As followers of me on Twitter will know I went on a Eurotrip this summer with my brother. We started in Lisbon, Portugal and finished in Rome, Italy going through Spain and France along the way and it took us just under a month to do it. I have been very lax at sharing the [...]

I hate that it has come to this. As the eagle-eyed of you might have noticed over the past few weeks I have been very lax with my blog post writing on all the sites I write for. This is because I have been somewhat distracted with financial issues, doing a Masters is no cheap thing, and I can assure you that the Euro Zone’s financial situation pales in comparison to mine. This got me thinking about alternative ways I can help my finances and I have come up with one idea I wish to share with you.

I am now setting up the “Michael Gillett bail out fund”. This is an entirely donation based endeavour and exists only to allow people who would like to help to be able to do so. However, as a reward for those who do donate I shall be setting up a Hall of Fame page on here to thank those who have donated £5 or more (unless you wish to stay anonymous). Any amounts significantly over £5 will earn the donator a more prominent place on the Hall of Fame, with more info including a name, picture, bio and links.

If you choose to donate then please email me after with the info you want to be included on the Hall of Fame and the amount you donated. The “donate” button can be found at the bottom of this post.

As I said at the beginning of this post I hate that it has come to this. I refuse to ask for any money however it is now possible that if anyone wishes to help me out then they can do so.

Just a short post to let you know that I am now writing for Liveside.net, yey! I will continue to blog on My Microsoft Life so no need to worry about that. In fact it’s likely that I will write some posts that are cross posted between MML and Liveside. My first task for Liveside will be to ask the Hotmail team at Microsoft UK about the new features that are coming to service and what else they have planned.

If you have any questions you want me to ask the Hotmail team then please let me know.

On the weekend I shared some of the music I have been listening to last week, that list of music included a song by Charlene Soraia and since then I have heard some music by Charlene. These tracks come straight from Charlene who is a fellow active Twitter user. I have to say that her music is great, her songs are very calming whilst some are actually different from the kinds of music I’ve listened to before and all the better for it. Below is a calming song which I think the word “psychedelic” describes well.

Later this month Nokia will be holding its annual event Nokia World which I’m very excited about. Its highly likely that the company will announce its Windows Phone. Well actually multiple Windows Phones. How exciting!

Nokia, despite being heavily criticised over recent months/years, has always made great hardware and the cameras on its devices are often best in class. Combine this level of great hardware design and features with the great software, Windows Phone, and it should lead to some very exciting possibilities indeed. I’m hoping that Nokia really push the boundaries with the design and the cameras of their Windows Phones. In addition to announcements about its new Windows Phones I’m hoping that Nokia will elaborate on its plans for Windows Phone over the next year.

I’m also very excited to hear about what Nokia has planned to do to help the “Third Ecosystem”. What apps will the company announce? What additional resources will the company being making available for Windows Phones developers and users? Bear in mind that Nokia owns the great mapping service, Navteq, which could lead some great location/mapping experiences on Windows Phone.

Nokia World takes starts on October 26th in London and I’m excited.

Over the past week I have been listening to some new music and a good mix of older music. First up is a song from a new artist, Charlene Soraia, it’s a beautiful cover Wherever You Will Go which was originally sung by The Calling. Readers in the UK might recognise the song from the TV as it is currently being used as the music to the stunning Twinnings advert.

You can watch the whole video of Wherever You Will Go below.

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I have just read an interesting article, on The Guardian’s new Facebook app, about a new 22 year old singer to the blues scene called Jamie N Commons. Commons’ debut album is going to be released by Luv Luv Luv records on October 17th, it is made up of 5 tracks and is called The Baron.

Below is the video for The Preacher, the lead track from Commons’ debut album.

You can listen to three of Commons’ tracks his SoundCloud site and I have say that they are excellent and I am really looking forward to his new album. There is an event in London on the 17th that will mark the launch of Common’s new album, I think I will attempt to go to it.

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I have long been a fan of Trudi Canavan and have read all her books. I was therefore very excited to hear that should would continue to write books set in the same world as her first trilogy, The Black Magician Trilogy. I have since bought the two books in the latest trilogy, the Traitor Spy Trilogy and last week finished reading The Rouge. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I am now really looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy to see how all the lose threads tie up.

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I think this slide best shows why I am not a huge fan of Apple.

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This is the first in what I plan to make a weekly blog entry about the music I have been enjoying over the past week, whether that music be chart toping or something new I have just discovered.

Last week I listened to a lot of SuperHeavy’s new album, also named SuperHeavy, which is extremely eclectic and all the better for it. The band is made up of some of music’s heavy weights (maybe that’s where the name of the band comes from) such as Mick Jagger, Joss Stone and Damian Marley and combines all the artists styles and genres. The group’s first single is Miracle Worker and I really like, but then I have grown up listening to reggae as my dad is a collector of the genre. Below is a video of Superheavy’s single.

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As followers of me on Twitter will know I went on a Eurotrip this summer with my brother. We started in Lisbon, Portugal and finished in Rome, Italy going through Spain and France along the way and it took us just under a month to do it. I have been very lax at sharing the photos despite having uploaded them weeks ago. I hope you like the photos, it was a great trip.

Eurotrip 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL