Darren Straight’s Blog

Ok well I’m now safely back home after attending an informal Windows Live Dinner at Gabrielle’s last night in London, this event was organised and paid for by heaven.fr, an online marketing and communication agency for MSN Europe.

I wanted to mention that heaven.fr paid for this because I think it was really great of them to do this, especially considering that this was not a Microsoft initiative but an event organised by heaven to get people in the same area of study talking together and to get their feedback and well I must say a dinner was a great way of doing it!

In case you didn’t know Gabrielle’s is a French restaurant on Heddon Street just of from Regent Street, for starters I had Chicken Caesar Salad and for the main dish Grilled Steak followed by Lemon Sorbet for desert!

I’m pretty sure everybody had a nice time at the dinner and I must say it was great talking to some of the people who had come, including the two MSN Employees!

So yeah overall this Windows Live Dinner Event in London gelts the thumbs ups from me and well I cant wait for the next Windows Live Session In May.

Once again thanks goes to Romain and Nicolas from heaven for organising this event!

By the way I’ve sent the photos we took at the Windows Live Dinner to Romain so they should be on flickr soon, after he’s taken out the ones he doesn’t like!

Are you a msn messenger expert?

Find out now by playing Msn’s ”hello messenger quiz” were all you have to do is answer three simple questions for the chance to win some instant prizes.

Netherlands Hallo Messenger? Quiz
http://hallomessengerquiz.msn.nl

UK Hello Messenger Quiz
http://www.hellomessengerquiz.co.uk/

Denmark Hallo Messenger? Quiz
http://www.hallomessengerquiz.dk/

Belgium Allo Messenger Quiz
http://www.allo-messenger-fr.be/

Belgium Hallo Messenger Quiz
http://www.allo-messenger.be/

Sweden Yo Messenger!
http://yomessenger.msn.se/

Norway hallo Messenger Quiz
http://hallo.msn.no/

Spain Messenger ¿Dígame?
http://messengerdigame.msn.es/

Italy Hello Messenger Quiz
http://hellomessenger.msn.it/

A big thank you goes to Romain from heaven for telling me about this!

Microsoft was fined millions of euros by the European Commission two years ago and today Microsoft has started it’s fight back in the European Court to get that money back and argue that it’s been treated badly, but this time it’s not just money that is at stake but the reputacion of both Microsoft and the  European Commission, here’s part of a Question & Answers article from the BBC about the court case.

What’s all this about?

Microsoft has abused its virtual monopoly in the computer world to muscle out smaller rivals, especially those that make media players and software for servers - at least that’s the finding of the European Commission’s competition watchdog.

Back in 2004, the commission fined Microsoft 497m euros (£343m, $615m) and forced it to offer a version of its Windows operating system without Microsoft’s own media player.

The company was also told to give rivals more information about how Windows works, so they can make their own software integrate better with the operating system that runs some 90% of the world’s computers.

But it’s not just money and Microsoft’s reputation that are at stake.

For the Commission this is the granddaddy of all anti-trust cases.

The EU’s competition watchdog has suffered a string of defeats in court recently. If it loses the Microsoft case, its credibility could be undermined for good.

What does Microsoft have to say for itself?

The company strongly denies the charges brought by the European Commission.

Just because a company is big and successful, says Microsoft, it should not have to share all its secrets and innovations with rivals.

The company says it has followed all the rules, and that the commission has “erred” in applying them.

If the Commission succeeds, says Microsoft, consumers would suffer, because there would be fewer incentives to innovate.

Furthermore consumers demand “bundled” solutions - all-inclusive software packages that feature basic things like media players - says Microsoft, and don’t want the pain of having to download or buy everything separately.

Via: BBC News

The London Marathon 2006 is now under way; The London Marathon is a marathon race that has been held each year in London since 1981, the length of the marathon as always been the same of 42.195 km (26 miles and 385 yards).

I’ve always wanted to run the London Marathon but I’m wondering whether I would actually make it to the end or not, people who compete in the London Marathon do a lot of training before hand and even some of the best runners have had to quite the race because they could not endure the pain the race puts on your body.

Who knows maybe one day I will, that is if I get accepted into the race and have also done enough physical training.

For now I leave you with some links:

Official London Marathon Site
BBC Live: London Marathon
More Coverage from the BCC

Check this Net Neutrality Video out; its a little video that explains why discrimination on the Internet is a problem and will continue to be as long as net neutrality rules are not enforced, those of you who understand nothing or very little about net neutrality should understand this very well as it’s been made as straight-forward as possible.

Thanks goes to my friend randy for pointing it out!

Microsoft Campuses are now going solar panel powered or at least they have started too, Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus was the first to install the new solar panels as a commemorative for Earth Day 2006, hopefully it will be a success and we will start too see Solar panels being used on other Microsoft Campuses and Buildings other than just the Microsoft Silicon Valley campus, here’s an extract of an article at CNET News.com explaining more about this move to solar energy.

At a small gathering Friday afternoon at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, the company commemorated Earth Day by flipping the switch on its new solar electric system, designed to save energy costs.

Attendees were treated to free scoops of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Microsoft says the system, which with 2,288 solar panels on four building rooftops generates about 480 kW at peak capacity, is the largest of its kind in Silicon Valley. It’s also the first such effort from Microsoft on any one of its worldwide campuses. “Microsoft is committed to being a responsible environmental citizen locally and globally,” said John Matheny, Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Site Leader. “Implementing the latest practices and technologies to protect the environment is good for the community and good for our business.”

Via: CNET News

So it was the Queen’s (Queen Elizabeth II) 80th birthday today, but unfortunately I was at work nearly all day so I have only just came round to blogging about it and seeing what happened today, but know I would like to know what everybody else thought about the celebrations today, and also did anybody go to any of them, do you have any photos?

And I also would like to ask what are everybody’s opinions on the Queen (Queen Elizabeth II) and the British Monarchy.

Let me know, thanks!

BBC News (The Queen at 80)

Official web site for The Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations in 2006.

Ben Poon yesterday announced on the Windows Live Mail beta team blog that the Windows Live Mail beta is expanding to 3 million users and that as an incentive for users to try it out they are letting users sign up for the Windows Live Mail African Safari Sweepstakes, which will give users the chance to win an African Safari trip for four, among hundreds of other weekly prizes, here’s what Been Poon had to say:

What do hippopotami have to do with Windows Live Mail? Lots.
 
Hello, everyone! My name is Ben Poon and I’m the Beta Program Manager for Windows Live Mail. I’ve waited a long time to introduce myself to all of you because I wanted to have something great to share on my first post here. This is what’s up with Windows Live Mail:

1. First let me say that we’ve had a blast with the relatively exclusive club of beta users we’ve taken in up to this point and we’ve absolutely thrived on the feedback you guys have provided. Now, in addition to acting on your feedback on how to make Windows Live Mail rock solid with features, we need to make sure that the service can scale while being fast, simple, and safe! There are over 230,000,000 Hotmail customers today, and we’d like to have even more on Windows Live Mail.

So what’s that mean for you? We’re giving you a great reason to sign up for Windows Live Mail and to tell your friends and family to do the same: You could win an African Safari trip for four, among hundreds of other weekly prizes!

Hotmail users who sign up for the Windows Live Mail African Safari Sweepstakes are eligible to win hundreds of prizes each week and a grand prize trip for four to a Luxury Safari in Africa! Look for ads and emails inviting you to sign up for the sweepstakes and upgrade to the Windows Live Mail beta at the same time. If you don’t want to wait, just click on the link above to get in on the excitement.

We’ve heard from you that you want to get into the beta without having to put your name on a wait list, so the great thing about signing up for Windows Live Mail through the sweepstakes is that you can do a direct sign up! This means that most folks will be moved from Hotmail into the beta with the click of a mouse! If we can’t move the account immediately, we will work hard to get it on the beta as soon as possible. Sign up soon in case there is so much demand that we need to limit the amount of direct signups.

2. Everyone on Windows Live Mail can now search every part of every mail they’ve ever received and ever will receive. Ever. The backend team has been working like mad to make all of our existing mail searchable by indexing them. They’ve also built in support to index all incoming mail on the fly as it is received. This is an awesome, yet core feature that the team has been working to get to you since last December!

3. You have more than 3,000,000 neighbors! In an effort to get as much feedback as possible, we’re inviting more and more users onto the beta daily. Click that feedback link! Post a comment on the blog! That’s all you gotta do to get your voice heard and to shape Windows Live Mail for hundreds of millions of users who will be coming after you. Talk about power! And to those of you who have provided feedback already: THANKS!

We’re working around the clock to build the best mail service on earth. We’ve heard your feedback and are focusing on making the beta more reliable, faster, and safer. That’s what’s up. Holla back, playas!

Ben Poon

Windows Live Mail Beta Program Manager

Via: Windows Live Mail Team Blog

Mary Jo Foley from Microsoft-Watch has today revealed that the Msn team at Microsoft is planning on developing a new virtual hard drive service for Windows Live, currently code-named Live Drive, it will provide users with a virtual hard drive for storing hosted personal data, here’s an extract from the article:

“Microsoft is planning to use its server farms to offer anyone huge amounts of online storage of digital data,” according to Fortune. “With Live Drive, all your information—movies, music, tax information, a high-definition videoconference you had with your grandmother, whatever—could be accessible from anywhere, on any device.”

Microsoft has been eyeing the hosted storage space for at least two years. In 2004, Microsoft was rumored to be readying a hosted backup-and-restore service for SOHO (small office/home office) and consumer customers.

Sources close to Microsoft described that service as one where Microsoft would back up users’ personal files on CD and/or DVD. Users also would be able to back up financial files, legal documents, digital photos, online music and home videos, and even put their most important files into a “digital safe-deposit box,” hosted by Microsoft, sources said.

I believe that it’s going to be quite interesting to see what happens with Live Drive because Google is also developing a similar technology, code-named Gdrive!

Via: Microsoft-Watch

Ever heard of Gabbly? It’s been around for a month or so now but is only now really starting to catch on.Basically Gabbly is a chat service that allows you to chat around on any webpage by simply typing gabbly.com/ in front of a webpage’s URL; like this you will be able to chat with anyone else visiting the page at the same time who also uses Gabbly.

For example, to chat on the new ziki.com website, just type gabbly.com/ziki.com in your browser and you’ll see the Ziki website with the Gabbly Chat window floating on top.

Give it a go it’s great fun!