Frapper.. another sweet Google Mashup for Social Networking

Frapper.. another sweet Google Mashup for Social Networking
Originally uploaded by GISuser.com.

Today I stumbled onto another sweet Google mashup... Frapper

(http://www.risingconcepts.com/frapper/) What a cool mashup! The idea is

a friends + mapper site that results in a frapper group. This concept

takes social networking to a new level, enabling users to create a new

group (aka. frapper) allow people to join and then they can shout out!

Check it out, it's very cool. I've created the GISuser frapper.. feel

free to sign up and shout out. See

http://www.risingconcepts.com/frapper/gisuser

Public vs Private sector absenteeism

Slightly off topic but this always gets me going... numbers out of Stats Canada have revealed the following information concerning absenteeism rates in Canada. On average, public sector employees take 9.7 sick days per year whereas private sector employees take on avg. 7 days per year. In Saskatchewan alone, the cost of sick days runs at more than $18 million per year!  So... why do government employees get sick more??? Likely they don't, they merely are allowed to call in more frequently. Also, the right to sick days is likely thought of as a right and thus is taken advantage of. Interesting stuff...

Craig's List Wants "Scraping" to Stop

Looks like the battle over scraping is now getting heated up. FYI, scraping, is the practice of basically "site eating" someone else's hard earned data in order to developer your own application based on their data... essentially, thinking of it as ripping off someone else's data! According to this blog (http://battellemedia.com/archives/001930.php) Craig's List has asked that oodle (http://www.oodle.com/) stop scraping their data and quite frankly, you can't blame Craig's list at all.. check out Oodle... they are merely re-packaging Craig's list and other classifieds for their own self-serving profit! Go get em Craig! No doubt the whole issue of scraping is going to be huge moving forward, particularly as google mashups, map hacking and other practices are based primarily on scraping other DBs... keep in mind though, many very useful hacks are based on publicly available data sources and thus are fair game and a welcome addition.

 

Google Mapping WikiPedia

A new service called Placeopedia maps geographic locations in Wikipedia articles onto Google Maps. It's a great feature that bolsters both services and can be accessed here - http://www.placeopedia.com/  The map service shows the most recent 15 wiki articles listed. More details can be see at http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3555891

 

Very Spatial podcasts, articles and more

Very Spatial is a weblog that offers not only regular commentary and news updates about GIS and geospatail technologies but you also get weekly podcoasts. The host...  Sue is a Phd student in Geography, specializing in Historical Geography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  Very cool stuff and nice work Sue! See http://veryspatial.com

 

 

 

Vector Overlays on Google Maps

Would-be Google mashers will appreciate this tool... VGMap is a new library created by Eyebeam R&D that allows designers, developers, and mapping geeks to overlay data on top of Google Maps in a richer way than is possible using their standard system. It is called VGMap because it adds vector-drawing capability to the GMap API. The Google Maps API enables point and line data on their maps in the form of markers, and polylines. FYI, the popular NYC submap mashup uses this app... see more at http://vgmap.eyebeamresearch.org/

Today's latest GISuser Geospatial & GIS news updates

Today's latest GISuser Geospatial & GIS news updates
Originally uploaded by GISuser.com.

Image: The NIEHS GIS portal assembles data about contaminents, oil & gas refineries, and other relevant data themes - see today's GISuser spotlight feature or jump directly to http://www-apps.niehs.nih.gov/katrina/

Latest GIS / Geospatial news updates:

• Analytical Surveys Engages Wind Lake Solutions
  
• Tom Clay Named CEO of Z Corporation, Maker of World's Fastest Color 3D Printers
  
• Tri-County CML Emergency Communications System Deployed on Florida's Gulf Coast
  
• EWEB Selects ArcFM Viewer for Mobile Solution
  
• LiDAR Services International, W.I.R.E. Services / Manitoba Hydro Sign 5 year LiDAR Services Contract
  
• Discover the latest developments in GIS solutions; ESRI (UK) Tech Update events series
  
• LotInfo Offers Software That Uses a Lot Level Map to Access Property Information in New York City
  
• Oracle Announces General Availability of Oracle(R) TimesTen In-Memory Database 6.0
  
• RMS Releases Third Generation of its Japan Earthquake Catastrophe Model
  
• Ecology and Environment, Inc. Wins Top Award in World Challenge
  
• STAR INFORMATIC software to manage Moroccan harbours
  
• Campbell County, Wyoming Selects Geographic Technologies Group (GTG) for GIS Data Development
  

GIS & Environmental Hazard Assessment from Hurricane Katrina - To visualize relationships, model the movement of contaminants, and identify sources of human exposure, the NIEHS is developing an
interactive Geographic Information System (GIS). This GIS assembles maps for Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi based on geographic, demographic, hydrographic, infrastructure and industrial/agricultural data from publicly accessible sources. See http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7089/28/

More on Google vs ESRI Pricing

FYI, for the record, I should have stated earlier (regarding my post about price comparison of ESRI vs Google Earth - see below) that I was simply relaying some material from the Keyhole BBS that was sent to me from a colleague. I did think it was somewhat interesting and the author does in fact have some good points. Google Earth does provide a developer with some interesting functionality and the real strengths lie in the integration of apps with the Internet (my opinion). However, to imply that an enterprise user could simply trade in their ESRI site license and go with solutions provided by Google is obviously ridiculous. Developers are going to embrace the APIs that Google brings to them and the progress Google has made by bringing geospatial technology awareness to the mainstream has been incredible.. in the long run all the existing GIS players are going to benefit from this.

gmail opens up

You may have heard about Gmail in th epast, however, it was only by special invite. Now you can get your own account by simply requesting an invitation to join... this from the latest Gusers newsletter... Since Gmail first launched more than a year ago, people have sought out our web-based email program (which comes with more than 2.5GB of storage, great spam filters and built-in Google search). But you had to be invited by a Gmail user to get an account. Now anyone can get a free
account by entering your mobile phone number (this helps combat spam). We'll send you a text message with an invitation code to get started.
https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1