Top 5 stories for July: Bill Gates and hurricanes, fires and more

It's been a big month here at TechFlash HQ, the biggest on record in fact. July started with a bang -- or should we say with a spark -- when we learned of the Fisher Plaza data center fire in the early hours of July 3. It concluded with Microsoft joining forces with Yahoo, a significant move that CEO Steve Ballmer discussed in a TechFlash interview on Wednesday.

Thanks to everyone for reading and participating in the conversation. We've got some great stories and guest posts percolating for August, and we welcome your ideas too.

But without further ado, here are the most read stories for the month of July with a little bit of editorial commentary thrown in just for fun.  Enjoy Seafair weekend and try to stay cool.

"One force of nature vs. another: Bill Gates wants to stop hurricanes." -- Todd's scoop and classic headline got plenty of attention (and comments) when he reported on the software titan's unusual system for trying to stop hurricanes. The story went national very quickly with coverage in USA Today, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and dozens of other media outlets.

"Seattle data center fire knocks out Bing Travel, other Web sites." -- This isn't how we evisioned spending our Fourth of July holiday weekend. But when we got word that a small fire at one of Seattle's most important data centers had knocked dozens of Web sits offline, we ditched the BBQs and went into full reporting mode. This was certainly one of the most interesting breaking news stories for us to cover this year.

"Photos: Inside the Fisher fire."  -- We weren't entirely sure what to make of the photos after we secured them from fire investigators. But our readers quickly filled in the gaps with one of the more intelligent comment threads we've seen on TechFlash.

"The top 10 best (and worst) CEOs and companies in Seattle" -- People love lists. Period. And that was certainly the case on this story -- which was based on a report from Glassdoor.com. Pointing out the fact that Zillow.com CEO and Glassdoor investor Rich Barton led the list of top CEOs certainly raised some eyebrows.  

"Highlights from the TechFlash BBQ & Ping-Pong Tournament" --This was by far the big highlight of month. We had a blast watching 48 geeks battle it out for the title of "King of Pong" and the rest of the crowd chow down on some tasty BBQ. Thanks to everyone who came out -- especially Weber Shandwick which created such a cool video. 

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