I was hoping to write this post under my new website design, but I haven’t made much progress with my WordPress theme. Things are looking better though, since I just upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.5 (after having a few unpleasant surprises with Wordpress 2.0.x). The upgrade went pretty smoothly, and the new features should help me write a couple of posts I’ve planned faster. My theme is now “widgetized” which should make the migration to the new design easier.

Regarding my job at Microsoft, it’s actually going pretty well. I still have a lot to learn, but it’s been a very interesting experience so far. Microsoft has a comprehensive training plan for new hires, which includes several online and classroom courses, such as MS101 and NEO –not the one from the Matrix–, but the New Employee Orientation. I also attended a Biztalk class in Washington DC (pictures in a future post), and an event for technical people held in Seattle called TechReady. I’m currently preparing myself to present a Biztalk certification exam.

I’ve also been playing several games on my PS3, such as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Resistance: Fall of Man, Stardust HD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Overall I am quite pleased with the console, although a bit disappointed after finding out that most games are not 1080p as Sony wants people to believe, but 720p, which is comparable to many Xbox 360 games. After upgrading my TV to a 40 inch Full HD LCD I’m quite pleased with my current setup.

That’s it for a brief update on my doings, I’ll start posting a bit more often from now on, and hope to finalize my new design sometime…

Just as a reminder, all views and opinions expressed here are my own and not my employers.

Overall very good service. Everything arrived in a huge box within a week of ordering.

If Amazon could deliver to Mexico City this efficiently and at this cost (free!) I would certainly buy more from them.

• I was involved in a huge Proof of Concept, focused on WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Business Monitor
• I did some remodelling at home, and had to rearrange everything and get rid of a few things.
• I got an iPhone, and after going through the unlock procedure it’s working with the Telcel network. The only issue so far is that SMS messages from Telcel or from my bank appear empty or garbled.
• Upgraded to Leopard.
• Been playing The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS, as well as Bioshock on Xbox 360, and Mario Galaxy on Wii

The point of this post was to note that finally some California based companies are finally turning their heads to Mexico.

The first case is Google Maps, which now includes street level maps for most of Mexico. Some rural areas are still not mapped, and as of this post address search is not working. You can search for a business and if you’re lucky enough someone might have added it. Because of this, I decided to add a new geolocator to my custom implementation of Google Maps. I found a geolocator with pretty good results at map24. I added a new control to my map to select a geolocator, and the results are pretty accurate. Try it out by typing address, zip code and city into the query field (comma separated works best), selecting the map24 geolocator and pressing on search maps:

Global Access Maps Now with map24 geolocator! (but still alpha code)

The second case is Apple that finally opened an online store for Mexico. This is great news for all Apple fans in Mexico. Prices are much more reasonable than what you’d find in any physical store that carries Apple products. There’s also much more variety, for example, I wanted to buy a new Apple Keyboard with Spanish layout and had been unable to get one so far. The other great feature is build-to-order, which until now was impossible in Mexico. All prices appear in Mexican Pesos and with tax (IVA) included. I made an order today, and I’ll update this post with any additional details once it ships.

Apple Online Store Mexico

My guess is that the iTunes Online Store should follow sometime soon.