• 1TB sort done in 68 seconds by Google

    This 3 times faster than the previous known record. For those who don’t know, Jim Gray et al established a series of tests, including the 1TB sort, in order to give database vendors a playground for honest comparisons. The results…

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  • Travel blog – Day 5

    I think I slept for 11 hours. The combination of bugs the night before (I think I only slept for 3 hours or so), an exhausting day 4, and a nice bed resulted in a lot of sleep. Didn’t manage…

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  • Travel blog – Day 4

    The day started very early. I couldn’t sleep all night because of blood-thirsty bugs. Originally I thought it was mosquitoes. Even though I was trying to ignore them, their bites kept waking me up. Then, at around 6am it occurred…

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  • Travel blog – Day 3

    Another great day, different from yesterday. I woke up feeling that I needed more sleep. The hotel experience was not good, even though the lady-owner was very sweet, telling me how much she liked Greece and that she wanted to…

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  • Travel blog – Day 2

    After a wonderful first evening in Valladolid, I returned to the hotel, taking some photos on the way (this is a view of my hotel’s interior).   I worked on that Web book for a while. I couldn’t sleep… the…

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  • Travel blog – Day 1

    As you can probably imagine, this blog will be full of travel-related entries for the next couple of weeks. I may still post the odd technology-related one though. You’ve been warned 🙂 Arrived in Cancun around 6.30pm and got my…

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  • Good comments about our coffee-related endeavors

    Jay has some good feedback on our “How to GET a Cup of Coffee” article. Thanks Jay! We are monitoring the Web for any feedback that we can use for our upcoming book on the same topic. We encourage everyone…

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  • Adventure ahead: I am off to explore the Maya civilization

    Just booked my flight for a 2 1/2 week trip to explore the Maya civilization. I am flying to Cancun (no, I am not going to stay to any of the holiday resorts). I am going to immediately hit the…

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  • Obama’s win

    It’s been fascinating to watch the entire world paying attention to the election results of one country; a testament to the global role of the US today. I don’t really believe in political labels (“left”, “right”, “socialist”, “communist”, etc.) but…

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  • Ski season

    Just bought my 10-day pass for Whistler 🙂 Can’t wait to hit the slopes again.

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  • Savas is moving on (to search for ET Life!!!! 🙂

    After two wonderful years working for Tony Hey‘s Technical Computing and then External Research teams, it’s time to find a new challenge. I talked to various teams (inside and outside Microsoft) and found lots of interesting opportunities. At the end,…

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  • PDC 08: Day 3 Highlights

    Here are some of my highlights of PDC 08 – Day 3 I missed the Rick Rasid’s keynote because my early-morning Chem4Word teleconference overrun but it was important. I attended the Windows 7 context-aware API talk, which was interesting. The…

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  • PDC 08: Day 2 Highlights

    Here are some of my highlights of PDC 08 – Day 2 (yesterday) Keynote 1: Lots of new technologies… Windows 7, VS.NET 2010, .NET 4.0, Silverlight outside the browser (great demo Marc! :-), and Office apps in the browser. Keynote…

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  • PDC 08: Day 1 Highlights

    Here are some of my highlights of PDC 08 – Day 1 Keynote (Ray Ozzie, Bob Muglia). Windows Azure and Azure Services Platform were announced. The technology is great. Ray‘s appearance was very good (he’s come long ways from the…

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  • In LA for PDC08

    I am sooo excited 🙂 Lots of technology-related announcements. A geek’s dream 🙂 PDC 08.

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