Employees can get a licensed copy of Microsoft Office desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Visio Professional, to install and use on a home computer.

[ Home Use Program ]

However you have to wait until March of 2006 before these bennies go into affect.

Props to mssmallbiz

I already use a few of these, but many look like products or sites that I won't know how I did without once I start doing with...

Everyone collects utilities, and most folks have a list of a few that they feel are indispensable. Here's mine. Each has a distinct purpose, and I probably touch each at least a few times a week. For me, util means utilitarian and it means don't clutter my tray. If it saves me time, and seamlessly integrates with my life, it's the bomb.

[ Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List ]

The few that I don't see:

• vim
• ieSpell
• gimp
• SQLCompare
• 7-zip
• My powertoys
• ObjectDesktop

The last one mostly for WindowBlinds, because I like my Windows to constantly look new, but it actually has quite a few handy tools that come with it:

• IconDeveloper
• Object Edit (though I prefer vi)
• DriveScan
• ObjectZip (though I prefer 7-zip)
• TweakShell

You have a table, with an identity, that, due to the nature of your application, deletes and inserts many rows on a regular basis. It crossed your mind that at some time the key will grow to the largest integer and then what? You tell yourself that SQL will of course handle that for you , or at least it will never come up since 2,147,483,647 is a large number.

Well, today it happened to me.

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Arithmetic overflow error converting IDENTITY to data type int.
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Arithmetic overflow occured.

My "fix" was to reseed the table and change the datatype to bigint, I wonder how long until 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 rows have been inserted and then deleted?

Certainly this may not be news, but it's the first I've noticed. Looks like it runs a bit faster, likely due to the fact it has been compiled for the chip and OS I'm actually using and not running in some sort of legacy mode.

Make your Pocket PC The ultimate Islamic resource tool ... Arabic Holy Quran with tashkil, English translation and recitation ... Athan and recitation ... Hadith in Arabic, Prayer table, Prayer schedule , Hijri Calendar and Hijri to Georgian conversion, Qibla according to your location and position of the sun ... Today Screen [plug-in] to display the prayer time and date in Hijri and to control the Azan voice.

[ Pocket Islam PocketPC ]

This may even fix some of the issues I've noticed with scheduling on the device, reminders and adhan (azan) didn't always work, perhaps that's all worked out now.

The simplest way I can answer the question is that Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows," said Nick McGrath, director of platform strategy for Microsoft in the U.K.

[ Microsoft Says No to Linux Office Software - CIO News Alerts - Blog - CIO ]

Wow. Of course OpenOffice will run on my Mac, Linux, or Windows box... (Or Solaris or BSD, but does anyone still use them?)

If you are using dasBlog 1.7 or 1.8 and have been using the MoveableType Blacklist to block spam referrals, then your site is having issues too. On some sites it seems to block all access, on mine it only blocked most links to my site.

The setting to turn off in site.config is false as seen in the screen shot above. If you don't have this setting, or this file then you're not affected.

[ DasBlog Alert! Referral BlackList has changed! ]

Sorry for the inconvenience, I've stopped using the MT Blacklist functionality, and hopefully someone will come up with a genius idea to replace it.

It's about time that someone stood up for decency.

The Senate defied the White House yesterday and voted to set new limits on interrogating detainees in Iraq and elsewhere, underscoring Congress's growing concerns about reports of abuse of suspected terrorists and others in military custody.

[ Senate Supports Interrogation Limits ]

The only obstacle now is ensuring that the House follows suit.

Despite his victory last night, McCain has two major obstacles remaining: House GOP leaders object to attaching it to a spending bill, and Bush could veto it.

But you can help to mitigate this risk by contacting your representative and letting them know how important this is to you, the American voter.

(Note: Some readers may point out that they are not American voters. Perhaps you could just forward the URL for this article to any American voters that you know...)

I've got the fever for the flavor of Dengue, or something like that.

Dengue Fever has surprisingly universal appeal. Vocalist Chhom Nimol, whose family is a pop music dynasty, not unlike a Cambodian analog of The Jacksons, regularly seizes the hearts of listeners (including the King and Queen of Cambodia). Zac Holtzman (Dieselhed) and his brother Ethan on Farfisa organ, Senon Williams (Radar Brothers), David Ralicke (Beck) and the seasoned drummer/engineer Paul Smith stay remarkably true to the crazy party music spirit of the '60's- and '70's-era material they perform, while their originals veer off into the darkened corridors of lost love and ghostly noir romanticism, dissolving into spaces of genuine bleakness and tragedy.

[ Dengue Fever ]

I'm loving the new global pop scene, or as I like to call it Pop 2.0. These guys have an infectious, funky, exotic sound without sounding so far off that you can't figure heads from tails. Like the Fantastic Plastic Machine and Pizzicato 5 that I've been digging lately, Dengue Fever has a retro chic that I just can't shake.

Props go out to the Koosh Moose, who would have blogged about them, but I only gave him about 18 hours to do so, and he's a busy guy.

Or can it?

The agreement between Sun and Google also kicks off further collaboration between the companies on projects like OpenOffice.org, the open source productivity suite that is the world's leading suite on the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and Linux--and the leading alternative suite on Microsoft Windows.

[ Sun Microsystems ]

I've used OpenOffice and I think it's ok. Get Google involved, and Microsoft better start innovating.

Sure, I knew it was going to be a short game, but under 5 hours? It actually took about 7 because my battery died and I had to replay the end of chapter 5, all of chapter 6, and a little bit past that.

Perhaps I'm putting too much stock in one game

[ david kearns dot com - My DS Killer App: daily opinions & trivia ]

However, this totally reminded me of the old Apple ][ days, and the quasi-graphic adventures. Which, is to say, a wonderful walk down nostagia way.

However, the plot is confusing and lame, and the ending lacks in a big way. The graphics are far better than those old Apple // games, and it's nice that most of the game can be played with the stylus or without.

All-in-all, not the reason to buy the DS. My next great white hope is Castlevania DS.

Found a new Windowblinds skin I like, and I think a new artist with it. danillooc resides in Brazil and does great skinning work:

When does Ramadan start?

The crescent moon signals the start of the monthlong holiday, and it will be up to the Plainfield headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America to formally determine for Muslims in this part of the world whether tonight's moon is the real deal.

[ Muslims turn eyes to sky to start Ramadan | IndyStar.com ]

ISNA and the Fiqh Council of North America should be discussing that exact topic this evening. Chances are, based on fancy math, that the Hilal (cresent moon) will not be seen tonight, and Ramadan will start at sunset tomorrow.

If you are itching to find out before everyone else on your block, check out:

• Islamic Society of North America
• Moonsighting.com
• Hilal-Sighting.com

Even more confused by when the days start? Heard that Ramadan starts Tuesday, but your co-worker didn't fast? Keep in mind that days on the Islamic calendar start at sunset, and not midnight. Curious about what is prohibited to a fasting Muslim during Ramadan? Wikipedia to the rescue.

Update: For Northern Virginia, it seems that all of the "big" mosques (or at least the ones with websites that are updated) agree, the first day of fasting is Wednesday:

• Dar Al Hijrah
• ADAMS center

Not quite:

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said that it developed the "save as PDF" feature in Office 12 using the open, freely available PDF standard published by Adobe. Under the open specifications, Adobe allows other software developers to create PDFs without paying a licensing free.

[ Microsoft's Office upgrade to support PDF files - Boston.com ]

When you buy Office 12, you'll have the ability to create PDF files of your documents without having to use PDFCreator. Still, that's one less thing to install. And you can guarantee that all of your employees will be able to create these files. And since it's been siphoned through to PDF, no more worrying about the comments you may have left embedded in the document...

And the comments are the manual:

A real engineer only resorts to documentation when the keyboard dents on the forehead get too noticeable.

[ Tip #1 - the super star : vim online ]

Did I mention that I ♥ vim?

With this indisputable scientific data, it is likely that 30 days of Sha’ban will be completed and the first day of Ramadan will be on Wednesday, October 5, 2005, for North America, insha’Allah.

[ Read News: ISNA.net ]

So you're all set up to podcatch with ipodder, but you want to automatically sync with your portable device. The problem? You don't own an actual iPod, but you do have a Windows Mobile device that has mp3 playback and a nice sized SD card. The solution? MobSync.

MobSync is a software allowing any file folder synchronization from the Pocket PC onto the desktop--synchronization which cannot be done with ActiveSync. So, with this software you can synchronize any file folder on your Pocket PC (not necessarily \My Documents) with any file folder on your desktop (not necessarily \Pocket_PC My Documents either). It works well and now that it is translated in english it is a must have. Pay attention to very big files, it may stop in the middle of the process and fail to copy (just like ActiveSync).

[ PocketPCFreewares - MobSync ]

This should work fine on your Dell Axim, your Samsung i730 phone, or what-have-you. Now you only need to find podcasts worth subscribing too...

Or, if you have $9 and want an all-in-one PodCatching/RSS aggregating solution that requires no PC, FeedReader looks pretty hot.