Microsoft today announced and released (in an apparently closed beta) Soapbox, their new service aimed at the YouTube crowd. Word is it will allow you to upload your videos, up to 100MB, for sharing with others. Works with Windows Media player or Flash embedded in the web page. You can get on the waiting list for a beta account via a link on the Soapbox site.

This should be interesting to watch. From the site:

"Soon you’ll be able to upload your own videos, watch those made by other contributors, post comments on what you’ve seen, and much more."

I sure hope I can subscribe to feeds there. That would be a terrible boat to miss. We'll see soon enough.

Update: I was able to get the refresh installed - see below...

I've been running the various betas of Office 2007 for many months now, and the other day Microsoft released their Office 2007 Beta Two Technical Refresh. I ran across installation failures when I tried to install it, and the error that comes up when the installation fails was slightly less than helpful:

So I started looking around for any bright ideas. I found the below KB article (which is apparently the one that is supposed to be referenced in the above dialog box, according to the release notes - oh and by the way, don't even try to view it in Firefox Beta 2, use IE if you want to be able to read all of it, sheez):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923718/en-us

I tried all the suggestions in there, to no avail. And now my Office programs have some horribly broken ribbon and menu bars. Uh oh.

Any ideas? I am going to try a reboot and maybe one more installation try, and then it's off to the newsgroups I go...

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Update:

I ended up having to uninstall the entire Office 2007 suite, reinstall it, and then run the Beta 2 TR updater. Once I did that all was fine. Now I am up and running on the latest and greatest. Performance in Outlook is improved, and some menu items and buttons have been moved around in ways that make good sense. All the Office programs seem snappier and cleaner. PowerPoint is so much better performing in this version it's back to being usable again (the last version was a freakin' dog).

Corillian - the company I work for - is hiring. We have a number of positions open across the country, in a variety of locations.

Right now I have one opening in the Security Solutions business (for an experienced software QA engineer), plus all around the company there are a variety of interesting positions and opportunities. As of the time of this post, positions are available in offices located in Portland, Oregon as well as Omaha, New York City and Reston, Virginia. Current jobs include positions in software development, test, product management, support, customer management, database administration and systems administration.

You can check out all the current openings at the Corillian web site job search page. If you find something you like, let me know and I will be glad to discuss the position in my section, or to tell you more about the company. My email and mobile phone numbers are on this blog's web page, over at the right. Don't be shy - I'll be glad to hear from you.

I drove home from work this evening and it dawned on me that the entire day I was somewhat disconnected, and by the end of the day I was feeling impatient, randomly angry and very, very tired. Earlier in the day, as I drove in to the office, I listened to the radio and felt again that sick, angry, desperate feeling I remember feeling on and after September 11, 2001.

This evening I found and read a set of powerful blog entries from someone named Andy, who was there - a couple blocks away at work that morning - when the first airplane hit the World trade Center. He describes what happened in detail, from the time the first tower was hit to several days later.

"I've got to admit that as I wandered uptown I was dazed - I just wandered in between cars, in the middle of the street, staring into car windows as they stared back at us - the witnesses - stream by them. I wondered if they could see in my eyes what I had been seeing."

Reading Andy's posts brings me back to what happened that day. It's important to remember what happened, who it hurt, and how it continues to affect us and others today. If you don't read anything else, brace yourself and read his posts and remember...

"I hope that when this is all over New Yorkers can remember the way that they came together and united in the face of tragedy. The people I have met on the street, in the stores, everywhere, have risen to a level of compassion and decency that no-one would expect from a New Yorker. People have been demonstrating their better sides, putting their personal concerns on the backburner in order to reach out to those in need. And its possibly the only glimmer of hope in this horrible situation.

"And I would never have thought I would say this sort of thing, but God bless all the rescue workers, firefighters, policemen and everyone else. Prayers and thoughts to the victims and survivors."

Many New York City bloggers have written about their September 11th thoughts and experiences over time. You can read some of their accounts at the NYC Bloggers site.

Reports are that BMW is testing a production 7-series that runs on either gasoline or hydrogen. They've been doing tests on vehicle designs that can run on water and the sun for power since the 1970's, and they set a bunch of hydrogen-powered vehicle speed records in recent years, as well (in a silly looking car). But more recently BMW has said that their hydrogen combustion engine powered vehicle (read: no fuel cells and no emissions) would be available by 2008. Looks like they might deliver on that promise.

Lots of manufacturers are working on various designs. There are also companies working to let you retrofit your existing gasoline vehicles.

(Image from AutoExpress - dick the pic for original)

via leftlanenews

My friend Matt posted a terrific entry on his blog a few days ago with a great script diagram you can use whenever you get that inevitable call from a telemarketer during dinner.

Behold the Telemarketer counter-script. As soon as the person on the other end of the line asks you to purchase whatever wonderful time saving, life enhancing, sex enriching product they are selling, just start with this script and you will have them running for a Taco Bell application in no time!

Great find. Check it out.