Darren Straight's Blog

ICT Enthusiast and photographer.

By - Darren Straight

BBC iPlayer Beta goes live tomorrow

Have you heard of the BBC iPlayer? The BBC iPlayer is a downloadable application from the BBC which offers you a range of BBC television programmes to download to your PC from the last seven days. It’s been in private beta for some time now and in the making even longer but all that is soon coming to an end,

By - Darren Straight

Microsoft Live Derby 2007

Microsoft has once again released another game to promote Windows Live, this time it’s a game called Microsoft Live Derby 2007. Within this game, you drive around a little car through the cities of either San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Las Vegas or London in which you have to try and pick up the little pellets (pac man style dots) and all

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

Reading and Leeds Festival 2007 Full Lineup

It’s the 24th of July 2007 today, so guess what? There’s only 30 days left until Reading and Leeds Festival 2007! 😀 So as Reading and Leeds Festival 2007 is only a short way away, I thought id once again post the full and complete Reading and Leeds Festival Lineup so far, but this time I’ve also linked to all

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 starts Live Hotmail roll-out in Netherlands

After being the first and only to be able to officially register a Windows Live-address, people from The Netherlands will again lead the way in the full scale conversion from MSN Hotmail to Windows Live Hotmail. Starting on Wednesday, Microsoft will send out e-mails to its Dutch users explaining that Hotmail is going to look a bit different and that

By - Darren Straight

Windows Home Server Released to Manufacturers

The Windows Home Server Team at Microsoft have announced that Windows Home Server has been released to manufacturing (RTM). That being that they have finalized the software and are now handing it off to their OEM partners. The evaluation version (with 120 day evaluation period) and the system builder version are also heading into the distribution channels and will be available in