2008 European Microwave Week

European Microwave Week (EuMW) is coming up at the end of Oct. in Amsterdam. As we gear up for the show and coverage, I noticed that there are quite a few spin offs from Aachen University of Applied Sciences including Mician, MiG, IMST and Heuermann HF-Technik. We have worked with Mician, MiG and IMST - all of them have very impressive products and now we noticed that Heuermann HF-Technik also has developed some interesting products such as lap timing microwave devices for racing applications. Quite an impressive incubator of new companies coming out of Aachen University indeed.

Our September issue is dedicated to complete coverage of EuMW with articles covering the conference and exhibition plus a historical look at EuMW and the industry in Europe. We also have articles covering Amsterdam highlighting places of interest, how to get around and where to eat. We will also be beginning our Online Show Daily coverage of the show beginning in Oct. here.

We also invited our readers of the magazine in Sept. to join in here on the blog and comment on any interesting events or places to visit in Amsterdam. Please post your comments below!

New Admin Console Release

Posted by Marzia Niccolai, App Engine Team

Many people have been asking for clarification on their application's CPU usage, and today we are happy to announce the release of a new Admin Console. These improvements are designed to give better insight in to your application's resource usage.

Your application's dashboard now displays the average amount of CPU consumed for each of your handlers, as well as the percentage of CPU of that handler with respect to your application:


For information on how these values are calculated, see our FAQ.

Additionally, in your logs you can find the amount of CPU consumed for each request:

Remember, you can download all of your logs from the Admin Console. And with the CPU usage stats, you can profile how your app performs and work to optimize requests that consume the most resources. By minimizing the work done on each request you can reduce your application latency and rest easy knowing your app will scale easily! Feel free to discuss in our Google Group!

viva las vegas: day 3

Day 3- Saturday:
Throughout the whole vacation, Mom and Jeri were taunting us by saying that they had a big surprise for Saturday afternoon. Being that we were in Vegas, the possibilities were endless (and a little scary), so Christen and I just decided to be patient until all was revealed.

That morning, we went to Paris. Ahh....Paris. That was the only place I really wanted to go during the whole trip, so needless to say I was super excited. Everyone who knows me has probably heard me talk about my obsession with Paris (the real one...in France), and how I must see the Eiffel tower (the real one...in France) before I die. Well, as soon as we walked in, we saw the most adorable little "streets" of shops, and everything looked like you were walking down the streets of Paris. I was in heaven. We ended up getting breakfast at the most amazing Parisian buffet that had everything...and I mean everything...you could possibly THINK of to eat for breakfast. (Um...hello. Breakfast food + Paris = HEAVEN) I loaded my plate, and inhaled all of the breakfasty goodness I could handle. My favorite were the homemade crepes. Oh. My. Gosh. Amazing.
After breakfast, we walked through Bally's to see the casino and buy tickets for our "surprise" and then ended up driving to the Stratosphere. We immediately went to the top of the tower (109 stories) because we heard there were some rollercoasters up there. My daredevil cousin talked me into one of (maybe THE) scariest ride ever. And I'm a rollercoaster fan. Umm... the one we went on was called "Insanity", and it was basically a ride that lifted us out over the side of the tower and swung us around. I'll just show pictures to get the full effect.
Don't even get me started on the ride that Christen rode after our death-defying act. Hers was a one-track ride that went directly off of the tower and the stopped...making you feel that you were going to fall right off. A video is the only thing that can do it justice, but here are some pictures.

she's crazy.

here we are in front of the rides we went on:
another diagram:

Right after this we had to rush to get to our big "surprise", which turned out to be.... THE PRICE IS RIGHT!!!! No, not the televised one, but Las Vegas does a live show that's almost as good as the real thing! We got our cool price tag name tags, and we got to cheer along with the crowd when contestants were asking us about the right price. A lot of people around us got called to "Come on down!" but we didn't get the chance. Oh well. It was still a lot of fun. They didn't allow pictures or even cameras inside the show, so this is the only picture I got:
After the show, we went to different casinos to look for 5 dollar blackjack tables, which were really hard to find on a Saturday. We ended up finding one, (Bills Casino & Saloon), and lost money pretty quickly. Just bad luck I guess. Christen found a new love for Craps (why is that a name?), so mom and I decided to take a walk and meet back up with them a little later. We had some good mother-daughter time, and got a really tall margarita while we toured the Flamingo and met some colorful people :)

took pictures of more pretty casinos...

...and drove to downtown to see the big light show. But first, we ate at Tony Roma's and had the most amazing ribs ever. (I realize I'm talking a lot about food, but come on...that's what vacations are for, right?) Anyway, the light show in downtown was absolutely incredible.
dowtown before the light show:

during the light show:

We got home late again, and immediately crashed (again). But it was a fun and full day. :)

[Coming up next: poolside pina coladas, Cirque du Soleil, and the Bellagio fountains.]