If you didn't knew that already, I have to tell you that the Codie Awards is a yearly award issued by the Software and Information Industry Association for excellence in software development, primarily among its members. Established in 1986, the Excellence in Software Awards program became the Codie Awards in 1993, and now I just found out the results of this year's edition...


Ken Wasch, SIAA president, said "What I think is most gratifying is the Codie awards are a [great] leveler and smaller companies have as much chance to win as large companies," and it's enough to say that Red Hat, Adobe Systems and Salesforce.com, together with "newbies" such as SightSpeed got back home with prizes.

But let's cut the talking and see highlights of this year's winners list, shall we? Here we go...

* Asset management -- Express Metrix with its Express Software Manager
* Business Productivity -- Jigsaw, Jigsaw.
* Collaboration solution -- Adobe, Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional
* Communication Solution -- SightSpeed, SightSpeed 6.0
* Content Management -- Clickability, Clickability On-Demand Web Content Management Platform
* Data Security -- Absolute Software, Computrace Complete
* Database management -- FileMaker, FileMaker Pro 9
* E-commerce -- NetSuite, NetSuite 2007.0
* Enterprise search engine -- Coveo, Coveo Enterprise Search 5.0
* Identity management -- Red Hat, Red Hat Directory Server
* Open source solution -- Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
* On-demand platform - -Salesforce.com, Force.com
* Security solution -- Novell, Novell Identity and Security Management Portfolio
* SaaS solution -- Salesforce.com, Salesforce CRM
* Systems management -- Kace, Kbox Systems Management Appliance
* Web services solution -- Adobe, Adobe ColdFusion 8.

Anyway, the full list is a few times as long as the above, and you can see it on the official Codie 2008 winners page.

Yesterday, Steve Ballmer found himself under siege! A decade after Bill Gates took a cream pie right into the face, Ballmer managed to avoid 3 eggs thrown at him by a guy who doesn't like sports, probably, because he managed to miss such a big target from less than 10 meters! Anyway, since the Internet is boiling already because of this subject, I will give you the movie below.

Well, there you have it! If you have a very slow connection and can't watch the movie, here's what you should know - a T-Shirt with "Microsoft=Corruption" written on it, and three eggs= probably less than $15. Steve Ballmer's reaction? Priceless!

After going for cover behind a desk, Ballmer said "It was a friendly disruption. That broke my train of thought." I wonder what would have been the answer if that guy was better trained in egg attacks...

If I say "SP3," I guess it should be obvious I am thinking about Microsoft's latest service pack for Windows XP. What? You didn't manage to install it yet? Well, that's good news! Why? Hehe...it seems that, more than ever, this update for Windows XP took aways some problems, but added a bunch of new ones, as we're going to see right away!


<-234x60 Half Banner - left->According to users from the We Got Served U.K.-based Windows user forum, the latest issue noticed with Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) is that the remote desktop access feature of Windows Home Server doesn't work as it should, because Windows XP users running Windows Home Server, Microsoft's home storage and local networking server, reported that SP3 is cutting off their computer's access to the server.

Unfortunately, this is not the first problem with Windows XP's last service pack, because there were previous reports saying that XP SP3 was sending AMD-based computers into an endless reboots chain. Fortunately, that problem was identified as affecting only some HP computers, and Microsoft promptly posted information for fixing it on the Web.

This time, Microsoft is still silent, so if you are using remote desktop access to Windows Home Server systems...better keep your eyes on Microsoft.com and hope they come up with a solution as soon as possible!