Blog

Thanks to Chuck, John’s webcast on building a vista gadget is now on 9 MSDN site.

Like the rest of Brisbane (maybe even Queensland) we were issued with our 4 minute shower timer in an effort to get all households to use a maximum of 140L of water per person a day. This is all well … Continued

We published today the third installment in the clustering articles for Virtual Earth. This time we focus on the client side, updating our javascript to support the latest Version 5 of Virtual Earth. Clustering Virtual Earth on Version 5 We … Continued

 It’s just been confirmed today that we’re presenting at Tech Ed at the Gold Coast. Here’s our brief of what we are intending to do: Mastering Virtual Earth John O’Brien MVP Bronwen Zande   Want to add interactive maps to … Continued

After i got my 500 lego blocks i was wondering what to build.  As they are squishy and not as perfect as real lego building solid walls was pretty much out.  After consultation and help from an engineer, we’ve built … Continued

Checkout the Microsoft interview with John on his Traffic Camera Gadget.  Read the interview here.

I made a video that shows how I put together the QLD traffic gadget and how you can learn from it and build your own. Video: Building a Traffic Gadget for Vista Sidebar Let me know what you think.

1 year ago today I left the safety and security of full time, working for someone else employment, and joined John working for Soul Solutions. I have really enjoyed it so far.  Even though you essentially work for someone else … Continued

So when your little sister wants a lappy…what do you tell her to buy?  A mini-me pc of course.  I have the 9400 dell…now my sisterRenee has the 6400..a mini version of mine.

Ok…everyone’s doing the LOLCat…I don’t have a cat…so I did a LOLMonkey instead.  

Today I received my 500 lego stress toys.  Lots of people asked how big the box was going to be and how were they going to be packed.  Boxes – well they are a lot smaller than you first expect … Continued

I was seeing how easy it would be to create a Live Messenger Activity and turned out to be pretty simple to do your own test if you know how to find the menu. 1. Take the xml file example … Continued

You would not believe my surprise when after spending the whole of Sunday building my first gadget for the QLD vista competition someone had beat me to it! Well, mine maybe the 2nd but it has some great features and … Continued

Today I thought I’d have a play with the Windows Live Alerts service.  Thought the easiest way was to try the RSS no deployment solution.  It’s pretty damn simple to use… 1. Register you feed here 2. Post some html onto … Continued

I was surfing on graysonline yesterday and came across an auction for boxes of 250 stress builing block (like lego).  I saw these at Tech Ed last year and they are pretty cool as you can build stuff out of … Continued

While working on my migration to Version 5 of Virtual Earth I side track to look at the new method to customise the info box (pin popup) and find 2 showstopping issues. View the article here.

I got access to the alpha of popfly today and have been dragging and dropping mashups together all morning. This is simply hooking up the rss feed from Bronwens best of thailiand photos to a photo sphere control   The … Continued

Well it seems that 4 is the number of 2007.  For those who’ve seen my IM tags for the last few months.  We ordered a new bed from Forty Winks 4 months ago!  Today, after having 3 broken beds delivered, our 4th … Continued

Always hate trying to park in town and today remembered why.  Had a meeting at 10:30 in town today…thought getting there at 10:10 would give me heaps of time to find a park… I drive round a few streets and … Continued

My contract with Faces expired the day before we went on holidays..and I went away with them discussing my contract renewal terms.  Yesterday..still no written confirmation on renewal so I asked for confirmation before doing any work. This worked out … Continued

After a lot of culling etc we’ve finished playing with our pics we’re uploading our pics. If you want the short version the best of is here: http://bronwenz.smugmug.com/gallery/2845629#152503668 and the rest can be found here: http://bronwenz.smugmug.com/Vacation/298124

So we skipped the tigers, and watched 2 more movies…Next – Nicolas Cage which wasn’t bad and Shooter – Marky Mark which filled in time.  So now we’re at the airport..and waiting for our flight like 4 hrs away..and then … Continued

So we fly into Bangkok again today..only a few days before our journey home.  We’re over temples and after something to do…so we go for a journey to the cinema to see Spiderman 3.  The movie is crap by the … Continued

So we slept in today..so there really wasn’t much point in hiring a car.  Instead we used the vouchers i’d snigged at the airport with free transportation to the monkey place.  So we get the hotel to call for us … Continued

Today we get a private tour to the handicraft villages in Chiang Mai.  Our guide has forgotten us so the hotel rings him for us.  Works out well as it gives us some time to grab breakfast.  There’s somethig wrong … Continued

We get up pretty early for a huge breakfast..we’re talking a whole watermelone, 3/4 loaf of bread + a huge dish of something else…my foot is so sore (I can hear my Mum saying “why do you play those silly games?”) … Continued

We get up and are met with breakfast…too much food again…won’t be complaining about being hungry.  So today we go to see a tribal elder, a cave (no crawling this time) and sleep in the Karen village. We meet our guides … Continued

So this morning we get picked up for the start of our 3 day jungle trek. It’s raining so we’ll be needing our raincoats…So after a 1 1/2 hr drive to Chiag Dao Nest we get our brekkie and organise our … Continued

While at the cooking course i went to show some monkey pics…but couldn’t find them.  On closer inspection all the pics from Wednesday – monkeys, and night pics of ruins are gone!    I’m hoping they’re in a directory and … Continued

Today we learn how to cook.  We get picked up and taken to the cooking school.  We are joined by 2 Brittish boys.  So after choosing the dishes we want to eat, our instructor takes us to the market to … Continued