OK, I’ll admit I got got by a couple of the April Fool’s pranks around on Wednesday. I was duped by Bill Harris at newly-subscribed Dubious Quality blog with his corker post on asthma and gravity. I was suckered by TheRuntime’s own Jay Kimble who had me worried when he blogged about closing this site. I only raised an eyebrow at the phoney SaveIE6 campaign...at least I think it’s phoney... I feel like about 10% of an April Fool. I’d better pay more attention next year :-) Tags: april fool, funny

Steven Smith, ASP.NET ninja and tech blogger at stevesmithblog.com, writes in "Cool Games" about games he enjoys playing in his free time.Like Steve - and about a zillion other tech people in the world - I'm into good board games and definitely not averse to some XBox gaming.And probably like a lot of fellow geeks, I'm always on the lookout for good two-player games with a high Wife Acceptance Factor. Here's a couple of board games that my wife and I have enjoyed, as scored by my beautiful wife Olivia (thanks Wifey!):Stone Age: this one I bought Olivia for Christmas...

Get more space when you refer a friend For a limited time, we're doubling the amount of bonus space you get when you share Mozy with a friend. Share Mozy now and earn an extra 256 MB 512 MB of backup space for you AND your friend. http://mozy.com/?ref=22Z98BI'm not much good at writing ad copy, so I've just pasted verbatim an e-mail promotion for the excellent Mozy free online backup (valid up to November 30th 2008).It's free, easy to use, has 2GB of free space, works with Windows or Mac, and if you sign up using my referral code we both...

Via Delicious Popular Bookmarks, I found a great link to Star Wars-inspired art from design blog Abduzeedo. I loved Star Wars as a kid and my eldest son TJ has inherited the obsession (we even have to ask *not* to talk about Star Wars when we're playing games or discussing movies!) Tags: fun, starwars, art

Aussie SQL Server MVP Rob Farley has been busy lately, speaking at TechEd (and blogging his presentation here). He's doing his TechEd talk at the Melbourne SQL Server User Group on Tuesday night and obviously means fair-dinkum business, as evidenced by the subject line of the invite e-mail :-) (The full subject actually read "AUSSUG: Invitation: Improving Your T-SQL Arsenal (Rob Farley)", but in my e-mail client it was cut off...he he...) Tags: funny, email

SQL Bits is having a logo competition, and I entered the following:My goal was to feature the familiar (often yellow) database cylinder, with simple text. I don't expect to win, but given the prize (an XBox 360) I thought it would be worth a try :-)Links: http://www.sqlbits.com/LogoCompetition.aspxTags: sql bits, logo, contestBlogged with the Flock Browser

My mother-in-law Marijke gave me a special surprise the other day: a hand-me-down copy of the 1984 tome "Choosing and Using Your Home Computer: An Introductory Course". Marijke had bought it some time ago to learn about computers. The book is a classic, from the time when PC's were called "microcomputers". It covers the latest hardware available at the time, the BASIC language, accessories like printers, plotters and the new-fangled "mouse", sprite graphics, games and the business case for computers. What makes this book more poignant is that I was into computers in 1984. I had a Commodore 64, and one of...