Grid computing: It’s becoming increasingly clear that there are differences between North American and European grids. “European grid users are more advanced than their North American counterparts…it really comes down to cultural issues, and as far back as I’ve been doing GlobusWORLD surveys, cultural issues are one of the biggest barriers to grid adoption,” writes Dave Linthicum, in European grids more advanced, but similar problems as U.S. SOA: Hunting around on the Web, Dave Linthicum stumbled upon an online petition that aims to make it known that “SOA 2.0 is just another marketing term that only confuses things.” Best of the blogs: In Re-imagining education Jon Udell writes that “I’ve been thinking a lot about how ascendant uses of the Internet — blogging, podcasting, screencasting, and social software — could transform education in the way that television was supposed to but of course never did.” The news beat: Microsoft extends its ALM platform with Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professional, a new tool to fill in the chasm between database developers and administrators. AMD says the first systems built on its Live home platform will be on sale next month. And Fujitsu Siemens touts its Primergy BladeFrame as a means to run SAP software on Windows. Software Development