webDotWiz Online has a Space: Human interest

Attention: Team SOAK has just won the Imagine Cup Finals

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:53:58 GMT

Another post with photos and videos of the Australian team, Team SOAK, with their first prize in the Imagine Cup 2008 in Paris (courtesy of the MSOzAcademic blog):

Team SOAK (Smart Operational Agriculture Kit) from Australia have been announced as the winners of the 2008 Imagine Cup!!! This is simply an amazing achievement, SOAK members Long Zheng, David Burela, Ed Hooper and Dimaz Pramudya have all come together from different Universities across Australia to create and complete their fantastic project, SOAK .

Over 220 000 students from around world entered this years Imagine Cup competition, 110 000 Students entered the Software Design invitational, from that 500 students were chosen to represent their country in the world finals here in Paris and Australia's team SOAK continued their amazing success and have been crowned the winners of the 2008 Imagine Cup.

Team SOAK have also been announced as the winners of the BT Innovation Accelerator award. SOAK will have the opportunity to work closely with BT and various business consultancies groups to commercialise their invention. Once their business proposal for SOAK is complete, they will have the opportunity to present their proposal in America to a group of potential investors.
Registrations are now open for the 2009 Imagine Cup Competition, register now and be a part of the journey to Egypt.

WOW, watch team SOAK's reaction as they are named the winners of the Imagine Cup 2008. If the video is not working, please click here to watch video!
Check out Team SOAK's winning presentation at the world finals. This is the presentation that won the competition. Must see! approximately 18 minutes. If the video below is not working, please click here to watch video!
Stay tuned to MSOZACADEMIC for a full interview with team SOAK straight after their finals win! Team SOAK explains their winning solution.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup,Team SOAK

Imagine Cup winners announced, Australian Team SOAK takes home the gold

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:43:16 GMT

Courtesy Liveside.net:

Today marks the end of the 2008 Imagine Cup. The winners were just announced at an awards ceremony at the famous Musée du Louvre in Paris. I am happy to report that Team SOAK, which includes our good friend, Long Zheng, along with teammates David Burela, Dimaz Pramudya, and Ed Hooper, took first place in the Software Design category. This is a very tough competition, which had around 200,000 entries, so this is a huge achievement.
Six of the teams, including SOAK, will also have the chance to participate in Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator program, where they will be given help, by Microsoft, to try and turn their idea into a commercial success. Additionally, congrats to Spain's Windows Drive (CarlosJunquera Cachero, David Rodriguez, Héctor Juan and Miguel Llopis) who took home the Windows Live Achievement Award.
The full list of winners can be found here and the first place teams are listed below. Great job to everyone who participated. We definitely have a lot of really smart people leading us into the next generation of tech.

Imagine Cup Winners
Software Design

First place: Australia - Team SOAK

Team Members: David Burela, Dimaz Pramudya, Ed Hooper, Long Zheng

Winners in other categories are on the Liveside.net post.

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Posted using the Tech Preview of Windows Live Writer.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup,SOAK,Australia

Live Earth - Concerts for a Climate in Crisis - free Madonna song download

Sun, 20 May 2007 00:17:48 GMT

On 07/07/07, seven concerts around the world will take place to bring the climate crisis to the forefront of people's attention. Info about the concerts can be found at liveearth.msn.com and at liveearth.org.

Australia (Sydney) is one of the seven locations for the Live Earth concerts and you can get links to ticket sales, the performers and other info on the Australian Concert for a Climate in Crisis page. Australia will host the first of the seven concerts as the sun rises on July 7.

Performers at the Sydney concert include Crowded House, Paul Kelly, John Butler Trio and Toni Collete.

There's lots of info on the Live Earth site, including a Community section from where you can download a desktop wallpaper for the Australian event (or, choose wallpapers for other countries as well).

Madonna has written a song exclusively for Live Earth, Hey You, and it's a free download from the this page (note, it's only available for limited time).

Othe official blog site for Live Earth is http://liveearth.spaces.live.com so subscribe to its feed and keep up to date. The site has got lots of simple, handy tips for saving energy and bringing more green-ness to the Earth's climate. For example, see the short section titled Clean your (monitor's) screen.

Technorati tags: Live Earth, Save Our Selves, concerts, 7/7/07, Madonna

Australia Day 2007 - images on Look Up and Smile!

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:23:32 GMT

These are a couple of images in high-def that were taken on Australia Day for the Look Up and Smile! collection of events for the day.

Firstly, at Kirra Beach, Qld, they celebrated 100 years of Surf Living clubs in Australia:

The Opera House also featured:

Note: links above take you directly to the map view at Look Up and Smile!

Technorati tags: Australia Day, Live Maps, Look up and smile

Search for a way to help - Click4TheCause.live.com

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:04:54 GMT

Here's a simple way to donate to ninemillion.org, the U.N.'s campaign to aid nine million refugee youth around the world.

All we need do is use click4thecause.live.com any time we want to search on the web and Microsoft will make a donation on our behalf.

Check out the ninemillion.org site as well as nine-million.spaces.live.com where you can click the counter to add your contribution and see how other ways to help, as well as adding the counter to your own space (simply click the + sign at the top right of the gadget and follow the prompts).

So for the next couple of months, make click4thecause.live.com your home page and add it to your favorites to use whenever you want to search the web.

Also see Live Search team blog, Dare, Inside Live Messenger.

Technorati tags: Click4TheCause, Ninemillion.org

Australia Day - Look up and smile

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:02:13 GMT

Ok, so Microsoft Australia are sponsoring this event to tell us about some new operating system due on January 30.

However, it's an interesting concept and there are special locations where a satellite has been booked to overfly and photograph aerial images of the events that the local community will be conducting.

There are three main locations: Centennial Park, Sydney; Kirra Beach, Queensland; and New Norcia, Western Australia. If you're within 1.5 km of these locations, and you've created something Big, you'll be in the photograph.

Check out the Look Up and Smile site to see how you can take part and some tips on creating a large image that can be photographed.

Via Frank Arrigo, Jeff Alexander.

Technorati tags: Australia Day, Look up and smile

webDotWiz's video on Soapbox

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:58:44 GMT

This is really a test but webDotWiz is following instructions from the Soapbox team blog.

Click the link below to view the movie (created from photos in Photo Story).

In the backyard

Technorati tags: Soapbox on MSN Video

Things to do in 1300 A.D from Alex Barnett

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 06:32:01 GMT

Alex Barnett, Community Program Manager for the Data Programmability team, Microsoft Corp, Redmond, often discusses thought-provoking ways in which to use all the data that's floating around the Net. However he's gone off-topic with this scenario:

<off-topic. if you're looking for intelligent commentary on technological issues of the day, you're at the wrong place. please move on.>

From time to time something catches my eye that sets me off down a complete waste of time. Like this.

"Here’s a hypothetical situation; you’re sucked into a worm hole and transported back to the year 1300 A.D. in Medieval Europe. You didn’t bring back your cell phone, or laptop, or any “more recent” invention. What advantages would you have over society at that time? Would you be able to survive, and would you be able to influence the course of history?"

Well, one obstacle to overcome would be language. Even if I landed in medieval Britain I'd have some considerable communication challenges. Middle English being the Lingua franca of the day in Ye Olde Blightey. Another consideration would be headwear...

Follow the remainder of Alex's ponderings on his site.

It's OUR content that makes the web go around

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 10:38:18 GMT

Robert Scoble, Microsoft Geek Blogger, had a week off from his blog and invited Bubba Murarka as guest blogger. In Bubba's summary of the week's experience, he points out the following as what he learned for the week (comments after the - by yours truly):

Blogging is a labour of love - the labour is not so bad when you've got a genuine interest in your hobby, craft, or whatever, and you want to let others know about it
Blogging is a huge source of connections & re-connections - we Australians are the first to try out the MSN Spaces Friend's List and what an easy way to share our interests with others
Blogging is emotionally challenging - there will always be those who want to run down and "criticise" but their number is far outweighed by those who want to genuinely share our interests and contribute to the conversation
Blogging creates great offline conversations - "Oh, I never knew you were an artitist/were interested in.../knew so much about.../had that hobby..."

You can continue to read Bubba's blog at his MSN Space, and, of course, Robert Scoble is still at the same place.

First blog for 2006 - Best wishes

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 13:01:46 GMT

All the best to everybody for 2006.

Talking about Diva seals Cup legend. 01/11/2005. ABC News Online

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 05:40:04 GMT

History was made at today's running of the Melbourne Cup so for the record, webDotWiz is posting the news that Makybe Diva is the first horse to win three consecutive Melbourne Cups.

For those not familiar with the history of the Melbourne Cup, it's said to be the only horse race in the world during which the whole nation (Australia) comes to a stop to listen to on radio or watch on TV.

Those present at Flemington Racecourse today will be handed a postcard as they leave as a memento of this history-making day.

Here's one site with a history of the Melbourne Cup.

There's going to be lots written and said about today's race - after all, it's history in the making in sport.

Quote

Diva seals Cup legend. 01/11/2005. ABC News Online
Champion mare Makybe Diva has made history by becoming the first horse to win three Melbourne Cups with a stunning victory at Flemington racecourse.
The Lee Freedman-trained favourite won her third Cup in as many years by more than a length ahead of On A Jeune with Xcellent third.

Days 3, 4, 5 Blogging from Katrina Ground Zero

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:03:43 GMT

Sara Ford has continued to add to her impressions of giving a hand to those needing help after Hurricane Katrina.

In summary, to quote:

People have been asking me a lot lately, "how have you been holding up?" Well, let's see. Day 1 - Overwhelming. Day 2 – Despair. Day 3 – Anxiousness. Day 4 – Anger . Day 5 – Accomplishment.

You can read Sara's thoughts for Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5.

Blogging from Katrina Ground Zero

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 06:21:57 GMT

Sara Ford is a member of the Microsoft Visual Studio team and she's returned to her hometown, Waveland, in Mississippi.

Sara is helping to raise funds and give a hand. She's writing up her experiences as each day goes by.

Waveland, MS – Day 1

and

Waveland, MS – Day 2