The auction to which Google is referring is of the 700-MHz spectrum currently being used by analog/over-the-air TV. If you are one of the few Americans left who have yet to sell their soul and acquire cable or satellite television, odds are you get your news and local information on your TV by use of this wireless spectrum. In an effort to free up this spectrum for other uses, the government decided to set a deadline for the end of analog TV: February 17th, 2009.

Available to new and existing AdWords users, the print extension of the AdWords program will be pushed out to an initial collection of roughly 200 newspapers nation-wide…

There’s good news today from “across the pond” for all of you Microsoft .net programmers: you can now earn a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Microsoft’s immensely popular and ever-growing technology.

David Tse, over at MSDN, just published an open-source Web export plugin for Microsoft OneNote 2007. With this utility, you can publish your OneNote notebooks on your own site allowing you to share your notes with those that may not have OneNote installed. (Of course, they have to have Internet Explorer installed but that’s a different story.)

Oh, one more thing…I think the best part about this story is Yahoo! blogger Jim Bumgardner’s description of the Facebook service: ‘It’s kind of like MySpace, but not as ugly.’

Microsoft has released the Community Technology Preview of Windows Server Code Name “Centro” and is in the process of seeking individuals willing to test the new release via MS Connect.  Note, you need to have 3 different 64-bit machines (with 2GB RAM ea.) to help test the release.  If you meet those qualifications, you can request to be considered at Microsoft Connect.

Please take a moment to read through the hardware requirements below.  If you meet these requirements, go to http://connect.microsoft.com, click on Invitations, sign in with your Windows Live ID (Passport ID) and enter the following invite ID; Extr-GHBC-JCJM. We will send an email to you from MsftConn@microsoft.com once we have reviewed your application. If you don’t already trust this address, please add it to your trusted email addresses. Please be aware that Windows Server “Centro” CTP is Confidential, and you will be required to accept the terms and conditions of participation detailed on the Connect site. 

To install Windows Server “Centro”, you need three physical servers and the associated network hardware. Ideally, the servers should be configured identically, although this is not a requirement. The minimum hardware requirements are as follows:

· 64-bit (x64) processor

· 60 GB hard-disk drive

· 2 GB RAM Management Server (4 GB recommended)

· 2 GB RAM Messaging Server (4 GB recommended)

· 2 GB RAM Edge Server

· DVD-ROM drive

· 1 network adapter (2 in the Edge Server)