knomor

Think satellite and birds-eye imagery was cool? Wait until you see streetlevel! Seattle alone is 10 million images.

Check out this prototype at - http://preview.local.live.com
Check out the video on - channel9
Check out this at Live Labs - http://labs.live.com/
What scobleizer says - scobleizer.wordpress.com
More on - MSN Search Blog

i can just say WOW!

Quote

Virtual Earth Team Launches Street-Side Drive-by

The Virtual Earth team is pleased to launch a preview of a new feature we have been working on – interactive Street-side browsing. You can try it out at http://preview.local.live.com Street-side imagery allows you to drive around a city looking at the world around you as if you were in a car. But unlike the real world, you can stop your car anywhere you like and rotate your view around 360degrees. Currently we have street-side imagery for San Francisco and Seattle online, and we are planning to have many more cities added when we formally integrate this feature into Windows Live Local this summer.

One of the most interesting features is to put you in ‘Street’ view map style. In this mode, all of the street-side images are pasted flat on the map to give you a very unique overview of an area. It takes some getting used to, but once you adjust to it you’ll find it provides a very compelling companion view for our Hybrid maps. Street view helps you orient yourself quickly in an area, while the street side views then show more detail presented as you would see it in the real-world.

This technology preview is just that – a means for us to get a feature we are working on in your hands to play with and provide feedback on, before it is ready for prime time integration into the Windows Live Local site. That’s why we chose to put this up in the Live local technology preview site. There are a number of User Interface challenges with any new navigation model and getting input from users is critical to refining the UI interactions before launch. The Virtual Earth team is proud to be the first application featured at Live Labs, allowing us to get this proof of concept out quickly – We went from concept to launch in just a few short weeks, thanks largely to the dedication of our engineering team and cooperation with the Live Labs organization. Live Labs is a partnership between MSN and Microsoft Research headed by Gary Flake whose mission is to help fast-track technology from research to user’s hands, so it was a natural fit to partner with them to get this inaugural application out Via Live Labs.

Try the application out and let us know what you think. How could navigation be improved? What cities would you like to have added? Is it easy to stay oriented or do you ‘get lost’ in the imagery? How could Navigation be improved?

“From Concept to launch in a few short weeks”. As crazy as that sounds, its true. Jay Nanduri , Brad Snow, Chandu Thota, Eyal Ofek, Rick Welsh and myself, along with immeasurable support from the rest of the Virtual Earth team and our Ops crew put in some late night dev sessions to get this out. Channel 9 came over to talk to us about the process and application, so be sure to watch the video to get the word firsthand.

MSN Spaces MetaWeblog API, version 1.00 is released which will let users to communicate with their spaces programmatically. More on this is on msdn. The API uses the XML-RPC protocol for communication between client applications and the Weblog server.

There can be many more service endpoints for many more blogging services and this API can be used for all of those which support XML-RPC based web service.

The service endpoint for MSN Spaces is https://storage.msn.com/storageservice/MetaWeblog.rpc

Any program or application can send XML-RPC requests to this service endpoint to communicate with the MSN Spaces servers.

The following methods are supported by the API:

• The metaWeblog.newPost Method posts a new entry to a blog.
• The metaWeblog.editPost Method edits an existing entry on a blog.
• The metaWeblog.getPost Method returns a specific entry from a blog.
• The metaWeblog.getCategories Method returns the list of categories that have been used in the blog.
• The metaWeblog.getRecentPosts Method returns the most recent draft and non-draft blog posts in descending order by publish date.
• The blogger.deletePost Method deletes a post from the blog.
• The blogger.getUsersBlogs Method returns information about the user's space.
• The blogger.getUserInfo Method returns basic user information, such as name, email address, and userid.

Here is a sample code in C# which uses XML-RPC.Net library and .Net Framework to communicate with MSN Spaces using MetaWeblog API.

Lets have a look at Reading and Writing Registry entries using .Net. 

RegistryKeys are the base unit of organization in the registry, and can be compared to folders in Windows Explorer. A particular key can have subkeys (just as a folder can have subfolders), and can be deleted, as long as the user has the appropriate permissions to do so, and the key is not a base key, or the level directly under the base keys. Each key can also have multiple values associated with it (a value can be compared to a file), which are used to store the information about the application you are interested in.

msdn link

example in C#

[C#]
using System;
using System.Security.Permissions;
using Microsoft.Win32;

[assembly: RegistryPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.RequestMinimum,
    All = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER")]

class RegKey
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Create a subkey named Test9999 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
        RegistryKey test9999 = Registry.CurrentUser.CreateSubKey("Test9999");
        // Create two subkeys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Test9999. The
        // keys are disposed when execution exits the using statement.
        using(RegistryKey
            testName = test9999.CreateSubKey("TestName"),
            testSettings = test9999.CreateSubKey("TestSettings"))
        {
            // Create data for the TestSettings subkey.
            testSettings.SetValue("Language", "French");
            testSettings.SetValue("Level", "Intermediate");
            testSettings.SetValue("ID", 123);
            testSettings.SetValue("Password", "Secret");
        }

        // Print the information from the Test9999 subkey.
        Console.WriteLine("There are {0} subkeys under {1}.",
        test9999.SubKeyCount.ToString(), test9999.Name);
        foreach(string subKeyName in test9999.GetSubKeyNames())
        {
            using(RegistryKey
                tempKey = test9999.OpenSubKey(subKeyName))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("\nThere are {0} values for{1}.",
                tempKey.ValueCount.ToString(), tempKey.Name);
                foreach(string valueName in tempKey.GetValueNames())
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("{0,-8}: {1}", valueName, 
                    tempKey.GetValue(valueName).ToString());
                }
            }
        }
}

Situation: My smartphone needs .wma or .midi files for ringtones.

Problem: I have an .mp3 music file and i need it to set it as a ringtone on my smartphone.

Solution: simple!!! Isnt'it? Download a tool from internet to convert .mp3 to .wmv, or download Windows Media Encoder and run its tool to convert. Nah but the problem doesnt ends here. I need something which can run automated tasks. I want to give a directory name comntaining .mp3 files as input and expect another directory having encode .wma files [8-|] Giving one file each at a time is not my thing. Plus i need to control the properties of the file and i do not wish to choose from the hard coded configuration settings.

Yeah i seem to be unreasonable but yeah its the need of the day. [:)]

Another solution:

• download Windows Media Encoder 9 from here
• read the documentation
• and come up with your own script to satisfy your needs

this does the magic

cmd> cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs -input "mp3Dir" -output "wmvDir" -profile a64

input - input file-path or directory-path

-output - shall i?

-profile - a profile for encoding. A profile is a collection of command-line options tailored to the type of content being encoded. a64 is for an audio file encoded at 64 kbps.

What is cscript.exe?

CScript.exe is the version of Windows Script Host that enables you to run scripts from the command prompt.

I want to try cscript.exe, but How do i get cscript.exe?

It comes with Windows XP, 2000 Professional.

What is wmcmd.vbs?

Windows Media Encoding Script is a VB script wrapper to help use Windows Media Encoder functions.

How do i get wmcmd.vbs?

It is installed in the same folder as Windows Media Encoder. By default, the folder is in the following location "c:\Program files\Windows Media Components\Encoder"

Use WMEncUtil.chm (helpfile) in the installation directory to knomor (know more) on command line options.

Can i use it in my application?

yes, you can if it is intended to run on Windows Platform. Here is a guide to program a sample application in C#

When you start Windows with a normal startup, several programs start automatically and run in the background. These programs may include third-party antivirus programs and system utility programs. When you try to run games, these programs may interfere with the game. If this occurs, you can use a clean boot to start your computer before you play a game to prevent these programs from starting automatically.

The solution is to Restart your computer using a Clean Boot Procedure

To restart your computer by using a clean boot procedure, follow these steps when you are using Windows XP.

Note You may experience a temporary loss of some services functionality when you follow these steps. Restoring the settings restores the functionality, but may result in the return of the original error message or behavior.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type msconfig, and then click OK.

3. On the General tab, click Selective Startup.

4. Under Selective Startup, click to clear the following check boxes:

• Process SYSTEM.INI File
• Process WIN.INI File
• Load Startup Items

5. On the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.

6. Click OK, and then click Restart.

read more on this article http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;331796#appliesto