As my first order of geekdom, I highly recommend the Daily Buzz from CNET. This is a podcast of 3 CNET editors who discuss up to date topics that affect current technology. Their shows of indefinite length generally run about 25 minutes.
As my second order of geekdom, I want to talk about something new from Microsoft - Live Maps (maps.live.com). This is Microsoft's version of Google maps and I have to say that while they put their best foot forward they fell a little short. Google maps is very streamlined and works well in modern browsers.
I tried Live in Firefox 2.0 and it functions, but you lose out on 'cool' functionality. What is cool you may ask - well if you use IE 6+ and download their ActiveX image enhancer, you can now look at a few select cities in a new way - from a horizon view to a complete top down AND it is 3d meaning the actual buildings have height to them. At first I thought this was great eye candy and would eventually save the world, but then the geek in me started to realize that this must have been a massive undertaking to get all of the buildings in 3d like that for the entire city. I quickly got bored of this candy and then I decided to see what happens when you look around.
First I checked out the Hofstra University area and for some reason that area was in greyscale in this view. If I try it in 2d version with the topigraphical turned on, it looks ok, but in the super 3d it looks like crap. Ok well it is basically a beta and it is Microsoft so I chalked it up to business as usual. So then I went looking around Las Vegas. The buildings are really cool, but what did I see off to the distance in the northwest quadrant, but a freaking car advertisement!!! No one would have ever believed me if I hadn't taken a screen shot. Well lucky you, you get to see it too. All I have to say to Microsoft is:
LAME
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