Michael Creasy's Blog

The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque is in the center of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.  I wasn't able to go inside when I visited, but I was able to walk around the grounds and admire the architecture.  It's a stark contrast to the nearby floating villages where much of the population lives. 

Brunei really doesn't get that many tourists.  All of the museums I visted had more staff than visitors and all were free to visit.  I enjoyed visiting the museum of technology and industry to get an idea of how the oil industry has shapped modern Brunei, the same museum also housed a collection of Islamic art - mostly hand written copies of the Koran that had incredible detail.  The Royal Regalia museum was also interesting, it houses the various objects and uniforms used during royal ceremonies as well as huge collection of gifts presented to the Sultan over his years ruling the country - it was interesting to see gifts that had been presented from various heads of state as well as different oil companies.  I especially remember seeing a 400 year old hand engraved copy of the Koran that was beautiful even though I couldn't read anything written in it, it was a present from Shell to the Sultan for his Silver Jubilee. 

While I wouldn't really encourage anyone to visit Brunei as a tourist, it's an interesting destination for a couple of days if you happen to be nearby.

It's live here.

it doesn't show a huge amount, but we do get to see that it's based in NYC.  Should be fun.  I'm looking forward to playing it.

Computerworld has an interesting article about five things we need to do to make Zune a success.

I agree with most of what the article says, but the first point, that we should drop "the social" I don't agree with.  I think we can do better and we're by no means finished it what we want to do.

Point two tackles expanding the market.  There are many many people out there that don't have a music player and have probably never even thought of buying one, that's definitely a market to target.  I recently gave my mum a Zune.  She's never had a music player and I don't think she'd consider buying one.  I loaded the device up with some music she liked and a lot of photos and made sure she got it before a couple of long flights - which would give her a chance to use it.  Now she tells me that she uses it all the time.  So one of the key things we need to do is get the Zune in to the hands of people that wouldn't consider buying a music device and show them the benefits

 The rest is spot on in my opinion.  Especially about subscriptions.  Having a Zune Pass has been awesome (note: I do not get this for free, I pay for my Zune Pass myself), I've downloaded loads of new music and discovered things I wouldn't have done otherwise.  Whenever I hear a bit of music I like I note the name down and remember to download it when I get back to my PC.  The only problem is I've run out of space on my Zune.  I need a bigger drive.

Zune 1.3 went live earlier today.  You can get the update (if not prompted automatically) by starting the Zune client on your PC and then going to Options->Help->Check For Updates.  Once you update the PC software plug in your device and you should get prompted to update it as well. 

This update improves stability, some syncing problems, better power management on the device when using radio and fixes the skipping some people were experiencing when playing marketplace content on the device.

OLYMPIA — Saying it will level the playing field between in-state and out-of-state businesses, Gov. Chris Gregoire has signed a measure that encourages Internet and catalog companies to collect and send the state sales taxes on purchases made by Washington residents.

I suppose this was inevitable, but I can't really say I like it.  I buy almost all of my books, music, dvds, games, in fact just about everything about from clothes and food online.  Mainly because it's cheaper and I don't need it straight away.  I suspect I'll still buy plenty of things online, because it'll still be cheaper than a classic bricks and motar store for many things.

Step 1: Wait for a day with heavy rain forecast.

Step 2: Walk around the parking lot of a neighbouring business

Step 3: Identify the expensive foreign cars

Step 4: Take your business cards and place them on the drivers window. Be sure to push the card down the window into the space between the car door and the window

Step 5: Retire to your office and wait for all the new customers

Step 6: When a recipient of your kind gift calls to complain about how the card was difficult to remove thanks to it being soggy and that half of the car is now stuck somewhere inside the car door tell the caller that it's not your fault and that you don't really care.

Thanks to this stunning marketing campaign and great customer service I won't have any trouble recommending people to not use the services of AA Auto Service.

I absolutely refuse to do business with any company that feels my car is an appropriate place to leave their advertisements.  Likewise any company that leaves hangers on my front door.  These are not free advertising locations.

In the case of AA Auto Service I've forwarded their information to our security group as I really don't like the idea that they were able to troll the cars at my building without being questioned or removed from the property.