Blogger Beta issues and problems to date

Well it's been about a week since I "upgrade" the blog to blogger beta. Some of the new features are really great - like the labels (ie. categories) and the posting is much faster. The new templates are quite cool and robust too. However, some of the pittfualls I've noticed so far are really starting to piss me off! Some of the anoying features that I would call bugs:
- making edits to the layout will quite often not save. Particualrly, if you make multiple edits saving never seems possible. the only workaround seems to be to save your template after every addition or change. Also, adding to template elements will not save unless you change the order of an element, then saving becomes a valid option.
- problems with the import. Seems like only the items on the first page of the blog are viewable and attempting to view any older posts results in an error... that's really disturbing!
That's it for now... 2 things but to me, these are HUGE issues... stay tuned for more about blogger beta

Tom's reports from FOSS4G 2006

Looking for news and reports from FOSS4G? look no more as good ol Tom Kralidis has plenty to say from the event. Tom's been in Europe all week and has been blogging from the event. Tom reports that Markus Neteler of the GRASS user community has received the Sol Katz Award... congrats to Markus. Be sure to check out Tom's reports... nice stuff Tom! See http://www.kralidis.ca/blog/ and see also the FOSS4G website at http://www.foss4g2006.org/site/gallery/index.php

No P.O.S...wow, now what?

Off topic but kind of interesting... here in Western Canada on a Saturday afternoon word has it that all the POS was out of serv ice... you know, point-of sale! Add to that, people at banks here on Vancouver Island were telling me that the "outage" in service also affected ATM machines as well... essentially that meant there was no use of debit cards for purchases, no ATM cash withdrawls etc... so if you don't have cash, credit cards or a cheque you are out of luck. I can't imagine now actually having a credit card of a cheque but there are actually people that don't (I know, I can hardly believe that myself!) I was in the bank doing some bizness and there was a lineup of people tearing into the poor bank clerks... like it was really their fault! One guy was so ticked because he couldn't buy any building supplies for his business.. ok, lemme get this straight... the guy runs a home building business and has no credit card or cheques??? Anyway, it's been an interesting social experiment if anything, simply observing people's reaction to being told that their ATM cards are useless... if anything, I'm all for it... imagine, my wife has no use of the ATM card for the day... woohooo!

another one on my wish list - WIRED nextfest

I've always wanted to go to New York and even more, I'd love to go there in the fall. Now I have another reason to be dreaming about a visit... WIRED NextFest. this event takes place the last week of September and looks down-right cool, to say the least! Patterned on the great World's Fairs of the past, this year's NextFest in New York features more than 130 interactive exhibits from leading scientists and researchers around the world. This is definitely a great chance to get a look at the future and see some very cool, innovative technology. See more at http://nextfest.net/ - ever been? ever heard of it? Planning on going?

Exploring Ground zero imagery and other scenes from GeoEye

Have you explored some of the imagery available from GeoEye? The company is currently remembering the events of 9/11 by featuring scenes captured using the IKONOS satellite. Recall, at that time, because all air traffic in the United States was grounded, IKONOS was the only resource available that helped show the world the devastation at the site of the collapsed twin towers. GeoEye has made available via their Gallery a very nifty image viewing application where you can explore Lower Manhattan, NY, the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, and many other scenes.. check it out.. simply click on the "Gallery" link

GeoSkating and GeoTracing

While wandering around the blogosphere I stumbled onto a thread on the O'reilly Radar discussing the recent FOSS4G. Simply following link after link I stumbled onto a cool tool that I was not familiar with. GeoTracing is a software platform for creating multimedial geo-applications. For example, create GPS tracklogs remotely from mobile phone, create overlayed maps by combining tracklogs, etc... some interesting uses have been mentioned including the likes of managing speedskating tracks... ie. GeoSkating. What a great way to manage routes and trecks... imagine bike riding routes, or maybe a holiday drive? For more see http://www.geotracing.com/ - they also have a Wiki and a Yahoo! discussion group. No doubt we'll hear more about this in the future.

yahoo! mail (beta) upgrades

Just wanted to test out the new functionality available in the Yahoo! mail beta. So far the drag and drop functionality and the preview panes appear to be awesome. A faster search capability (nice for guys like me that have 5000 emails collected there!) integrated RSS news reader, spell check, and support for firefox are also nice. You can test it for yourself at http://new.mail.yahoo.com or simply upgrade via your existin gmail account. This blog post was sent via Yahoo! mail

Another Geospatial company hits the NASDAQ- see GEOY

GeoEye is the latest corp to get listed on the NASDAQ. GeoEye began trading its common stock today, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006 under the symbol “GEOY.”  According to the official blurb, the Company’s common stock was previously traded as “ORBM” on the National Quotation Service Bureau. Recall GeoEye operates Earth imaging satellites – OrbView-2, OrbView-3 and IKONOS. Somewhat related weblink - www.geoeye.com.

Yahoo's Hack Day event - save.the.date : 29-30 Sept 2006

Mark those calendars for Yahoo's Hack Day event, taking place September 29th - 30th. Attendees of the first public Hack Day at Yahoo can learn a variety of developer tricks. Yahoo's Rasmus Lerdorf posted about the festivities at the Yahoo Search Blog: The first day, Friday, is a workshop-style Developer Day where you'll meet a number of Yahoo! engineers and get hands-on information and training. The YUI guys will be there in full force showing off their latest Javascript magic. Douglas Crockford will teach you more about Javascript in an hour than you thought was possible, I'll do my PHP thing, and you will hear from the Flickr, Del.icio.us, Mail, Messenger, Maps, and of course, Search folks. Somewhat related weblinks: http://developer.yahoo.com/ & http://www.hackday.org/

Freedom Tower (New York) as seen in AutoCAD 3D rendering

Interested in seeing what the Freedom Tower will look like in New York city once it has been completed? I just dug up a few images from an Autodesk event where a few 3D images were shown including this cool image of the New York skyline. FYI, the Freedom Tower will be built on the World Trade center site (Ground zero). See http://www.flickr.com/photos/gisuser/241157192/

Commercial weblogs and social networking - not a bad idea

This morning I was checking out the latest release of the GT/Field mobile application from GTI. It was interesting to see that the company's products are supported via a blogger weblog. I think this is a great idea that small businesses in particular should look at. The blogger UI is amazingly simply to use and get up an running with and what better way could a company relay all their product info and put their staff in touch with their customers? Example, see http://gtviewer.blogspot.com/ - clients can see the latest news and photos and best of all, they can communicate with the company by adding comments. We're seeing more and more of this every day including people taking advantage of other social networking tools like flickr, google video, youtube, etc... think about adding a product blog, maybe a developer team weblog or even a product sample video on google Video!

where were you mashup

Where were you on 9/11? I was at CTIA Wireless IT in San Deigo and it feels like it was just yesterday. Related to this, I stumbled onto a nifty mashup on platial that is titled where were you on 9/11. the app use google maps to enable users to share their experiences from 9/11. An interesting concept in social networking from platial.. nice stuff. See Ed's map at http://www.platial.com/edshepp/map/2968

Bouwman's tips on attracting top developers... useful stuff!

In a post this AM Dave has offered up a nice take on what employers might wish to consider to lure the best talent the next time they are searching for a developer. Dave also makes reference to a very useful "field guide to developers" article which many of you will also find to be useful... thanks for the tips Dave! In the post, a list of useful things to help attract developers offers up some very interesting ideas... I like the idea about a comfy chair (a coller stocked with Red Bull, sodas, and other goodies might also be a nice idea too!)