Blog List

Dell has some great Christmas deals out and while looking at their catalogue I noticed they have some wireless xbox 360 controllers for windows. I had always wanted to pick one of these up and now wireless - even better!

It was dead simple to install, little peice of software on the supplied CD and then plug in the usb dongle. Instantly I can now fly around, badly mind you, in Virtual Earth 3D.

You have 3 controls, the LT and RT (trigger fingers at the front of the controller) control zooming in and out. The multidirectional pad in the top left (left thumb) pans the map while the multidirectional pad on the right (for the right thumb) controls the point of view, rotating and tilting the map. The "A" button puts everything back to north if you get a little lost. All these controls are analogue so it appears you have control over the speed as well.

It will take me a little while to get use to it but it is pretty cool to show of your latest project standing back 5m and flying around the location. No doubt you will see it in action at any VE presentations I do in the future! So if your not sure what gadget you need for Christmas pick one of these up.

I am very proud of the growing community around Virtual Earth. In only six weeks since it was released the community site that I run, http://www.viawindowslive.com/ has had ten articles submitted using the latest version 6 of the API.

The articles range from getting started / whats new to using Traffic or Weather data, extending the infobox or using other technologies like SQL 2008. I have enjoyed reading all of them:

Invoking server side code using AJAX and .ashx handlers What's new in Version 6 Routing Virtual Earth and SQL 2008 Spatial, a first impression Getting started with Virtual Earth Mashups: showing current weather conditions on a map Adding Verbs to the Virtual Earth InfoBox Printing in Virtual Earth Yahoo Traffic on Virtual Earth Clustering Virtual Earth 6. Performance, throttling and PNG icons Whats new in Version 6 Getting Started with Version 6...

Read More »

Derek Chan has published a great introduction to communicating with Virtual Earth from server side code. The article is a good read to understand the basics of ajax before proceeding onto more complex examples or using asp.net ajax extensions. Read the article here:

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/InvokingserversidecodeusingAJAX.aspx

Thats makes 10 articles for Virtual Earth 6, well done!

Derek Chan is back from holidays and shares with us the new routing methods in Virtual Earth 6. Another great read:

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/WhatsnewinVersion6Routing.aspx

That makes nine articles on Virtual Earth 6 from the community and counting...

I just finished my first SQL 2008 Spatial Article for Virtual Earth.

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/SQL2008Spatialafirstimpression.aspx

It is very introductory taking you though creating a table, importing some basic data and a VE application based on a well structured ASP.NET AJAX Web service model. I do a simple query for points within the current map view. I also add a spatial index. I hope you enjoy it, the full source code and data to import is available.

I updated my latest Virtual Earth clustered pins article today removing the logic I had built and tested for previous versions:

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/ClusteringPinsinVirtualEarth6.aspx

In short the new bulk addshape() method is simply fantasic. I see no visible flicker in removing and adding pins like we saw in previous versions. The best solution moving forward is to simplify the code and remove all this redundant logic. Download the new code today!

We have a cool new feature added to the articles at ViaWindowsLive. Its called "presence" and ties into IMME allowing viewers to see you online status and talk to you directly on the website using Messenger.

Yes we now have Seven V6 Virtual Earth Articles on the site with more on the way. A big thanks to the community of Developers including Marco Anastasi, Darren Neimke and Gfw.

Do you want to contribute to the growing community? See more here.

Marco Anastasi just finished a great article on making a mashup with Virtual Earth. His article mashes weather data from geonames and is a good example of what can be done with Virtual Earth and location specific data.

Well worth a read, then download the source code and have a play. Good work Marco!

John sat his exam a few weeks ago..and i was a chicken and booked in for the last available day of the Beta round.

This was the first ever Beta exam I've ever sat so it was quite different.  Usually i buy a book that has the best rating on Amazon readit, take notes and usually learn something. Then I usually have Transcender exams to give me the flavour of the questions and to see which areas i need to go learn more about.  Even with this, I never do particually fantasic..as i find most questions memory oriented e.g. what namespace is this in..and my memory sux.

So this was a completely different experience. I had some broad topics areas that the exam covered, the VE API, Map Point API, and the Map Cruncher site and that's it.

At the exam, I had some fun with the machine..had to get the exam restarted a few times cause buttons were missing etc. but eventually i was on my way.  The room was sooo cold the mouse was bashing on the desk from me shivering so much...I ended up only putting in a few comments cause i just couldn't stand the cold anymore.

There's still A LOT of mulitple choice, memory-oriented questions but this exam had quite a few interactive questions that are a lot more process oriented...liked these a lot better and really think there should be heaps more of thistype.

There's heaps of Map Point questions and almost think the title of the exam should be VE/MP developing.

So overall, I think i'm pretty borderline, and am fully expecting to fail, but it was free which does actually make it less stressful than "doing your $180".  I'm not  a hard core VE person like John so will be interesting to see how we go..if we get that much detaill? We'll find out in 8 weeks if we passed.

At 3am my time Microsoft held a partner briefing and went through the basics of Virtual Earth, mentioned the new features of V6 and demoed some sites. My highlights were:

• Talk of https version of VE very soon
• Walkthrough of the new token tracking system to monitor your usage, which when used commercially gets you a 99.9% SLA
• Talk of a mobile API in the 12 months timeframe
• Information Worker Competancy for Partners. Essential you need 2 staff to sit the VE exam (and pass) plus 3 client testimonials.

The video isn't up yet but this is the original link, I'll update it if the video location changes.

http://www.msreadiness.com/attendevent.aspx?eventid=14689

I was a little disapointed http://www.viawindowslive.com wasn't mentioned, I brought it up in the Q&A, we have so many VE articles and resources, aggregated blog etc. I think I need to let more of the people at MSFT know what we are doing there and the state of VVE.