Microsoft Communities

DeepZooming into (US) Tax Dollars

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 8th @ 3:25 PM
DeepZoom really shines in showing a large amount of information. To get a sense of this, check out Jess Bachman's Death and Taxes poster. This ginormous infographic shows you where much of the US Federal budget will go in 2009. By using a mouse with a scrollwheel, you can fluidly move in and out of the graphic, digging around through branches and departments of the government.

Jess stopped by recently and told us about how it started, how long it takes to make, his 800-layer Photoshop file, and his Martha Stewart appearance. You can explore the poster in Silverlight here and get the print poster at WallStats.com.
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How to Put Games On Your Zune!

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 8th @ 10:09 AM
Can't wait to play games on your Zune? Here's what you need to get started. Jump over to ZuneBoards.com and see instructions from a forum member who gives you the step by step guidelines to get started.

They point to two games to get you started, Galactic Wars 3 and Alien Aggressors (if you know of any others, leave them in the comments here.) The first reply in the comments on the ZuneBoards site says "More complicated than I hoped." Keep in mind you're in the land of early adopting here. :)
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Zune 2.5 Spring Update podcast with Q and A - unedited

Posted By: Tina Wood | May 7th @ 1:12 PM
Today is a new day Zuners....you get your spring update 2.5 style at Zune.net. Yesterday we spent the day chatting with the Zune team and tossing them questions about the new update and the future of zune software, hardware, the social and web experience.  This is an unedited podcast and the Zune team was thrown some tough questions and you may be suprised with exactly how they responded. 

What do the guts of a zune look like? 
What about a walk-through ?
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Popfly Game Creator: Meet the Team, Make a Game

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 2nd @ 1:14 PM
For more on Popfly Game Creator don't miss This Week on Channel 9. Jacqueline Russel, Lead Project Manager for Popfly, talks about Popfly Game Creator and Adam Nathan from the Popfly team goes over building a 2D side scroller.

I played around with it this morning and it's really simple - so if you're not a dev, don't worry about it - give it a try. There is a function to upload pictures to Popfly, but I was referencing photos I uploaded to Skydrive with no problem. Remember, if you use PNGs for your images you can have transparent backgrounds.

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Free Windows Mobile Remote Admin App

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Apr 30th @ 10:43 AM
This is a cool little freeware app for your Windows Mobile phone that will let you connect with your desktop machine to your phone to control it using a window and your keyboard and mouse.  You can also capture the phone screen, drag and drop files to your phone, and connect over IP (although I haven't got that one working yet on my phone.) I can confirm that even the mouse scrollwheel works on phone apps, though it doesn't appear to pass-through video display.

But this is a great little utility for doing lots of text entry on your phone, to see the phone more clearly on your computer (you can view x 200-300%), or to troubleshoot phone problems by remoting into the computer connected to it.

(Thanks, Loke)
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Download Iron Man Demo for Free

Posted By: Sarah Perez | Apr 25th @ 5:44 PM
If you're like a bunch of people I know, you're pretty darned excited for the upcoming Iron Man movie. As you may know, there will also be an accompanying Iron Man video game for Xbox. Both game and movie will arrive on May 2nd, but you can sample the game now, for free, via the demo available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. According to the description on Major Nelson's site, the game lets you: "Immerse yourself in hardcore shooting action and explosive combat from the film as well as exclusive content created just for the game. Customize your Iron Man suit and battle against armies of fighter jets, tanks, armored Super Villains and more. You are a One Man Army. "  (via Xbox 360 Fanboy)
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