Carter Maslan : Random

Mimi is on the Map

jcmaslan — Thu, 11 May 2006 13:13:00 GMT

My therapist wife Mimi is literally my exact opposite on the Myers-Briggs personality type test. I think one of the reasons she’s so good at what she does is that she’s very grounded – results-oriented with a pragmatic assessment and prioritization of things needing immediate attention. She completely understands my late nights working towards a critical deadline. But she’s amazed (not in a flattering way) when I stay up late “playing” with software… like tonight.

I set out post a rudimentary web site with Mimi’s basic information. I did that, but then got lost in experimenting with Windows Live Local Beta for Mimi's office location page. How do you style a Windows Live map control? How do you create custom pushpins? In the absence of bird’s-eye coverage, wouldn’t it be nice to have a street level view of Mimi’s office? etc... So now, an otherwise mundane web site design has a fun map control that, for IE browsers at least, lets you pan, zoom, and hover on pushpins for street level photos - all in-place on the page:

Since this is a simple common scenario, I'm pasting the code I assembled from the various programming resources on the Web for Windows Live Local:

Also, thanks to Omar for his recommendation of Server Intellect for ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 web hosting.

So there's "marketing" in my blog - is that so wrong? :)

jcmaslan — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:25:00 GMT

I'm one of Craig's email readers that said "Craig, why don't you blog?" I'm also one of those bloggers whose posts Craig may characterize as a "thinly veiled marketing or agenda-furthering." Hey, good marketing is all about accurate information exchange that educates both product teams and customers. So when Craig says, in his first blog entry, 1) "I'm very unlikely to advertise the release of a new product, service or event through this medium", and then adds 2) "I do look forward to hearing your thoughts on some of the things that inspire and excite me about technology", I can't help but hope that the two are rarely mutually exclusive! :) I don't think they are judging from this. :)

Fun Evangelism Jobs in Communications, Media and Entertainment

jcmaslan — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 01:34:00 GMT

Check-out these open positions - I've worked with people on this team - they have fun jobs - music, movies, phones... great scenarios on great technology.

Cassini is Everywhere

jcmaslan — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 02:09:00 GMT

Under my hotel room door today was a front page photo of Saturn from the Cassini spacecraft. Given that the ongoing stream of spectacular pictures from Cassini has been greeted with such anticipation, and has generated such excitement, I wish I’d included Cassini in the Longhorn Higher Education Concept Video. It’s completely fortuitous that the demo centers on calculating the flight trajectory of a space probe to Saturn. Let’s hope JPL publishes the flight path data to help someone build a great Longhorn photo-journal application that correlates these photos with Cassini’s actual position at the time of the photo.

The Man Behind the Curtain

jcmaslan — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 08:26:00 GMT

First I laughed, then I got scared, then I started thinking when I saw David's office as he's preparing for a keynote demo. Look at that picture.

He's got to ship all those machines to the event just because we can't guarantee 100% that we'll have a great broadband internet connection at the venue. We don't worry about having electricity; when will we stop worrying about broadband? Without that worry, we could leave all those servers and backup servers in the data center.

It's ironic, since the demo itself is all about Connected Systems and real-time Business Intelligence amidst the intermittent connectivity of people working in the field. We're showcasing autonomous smart clients that operate offline and synchronize seamlessly as soon as network connections are restored. And just because we can't count on the network 100% for the exact 12 minutes we're on stage, we're shipping all this equipment.

Why Developers are Great People

jcmaslan — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 07:33:00 GMT

As my teammates are scrambling late into the night to finish a prototype for tomorrow morning, I’m struck by why I love developers. We’re optimists at our core. I mean, have you ever met a developer that, committed to a vision of what’s possible, didn’t *want* to think that s/he could get a project done in ½ the time it’ll actually take? :)

Even the cynics are idealists; they’re just the flip side of the same character – seeing possibilities, seeking some kind of truth… the cynical developers have just been knocked around a bit.

I think the fact that software is pretty much unlimited in its potential applications is the reason that I get to work with people I like so much. Developers are an inspired group.

This “To Do” List Dwarfs Longhorn’s :)

jcmaslan — Wed, 05 May 2004 19:54:00 GMT

You’ve got to admire the ambition of prioritizing the world’s problems – literally.

Copenhagen Consensus seeks to create the grandest “To Do” list ever by assembling economic specialists to rank opportunities to tackle The 10 Most Important Challenges. Software PMs humbled :)