple of minutes the plume was thousands of feet in the air. Huge. Pretty amazing really.

Anyhow, for what it's worth, here is my not-so-scientific observation...

First of all, the white cloud looked to be mostly a whole lot of steam. Some darker material appeared to be dropping over to the east of the mountain from the cloud, but honestly it's hard to tell shadows from falling material. The National Weather Service issued an ash-fall warning for that area.

(Photos from KGW and USGS)

It looked like a bomb hit for a while, a big bulb of a cloud rising straight up from the crater. Then the wind started to push it to the east, and eventually it dropped and started to dissipate.

In my super-geek analysis, I can tell you that this was probably the new dome area involved, rather than the old dome. No surprise there. Why do I say that? Easy. It's a complete guesstimate...

Here is the new dome's seismograph, going offline first (click for large image):

...and here is the old dome's seismograph, knocked offline later than the new dome equipment:

Pretty amazing sight this evening. Unfortunately, I didn't have my good camera with me, but others have done plenty to photograph it.

UPDATE: USGS web site details and images on March 8 eruption.

Via HineSight: On Nightline this evening, the subject matter will be blogs and bloggers and blogging.

Is it just a fad? Is it simply a medium? Is it a revolution? Is it nothing, really? It all depends who you ask. It will be interesting to see what Nightline's take is...

Tonight's piece is a fascinating one. Turns out that as John and producer Elissa Rubin were conducting interviews with bloggers, they were being blogged. The bloggers had some interesting opinions, to say the least. And as this program airs (and this e-mail is read by viewers), there's no doubt that bloggers will blog about it...

Umm, yeah. Heh.

So what are blogs? Turns out that although 8 million have created blogs, 62 percent of Americans who use the Internet don't know what a blog is. That's according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And in an age where blogs are fundamentally changing the nature of news, we thought we'd tell you the story about the beast of blogging...

Check your local ABC affiliate's listings, but it's probably right after your late news.

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2005/03/blogging_focus_.html

I'm always up for a good laugh, and today a coworker showed me a fun web site called Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator, where you can generate visual renditions of your own twisted Windows error messages.

Get a little creative with this stuff and you'll quickly find yourself participating in email threads with friends, trying to best each other in the geek-humor department.