Google's GMail home page today now has no vowels with the descriptions provided. Possibly Google wants to do their part to help save bandwidth?

Two prior Slashdot articles, the most recent being on June 5, bring light to the fact that Microsoft has revoked Jamie Cansdale's MVP status due to the fact that his contributions work around "technical limitations" in the Visual Studio Express software. Frans Bouma, another MVP, submits his voice to this situation in several posts. The first being on June 1, which incidentally gained the attention of Dan Fernandez, and the second a follow-up and response to Dan's comment on the first article posted on June 2.

Frans writes:
"As an owner of an ISV, I simply can't ignore what's going on at the moment as it will affect my company as well, and also every other ISV out there: do we want to work in an environment where using a legitimate public API could cause a lawyer threat which will cost you a lot of money? No, I don't want to work in such an environment and I'm sure my fellow software engineers don't want to work in such an environment either."

To anyone who this is a violation of the EULA, I refer you to Frans own questions:
"Oh, and for the people who still think he violated an EULA please provide me answers to this:

• Where is stated you can't extend VS.NET Express?
• Where is stated what the technical limitations are
• If he wrote the code in VS.NET Pro and compiles on the command line, is he still violating the EULA of vs.net express? If you answer YES: how is that possible, he never saw that eula, theoretically!"

As Frans completes his post:
"We're developers, we use the API's and other things to get things done. Perhaps not in the way you intended or want to. However that's totally irrelevant. If you don't want a developer to use a given API method, don't expose that method."

The Google Summer of Code website now provides a full list of the projects accepted for Summer of Code 2007. Organizations have a varying number of accepted slots ranging from about 3 projects up to 10 or more for some of the larger organizations. Lets hold a congratulations for all the accepted applicants and best wishes for successful project completions.

In following annual tradition, Wikipedia offers a categorized list of April Fool's Day jokes. The page also points out supposed jokes that are actually true. The Wikipedia article also provides links to additional websites such as Urgo that offers a fairly comprehensive list of April Fool's Day jokes for 2007 to which new ones may also be submitted. Try not to take all of them seriously, but do understand, what may look like a joke could actually be true.

In an update to a prior Slashdot article, Google has just announced the Google Summer of Code 2007 application deadline is now extended to March 26 ( Timeline ) -- more specifically March 26 at 5:00 PM Pacific time (12:00 AM UTC March 27, 2007).

The accepted Google Summer of Code 2007 mentors list is now complete at the Summer of Code website — 131 projects could use your help. Student applications are open and the application deadline has been extended to March 26. Google has an application guide in the Summer of Code Announce discussion group that provides more information on the application process.

The accepted Google Summer of Code 2007 mentors list is now pouring in at the Summer of Code website. The first several accepted mentors at the time of this posting were (with many more to come):

• Django (Lawrence Journal-World)
• Etherboot Project
• openSUSE
• Ruby Central, Inc.
• The Wine Project

Let's write those project applications as the end date of March 24 for accepting student applications is not that far away! An application guide is provided in the Google Summer of Code Announce discussion group that provides more information on the application process.

In an update to a prior Slashdot story from December, news sources such as WBIR are carrying news states the new Ford and Microsoft service called Sync will be hitting the roads in the fall of 2007, as mentioned at the recent Chicago Auto Show. The service would be able to read the emails and using an audio system will be capable of reading the email contents aloud. The system will also be able to read text messages and control either an iPod or MP3 player by voice. According to the BBC the technology will available in 12 Ford vehicles this year. Would this service be something you would be interested in having in your vehicle or would you see it as more of a distraction?