Folks from the Red Cross have been leaving me messages all day. I'm gonna try to get through tomorrow, but they say they are seeing traffic levels they've never seen before. If you can't get through to donate money, keep trying. We have more than 100 employees working on their infrastructure, often under trying circumstances. That's to say the least. It's not a Microsoft deal either. Lots of other companies are helping out in the relief effort. We need to work on this one together. An entire region is in deep pain and will take months of work to get back into any working state.

If you're at the Red Cross, we're cheering you on. You're heros in my book. Anything we can do to help, let us know.

I'm proud of the tech industry. Every company I know of is doing something to help out. Kudos. Some, like my favorite news aggregator, are donating 3% of revenues. Keep it up!

One more before I head off to interviews. Alex Barnett has links to a few Virtual Earth hacks. More on their way, I did a video with that team too and some non-Microsoft developers who are working on some cool VE hacks -- that video is coming soon. I was just looking at my Channel 9 schedule. In the next two weeks I'll be posting more videos than in about the past two months. Whew.

Internet Explorer team blog: Continued fruits of the WaSP partnership: The "HasLayout" myth debunked.

The misery in New Orleans continues. The Times-Picayune has been publishing online under what, I'm sure, are trying circumstances. My hat is off to everyone who is trying to help here. And with that, I'm off. Long day ahead.

I will be offline today and unavailable. Have a TON of interviews setup, including one with the Tablet PC team (aren't they dead yet? A lot of the press they have been getting lately makes it sound that way).

I'm not the only one busy today at Microsoft, though. I hear that the start.com team is working on a new release that should be turned on today. Plus they've simplified their URL to simply www.start.com.

Another team at MSN just released an update for the MSN Screen Saver. This is cool.

Even outside of Microsoft folks are busy. NPR, for instance, just launched a bunch of podcasts.

Anyway, have a good day. I'm sorry for not answering your emails.

Personal note to David Berlind: I just got your UPS package (he sent me some original Windows 95 items so I could display them in my office). I really appreciate that. But what was really cool was UPS lets you track your package through RSS. That rocks.

Oh, I just got an email that said that Microsoft has a large technical team working with the Red Cross today at the Red Cross headquarters. They make me proud.

Mark Evans: Skype's Secret Weapon (developers).

Speaking of developers, O'Reilly has an interview with David Heinemeier Hansson, developer of Ruby on Rails.

Oh, I've seen another spate of beating up on Technorati. Randy Charles Morin ads onto the dogpile. "Technorati continues to get worse. I think everybody is tired of the talk."

Yikes. Just when I thought Technorati was getting better.

OK, this is just nuts. One of my favorite authors, Seth Godin, linked to my blog. Hi Seth. Can't wait to see his next book.

I like MSNBC's map view of Katrina's aftermath. Hey, did you catch the "blog this" link on the lower right? Joe Wilcox didn't miss it.

Whew, long day today. Lots of emails and video work. Here's some quick hits before I head to bed.

First, there are some Microsoft employees who are just providing a great example to all of us. For instance, John Morello is volunteering with the Red Cross in Louisiana setting up a new IT facility to help deal with the thousands of victims of Katrina that the Red Cross will need to deal with.

But, back to normal IT stuff:

Brian Jones (who works on the Office team on XML formats): Article on Proposal for Massachusetts to move to OpenDocument.

Brian Oberkirch: LazyWeb, Don't Fail Me Now. He's looking for a way to connect comments together.

Buzz Bruggeman: When Google adsense makes no sense... He links to a blog that asks search engines to do a better job chosing ads during disasters.

Gary Price has a couple of interesting sites. 1) New areal imagery post-hurricane released today by NOAA. 350 images and maps of New Orleans. 2) Images from NASA of Katrina. 3) Live TV and Radio from in and around New Orleans.

Michael Lehman is doing a daily podcast leading up to the opening of the PDC in Los Angeles in 13 days.

Consumer Reports says that its top rated anti-spam program is Outlook 2003 and its top rated anti-spyware program is Microsoft AntiSpyware.

Forbes writes: With 25-song cap, iTunes phone may underwhelm. I have a 512MB SD card in my Audiovox.

Local communities are holding concerts to help disaster aid. Here in the Seattle area there's MusicAid Northwest on November 17.

Brooke Shelby Biggs wrote me today. She was my editor in college and got me my first job. Turns out she has a blog too and is writing a book about three guys in Louisiana who have been in solitary confinement for 34 years for a crime that she says the evidence so far doesn't indicate that they committed.

On the video blogging list I saw a URL for live streaming video from New Orleans from WDSU.

Lots of blogs are opening up about Katrina, like Andy Carvin's "Katrina Aftermath" blog. I like his blog because he talks about the recovery efforts underway and gives links to places you can help.

BBC's "TheWorld" has streaming news updated hourly with lots of podcasts and news feeds.

Damian Spaulding, CEO of Darwin Productions, today was showing me his new suite of apps, named Evolution, that he says is turning the world of ERP, CRM, Accounting, Project Management, Ecommerce Management, Inventory Management, File/Document Management, Network Management and General Business Management software on its head. All done in .NET.

THe Onion has a funny post (like usual): Google announces plan to destroy all information it can't index.

Sara Ford's family rode out the hurricane. "something interesting is happening with my last post. When I announced that my family survived, old friends of family accidentally found my blog via search engines. They are leaving comments that they are so relived to know my family made it."

Larry Larsen of Poynter Institute answered me back and linked to information about a CyberBUG that can send back video 20 miles. Says that news operations should be using these to report and rescue workers should be using them to find people on rooftops.

BetaNews is asking "Tablet PC Platform in Trouble?" Lots of people have been sending me that, and other articles that show the Tablet is in trouble. Well, come back next week and let's talk again. Personally I'm using my Tablet more than ever. I remember all the folks who, in 1999 said "Apple is gonna go bankrupt." Well, now it's our turn to deal with these kinds of theories.

NovaPDF SDK is a software development kit that lets developers add the ability to create PDF files in their own applications.

Brian Oberkirch has the Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog. Slidell was devastated by Katrina.

Shawn Rogers, co-founder and executive editor, of the Business Intelligence Network says they interviewed Bill Baker, general manager of Microsoft's SQL Server team and published it as a podcast. Lots of other interviews with IT executives too.

The Seattle Times is reporting that Microsoft is opening a retail store in New York City.

This teaser for "Prey," an Xbox 360 title makes me want an Xbox 360. Wow.

Put September 13 in your calendar. Turns out that Bill Gates and Jim Allchin's keynotes from the PDC will be webcast. Michele Leroux Bustamante invites you to the Women in Technology panel, among other things (men invited).

Peter Bernard links to a funny MSN ad in Spain.

CoDe Magazine has a special Tablet PC issue coming up and here's a way you can order your own copy. For free, of course!

Got an extra $20,000? Want a very cool "air monitor?" Check out OhGizmo's interview with the heliodisplay inventor.

Ted Leung writes about the aftermath of my BBQ in "Modern Attraction and Instant Messaging."

Wired talks about the remix culture in "Monkeying with the Web." Ahh, Greasemonkey has lots of people nervous.

Another guy from my past, Bob Summers, wrote me for the first time in years (he was the coauthor on my first book about NetMeeting). Turns out he's running a VoIP company named iSpQ. He says it's better than Skype because it does multiperson audio and video and has better voice quality. Anyone try it out? I'd like to know what you think.