Darren Straight's Blog

ICT Enthusiast and photographer.

By - Darren Straight

365 Main datacenter power outage brings down major websites

It seems that the Web 2.0 datacenter 365 Main, in the heart of SOMA, has lost it’s power. Sites that are affected include Craigstlist, Technorati, Yelp, Netflix, AdBrite and all Six Apart properties, TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox. There isn’t much information available as to what has caused this – but you can check out these links for some more info on the situation: O’Reilly

By - Darren Straight

ParkatmyHouse.com have you checked it out yet?

Have you heard of ParkatmyHouse.com yet? It’s a new and innovative system of parking which provides affordable, penalty-free and secure spaces around public venues in various town and cities such as London, Brighton and glasgow by enabling property-owners with empty driveways, garages and car parks to rent them out to drivers needing somewhere to park. Commuters on their way to a

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft’s Annual Revenue Surpasses $50 Billion

Microsoft has now announced revenue of $13.37 billion for the fourth quarter ending on the 30th of June 2007, that is a 13% increase over the same period of the prior year. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.31. Excluding $0.08 of previously announced charges primarily related to Xbox 360 warranty policies, earnings per share would have been

By - Darren Straight

Explore a Virtual World, Make New Friends and Play Games With GoPets on Windows Live Messenger

Whether you’re having another day at the office or enjoying downtime at home, if you’re a user of the Windows Live Messenger network, then you are just a click away from exploring a new virtual world as Microsoft Casual Games partners with GoPets Ltd. to launch GoPets on Windows Live Messenger. Inhabited by pets that owners create and customize, the virtual GoPets

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft Office Live Adds Ask Sponsored Listings

Microsoft Office Live (http://www.officelive.com) today announced that it is adding Ask Sponsored Listings (http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com) to its adManager Beta search advertising service. adManager enables small businesses to purchase and manage search-based keyword advertising easily and affordably directly from the Microsoft Office Live platform. Ask Sponsored Listings joins the MSN network and Windows Windows Live Search as distribution sources for Microsoft Office

By - Darren Straight

comScore Releases June 2007 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, has released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines.  In June 2007, Google Sites maintained its spot atop the rankings with 49.5 percent of the U.S. search market.  Yahoo! Sites captured second place with 25.1 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (13.2 percent), Ask Network

By - Darren Straight

Web Poll Leader Vizu Launches Vote Maps

Vizu Corporation, a leader in providing free web polls and do-it-yourself market research, today announced the addition of vote maps to its poll results. The launch of Vizu vote maps concludes a series of redesign initiatives that resulted in a registration conversion increase of 69%. Like chocolate and peanut butter, polls and maps just go together, says Vizu CEO, Dan

By - Darren Straight

Image Hidden In Windows Vista DVD Hologram

The wow starts now – or at least the word wow came into my mind when I saw this post at InsideMicrosoft. Apparently a spanish guy (nickname kwisatz) has found that there is a hidden image in the Windows Vista DVD Hologram. Or better said hidden images, as there are possible more but he has yet to find out what they are

By - Darren Straight

Tech-Ed 2007 Keynote Opening with Back To The Future Spoof/Parody

Microsoft executive Bob Muglia’s appearance at the company’s Tech-Ed 2007 conference this week began with an elaborate video starring actor Christopher Lloyd in his role as Doc Brown from the “Back to the Future” series, taking Muglia back in time to save him from a disastrous keynote address.  The video is now available online, and you can watch it here!