DarkStar Communications

As of very late tonight/early tomorrow, we’ll be upgrading all of our Ventrilo servers from version 2.3 to version 3.0. Please alert all of your users of this change. We’ll have extra staff on hand tonight to help handle any support questions you may have. It might be a good idea to download the Ventrilo 3.0 client as soon as it is available, which is available from Ventrilo’s official website, ventrilo.com.

So why the update? Ventrilo is adding a few security measures and lengthening the feature list. Based on the pre-release notice on their forums, a few of the changes include

• User Access Rights (UAR)
• Guest account and restrictions
• Per channel codecs
• User authorization channels
• Ranks
• User complaint reporting
• Private chat sessions

But that’s not all the features. Apparently the change log is 13 pages so far, so get excited. We know we’re thrilled.

As you have probably noticed, we’ve launched a new site. With this, we have streamlined our product line, mostly by reinventing our gameservers line. From top to bottom, we’ve renewed the way we do game servers, allowing for greater flexibility and increased quality of service.

We have a new AJAX order form and soon we’ll be launching forums for our clients to communicate both with us and each other. We have a realtime network graph showing how many gamers are connected to the DarkStar voice network (which may look strange for a day or two as we tweak the code.)

I’m personally excited about this blog being integrated more prominently into the new site. I really think this blog lets users have an inside glimpse into the world’s leading TeamSpeak and Ventrilo host.

Well, that was the surprise I had been talking about. But if the whispers around the office are true, we’ve got another thing coming. Namely a new Ventrilo and TeamSpeak location - how’s Tokyo sound? Sounds good to me. Don’t count this as a promise, but it’s looking like we’ll expand there next.

You want more new stuff? Well you’ll just need to let us know and we’ll look into it. Want a game that we don’t have listed on our site? Let us know, we might be able to work something out. Wanna earn money? We’ve started an affiliate program, so check that out.

A favorite holiday as far away as Mars (they also make pet food, by the way), Halloween is a great time to go door to door attempting to collect as close to 100 Grand Whatchamacallits as possible. (For our Canadian friends, an American 100 grand bar is sold in your country as a $95,350 bar.)

We want to, but we can’t possibly mail out candy to all of you. By my estimates, it wouldn’t even be practical to send just one M&M to each Ventrilo and TeamSpeak user. If you are in the contiguous United States and would like a piece of candy, please contact our support department and we’ll see what we can do to make sure we mail you one (while supplies last.) Be sure to mention this blog.

The big surprise I’ve been talking about is coming soon. I know you’ll love it.

Oh, and I read in Modern Witch Magazine that this year brooms are out and vacuums are in.

We got a new server a few days ago, replacing the ancient server our support center was run on. The new server is an Intel Xeon Dempsey 5050 and has 4 GB DDR 667 ECC. It was about time to see Ol’ Betsy go, she had been in commission as our support center server since early 2005. We set her free on a farm. She’ll have more room to run around there.

We’re working on a few big projects around here, but I can’t announce them yet. We doubled the size of our support staff and next week we’re moving to a new office. Naturally, we decided on a new office after we finally finished setting up our new 30 gallon salt water fish tank. Now we need to figure out how to transport 30 gallons of water (and tropical fish!) down three flights of stairs and across town to the new office. We have a lot of fish, and I can only fit two, MAYBE three in my pockets. You know, for clown fish, the situation is not that funny.

The fish got me thinking; they aren’t the only thing in the company that is tropical. Our Ventrilo and TeamSpeak servers in Brazil and Hong Kong are all tropical. Perth, Brisbane and Israel are just barely not tropical. That’s a whole new angle we can take on servers. We sell tropical servers!

Hopefully I’ll update soon, unveiling what we’ve been working on for you.

After extensive market research in voice communications, we have found that often times two people are in the same room and have no method of voice communication. Using our nearly-exclusive, never-patented C2CSDTD (Cup to Cup String Driven Talk Device) technology, users within the same room and within line of of sight of each other will be able to use this new service.

Our lab research team spent months testing new materials; rope, yarn, and metal chains before settling on string. Originally tested with glass cups, we eventually made the switch to paper and plastic, depending on what codec the user wants.

Boasting universal OS compatibility and open source preschool lesson plans, we were able to build brand new point to point voice network capable of broadcasting voice communications up to 20 feet.

Those interested in beta testing our 2 cups and string, please contact our support department for more information. Our support department is available 24/7/365. This would be an excellent request for the Monday morning shift.