Dubai-Good news, Bad news

Dubai: There's something about the number 11. Something sweeping, grand, brand new. There's something charming, enticing even, about entering a year with two number ones standing tall, side by side.

While 2010 was the year of endings, 2011 is a new dawn. On a national and international level. The year that is, saw Dubai slow down. The year that will be, will see changes, beginnings. Laws will be modified, rents will plummet to new lows, living conditions may improve, incomes increase… And as with all change, not all of it will be perceived as beneficial. Just as there will be those that welcome the change, so too there will be those who oppose it.

The positive and negative side of change that 2011 will bring will be, as with any change in any area of your life, filled with duality.

And as you prepare to bid farewell to 2010, XPRESS is here with you to welcome in the new year with open arms. Whatever 2011 may or may not turn out be, it will be very different from the year we're saying goodbye to.

Our city has seen some of the best and worst this year. We got the new Burj Khalifa on one hand, but lost a few proposed towers on the other. The year brought about a stagnation in income, but instead had rents fall to balance it out. Come 2011, be prepared to witness even more change.

The New Age group cherishes the number 11 (due to its prophecies of global enlightenment); the followers of the Mayan prophecy believe it's the last year of peace before the infamous 2012 is upon us; in the Chinese calendar, it's the year of the rabbit, a year of quiet contemplation and good fortune; in Dubai, it's the year of transformation.

Enjoy our rock-solid predictions for the New Year. Whether they're on your love-it or hate-it list, bear in mind that just as the year has to end and morph into a new one, so too, do all things connected to it. So here's to a New Year, new beginnings, new breakthroughs, new struggles, new achievements…. And our resolution: To constantly keep you updated on all the changes the year will bring.

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Microsoft SQL Server Future Editions | A complete set of enterprise-ready technologies and tools

Microsoft SQL Server Future Editions | A complete set of enterprise-ready technologies and tools

Microsoft OneNote - Learn OneNote in 12 languages

In Learn OneNote in 90 seconds, one of my blog posts from earlier this month, I pointed you to a new video tutorial which explains just how easy it is to learn and use OneNote's organizational features.

To date, the English version of this video has been watched over 60,000 times since it was posted.

I'm pleased to announce that this video is now available in eleven additional languages:

• Arabic (العربية)
• Chinese (中文)
• Danish (Dansk)
• French (Français)
• German (Deutsch)
• Hebrew (עברית)
• Japanese (日本)
• Korean (한국어)
• Portuguese (Português)
• Russian (русский)
• Spanish (Español)

Like the English version, the international videos are posted on our OneNote Beta Documentation web site, which gets thousands of monthly visits from OneNote users all over the world. Aside from the United States, most of our visitors come from Japan, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, India, Switzerland, New Zealand, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Austria, Taiwan, Russia, Colombia, and Poland.

Please help me get the word out about these new localized videos. They are sure to be useful to our international OneNote users. If you have your own OneNote-related blog in a country where one of these languages is spoken, feel free to link to the respective videos to help non-English speakers discover them more easily. And to help spread the word among English speakers, consider using the buttons below to share this post via Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!

For more localized Office 2010 resources, you can select your country from the Office.com Worldwide web site, check to see if Office 2010 is available in your language, or browse through the newly available Office 2010 language packs.

Imagine Cup 2010: Games Could Change the World

Computer gaming is perhaps the most powerful and influential communications media of our time. More money is spent and made in the video game industry than all other media combined. The recent E3 convention in Los Angeles supports this notion. The conference, where the world’s heavyweights in the game industry came together to demonstrate “what’s next,” showed that without a doubt, gaming and game hardware serve an integral part of the media and society.

As Captain of the Game Design category for Imagine Cup 2010, I’ve had the privilege of working with the students participating in the Imagine Cup’s Games competition, and seeing the creations they’ve submitted to help raise awareness of the problems facing the world. These students are some of the most passionate people I’ve met in my 20-year career. Their projects “cool-factor” rivals the students’ passion.

The sheer variety of games – all submitted under the overarching Imagine Cup theme of helping people see a world where technology makes a difference – was, I’ll admit, overwhelming. Different game genres, play styles, myriad graphical and art directions, and creative interfaces all meant that approaching this was a judging challenge. But it also turned out to be a joy. Just within the six finalists, the games include platformers, puzzle games, and 3D action titles covering topics such as the environment, education and teamwork. And they games come from Asia, Europe, and South America. More than 400 teams of enthusiastic, like-minded students from around the world created games that can help influence the current generation to consider and positively change the world in which they live.

For the Imagine Cup 2010 Game Design competition, the hundreds of applicants who participated in this category took the concept of a video game an extra step further. They challenged the players of their games to change the world, whether it be via the environment, health, education or global partnerships between countries in need.

In just a few weeks, the elite six teams representing countries all over the globe will gather in Warsaw for the Worldwide Finals. There, they will show off their games to the judges and public alike to determine who will be crowned the champion game design team for Imagine Cup 2010. The six games are phenomenal and I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with for their final presentations in Poland.

Games can not only entertain, but make an impact on individuals and the societies in which they live.
If you’d like to learn more about the games competing in Imagine Cup 2010, I encourage you to check out the forums on the Imagine Cup website or check out this DeepZoom mash-up of the complete semi-finalist list of games.

Java for ever (Funny Video)

Java 4-Ever - Humour

Samsung bada OS

bada is a software platform for mobile devices being developed by Samsung Electronics. It is designed to cover high-end smartphones and mass model smartphones. Samsung claims that bada will rapidly replace its proprietary feature phone platform, converting feature phones to smartphones.This will smoothly turn conventional customers of Samsung handsets into smartphone customers. Thus, bada is expected to realize democritization of smartphone by providing wide range of handsets including high-end and affordable smartphones to the mobile market.

Its name is derived from the Korean word for ocean or sea.

iPhone 4 to be released in 18 additional countries by the end of July

It’s official. The iPhone 4 will be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland according to a statement from Apple.

Hopefully by then all antenna issues will be resolved and the ability to make a phone call will become an exciting new feature of this new phone.

Apple is reportedly to release an OS update today to(hopefully) fix issues relating to the reception issues.

In the mean time, reports of a iPhone 4 recall are completely false but spreading after the DailyMail published a story based entirely on a tweet from a parody Steve Jobs twitter account.