Loren Heiny, who reporting from Fawcette's VSLive/MDC/Speech conference triad: "We're standing here laughing that even though Scoble isn't here, we've heard his name mentioned more than anyone else's."

While we're talking about Loren, his brother Layne just became an official school teacher today (finally got his license) and has posted a PDF document of his ideas of how to use a Tablet PC in the classroom.

So, what do I think about the EU decision? I'm one of those guys who was in Silicon Valley for the past 30 years. I hated that one company got so powerful over the industry. I hated that one guy, Gates, got so rich (translation: I was jealous). I hated that I thought I had no say over products that I used every hour of every day. I hated that Microsoft seemed to force me to do things. For instance, hit tab at the beginning of a paragraph in Word and it changes to an indent. Hey, I wanted a tab!

I hated that Microsoft would aim its economic power at companies and individuals. That power has been pointed at my head: I was nearly fired at a company because someone at Microsoft wanted me to be punished (ironic too, cause now that guy just joined the group I'm in here).

I hated that Microsoft wanted to take over everything from my living room to my web site browsing.

So, Scoble, why do you work at Microsoft then? Doesn't sound like a good place to work, does it?

Well, some things got me excited. For one, I saw a prototype of Longhorn (before I knew I was going to be offered a job here). It amazed me. Microsoft was doing things +I+ wanted in an operating system. Better searching for your file system. Better UI. Better development environment. Better video and audio performance. Freaking awesome seamless video built in (you gotta see this to appreciate it). Better fonts. Better browsing. Ink built in. And tons of other things built in.

My life as a user of Windows was going to get better. Finally, I thought. About time, I thought.

Then, I had a chat with Ballmer at the MVP summit last year (this was before I knew I would be offered a job here). I told him, in front of all the other MVPs, that Microsoft should get a human voice. Should improve its community listening skills. He said these things were very important to him and that he was trying to change Microsoft to be a better corporate citizen. So, when I got a chance to work here, I took him up on it and so far he's lived up to his half of the bargain.

For instance, the employee blogging community has grown from, what, 30 bloggers to more than 400 in about a year. With no rules. I can take on any issue I want, if I think it's important. Including this one.

And, for the past month I've been given the task of going around and interviewing people about what they are working on. Getting those on video tape. And getting to see the new technology that's being developed here. Yeah, I'm paid to hype up our technology, but in the next few years you are going to get some amazing stuff.

What am I getting at? I don't know, cause anything I say will come off as disingenuous and/or will put me at legal risk. So, I'd rather just sit back and see what you all have to say. I'm listening. The execs here are listening. We're all trying to learn about what the right approach is to take, and would love your feedback.

By the way, whenever a big news story breaks regarding Microsoft, I immediately go to "Watching Microsoft Like a Hawk." That site points to a wide variety of news about Microsoft and in the few years of reading it, I've seen them link to just about everything of note regarding Microsoft.

If you wanna see a wide variety of stories on the EU decision (and Microsoft's official reaction), there's a bunch over there.

They do a "Watching Google like a Hawk" site too.

Associated Press: Tech veterans doubt Microsoft will change.

Philip Miseldine: Who wins out of all this? Big business. (on the EU decision handed down today)

Buzz Bruggeman, CEO of ActiveWords, is hosting a blogger dinner in Chicago tonight at 7:15 p.m., if you're in Chicago you might want to check it out.

Speaking of ActiveWords, Marjolein Hoekstra is doing an ActiveWords blog.