Some of you may remember the campaign Microsoft Australia started this time last year, called “It’s not Cheating“. The goal of the campaign was to stop the piracy of Microsoft’s products amongst teens, in this case, Microsoft Office. So how did they do it? They sold it at a price you will never be able to find anywhere else, except maybe the streets of China. Unfortunately for most however, this offer was only available in Australia, until today September 2007.

Microsoft has taken the campaign worldwide under the new name of “The Ultimate Steal“. The offer is now available to residents of Canada, United States, France, Italy, Spain, Britain, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and of course, Australia.

On to the important details now, of course, you’re probably wondering how cheap they’re possibly selling it for? The answer: dirt. Somehow, someway, Microsoft is managing to sell full retail copies of it’s Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for the insanely low price of $64 CAD, or $59 USD. That’s a whopping 93% discount from the full retail price; I guess that just goes to show the true value of this software. Of course, as with any deal like this, there’s going to be a few catches. This offer is only availble to College or University students with valid campus email addresses who reside in the countries listed, and must be able to show proof of your enrollment with a valid student card, should it be requested from Microsoft.

If you meet the criteria above and desperately want to take advantage of this offer, act quick, because come April 30th, it will be gone.

Update: Well, apparently I’ve been living under a rock for a while, because it seems this offer has been available worldwide since September 2007. So, my bad. Either way, consider this a reminder that you only have 14 days left!

It’s always fun to browse through random sections of the Microsoft web site. And it’s even more fun when you stumble across something that is rather funny.

I took a stroll through the Microsoft Learning site today, and I found the following book which is set to be released in August this year: “How We Test Software at Microsoft”

Being a tester for Microsoft software on various levels myself and having a fair bit of background knowledge on the testing process, it will be interesting to see what Microsoft has so say about the testing process and just how far (or *GASP* close) to the truth this book really will be.

I know I’ll be ordering a copy!

*Awaits comments regarding the quality of Microsoft software and how thin this book will be*

Just popping in for a small update, I’ve now updated Geek’s Anatomy to the latest WordPress 2.5 Release Candidate 1.

What does this mean for you? Well, besides the shiny new “2.5″ in the footer, not all that much. Most of the changes are on the back end of the site, sorry On that note however, I have enabled user registrations! Registering will make the commenting process easier by saving your email address, user name and web site (if you have one); you’ll also have a public profile where you can share a bit of information about yourself. On top of that, eventually (once I figure out how to get it working) you’ll be able to upload an avatar which will be seen next to all of your comments. [Pause for "oooh's" and "aaah's"]

Seeing as how most blogs that require you to register tend to tick me off (I prefer getting to know the community before joining), registration is not mandatory for commenting.

If you’ve registered but never received the email, be sure to check your junk email folder as Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail seem to dislike mail sent by WordPress blogs.