Microsoft Robotics Studio is the excuse I have been waiting for to buy a robotics kit. I am particularly tempted by the Lego NXT as I have the added excuse of playing Lego with the kids :-) It is too warm in Milano these days to stay inside and work have fun with robotics but I am looking forward to having some fun this autumn. The Community Technical Preview comes with with samples and tutorials and can be used to develop applications on different hardware. The Microsoft Robotics Studio Simulation Engine lets you play around without having a physical robot. Microsoft Robotics Studio offers: A scalable, extensible runtime architecture that can span a wide variety ...

I am not a fan of Microsoft Certifications but the new Microsoft Certified Architect program looks promising: The Microsoft Certified Architect Program will validate top industry experts in Information Technology Architecture. These professionals will likely have 10 or more years of experience in Information Technology with at least three years of experience as a practicing architect, and will possess strong technical and leadership skills and form a distinguished community. Unlike other Information Technology certifications, this credential will be granted by industry architects, as candidates will be required to present to and be approved through a rigorous review ...

I recently came across this exception on a couple of java systems that use many threads java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread. The strange thing was that the JVM had been assigned a lot of memory (1.5GB) and that it had at least half the memory available. Michele found this article that points out that the more memory you give to the JVM the more likely you are to get java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread exceptions when you have many threads. Which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Each 32 bit process on Windows has 2GB "available" memory as 2GB is reserved to Windows. In my case the JVM grabbed 1.5 GB leaving ...

The full source code for the following built-in ASP.NET 2.0 providers are available for download: Membership Role Management Site Navigation Session State Profile Web Events Web Part Personalization The source code comes with VS 2005 projects for building the code. More info on ScottGu's Blog

Microsoft delivers alternatives to several Adobe products with the Community Technology Preview release of the Expression family: Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer (trial download) ~ Adobe Illustrator Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer (trial download) ~ Adobe Flash Microsoft Expression Web Designer (trial download) ~ Adobe DreamWeaver The Microsoft Expression blog has more details.

I have had enough of NDR mail spam. I just came back from Mugello and I was met by this inbox: (1 legitimate e-mailif you can spot it) SPF does not seem to fix the problem so I am left with the following options: Quietly drop on message in my e-mail client (a major pain when I download mail with a pocket pc) Remove the wildcard routing on egilh.com. This means the NDR will bounce back to the postmaster sending me the NDR (a pain for the innocent 3rd party but I save bandwith and -a lot of time- hunting down spammers) Suggestions anyone?

I'm going to Mugello. Time to forget about work and spammers that drive me crazy and have some fun! No PC, no blog an no stress until next week :-) (Picture from Google Earth) The weather forecast is not the best but I am sure I will enjoy it anyway. The MotoGP race last was fantastic and this year I will have the opportunity to see all of it: free practice, qualifying as well as the races in the 125, 250 and MotoGP categories.