Darren Straight's Blog

ICT Enthusiast and photographer.

By - Darren Straight

The Magic Condom Panto

Christmas has passed but hey you can still come and roast your chestnuts on the red-hot fire that is The Magic Condom – a racy new online Panto starring Jodie Harsh and Paul Kaye that promises to be the filler in your stocking. Your ticket to The Magic Condom is just one click away, so visit the website and watch the hilarious,

By - Darren Straight

Virtual Earth updated Imagery for December 2007

The latest Virtual Earth release of imagery and photogrammetrics includes 36.3 TB of photography and models of 58 new cities worldwide! At a high level the Virtual Earth team have updated the Manhattan imagery, added 44 new cities with their Microsoft (Vexcel) ortho imagery, 36 new US bird’s eye areas, 26 new European bird’s eye areas, 5 areas of US orthos from

By - Darren Straight

Digital Generation risks future without memories

Britons are risking losing valuable images and data forever with almost one in five who own a portable device losing phone numbers and contact details on mislaid items and 40% admitting to not backing up photos on portable devices, according to research commissioned by Network Appliance (NetApp), a leading provider of storage and data management solutions. The YouGov survey of

By - Darren Straight

The World’s First Talking Message Tag

If you think texting “I luv u” doesn’t capture the emotion and that letter writing can be a bit OTT, then here’s the perfect solution for you, the world’s first talking message tag. From now on, you can personalise your feelings to a best mate or a new date by sending a pre-recorded pre.vu Talking Message Tag. These credit card size mementos let you

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft Acquires MultiMap

Microsoft has acquired Multimap, one of the United Kingdom’s top 100 technology companies and one of the leading online mapping services in the world. The acquisition will hopefuly give Microsoft a powerful new location and mapping technology to complement existing offerings such as Virtual Earth, Live Search, Windows Live services, MSN and the aQuantive advertising platform, with future integration potential for

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft.com: What’s the story?

If you’ve ever wondered how microsoft.com uses their technology then you’ll be interested in this post from Jeff Alexander an IT Pro Evangelist for Microsoft Australia. Though unfortunately Jeff’s blog seems to be down at the moment or better said nonexistent as visiting his blog will get the following message (The forum you requested does not exist.), I’ve still got a cached copy

By - Darren Straight

Facebook opens platform to other social networks

Online social network site Facebook has now opened up its developer platform to other social networking sites. The move comes in response to criticism that developers wouldn’t create applications for Facebook because the website is too “closed” to be an effective market, and sets up a potential clash between Facebook’s now open platform and OpenSocial, the open development platform initiative Google

By - Darren Straight

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Standalone Packages Available for Download

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) RC should be used to update a PC running Windows Vista RTM to Windows Vista SP1. This standalone package will install SP1 as well as any applicable pre-requisite packages. The 5-Language standalone package supports installations on all versions of Windows Vista with one or a combination of the following languages installed: English, German, Japanese,

By - Darren Straight

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Public Availability Program

The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate (RC) is now available to the public. In addition to previously released updates, SP1 contains changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several new technologies. SP1 also addresses some management, deployment, and support challenges. Things to know before you download