By Antonio Chagoury on Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Last week Microsoft released the Virtual Earth Map Control v6 API.  Here are some of the details:

• DOC: Virtual Earth Map Control SDK, Version 6.0
• DOC: Virtual Earth Map Control SDK (CHM file) 
• SDK: Virtual Earth Interactive SDK

Some of the major focuses of this release are enhanced accuracy, performance, Safari Browser support as well as a new interface. There seems to have been no report of breaking changes from version 5, so a simple change in the javascript URL sh ... Read More »

By Antonio Chagoury on Sunday, October 21, 2007

Microsoft Live Labs, is always experimenting with new and (sometimes) useful ideas.  Recently they released their latest technology preview:

Listas (http://listas.labs.live.com)

Listas is a tool for the creation, management and sharing of lists, notes, favorites, and more. It allows you to quickly and easily edit lists, share them with others for reading or wiki-style editing, and discover the public lists of other users.  We encourage you to try using it for meeting notes, bookmarks, shopping lists, to plan a night out, or whatever other creative ways you can think of.

In the Listas Community Section, you will find a number of highlights of the ... Read More »

By Antonio Chagoury on Sunday, January 28, 2007

I was doing some research this evening on some Office 2.0 applications (more on what these are later) and ran into a slew of AJAX based desktop-like web apps.

Granted, I have known of websites like PageFlakes and konfabulator (now a Yahoo company) for a while now but it seems that more people keep on coming up with more of the same concept.

The one thing that baffles me is how these folks are able to sustain such ventures without necessarily having a monetization strategy. Unless they are VC funded and plan on another YouTube-like buy-out, I am not able to see how these guys will survive.

It seems that social networks are popping up every minute, everybody is doing this Web 2.0 thing. I just wander when will these guys wake up a smell that sour coffee.

Just as the social networking space is getting crowded so is the AJAX desktop space. Even the giants are in on it. ... Read More »

By Antonio Chagoury on Sunday, January 28, 2007

The speed at which technology progresses never seizes to amaze me.

Not more that 3 or 4 months ago I was looking at PageFlakes. I remember thinking to myself "here another one of these Web 2.0 wanna-be's".
Everyone seemed to be getting into the "AJAX" band-wagon and all kind of websites were popping up and down their interpretation Web 2.0.

Today, I once again decided to take a look at PageFlakes only to be very pleasantly surprised at the progress they have made in such a short period of time. 

To be quite honest, I still do not see the "real value" it gives the consumer - take my mom for instance, will she ever find this useful? - Uh, nah. I don' think so.

 The technology behind it is absolutely  cool, don't get me wrong, but I would like to learn and understan ... Read More »