By Soul Solutions on
Sunday, 16 December 2007
 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 everyth ...
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By Soul Solutions on
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
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!
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By Soul Solutions on
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
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
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By Soul Solutions on
Friday, 23 November 2007
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...
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By Soul Solutions on
Thursday, 22 November 2007
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.
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By Soul Solutions on
Monday, 19 November 2007
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!
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By Soul Solutions on
Friday, 16 November 2007
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, Read More »
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By Soul Solutions on
Thursday, 15 November 2007
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!
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By Soul Solutions on
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
 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 ...
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By Soul Solutions on
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
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
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