You must all have seen by now the popular “Turning the Pages” British Library application. It's probably one of the most impressive WPF applications, one that has been developed by Microsoft in partnership between the British Library and Armadillo Systems.

"The British Library have digitized the pages of fifteen of their most valuable works and created Turning the Pages, a browser-based WPF application that allows you to interact with these books in a virtual environment from the comfort of your home. You can open a book on your desktop and by clicking on a page, physically turn it in a 3D environment."

What you probably don't know is that this application has been recreated using Silverlight. Of course the experience is not the same as the one you can live with the WPF Version. The turning of the pages, for example, is done in 2D (as Silverlight has no support for 3D yet) and there is no refinement on the page when you zoom in on the page as there is in the WPF one. It's clear advantage though is that it brings this experience on multiple platforms and not just the Windows one.

You can check out the WPF Version at http://ttpdownload.bl.uk/, while the Silverlight Version can be found at http://ttpadd.bl.uk/ttp_software/silverlight/default.html.

This is a sight that is not common for Athens so it's always a pleasure when you get the chance to see it. Of course not being able to go to work, and getting the chance to spend the whole day with the family, playing with the snow and building the snowman, plays a role as well ;-).

Well it's officially over. The Greek gadget competition is over and myFacebook gadget took third place.

Although third place corresponds to an HTC Touch smart phone I feel a bit disappointed as I believed that this gadget deserved better. The 23500 active facebook users and the 33450 downloads from live gallery kind of gave me hope for the first place. Guess I was wrong hugh?

So what I found out once again is that effort doesn't always pay off, as if I left things to chance and didn't call my friends for help, I probably would not even be in the first three.

Someone might argue though, isn't that the case with all voting systems? The best doesn't always win. Take the elections for example. Even the best candidate doesn't always win (this does not imply that my participation was the best). UsuaIly it's the one that has the best PR, makes the largest campaign and has the most support that gets elected for office.

Well that's true but there's one thing you can do to show your opposition to this kind of systems and that is you "don't participate". Guess I learned my lesson. So next time I want to participate at a competition I will first make sure that my work will be fairly judged before entering.

Anyway, many thanks to all of you guys that supported and voted for it.