|
|
|
|
|
|
My $103.80 Starbucks Order
by
Ben Vincent
|
Today I offered to buy our Dev and Test teams a Starbucks. Little did I know they’d take my suggestion of a “Iced Single Vente, 7 pump Peppermint, Caramel Sauce Top and Bottom, Light Ice, No whip, Mocha” seriously! What I ended up with was 28 completely different drinks. It took me 15 minutes to order them and created a twenty person queue behind me. I’ve always wanted to order one of those silly complicated drinks people order, having order 28 today I’ve had my fix. The Starbucks crew in Mountain View were pretty impressive, didn’t moan at the order and just took it in their stride! - Venti Espresso Frappuccino with whip cream
- Tall Caramel Apple Spice
- Grande, 2 pump Vanilla, Non-Fat, Extra Hot, Latte
- Short Cafe Mocha
- Grande Java Chip Frappuccino
- Double Tall Caramel Macchiato
- Grande, non-fat Latte
- Grande Latte
- Grande Chai Latte
- Grande Mocha
- Grande Caramel Macchiato
- Tall 1-pump Hazelnut Latte w/ 2% milk
- Grande, Java Chip Frappuccino, No whip
- Venti Java Chip Frappuccino
- Tall Vanilla flavor, extra non-fat cream, decaf Latte
- Tall white chocolate Mocha w/ peppermint
- Grande Double Chocolate-Chip Frappuccino w/ whipped cream
- Venti Peppermint White Mocha w/ whipped cream
- Tall Chai Latte
- Grande Decaf caramel Frappuccino
- Grande Caramel Latte w/ extra Caramel Sauce
- Tall Caramel Frappuccino w/ whipped cream
- Grande Vanilla Bean Frappuccino w/ whipped cream
- Tall extra-hot Latte
- Grande, 1.5 pump Mocha, decaf, low fat milk
- Grande, Iced caramel Macchiato
- Venti Java Chip Frappuccino w/o whipped cream
- Tall Ice decaf Latte
|  | |
|
|
|
Hotmail, The New Busy
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Hotmail’s getting a bit of press recently, both TechCrunch and Cnet posted articles today. It’s always nice to see some positive press about something you've been working on for over two years. I also got to see first hand some of the Ads we’ve started to run in Seattle last week. Just as I got back to SeaTac I also heard the radio ad. [Read More] |
|
|
|
Arnie Visits The Microsoft Campus
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Arnie (aka The Govenator) had a flying visit to the Microsoft Silicon Valley campus today. He was here to launch California’s Elevate America program. I think I grabbed one of the last seats before it started and was able to take a few photos. Amusingly, Just before he entered I heard one of his protection detail say on his mic “He’s not with me, I thought he was with you”…. [Read More] |
|
|
|
Published in My First Book (Follow-Up)
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Since the Photography@Microsoft book was released last week it’s made quite impression. I’m not going to release the actual numbers but it exceed the committee’s expectations on day two! I thought I’d share a couple of the ways it’s popping up across the web: Picked up by Ina Fried at Cnet “… the photos are all amazing.” http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10371366-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 and on the front page! [Read More] |
|
|
|
Published In My First Book!
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Earlier this year I had my first photo published in a magazine and now I’ve had one published in a book! Some clever people in the Photography club at Microsoft decided to create a book and donate the profit to our Giving Campaign. I don’t think they realised how much effort would be required because they received hundreds photos and had to plough through every single one to pick the best. And I was fortunate to be chosen! [Read More] |
|
|
|
Kylie’s Windows 7 Desktop Backgrounds
by
Ben Vincent
|
| For those of you who pay any attention to the Windows 7 launch, you’ll have seen two amusing ads from Kylie, Microsoft’s four year old ambassador. Kylie is a little kid who is out to make a slideshows using quotes from all the positive Windows 7 reviews! It started with Kylie’s Good News a few weeks ago and the latest instalment is Kylie’s Conversations. I thought it would be amusing to grab the images and use them on my laptop. [Read More] |
|
|
|
The 5th Most Popular Photo in the Facebook Bing Competition
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Bing is getting plenty of press recently, and one of the most popular features is the home page photos. In partnership with Facebook they’ve started a competition off so people can submit their own photos. I immediately submitted my Sea Nettle Jelly photo from last months visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In just one day it’s rocked up to number five in the list! [Read More] |
|
|
|
One Computer in Two or More Live Mesh Accounts
by
Ben Vincent
|
| I’m a huge fan of Windows Live Mesh and it’s completely revolutionised the way I store my files. When my x300 solid state hard disk died it was a life saver. Whilst I do use Windows Home Server to backup my machine. The backup can still be a few days old. [Read More] |
|
|
|
The Very Useful IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit
by
Ben Vincent
|
| I’ve done my best to make my site ‘indexable’ by Search Engines but I’ve never really tried to optimise it. Martin Peck got me thinking about it more when I shared my analysis of my IIS logs last year. Back then my referrer list looked something like this: [Read More] |
|
|
|
Windows Live Web Communications Art Exhibition
by
Ben Vincent
|
| It amazes me how creative some of my colleagues are. Last Friday we had an Art Exhibition for everyone working on Windows Live (Hotmail and Calendar), down in Silicon Valley. I entered five photos, making a total of 37 pieces entered by the team. Everyone was allowed three votes and the winners announced at the end of the day. [Read More] |
|
|
|
Why I Love American Express and Zune
by
Ben Vincent
|
| I’ll get the bad news part of this blog out the way first. My 18-month-old Zune died. These things happen and generally speaking my electronics last for a long time, so I wasn’t that peeved. American Express Extended Warranty Lisa said I should look at American Express Extended Warranty because it might cover the replacement. [Read More] |
|
|
|
The New Windows 7 Backgrounds Rock!
by
Ben Vincent
|
| In a recent blog posting Steven Sinofsky talked about how the Windows 7 team has really gone to town on personalised content. The Release Candidate has just launched and the new backgrounds are now available for everyone to see. In each country there’s a different pack of photos, the US ones are awesome. Here are my two favourites: [Read More] |
|
|
|
Windows Live Calendar is out of Beta
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Ok so I’m no longer the PM Lead for Calendar but I really enjoyed by 4 months stint on the team and I’m looking forward to the work I’m going to do with them next Wave. So it’s really cool to see the plan I helped build has finally delivered and Windows Live Calendar is no longer a beta product. Here’s the blog post David (the new lead) did today: ------------------------------ Over the past several months, Windows Live Calendar has been in beta. We’ve been experimenting with features, listening to your feedback, and polishing up the service. [Read More] |
|
|
|
Why and how you should switch your ISP Email to Hotmail!
by
Ben Vincent
|
| Ok so I work for Hotmail, and this might sound me I’ve been drinking the company kool-aid but hear me out. If you’re using Gmail or Yahoo! then you can also tune out now, I’ll tackle that conversation for another day! But if you’re using a random ISP and you have your own domain name then read on. When I joined 8 months ago I was using an ISP that gave me POP3, IMAP and Web access to my email, that’s pretty good. [Read More] |
|
|
|
10 Years at Microsoft
by
Ben Vincent
|
| It’s the 20th July 2008 and today I have been working at Microsoft for ten years! I thought I’d share one useless fact for each of the years I’ve devoted to Microsoft. 1 million emails - Last year I worked out I had received 100,000 emails that year, an average of one every 37 seconds in a very theoretical working day. Things have changed over the years but I don’t think the volume has really changed that much, so it’s safe to say I’ve probably received\sent 1 millions emails since I joined! 2 hundred and 30 Flights – I’ve flown roughly 230 times for Microsoft, including 42 flights across the Atlantic. This also shows that I’ve been tracking 10 years of my life in Outlook. 3 dollar drop in share price! [Read More] |
|
|
|
Windows Live Calendar Beta Update
by
Ben Vincent
|
| I’m just about to roll off the Calendar team but we’ve just done another update, so I thought I’d share the good blog we just posted: The Windows Live Calendar team has been working hard the last few months on a cool update to the Windows Live Calendar beta. After many more bowls of udon noodles, lots of lattes and many late nights …we’re live! Everyone on our team is fired up about the release and we’re looking forward to your feedback. [Read More] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
This website, all photography & other content is Copyright © Ben Vincent. Unauthorised use of images is strictly prohibited.
Catalog Last Updated: Mon, 19 Jul 2010, 22:48:43 | Version v4.0.3861.38195
|
Powered by
|
|
|