Tag: ajax

Microsoft – ahead and behind at the same time

Post ImageThere’s no question that Microsoft is a unique company. They’re gigantic, and they have an incredible amount of resources at their disposal. The company spends billions on R&D every year too, so it should be no surprise that they are often ahead of the curve when it comes to technology innovations. I don’t know what the problem is, but I continue to be amazed at how they can be so far ahead, and yet so far behind, all at the same time:

Given Microsoft’s statements about a hybrid approach, with online and offline products, the company should be ahead of the pack in delivering synchronization between the two modes…

Yeah, you would think so! But no.

It happened with Ajax, and it’s going to happen again with offline apps. Microsoft developers will know that seamless offline access has been an important part of Microsoft’s .NET message for years, yet it looks like it will be other companies stealing the spotlight. Just as Microsoft had the guts of Ajax in use long before it was known as Ajax, the same will happen with offline apps, especially when Firefox 3 ships.

As a Microsoft developer, it saddens me. They have some amazing stuff going on, but they seem to get lost when it comes to making the new and interesting technologies front and centre in the industry. Is it just a marketing thing? I am not sure.

Read: ZDNet

Geotagging at Flickr

Post ImageJust came across a pretty neat feature that Flickr launched on Monday! You can now geotag your pictures, meaning you can assign them to a physical, real-world location:

Adding location information on Flickr is done through the Organizr, under the Organize tab.

Users can search for photos by location in the Explore area. Set the map to a location (world down to street level) and type in a search query. Markers will appear on the map with photos that contain that query in the tags or description of the photo.

I just tried it out with a few of my pictures, and it seems to work pretty well. It’s all Ajax powered, so it feels pretty natural. You can check out my Flickr map here.

Read: TechCrunch