Did you know, that you can subscribes to the games of your favorite team in “A” PFG (yes, the Bulgarian A Professional Football Group) in Google Calendar?

1. If you have a Gmail account, login (if you don’t, what are you waiting for!? it’s free) and choose Calendar from the upper left navigation
2. Choose Settings from upper right corner
3. Choose the Calendars tab
4. Press the Browse Interesting Calendars link
5. Choose the Sports tab
6. Then Soccer
7. Now click on “Bulgarian A Professional Football Group – BULG” and press Subscribe next to teams you want to follow

And that’s it. Note that the visiting team’s name comes first (in contrast to what we are used to in Bulgaria). The coolest thing is, that you can see the results for the games, that have passed – and you thought nobody cares about the Bulgarian football… You can also add the games of other teams, you feel passionate about, from other championships.

On the fifth step if you choose Holidays, you can add the official holidays for different countries in the world (alas, Bulgaria is missing). This way if you are working with Americans, for example, you can impress them by congratulating them in time. If you choose More, there are other interesting calendars you can use – e.g. moon phases, consecutive day of the year, consecutive week of the year, sunrise and sunset times for your city, etc.

Now, THIS is what I call a WARRANTY:

Satisfaction guarantee You can return your laptop within 14 calendar days after the date of purchase. The laptop must be undamaged and cannot have any missing items. Toshiba will replace your laptop or give you your money back. (fantastic, whooho, fantastic, fantastic)

Accidental damage coverage The guarantee covers any type of damage or accidental destruction of your laptop that impacts its functionality. Toshiba will replace or repair your laptop. (great, great, yupee)

Theft coverage The guarantee covers theft of the laptop that has been reported to the police. Toshiba will replace your laptop. (wonderful, yahoo, wonderful, wonderful)

Unemployment coverage (!!!– my personal favorite) From May 1st 2009 Toshiba additionally covers you in case you get unemployed. Toshiba will give you your money back and you can keep the laptop if your contract gets terminated for longer than 3 months.

The promotional guarantee is valid up until March 31st and seems to only be applicable for the countries listed here. In order to take advantage of the offer you must register your newly bought Toshiba laptop, within 7 days after the purchase, on two web sites:  the standard warranty registration portal and the promotional site. The promotional warranty is valid only for the country you registered with, and only for adult citizens of that country. You cannot register a laptop you bought on credit.

Where’s the “catch”? You are only allowed one complaint within a year. If you decide to benefit from this offering, it is really useful to take a look at the 5. Exclusions section from the Terms and Conditions of the promotion. The warranty is not valid, for example, if you are a victim of a robbery without violence or burglary – it does sound cynical, but they want a document from the police or from a doctor.

Taking the above into consideration, the offer seems to be worth a try. And judging by the webpage with the Terms and Conditions, it seems to be regular.

Globul enabled recently another option to check your bill or the minutes/MB you’ve consumed. The service is called GLOBUL Menu and is interactive, directly on the diplay of your phone – no need to call customer service, send an SMS or browse to http://my.globul.bg.

1. Dial *123# from the keypad of your cellphone and press the call button
2. Choose an option from the menu, that is displayed
3. Done!

You can check your current bill, the number of minutes you’ve used (from the minutes that are available with your subscription plan), the amount of used data trafic, your credit limit and your subscriber number. The service uses USSD and should be working on all GSM handsets (yes, including that brick you stuck your parents with, the last time you bought a new device).

The option to activate your data trafic limit while in roaming, which was announces by Globul recently, functions the same way. To use it, however, you should use code *124# (not *123#).

It is not common for Bulgaria to make it into the world Hi-Tech news – especially for being the first place in Europe where new mobile phone will be offered (actually the news is not the device itself, but the fact that it comes with Android 2.1).

Motorola Milestone with Android 2.1 hitting Bulgaria by March 20th, rest of Europe to follow?

Here is the source from Bulgaria, Mobile Bulgaria:

VIVACOM offers Motorola MILESTONE exclusively, comes with Android 2.1

Taking aside the fact, that the reason for the news is the shameful offering from Vivacom (330 EURO initially and 35 EURO each month after that?! For 2 whole YEARS?! And this is for only 100 MB of data traffic per month!?!? Viva who???), it is a remarkable occasion. Especially since the author of the news is not the Bulgarian in Engadget, Vladislav Savov. Apparently, we have a place on the technological map of the world, too.

Not a word about the offering on the official Vivacom website. Typical.

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Better later, than never … After a delay of about two months, I decided finally to write and publish this post. I find it appropriate to conclude the topic, since I started it (1, 2, 3).

Oracle finalized the acquisition of SUN on January 27, 2010. Here’s the official press release:

Oracle Completes Acquisition of Sun

You can find more information about the deal on this site. It is worth noting, that Oracle organized a dedicated all-day event, to present their ideas and strategies for the products, they acquired from SUN. There is a webcast from all the presentations from the event here:

Oracle + Sun: Transforming the IT Industry

If you don’t feel like watching 5 hours of webcasts, here are two links to help you catch up without having to spend too much time:

Summary on the event from InfoQ Thoughts from an ex-employee of SUN