(Matthew Ellis) In this tutorial we'll analyze Microsoft Virtual Earth, the new SQL Server 2008 GEOGRAPHY data type and ASP.NET AJAX. We'll build a database of longitude and latitude records for specific locations, we'll then use ASP.NET AJAX and the Virtual Earth service to exploit these locations found in the database. We're also going to build a basic application that makes use of Yahoo's Geocode service to retrieve the longitude and latitude of a specific address, thus we'll be able to add additional locations easily and quickly. How is this useful, you may be asking, to answer your question I'll give you an example. My wife has been searching for homes recently online and has been using a popular home searching web application, which will remain nameless. This application makes use of Virtual Earth and the user can browse around a city and the map is populated with homes for sale, you can then click the home, a popup appears and gives you the opportunity to view the home details. In this tutorial we'll build a similar application, however, emphasizing the use of the new SQL Server 2008 GEOGRAPHY data type.

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