Click the play tab to watch the video.

Click the play tab to watch the video.

Click the play tab to watch the video.

Time to take the MapQuest API 5.3 beta a step further and see how hard it is to embed MapQuest mapping a windows application. As a developer I'm constantly thinking "is this a one time effort? or do I want to reuse this code?". Well for embedding MapQuest into my .NET application I would like to create a reusable component, in fact, I'd like to create a WinForm usercontrol which can be reused in any application simply by dragging and dropping the control onto a form.

By Mark Blomsma
May 9, 2008

In November 2007, AOL added AIM Call Out to the many features of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Recently, AOL opened up this service by offering the Open Voice API. The Open Voice API consists of a number of service offerings, all based on open standards, that allow any application to use the AIM Call Out infrastructure to place calls from any standards-based hardware device, or, for a developer, a more important, custom piece of software. This essentially allows you to build your own softphone or to integrate some sort of phone functionality into your line-of-business application. In this article, I will take on a journey of what it takes to actually make a call using these open standards, and show you the resources available for implementing phone functionality in a custom application.

People are looking for original content in many different places, as are advertisers. This takes us into a whole new ballgame. – Jeff Zucker

I've been talking a lot about Userplane lately. In my previous blog posts (Make Cash with Userplane, Userplane Administration, Integrate Userplane with Wordpress - Part 1 and Part 2) I showed you how to begin integrating Userplane with your WordPress blog site, and in my article I showed you how to integrate Userplane Desktop with WordPress. Marty Kube also showed you how to begin working with Userplane in Facebook.

In this post I will continue my discussion of overlays in the MapQuest JavaScript API 5.2. My last two posts covered a couple of methods for adding rollover functionality to overlays. Over the next couple of posts I will discuss some of the options that are available when working with image overlays.

There are a few things that set image overlays apart from the other overlay types. The one that poses the biggest obstacle is image resolution. Since an image overlay is "pinned" to a map with Lat and Lng coordinates, there is a significant difference in resolution required to display an image properly at different zoom levels. If this becomes an issue for your application, one of the options that is available is the setImageOverlayLevels method provided by the API.

My goal as a developer has always been to produce products that have a positive, lasting impact on the user experience. Having spent a good part of my career in the non-profit sector, I understand the added challenges of meeting this goal. Tight (non-existent) budgets and little access to enterprise resources play a big part as barriers to working in this field from a technological perspective. Luckily there are a number of organizations whose goal is to support nearly every facet of this industry to ensure their success. One of these organizations, Netsquared is promoting the DonateNow Mashup Challenge, sponsored by The Case Foundation. This is a contest which challenges you to create the most innovative solution which supports the online donation process using the Network for Good API. Come up with the winning idea and you've earned yourself $10,000.

Open Bot Developers License Agreement

Welcome to the AOL Open Bot Developer's Program ("Bot Program"). In order to participate in the Bot Program, you must be an AOL registered user with an AOL-issued or AOL authorized (i.e., AIM, ICQ, mac.com) screen name ("Screen name") and be in compliance with all terms of service and end user license agreements for the applicable AOL-provided instant messaging service (each an "AOL Service"). In addition, you must complete the registration process displayed to you and agree to the terms and conditions in this Open Bot Developer's License Agreement ("Agreement").

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