What's Rockin' in Singapore

We recently launched Singapore's very own Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets gallery page, and I do think we have some pretty cool gadgets to show off!

A couple of my favorites (yes, I'm biased, but this is my blog )...

	The MC Radio gadget, created by Chris Ismael, streams Singapore Media Corp radio station channel programs. Get music while you work with this gadget, right from the Windows Vista Sidebar!
	The Singapore Central Provident Fund Board Voyage of Life Game gadget supports the government body's mission to encourage its citizens to do retirement planning through an interactive game. The gadget also provides easy access to CPF's online e-Services for checking online statements. This gadget demonstrates how the gadget flyout window can host any web-based content such as a Shockwave Flash game.
	The LTA Road Motoring gadget lets drivers check traffic conditions by tapping on our Land Transport Authority's road motoring camera feeds. This gadget illustrates the ease of exposing capabilities via screen-scraping existing web page assets (with permissions!) Originally developed by our Student Partner Loke Lup Peng, with subsequent modifications by Chris Ismael (him again!)
	The E-Book World gadget is super cool! Choose from a selection of publications, and then read them from the FlipViewer e-book reader. Technically, this is one of the more interesting gadget implementations where the gadget interops with the FlipViewer software via COM.

There are other interesting gadgets from familiar local entities such as CNBC, Virtual Map & Yellow Pages, Infocomm Asia Holdings, etc. Most of these gadgets were created within 2 to 3 weeks, from conceptualization to final deployment.

A shout-out to our Student Partners, Chris, Web Professional House, and other partners who helped create all these.

Based on what I know of our team is doing, we should be seeing more gadgets over the next few months... 

We had a Microsoft Corp visitor in town over the last week - the unique and incomparable Mr. Vittorio Bertocci. My colleague Linda had the pleasure of touring and visiting many of our enterprise customers with him, talking up the core .NET 3.0 pillars (WCF, WF and Windows CardSpace.)

A persistent question prompted the following cartoon. Lifted shamelessly from Vittorio's blog post. I didn't know you could draw, dude!  

While we take a gentle dig and laugh at ourselves, this does underscore the point that we need to do a better job at helping our customers truly understand SOA. 

PS: I am reminded again of a somewhat intense discussion a year back regarding service orientation, SOI and SOA by some of Microsoft's illuminaries.

Hilarious -- especially since this was produced by a Microsoft team.

One of the things I love about Microsoft is how we are able to poke fun at ourselves. Apart from having fun, it also shows how the folks here can be self-criticizing and strive for continuous improvements.