Darren Straight's Blog

A major imagery release just went online at Live Maps and the Virtual Earth platform – 3.8 terabytes worth of imagery to be exact. The 3.8TB update features dozens more cities of Birds eye coverage as well as some high resolution ortho imagery from the Ultracam and GlobeXplorer. And lots of European Birds eye coverage, including some countries that had not been previously covered at all. Here’s a list of all of the new coverage by region:

New cities with Birds Eye Coverage around the world:

United Kingdom
Bedford, Chesterfield, Hull, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Morecambe, Carlisle, Tamworth, Aylesbury, Exeter, Kettinger, Newport, Pontypool, Stafford, Rugby, Taunton, Torbay

Germany
Bremerhaven, Celle, Delmenhorst, Esslingen, Ibbenbuerren, Oldenburg, Osnabrueck, Rheine, Wilhelmshaven, Aachen, Bremen, Flensburg, Fulda, Hamln, Herford, Minden, Muenster, Wetzlar, Ahlen, Arnsberg, Emden, Lippstadt, Wesel, Kassel, Neustadt

Italy
Naples, BOLZANO, CAGLIARI, Trieste, MESSINA

United States
Chicago, Ventura County California, Broomfield Colorodo, Pinellas Florida, Charleston South Carolina

Spain
Pamplona, Seville

Switzerland
Bern, Geneva

The Netherlands
The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht

Norway
Oslo, Trondheim

Belgium
Antwerp

France
GRENOBLE, LIMOGES, TOURS

New Ultracam Hi resolution Ortho Imagery
Austin, Cheektowaga, Calgary, Glendale, Toronto, Manhattan, Hamilton, Portland, Buffalo, Ottawa

GlobeXplorer Orthos
Ventura, St. Louis, Santa Barbara, San Diego, San Bernardino County, Riverside County

Initial sales figures from Microsoft show its new operating system Windows Vista made a splash in its debut. In the first month of Windows Vista’s general availability, sales exceeded 20 million licenses, more than doubling the initial pace of sales for its predecessor, Windows XP. These initial figures reflect the broad interest in the security and usability enhancements in Windows Vista.

We are encouraged to see such a positive consumer response to Windows Vista right out of the gate, said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president of the Windows Business Group at Microsoft. While it’s very early in the product lifecycle, we are setting a foundation for Windows Vista to become the fastest-adopted version of Windows ever. Working with our partners, we are helping our customers leverage new tools and programs to accelerate the transition and provide a great user experience.

Windows Vista license sales after one month of availability have already exceeded the total of Windows XP license sales in the earlier product’s first two months of availability. In January 2002, the company announced sales of Windows XP licenses had exceeded 17 million after two months on the market.

The more than 20 million copies shipped represent Windows Vista licenses sold to PC manufacturers, copies of upgrades and the full packaged product sold to retailers and upgrades ordered through the Windows Vista Express Upgrade program from January 30 to February 28.

Wow the end of an era of being at University/College is fast approaching with only a week left and though I still have exams to attend too in May and of course lots of studying to do in April, myself and my fellow University Friends think we should organise something fantastic while we are still University Students. But what?

Some suggestions we have thought about include:

• Laser Shooting and then the pub (possible vice versa hehe)
• Monopoly Board Pub Crawl in London (possible followed by bumper cars)
• Some fun in London followed by Clubbing.

But of course there’s so much more we could do, so if you have any suggestions for what we can do let me know, of course suggestions for trips abroad would probably be better left for our bigger vacation plans after university finishes!

Looks like Windows Live Hotmail M10 is not far from being on the way, and with this new release brings some new changes:

• The new Windows Live Hotmail branding
• Faster and more reliable.
• Classic Version: Spell checker, Improved photo uploading and Bi-Directional language support (for our users who read Arabic and Hebrew).
• Improvements to the safety bar
• Pick your view with the version picker (classic or full)
• More forgiving checkboxes!

Finally that time has come, the Reading and Leeds Music Festival 2007 Official Lineup has been Announced, what’s your thought’s? Are you going? Are you trying to refresh the offical website or ticket sites but failing to get anywhere? Have you got youre tickets yet? let me know…

Reading Music Festival 2007 Lineup:

FRIDAY 24 AUGUST- MAIN STAGE
Razorlight Kings Of Leon
Interpol
Maximo Park
The Gossip
Gogol Bordello

FRIDAY 24 AUGUST- R1/NME STAGE
Ash
Brand New
The Subways
Enter Shikari

SATURDAY 25 AUGUST MAIN STAGE
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Arcade Fire
Bloc Party
Panic! At The Disco
Angels And Airwaves

SATURDAY 25 AUGUST R1/NME STAGE
The View
We Are Scientists
Biffy Clyro
The Twang

SUNDAY 26 AUGUST – MAIN STAGE
Smashing Pumpkins
Nine Inch Nails
Lostprophets
Fall Out Boy
Funeral For A Friend
+44

SUNDAY 26 AUGUST – R1/NME STAGE
Klaxons
LCD Soundsystem

Leeds Music Festival 2007 Lineup:

FRIDAY 24 AUGUST – MAIN STAGE
Smashing Pumpkins
Nine Inch Nails
Lostprophets
Fall Out Boy
Funeral For A Friend
+44

FRIDAY 24 AUGUST – R1/NME STAGE
Klaxons
LCD Soundsystem
CSS

Saturday 25 AUGUST – MAIN STAGE
Kings Of Leon
Interpol
Maximo Park
The Gossip
Gogol Bordello

Saturday 25 AUGUST – R1/NME STAGE
Ash
Brand New
The Subways
Enter Shikari

SUNDAY 26 AUGUST – MAIN STAGE
Arcade Fire
Bloc Party
Panic! At The Disco
Angels And Airwaves

SUNDAY 26 AUGUST – R1/NME STAGE
The View
We Are Scientists
Biffy Clyro
The Twang

The launch countdown for the brand new spanking Reading and Leeds Music Festival 2007 website we have all been waiting for has now finished, and when I mean finished I mean it…

As you won’t get to see anything great if you head over to the new site now:

• http://www.readingfestival.com/home/
• http://www.leedsfestival.com/home/

As it looks like the timer has gone crazy by getting its self stuck in an “if else” loop which is now causing the page to keep refeshing with the timer flashing:

11 Days!
11 Hours!
11 Seconds!
11 Mileseconds!

Update: It’s up and running, so get yourself resgisterd in the forums:

• http://www.readingfestival.com/home/
• http://www.leedsfestival.com/home/
   

Tomorrow, Saturday the 17th of March 2007 at 10:00am, the brand new spanking Reading and Leeds Music Festival 2007 website will be launched, are you ready to getting one step closer to knowing the offical Reading and Leeds Music Festival 2007 Lineup.

• http://www.readingfestival.com/
• http://www.leedsfestival.com/

Enjoy!

Hi fellow University of Kent Student’s, this post is for you!

Myself Darren Straight a Microsoft Student Partner at the University of Kent is proud to announce a “Office 2007 Tutorial / Review Contest” to celebrate the release of Microsoft Office 2007.

In this contest, students are required to author a user friendly tutorial on Office 2007 (it may be related to the new features of Office 2007 or some tips-n-tricks for Office 2007). I am offering some great prizes for the winners of the contest:

1. Microsoft Office Standard 2007 to the 1st place winner.
2. Microsoft Windows Vista Business (Not for Resale) to 2nd and 3rd place winners.
3. Microsoft T-shirt (choice of Medium of Large) for the 4rd and 5th Winners.

Rules for the contest:

1. Contest will run till 30th April 2007.
2. Participant must be a student at the University of Kent.
3. A student can post multiple tutorials/reviews. However each review must differ heavily from the last. And only one of the student’s tutorials/reviews will be considered eligible to win a prize.
4. Members must post their own work, plagiarism is highly discouraged.
5. All articles will be checked at http://www.copyscape.com/ and other such places to check the originality of the work.
6. Members are encouraged to include pictures in their articles to make them more attractive and user friendly.
7. Your entries will be under moderation, and will not be considered for a prize until approved.
8. Members may submit the tutorials in Microsoft Word format or HTML

How to submit you Tutorial / Review:

1. Email them in preferably word format to drs6@kent.ac.uk from within your University of Kent email account, so I can verify that you are with the University of Kent. Also please don’t forget to state your full name and course + campus.

Where to get a Microsoft 2007 Microsoft Office System Trial:

http://ukireland.trymicrosoftoffice.com/

Thank You,
Darren Straight
Microsoft Student Partner
http://www.darrenstraight.com/blog

Here’s some cool news.

It looks like Microsoft is now starting to implement its adCenter Labs Video HyperLink Technology with real world clients. The first signs of this come this week as MSN Entertainment shows of Kohl’s department store using the Video HyperLink Technology, which is an interactive video tool which provides more information about objects in a video when you click or even hover on them.

For example, you might want details about a product you see in the video. So as the video plays, you can move the mouse over the product to see where more information is available. Then, you can click the summary information to go to a merchandize website for details.

Check out Kohls department store Video HyperLink at:

http://entertainment.msn.com/videohyperlink/kohls 

And for more information about the Microsoft adCenter Labs Video HyperLink Technology check out the following site:

http://adlab.microsoft.com/default.aspx

Just days after Google (GOOG, news, msgs) CEO Eric Schmidt said that media companies will have no choice but to work with online sites such as YouTube, the first of the big media companies has responded — with a $1 billion lawsuit.

Media giant Viacom (VIA, news, msgs) is charging that the video-sharing site, now owned by Google, has shown 160,000 of its videos without permission.

“Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws,” Viacom said.

Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said in a statement that the company has “not received the lawsuit but (is) confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree.” Reyes said the suit would not “become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube.”

What do you think? let me know in the comments.