This couldn’t have come together better if we had planned it. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at tonight’s sold-out TechFlash Live event, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Palace Ballroom in Seattle, at 2100 Fifth Ave. And afterward, the revival of the free Ignite Seattle event is taking place at the King Cat Theater, a short walk away at 2130 Sixth Ave.

We’re expecting a great crowd at TechFlash Live, with Tom Douglas food, drinks and networking. Our featured guest is Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger, who will answer questions about building a booming business out of LOLcats and awkward moments. If you have anything you’d like us to bring up, feel free to post a comment below.

TechFlash Live is at capacity, as evidenced by this Craigslist post. But if you missed out on this one, we’ll be having one of these each quarter, so we hope to see you next time.

Afterward, many of us will also be heading over to the King Cat, where the first set of fast-paced Ignite talks starts at 8:30 p.m., preceded by a paper-tower contest at 7:30 p.m. It’s great to see Brady Forrest and crew reviving the Ignite phenomenon in the city where it started.

Hope to see you tonight at one or both of these events. 

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and Minecode’s Verma given $2,500 fine, one year of probation  

Minecode project manager Sandeep Verma was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine and sentenced to one year of probation today for his role in disabling the Web site for online wine shop Vinado in late 2006.

While U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler said that Verma had led an "exemplary life" with no prior offenses and great support from his family, she noted that the 35-year-old software programmer’s action did have severe repercussions on Vinado.

"I know that you will return to being a very constructive member of society," Theiler said in her ruling from the bench. Tomorrow, Minecode CEO Pradyumna Samal is set to be sentenced for the more serious issue of deleting Vinado’s Web site after the online wine retailer allegedly failed to pay its bills to Minecode.

In brief remarks at the federal courthouse in downtown Seattle today, Verma said he was very sorry for the incident. He declined to comment after the hearing.

Verma, who remains employed at Minecode, had asked the court for a $750 fine and no probation. Attorney Amanda Lee said that Verma did not understand at the time that what he was doing was wrong, and he lied to FBI agents out of loyalty to his boss.

"He is not someone whose moral compass is misaligned," she said.

Because he is not a U.S. citizen, his attorneys expressed concern about how the sentencing would be interpreted by immigration officials. Government representatives said they took those factors into consideration when drafting their sentencing recommendations, which included at least one year of probation and a fine of $5,000.

The situation arose in late 2006 when Verma — allegedly acting on orders from Samal — disabled the Web site of Vinado. The following month, Samal deleted Vinado’s Web site, which wiped out customer databases, graphics and other information, said federal prosecutor Jim Lord.

While Samal’s involvement was much more serious, Lord said that Verma lied to the FBI and stuck to the company’s "party line."

As part of the plea agreement, Minecode is set to pay at least $122,000 in restitution for the damage it caused to Vinado.

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and RealDVD case; Vista; Geospiza; Amazon in education; and more  

RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser acknowledged in a preliminary court hearing that the company’s RealDVD technology could let consumers copy rental DVDs, but he said the company wants to "steer people away from that," reports CNet News.com.

RealNetworks is fighting with movie studios over whether consumers can legally copy DVDs to their computer hard drives. Wired reports computer scientist Robert Schumann testified that RealDVD software circumvents encryption technology designed to prevent copying.

Microsoft last night released Windows Vista Service Pack 2, a big bundle of fixes and updates for the PC operating system. Details in this official Windows blog post.

Amazon Web Services today announced a new program called AWS in Education, extending its cloud-computing offering to teachers, researchers and others in education.

On a related note, Carlsbad, Calif.-based Applied Biosystems and Seattle-based Geospiza announced what they are calling the life-science industry’s frst "genomic analysis cloud-computing solution." It uses Amazon Web Services.

PathGuide Technologies, a Seattle maker of warehouse management software, is celebrating its 20th year in business this week.

Cozi’s family scheduling and calendar service is embedded on the Dell Studio One 19 PC, a touch-enabled computer.

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Wetpaint partners with MSN  

Wetpaint plans to create more than two dozen "fansites" in conjunction with MSN Entertainment as part of a deal announced today. Seattle-based Wetpaint, which operates a wiki-based Web site publishing platform, offers social media tools that allow readers to contribute photos, stories and other content.

The companies didn’t mention what types of entertainment sites they plan to create, though Wetpaint does have some experiencing building these offerings on its own platform. (Here’s a look at the Wetpaint fan sites for TV shows such as Merlin, Rome and The Mentalist.)

While Facebook and MySpace have their fair share of entertainment fan sites, Wetpaint CEO Ben Elowitz tells TechCrunch that his company’s sites attract more user engagement in terms of contributions and comments.

"With their SuperFan initiative, MSN recognizes the power of the voices of fans and the ability of this motivated audience to drive buzz and traffic above and beyond static fan pages and message forums," Elowtiz said in a statement. The release did not say whether MSN and Wetpaint plan to share advertising revenue from the new offering.

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