Using IE7 it's possible to search the MSDN library from the search box at the top right if you follow these steps: Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-uk/default.mspx?dcsref=http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx# In the "Create your own" box paste in the following as the URL: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fmsdn2.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Flibrary%2F+TEST&btnG=Search&meta= Give the provider a name, something like "MSDN Library (Google)" sounds good and then click Install. You can now search the English version of the MSDN library using Google from the search box. What's more it's far better than the search that's built into the library because it's Google.

Some things are more useful than they seem. Take 360voice.com for instance. It gives you an amusing little post each day saying what you've been doing on your xbox, but from the point of view of the xbox itself. That in itself is pretty useless past the amusement of the first few entries, but where it really comes into it's own is the RSS feed. I subscribe to the feeds of a few friends and it's a perfect way for me to see what they've been playing recently. It's much better than the proper friends UI that you tend to...

Robots are learning to walk faster:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6291746.stm I don't think I can build this out of LEGO so I may need some better hardware.

There's a distinct relationship between how much I've got on at work and how much I feel like coding in the evenings and weekends, and that's not made much better by the nagging feeling that I could be spending my time writing useful utilities for work that I've been putting off instead of messing around with XNA, WPF or something else that's cool, interesting and worth blogging about. I have actually been doing a bit of XNA when the mood takes me, and that includes finally taking a look at the Racing Game starter kit. It's a fun enough game,...

Things I still suck at: Golden Axe Sonic Well that's the Xbox live arcade games for this week out then :) Pretty good versions of both games though, so 10 out of 10 for trying. Right! Back to Sonic! I'm sure I can remember the level layouts if I try!

What's the best news that you can get in a week? Robot news of course! Everybody likes robots. Microsoft have announced version 1.5 of their visual studio based Robotics Studio, their only product that targets both Lego sets and DARPA grand challenge automated vehicles. Updates include support for the compact .NET framework, some updates to the simulator and some graphical rapid development using something called microsoft visual programming language. I can even get a 360 reference in here by pointing out that the 360 controller can be used to control your robots. There's even pictures out there of this being done for real, but I don't know...

What sort of idiot would design a wireless controller for a games console that doesn't switch off after a few minutes of not being used, but does turn on if you even lightly brush against one of the two analogue finger switches on it. I started the latest (really slow) PS3 update and was going to check the PS store for new stuff, the controller was flat and so I went back to playong Overlord on the 360. Microsoft have a product that is so much better at the moment that it's not funny. I did actually download a...