In this article, we’ll cover how you can build your own customized 3D tour with no code using Bing Search.  This is a great way to share your local points of interest (like the stunning Burj Al Arab – warm sun bathing photo taken two days ago my frigid friends) with friends and family. This is particularly helpful if you moved halfway across the globe and need to fly friends shortens a 12 hour flight into 12 seconds.  Let’s explore how I created my own Bing collection to fly my NYC friends to Dubai and back.

Build a 3D Tour of your favorite POI (not the kind you eat in Lanai)

• Go to Bing.com – sign in with your live ID (this way you can save all the customization into your account)
• Click on the Maps tab
• Type in : Dubai Marina (or whatever neighborhood you call home)
• Change the view to be Aerial Satellite

Fred lives Underwater (no, not a new band)

• Here you have two options to add a point of interest (POI).
  1. Zoom and pan around until you get to a point of interest. For me, I choose the Burj Al-Arab. OR
  2. If your POI is something fairly well known, it is easier to load the lists create by other users. In the left hand side, click on the link for “Explore user-contributed places” The results will include news, Wiki articles, and other URLs contributed by users. Like our friend Fred, who apparently lives under water. You will see pushpins next to these points and you can adopt them as your own by clicking on the pushpin link.  Once you do that, a small window opens up with more information and metadata about the POI. From there you can click on the Save button to save it to your own personal collection (Again, you need to be signed in first, in order to see this option).
  3. Keep adding POIs until you are satisfied with your list.

Create a custom Tour

• Create a custom itinerary or tour, by adding several POIs to My Places Editor. Each time you save a location, it gets added to your list.
• Click on the My Places button to create new lists and tours by clicking on the “New List” button.
• You can also import and explore other people’s lists. 

Fly first class with Photosynths

• You also have the option to filter the user contributions by toggling the options at the top of the list. You can choose only to see items with photos, 3D buildings, MapCruncher, or Photosynthwhich enables you to combine multiple photos into one first person type view, as you can see by visiting Times Squareor by visiting the observation deck of the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa

Create a 3D tour to fly your friends to Dubai

• After you are satisfied with the order of the locations in your list, close the My Places editor and select the Actions drop down button. Now you are ready to fly your friends over by creating a 3D tour. Choose the “Tour & make videos in 3D” link .
• When you play the tour, the globe will spin as your friends fly over to visit.
• When the video plays, the user flies from spot to spot. You can even customize the flying behavior to include panoramic spin around and speed up or slow down the animations.  Hit  the “Go To” Play button when you and change the drop down from Asli’s favorite building to Home in New York to fly from Dubai to New York in 12 seconds.
• You can right click on a pushpin in the map and choose Edit, and then modify the behavior of the 3D animation in the 3D Tour tab. You can change the viewpoint – to be from ground level or above or circle a building clockwise. You can do this for each POI and really create a unique experience for your friends and family.
• When you are ready, you can share your map via link or email.  

It’s not often you run into a Chihuahua powered by a beta version of the richest design framework available in the world.  Littles the Chihuahua’s object model takes full advantage of Expression Blend’s frame, trigger and time based animations. Methods include Wave{}; PlayDead{}; FetchSlippers{}; and many more.

Littles was first programmed using Silverlight 2.0, and is best known for serving for 7 years as the United States Development & Evangelism Platform Team Mascot.  Some may infamously know her from her ill-fated demo during Mix07.  Secretly sprearheaded by Australian Evangelists such as  Michael KordahiLittles was due to burst onto the stage with an accelerometerstrapped on to her back, sending signals via Bluetooth to hijack the opening keynote demo as such:

Her movements would trigger the screen on the computer to tilt and shift, moving a virtual ball around a small maze.  Unfortunately, the non-dog friendly and ADD ridden gambling nature of Vegas hotels on the strip caused the effort to be prematurely abandoned.

Emirates Hill Chihuahua Right to Left Language Support

Now in Silverlight 4, Littles can take her routines (play dead) and subroutines (drape paw dramatically over eye) even further. In previous versions of Silverlight, Littles did have the capability to render her barks in many lanaguges. For example, in Turkish, Miniko (a.k.a. Littles)  does not bark or go “woof”, but simply says “hov hov”.  In France Mininoa (a.k.a. Litttles) issues a dainty “vaf vaf” with a certain “je ne sais quoi - je suis Chiwa” disdain.

With the Right to Left language support, Littles can now render her barks in RTL languages such as Arabic – a perfect enhancement for the newly transplanted & newly translated Emirates Hill Chihuahua.  We can only look to Silverlight 5 to make Chihuahua transplants as easy as translations. In the next post, we’ll compare the relocation of a human versus Chihuahua from New York City to Dubai. Which is easier? The results will surprise even you.

If you ever have to go through a paperwork process in Dubai that takes millions of forms, multiple counters, and many languages, the best bet is to do it on your birthday. Since you need a copy of your passport to process anything, you can clearly prove valid the formula: {myBirthDay.MonthDate() = Today.MonthDate()};

If this formula equals true, strap yourself in, as you will hurtle into Mach5 speed for all paperwork processing. What once took 4 weeks, will now take 4 minutes. And seriously, there’s no better present than seeing fancy approvals stamps on Very Official documents dated with your birthday.   What better memory could you have of your birthday than a customized souvenir from the government?

When you walk into a government or financial institution, take the token that says you are number 99 in the queue (Typically this will happen when the screen shows: Now Serving: Number 2).  Then approach the nearest person and say with a pitiful  “Hmm. Is there anyway we can expedite? You see, it is my birthday.”

Suddenly you will feel like a fondue pot, with handshakes poked at you urgently, “Good tidings, good wishes! Come come! Come with us”, and you will suddenly enter the world usually reserved only for Certain Special People Who Shall Not Be Named.  At your side, will be your own personal escort, skipping you across queues, with pen in hand, filling all your paperwork and forms, leaving you with only the simple request,  “Just sign here ma’am”. Even when you find that a particular office has is closed early for the weekend (Ref: Don’t they know it’s Friday?), no worries!  You will have full afterhours clearance through all security doors and access to internal offices, because They Know It’s Your Birthday.