Via Windows Live

The HP Slate

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:10:34 GMT

Phil McKinney, walks us through HP's latest innovation, the HP Slate-

Now twitter trending has option to set to your location– Local Trends

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:10:34 GMT

Twitter is now providing option to change the trending and setting it to your location, this will be very meaningful if one has to see what’s happening near ones location> countries > cities. Still many locations are to be added. This can be taken to completely new level from Worldwide > countries > cities > localities . Nice feature .

Be one of the first to get the Microsoft Silverlight 4 Beta Client for Facebook!

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:10:23 GMT

Test the Silverlight 4 developer preview application for Facebook which combines the many compelling platform capabilities of Silverlight 4 in a rich out-of-browser application within the familiar context of Facebook. " border="0" alt="clip_image002 ...(read more)

Flattery will get you everywhere [Html5Canvas source code now available on CodePlex!]

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:10:24 GMT

A few months ago, I described a proof-of-concept project and learning exercise I'd worked on to implement some of the basics of the HTML 5 <canvas> specification using Silverlight as the underlying platform: HTML 5 <canvas> announcement ,...(read more)

India sings again with launch of `Phir Mile Sur` (Full version)

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:10:32 GMT

‘Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara…’ India’s Iconic song is back …. Check the full version (16 min) here - http://www.zoomtv.in/video-i.php?embededcode_recent=ZrcjY2MTpj0BU_Xk_rKSWIq2PPNsED7x Source : Zoomtv Republic Day greetings to all !! Jai Hind !!

Announcement: Haitian Creole support in Bing Translator and other Microsoft Translator powered services

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:10:39 GMT

In the current crisis in Haiti there are a number of initiatives to rapidly build software to assist in humanitarian aid. Responding to community requests for a machine translation (MT) system to translate between English and Haitian Creole, our team has been hard at work over the last few days. I am glad to announce that an experimental Haitian Creole MT system is now publicly available via several services and APIs powered by Microsoft Translator technologies. We will continue working on improving the system, but we hope meanwhile that in spite of the experimental nature – it will be of use in the relief efforts.

1) What is being announced today?

Responding to requests from the community involved in Haitian relief efforts, Microsoft Research is making available today an experimental machine translation system for translating to and from Haitian Creole. You can try it at http://translate.bing.com or http://www.microsofttranslator.com.

2) How is it significant?

With the devastating disaster that struck Haiti, we have all been individually pitching in to help the efforts. This is our effort, as a team, to respond to the needs of communities such as Crisis Commons by delivering a Haitian Creole translator which can be of help to individual users, as well as other technology projects that could use a scalable trans

Silverlight Client for Facebook available

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:10:22 GMT

Remember the final moments of the Scott Guthrie keynote presentation at PDC09? Where Brian Goldfarb came on stage and demonstrated a completed application using a lot of the features of Silverlight 4? Yeah, that Facebook application. Well, it’s here now...(read more)

Bing Maps Challenge, Win $100 Gift Card

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:10:20 GMT

Think you’re savvy enough to navigate Bing Maps faster than anyone else? Answer 4 questions and you’ll be in the running to win a $100 gift card courtesy of the Bing Maps team. Take the Bing Maps Challenge now.

CP – Follow me on Twitter @ChrisPendleton

Jordan Brand Leverages Silverlight to Invigorate and Find Enthusiasts

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:10:25 GMT

Jordan Brand , a division of Nike, Inc., is celebrating its 25-year anniversary during NBA All-Star Weekend to take place in Dallas, TX from February 11-14. With the help of Wirestone , Jordan Brand is leveraging innovative Microsoft technology to engage...(read more)

3 Steps to MEF (MEF Part 1) – Silverlight TV Episode 4

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:10:26 GMT

The latest episode of Silverlight TV is now available on Channel 9 ! This episode kicks off an exploration of MEF with one of the Program Managers working on MEF, Hamilton Verissimo. John interviews Hamilton, of Castle Windsor fame, about his latest work...(read more)

Dynamic Blog Posts DynaPosts

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:10:24 GMT

Blog posts are by their nature static. It is not good form to go back to an existing blog post and update it, but often what I want is to keep everything on one page and have a quick way to notify that the page has been updated. Starting today, I’ll do...(read more)

I think my ideal job has just came up!!!!

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:10:34 GMT

I just spotted the following job description on http://careers.microsoft.com:

Job Category: Software Engineering: Program Management
Location: United States, WA, Redmond
Job ID: 710688 11794
Product: Windows Live
Division: Windows Division
Looking for a chance to work on a great, challenging v1.0 project? Do you believe in building a data-driven culture? If so, come join the Windows Live Business and Customer Intelligence Team.
On the Windows Live BICI PM team, we're looking for a Senior Program Manager that can help us deliver a v1.0 BI system to completion. We design business intelligence solutions that drive decision making and feature design, ensure end-to-end data quality to support confident decisions, and work with smart and enthusiastic teammates. We need a passionate PM that will drive strategy in this area and own the processing pipeline, datamarts and cubes for the entire product suite.
We are looking for you to have led cross-discipline and cross-group projects and know how to successfully resolve obstacles and deliver results. Be someone who is highly regarded for your skill in technical feature specification, project management and problem solving, and you enjoy mentoring others in these areas. You must have expertise in two or more of the following: data warehousing and OLAP, business intelligence & reporting, statistics & data analysis. Familiarity with web analytics is preferred.
Additional Requirements:
Data driven - Demand and drive validation and development of recommendations based on business and usage data, usability studies, customer input and metrics, as well as an ability to define and capture new data needs
8 plus years of experience i

Configuration & Decoupled Modules

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:10:24 GMT

Two architectural demands for the Silverlight HVP , which are common to many larger applications, came together this week and crystallized into a design that looks to solve two more unanticipated requirement. Specifically, we knew that (1) we wanted to...(read more)

Silverlight 4 – Writing a Windows-Only Application via COM Interop?

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:10:22 GMT

I was reading Tim’s post over here on “Silverlight 4 with COM can do anything – on Windows” which referenced Justin’s amazingly detailed post with a bunch of COM interop examples from Silverlight 4 . A Silverlight 4 beta application that has been explicitly...(read more)

National Geographic Launches iPhone Atlas Using Bing Maps

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:10:26 GMT

National Geographic has been hard at work getting their atlas of maps into your grubby little hands. And as such, they’ve released their newest mobile application for iPhone – World Atlas (iTunes link). The application allows you to view 7 different levels of cartography, 3 maps styles and the ability to find locations around the world with nearly 7 million place listings. And, of course, the Bing Maps Platform has been integrated right into their application as a mapping option.

Here’s a quick run down of the features I snagged from their site:

High resolution National Geographic cartography, the same used to print our award-winning wall maps and bound atlases!
Preloaded with 3 different styles of world maps, down to country detail. Additional detailed zoom levels and Microsoft Bing maps r

New Bing Maps Application: Haiti Earthquake

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:10:17 GMT

The Haitian Earthquakes have captured the eyes of the world. As part of the effort, Bing Maps is doing what we can to help the world see the changes over time around Haiti by unveiling the Haiti Earthquake application in the application gallery. The concept of the application allows users to view the aerial imagery before and after the earthquake.

The application allows you to select to view imagery before the earthquake or after the quake (dated January 15, 2010). Also included in the application is a link to our Twitter Maps application focused on Haiti using the Geolocation API from Twitter which allows you to view Tweets coming from people in Haiti.

My heart goes out to those who have been affected by this travesty.

Other Microsoft efforts in Haiti:

Bing Maps Silverlight site and going full board with continuing innovation on Bing. Removing the beta tag has so many implications as a Microsoft asset in terms of what you can expect moving forward…reliability, supportability, and continued innovation and investment to name a few. The removal of the beta tag was done in parallel with a couple of new features and Bing Maps Application Gallery mash-ins.

First off, if you go to the Bing Maps AJAX site and have Silverlight installed chances are you will be redirected to the Bing Maps Silverlight site (note this change only affects users in the US). We're rolling this out with a small percentage of users increasing up to 100% of all users in a few weeks. If you don’t have Silverlight installed you can hit the AJAX site and will be prompted to install Silverlight (which you can opt out of, but WHY would you??). Well, to make the AJAX site a bit smoother we’ve introduced some new transitions in the tile loading process for panning and zooming. So you can have your Silverlight and AJAX too. If you don’t want to stay on the Silverlight site, you can opt out and return to the AJAX site (aka Bing Maps Classic) via the link on the Silverlight site.

Also, two new applications have been added to the Bing Maps Application Gallery (Silverlight only) each of which I’ve written specific blogs on to explain each of the applications in detail:

Destination Maps – Vector based route geometries on new map backgrounds

Local Events – Find so

New Bing Maps Application: Destination Maps

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:10:20 GMT

Need to give people directions to your house, business or party (yeah, baby!). Use the Destination Maps application just specify a place (such as Club XS in Las Vegas); set the area of interest by dragging the sides of the on-map square to include all the areas people are coming from; then give the map a title. You can select multiple map styles such as Sketchy, European, American or Treasure (a la pirate! – featured). Very reminiscent of the Line Drive maps from my Vicinity days...only way fricking cooler!

CP – Follow me on Twitter @ChrisPendleton

New Bing Maps Application: Local Events

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:10:20 GMT

No plans this Friday? Make some. Bing Maps newest application Local Events allows you to search for what’s happening around where you plan to be. Or, even better, where you may not plan to be but will end up! Load the Local Events application and navigate to your favorite destination to see events pinned to the map. If you’re looking for a specific type of application such as music or dancing you can filter the results on the map be changing the category in the navigation pane.

And, next to location what’s the most critical element of events? When! You can further filter your search results by specifying when you’re looking to have some fun. You can specify today, tomorrow, this weekend, this week, next week or specific dates. If you dig arts and crafts on Wednesday nights between January 13 and March 3, we’ve got your search query for you.

Plus, use the cool pin feature to pin the event to the map. Then, you can view just “your pins” at any given time. Also, get directions, share the event information or save the event to Your Places easily with built in features to do so. Go find something to do!

CP – Follow me on Twitter @ChrisPendleton