April 2008 - Posts

• I'm looking for Virtual Earth MVP's

  It's that time of year again when Microsoft goes looking for MVP's (Most Valuable Professional) . I'm actually working on growing the number of Virtual Earth MVP's this year. Right now there are just a handful of them world wide including these guys: Read More... Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 4:00 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: MVP

• New Funky Virtual Earth Video

  You ever seen those videos we make with the crazy funky techno music, vertigo inducing rapid fire edits, quick pans, etc. that we show at launches? You know, the videos that make you feel like writing software is always done in a hip-hop office space Read More... Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:10 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments

• Where is Matt Lauer?

  Chris Pendleton has the scoop that once again NBC likes to send Matt Lauer to the far flung corners on the planet with the latest installment of its, "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" segment. I wonder how many frequent flyer miles he's earned in all Read More... Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:03 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Other, Mashups

• I'm a Slacker, no it's True...

  So I've been slacking lately in blogging. I haven't blogged since last week when I was down in SF for Web 2.0. That was a great show and I met tons of cool people. Went to the Yahoo Brickhouse down town for a party but when I showed up they ran out of Read More... Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 2:53 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments

• Share your Favorite Places in Virtual Earth with your Friends

  I was reading Chris Pendleton's blog today when I came across a feature I knew of but didn't quite understand to the extent it could be used. Chris blogged about his upcoming trip to the Coachella Music Festival and he got the idea to create a Public Read More... Posted Thursday, April 24, 2008 5:00 PM by mjbrown | 3 Comments Filed under: Virtual Earth, Live Maps, Collections

• Mesh Announcement at Web 2.0

  Web 2.0 is really a great conference. I have never been at this event before but I'm glad I'm here now. Been seeing lots of folks I recognize. Robert Scoble is out and about doing interviews and otherwise looking like he's having a great time. We had Read More... Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2008 6:02 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Events

• A Comprehensive Guide for VE & SQL Spatial Integration

  I'm really lucky in that there are really a ton of people who work on the Virtual Earth team who are prodigious producers of great content. Johannes Kebeck is one of those people. Johannes works over in Europe on Virtual Earth and over the last couple Read More... Posted Tuesday, April 22, 2008 12:03 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Virtual Earth, SQL Spatial

• I never would have thought of this

  As I've only been working on the Virtual Earth team now for about 12 weeks or so, I am constantly surprised about how our customers use Virtual Earth in ways I never could have dreamed of. Here's another great example of this. A company called, Sungevity Read More... Posted Monday, April 21, 2008 9:15 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Virtual Earth, Mashups

• This wasn't in the Brochure when I moved here

  So I've lived here in Seattle for a little over 8 years now having moved here when I joined Microsoft back in 2000. You know before I moved here I'd hear something like this: "Oh, the Winters here are really mild" or "It hardly ever snows here, maybe Read More... Posted Monday, April 21, 2008 9:50 AM by mjbrown | 2 Comments Filed under: Other

• Heading to Web 2.0

  I'll be heading out tomorrow afternoon, flying down to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 conference. I've never been to this conference before so I am really looking forward to it. I wish I could get off my rear to go get some business cards though. I've Read More... Posted Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:02 PM by mjbrown | 2 Comments Filed under: Events

• How to use Live Maps with your GPS Unit

  Steve Lombardi has step-by-step instructions for how to create driving directions in Live Maps and then export them to your GPS unit. Check it out, http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2BBC66E99FDCDB98!14612.entry Read More... Posted Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:12 AM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Live Maps, GPS

• Virtual Earth - Powered by Wind

  I know that Microsoft explores alternative renewable energy sources to power its data centers around the world but I didn't know that our Virtual Earth data center in Boulder, CO is pretty much completely powered by wind energy. In fact we just fired Read More... Posted Saturday, April 19, 2008 1:53 PM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Virtual Earth, Humor, Data Centers

• NEW RELEASE: Virtual Earth JavaScript Intellisense Helper

  If you're like me writing java script in notepad is not a fun experience. Thanks to Marc Schweigert, a Developer Evangelist in our Developer and Platform Evangelism team now you can write Virtual Earth applications and take advantage of the benefits of Read More... Posted Friday, April 18, 2008 8:36 AM by mjbrown | 1 Comments Filed under: Virtual Earth, Java Script

• A new blog on Virtual Earth

  Hey everybody, my name is Mark Brown and welcome to my inaugural blog post. I am a Senior Product Manager in the Search Business Group here at Microsoft and I am responsible for the Partners and Developers for our Virtual Earth product. I've been on the Read More... Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008 6:27 PM by mjbrown | 2 Comments Filed under: Virtual Earth