Hilton Cardiff Hotel

This luxurious 5-star hotel is located in the heart of Cardiff city centre, overlooking Cardiff Castle and City Hall. With spectacular views over the castle and close to the Millennium Stadium, Hilton Cardiff is just a two minute walk from Queen Street, Cardiff's main shopping and business centre and has over 600 shops nearby. The hotel is also just a short distance from Cardiff Central Station and within easy reach of Cardiff International Airport.

Rooms: 197

Hotel Facilities General

Restaurant – Bar – 24-Hour Front Desk – Newspapers – Non-Smoking Rooms – Rooms/Facilities for Disabled Guests – Elevator – Express Check-In/Check-Out – Safety Deposit Box – Luggage Storage

Activities

Sauna – Fitness Centre – Massage – Jacuzzi – Turkish/Steam Bath – Indoor Swimming Pool

Services

Room Service – Meeting/Banquet Facilities – Business Centre – Laundry – Dry Cleaning – Breakfast in the Room – Currency Exchange – Car Rental – Fax/Photocopying

Internet

Wireless internet is available in public areas and costs GBP 15.00 per 24 hours.

Internet via TV is available in the hotel rooms and costs GBP 10.00 per 24 hours.

Guest Parking

Free private parking is possible on site.

Hotel information

Located in the vibrant Welsh capital, the Hilton Cardiff is Wales' most chic 5-star hotel. This premier hotel offers superb accommodation, a fantastic award winning restaurant, two contemporary bars and a luxurious leisure club and health spa. Whatever the occasion, the ambience is relaxed and inviting - the perfect cosmopolitan retreat.

Lego New Oreleans style hotel

I haven't kept up with the latest Lego kits, but there were a few of these large and elaborate architectural models in the Lego category.

Why Microsoft doesn’t really care about the UK

Here’s a theory, and I’ll admit it’s a wild one, but here goes: the left hasn’t got a clue what the right’s doing at Microsoft.

Here we are, four days after Microsoft first announced that it wouldn’t be selling the Internet Explorer-less Windows 7 E editions after all, and still the UK arm of the company can’t answer the most basic questions on the topic.

What version will people who pre-ordered the E editions receive? Will we now have upgrade versions in the UK? What about the Family Pack? All of these fundamental questions remain unanswered since Friday evening. (Update at 2.20pm: Microsoft has now confirmed some of these details - click here to read our report).

Why? Because (I suspect) the first Microsoft’s UK team knew of the decision to drop E editions was when they read it on the Microsoft blog, like the rest of us. Microsoft UK may have battalions of “product managers” holed up in Reading and its flashy offices in Victoria, but the company is run out of Redmond. Always has been, always will be.

As talented and as likeable as many of Microsoft’s UK team are, they have little or no influence on the key decisions being made about Windows, Office, Bing or any of the other key products - even when those decisions relate directly to their region, as with the E editions.

How do I know Microsoft UK didn’t see the E editions announcement coming? Because at 5:15pm on Friday night - long after most tech journalists have headed down the pub - it issued a cowardly press release, informing us that we’ll be paying more than twice as much for Windows Anytime Upgrades as the US. Crucially, it also stated that we wouldn’t be getting the Family Pack ”because the Family Pack is designed as an upgrade SKU, and upgrade SKUs of Windows 7 E will not be available in the UK until at least 2010″.

Microsoft Launches Popfly: Mashup App Creator Built On Silverlight

Microsoft will announce the private beta launch of Popfly this morning, a new Silverlight application that allows users to create mashups, widgets and other applications using a very cool and easy to use web-based graphical interface. We previously covered the launch of Yahoo Pipes and compared five different applications that let you mix data and build applications online. At the time we mentioned how this space was really heating up – and how Pipes from Yahoo simplified the creation of mashups and mini-applications by providing a drag+drop interface. Microsoft are the latest entrants in this market, and they have completely leapfrogged every other application we have seen so far.

Popfly is a big leap forward from the competitors above because it lets you do so much more, and it is one of the nicest web application interfaces I have ever seen. With Popfly, you can create applications, mashups, web pages and widgets (gadgets) and it is all tied together in a social network (as part of the Live Spaces platform) where you can connect with other users and publishers of applications. Mashups are created by dragging in and connecting ‘blocks’ which produce an output. Blocks are modules that connect to various web services API’s, and even today there are dozens of different blocks that work with a whole variety of different web services.

See additional screen shots and a link to a screencast on the Popfly overview page here.

Seeing applications like Popfly coming out of Microsoft is something that I couldn’t have imagined all too long ago – and together with the recent Silverlight announcements (which we were also very excited about) the new Microsoft is really starting to come out through their product releases. Popfly so far seems to be another potential big hit from the new Microsoft under Ray Ozzie (Ozziesoft).

Invites: While the private beta is very limited (even within Microsoft), we do have TEN invitations to send out. Leave a comment about how you would use Popfly and the best (or funniest) ten will be sent an invitation to the application.

Microsoft to Push Silverlight via Redesigned Website

Several months ago, Microsoft inserted themselves into the RIA framework business - years too late and against pretty scary odds - with the initial release of the Silverlight framework. Microsoft Silverlight is the online counterpart to the Microsoft .NET 3.0 Framework and a direct Adobe Flash/Flex competitor.

Microsoft isn't new to the whole "virtual" monopoly business (where a single company holds the entire market thanks to "superior technology" and "better business sense") - it's just not too often that they're on the wrong side of this particular proverbial fence.

When Silverlight was first announced and PopFly, Microsoft's social network built to demonstrate and hopefully kickoff Silverlight, were simultaneously launched; we were quick to appreciate the technical aspects of .NET and WPF taken online, but were careful to make it clear

that we didn't think it stood much of a chance.

But things might be on the verge of a big change. Large portions Microsoft's website are in the middle of a redesign that will feature a fully Silverlight-powered interface - doing away with HTML and everything else. We've had a chance to test the new interface (currently in beta), and here's what we think:

The Miami Herald bank of america

UBS Financial renews lease at downtown Miami tower

UBS Financial Services has renewed its lease at a landmark downtown Miami office tower.

The company will pay $7.5 million over five years for about 35,000 square feet in the Bank of America Tower at International Place, 100 SE Second St.

The financial services giant has been a tenant in the 600,000 square-foot tower since 1994, said Tony Puente, the real estate agent for the landlord.

Puente said it was the largest lease renewal in downtown Miami so far this year. He said the deal brings the tower’s occupancy rate to 92 percent despite a struggling commercial real estate market.

Puente, senior vice president of Fairchild Partners, represented landlord Wealth Capital Management. Colleen B. Newcomer, president of CBN Commercial Real Estate Services, represented UBS.

The 47-story tower, known for its lights that change color throughout the year, was designed by architect I.M. Pei and opened in 1987.

Bank of America will close 10 percent of branches

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Bank of America Corp.'s CEO Ken Lewis said he is planning to shrink the bank's 6,100-branch network by about 10 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The newspaper said Lewis told investors of the plans at a meeting last week in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the bank's headquarters are located. The Journal cited unidentified people familiar with the discussion.