This stuff looked so damn good that I had to have it on my page. I don't like the pro-Google attitude, but will stick with it for a few days anyway!

Must watch:

Marc McDonald is Microsoft's first employee. Hired back in 1976. Channel 9 recently caught up with him and talked about the old days at Microsoft as well as what he's doing on the Windows Vista team (he's working on defect prevention).

Funny story. He left Microsoft in 1984 because Microsoft had gotten "too big." Microsoft's size at that point? A few hundred employees. (He came back after Microsoft bought the company he worked for).

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=111590

At least a couple of readers of this blog will find this post interesting. The March CTP of VS 2005 SDK is out and it features and end-to-end implementation of incorporating a language into the VS environment. The language chosen for this sample is Microsoft IronPython.

Check out the announcement by Somasegar at http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2006/03/10/549102.aspx

For people who have been following DSL tools, the VS SDK Feb CTP had some great additions. The release version is expected in a couple of months.

Interestingly, many of these tools also work with the Express editions. So enthusiasts can actually try this out for free.

Microsoft Research India, based out of Bangalore, has taken a great first step towards creating Virtual India - the Windows Local version of India.

To start with, there are some wonderful street-level maps of Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, with the promise of more.

It will be great to see the day when we have properly implemented driving directions in India.

It is really heartening to see the way live.com has shaped up. I had this one problem with www.live.com which was that all these gadgets would soon get unmanageable.

I always thought and also told people I know, that live.com should probably pick a lesson or two from www.oazabir.com or similar sites and provide a Windows-like interface on the browser to organize stuff into folders. Looking at the current www.live.com - I think they've done a great job. It could get better, but hey we're still in BETA. And unlike the real evil empire, we keep improving during BETA :)

Great job guys.

And by the way, have you checked out the other live.com offerings?  A virtual walk in Seattle on http://preview.local.live.com or hosting your website with http://www.officelive.com or buying and selling stuff on http://expo.live.com?

And if you wanted all of it together, there is always the all new Windows Live Toolbar (downloadable from http://ideas.live.com/) with integrated Windows Desktop Search and a lot of goodies - like MSN Money,  Phishing Filter for IE 6.0, Feed Reader, Maps,  and everything bundled in.

Also, your favs get auto saved on Windows Live Favorites, making it globally available. This is simply too good!