Regular readers will have been following the progress of my cat Jarvis, who is overweight and has been on a special weight-loss diet. At his latest weigh-in, he came in at a respectable 5.86kg. Not as dramatic a fall as in previous weeks, but still in the right direction.

The difficulty is that Jarvis has realised that his food has been reduced, with the result that he is now food-obsessed and follows us every time we go into the kitchen, clamouring for food.

This no doubt explains why he's not losing weight as rapidly as in previous weeks; we've given in to his demands occasionally and given him extra bits of food.

My wife is very concerned about him, as am I, but at the same time, we want to do our best for him and make sure his weight comes back under control.  At the next visit to the vet's I'm going to ask for advice on changing his food for one which will perhaps reduce his hunger pangs. I'll let you know how I get on.

I recently turned 40. Oh-my-God.

When you get beyond a certain age, you don't expect much in the way of birthday presents and resign yourself to the usual batch of gift vouchers.

I was especially not expecting anything special for this birthday, given that I didn't organise a big party (on account of me having a bit of a bah-humbug moment about the whole "turning 40" thing).

However, I was surprised and delighted to receive a fantastic present from my wife in the shape of a rare 30-year old bottle of "The Macallan" malt whisky in a lovely presentation case (she really wanted a 40-year old bottle, but baulked at the £6500 price tag). It's matured in an oak (instead of the usual sherry) cask, which gives it a slightly nutty and woody taste and a delicate colour.

One of my friends is also taking me on a walking holiday to Ben Nevis, after a throwaway comment during a dinner party when I said I'd like to celebrate my birthday "on top of a mountain, drinking champagne".

My father and sister also visited me at the weekend for a belated birthday party and brought with them a fantastic birthday cake, which was both the centrepiece of the party and absolutely delicious at the same time.

So, on the whole, turning 40 isn't all that bad; I don't know what I was getting worked up about!

Today, I went to the launch event for three new products from Microsoft: Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The theme for the day was "Heroes Happen Here", an acknowledgement that we all do heroic things in our day jobs, which often go unrecognised. A bit of a cheesy sentiment, but one that was appreciated nonetheless.

The event was held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham and was attended by over 2000 delegates. Microsoft had clearly spared no expense; the organisation was very slick and professional. These people know how to put on a good show.

There was a palpable air of anticipation as everyone settled into their seats in the main auditorium. We were treated to a spectacular opening performance from a group called Noise Ensemble. This was followed by a keynote speech from Jonathan Perera, General Manager of the Application Platform and Developer Marketing group. Jonathan described how the three products combined would help developers create next-generation web and business applications, increase security, simplify maintenance and enable businesses to take advantage of server virtualisation.

This was followed by a series of brief demonstrations of the headline features of each product. Some of these involved Microsoft customers explaining how the products had helped them overcome particular problems. The most compelling of these was a presentation from a couple of chaps from Cambridge University and how the new features in SQL Server 2008 have helped them to analyse botanical data collected by Darwin's mentor and tutor, John Stevens Henslow.

For the rest of the day, there was a full program of presentations and demonstrations. I attended two sessions: one on the new Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) features in Visual Basic and another on Smart Client development, presented by Daniel Moth of the Developer Evangelism team in Reading.

In between sessions, I checked out the huge expo area, where dozens of Microsoft partners had stands showing off their products. There was also an "Ask the Experts" area, where you could go up to Microsoft staff and ask them anything. I asked Mike Taulty (also of the Developer Evangelism team) a question relating to an issue I have with the ClickOnce deployment of a business application. He not only gave me some great advice, he went on to say that if I was still having problems, to send the application to him and he'd "have a look at it" for me!

As well as checking out the new products, I also had another reason for being at this event: I volunteered to take part in a competition being run by the guys from The Next Generation User Group (NxtGenUG) called "Speaker Idol". The competition was designed to give novice presenters from the developer community the opportunity to speak in front of a real audience, with great prizes up for grabs. There was also, in true reality-show style, a judging panel made up of seasoned speakers.

I was doing my "Observer Pattern" nugget which I had presented twice previously to NxtGenUG members. I was nervous, but felt I was in with a good chance. Well, I only went and flipping won! I could see from the audience's reaction that it was going down well and the feedback from the judges was very positive too.

My prize was a brand new Xbox 360 Elite games console, complete with a copy of Halo 3. To say I was pleased with myself would be the understatement of the year.

At the end of the day, all attendees were given a free software pack containing a 12-month evaluation copy of Windows Server 2008, a full copy of Visual Studio 2008 Standard and the latest pre-release version of SQL Server 2008. The pack also contained a pin code to register for an evaluation copy of SQL Server when it comes out later this year.

Overall, it was a fantastic event - one of the best I've ever been to. If you missed it and want to check out some of the content for yourself, visit the virtual launch web site here.