Follow hurricanes Dean and Erin with Google Earth

Hats off to Frank Taylor over at the Google Earth Blog once againn... Frank has provided a very handy utility for those of you (like me) who enjoy watching and chasing storms and weather related information. Using this habdy utility (http://www.gearthblog.com/kmfiles/gebweather.kmz) within Google Earth you'll have access to al the latest severe weather related data that you can ever need. Access real-time stream guage data, satellite imagery, web cameras, predicted tracks, lightning strikes, cloud cover, and much more. As we enter another hurricane season and follow the paths of hurricane Erin,m Dean and others this will no doubt be a very popular toolset. Kudos Frank and thanks!

Save some cash by simply taking part in the GITA survey - save

A reminder from our friends over at GITA - take part in this poular industry survey and you'll receive a free copy - that's a $400+ value!  The report will contain detailed information on the complexity, direction, and completeness of geographic information systems (GIS) projects being implemented at nearly 400 infrastructure-based organizations around the world. Users with active GIS implementations are invited to complete the survey at  gita.org/gtr_survey. User organizations that complete the survey will receive a free copy of the report. The deadline to complete the survey has been extended to Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2007. The 2006-2007 edition is currently selling for $449 for GITA nonmembers and $299 for members. The report is widely hailed as one of the major industry surveys of the geospatial community. The 2006-2007 report is available for purchase at www.gita.org/gtr.

Mapisimo... Who On Earth - buy your property before its too late

Have you seen this new social mapping application... Mapisimo... tagline "Who On Earth"? Users can "buy" 2 places - each being about the size of 4 tennis courts. Then you can shout out, add a photo or ?? on your "property". I'm still waiting on my email to activate the account.. perhaps then I can figure out exactly why I would want to use yet another social networking app! See http://www.mapisimo.com/

Autodesk at 25 Years, the Autodesk Timeline and some of my favorite AutoCAD moments

It's been 25 years since AutoCAD was first demonstrated at COMDEX in Las Vegas. To celebrate 25 years of digital design innovation, Autodesk has launched a website along with an interesting timeline.

I received this interesting bit of AutoCAD history... Did you know that 25 years ago John Walker & 16 employees started Autodesk, with the sole goal of creating a CAD application for under $1,000? In 25 years that tiny company has grown to over 5,000 employees in 33 countries, with product offerings spanning a variety of industries, from architecture to civil engineering to computer animated graphics. Over the years AutoCAD, the company’s flagship product, has been joined by an ever-growing family of products that leverage the trusted platform’s capabilities to address the specific needs of a variety of designers, including AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoCAD Electrical and most recently AutoCAD P&ID, to name a few.

Some cool milestones:

1984 - revenues top 1 million
1985 - Autodesk goes public (ADSK)
1990 - Glenn Letham starts using AuoCAD r9 for pipeline mapping project (remember the dot prompt?) - OK - I slipped this one in!
1992 - Carol Bartz named CEO (you gotta love a woman CEO who will freely drop an "F-bomb" when you least expect it!)
2005 - ADSK scores an Academy Award
2006 - Carl Bass named President and CEO
2007 - Autodesk now reports 8 million licensed users worldwide

See www.autodesk.com/autocad25

Some of my favorite Autodesk / AutoCAD memories:
- using AutoCAD in my first GIS related internship to map the natural gas pipelines in Victoria, BC
- seeing John Cleese at Autodesk U in Vegas, 2003
- the Autodesk Miramar hospitality event in San Diego (GITA)
- having one-on one's with Lynn Allen, Carl Bass, Chris Bradshaw, Carol Bartz, and other ADSK execs.
- the Mapguide open source launch in Orlando
- Autodesk realize your ideas tour in Vancouver and meeting Guy Kawasaki
- a cool Autodedesk intro event in Atlanta - the travelling road shows are awesome!
- DWF (say no more!)
- the Pre-season ball game in Tampa with open bar complete with 24 oz. beer cups...

Lynn Allen and John Cleese on stage at AU 2003

Me Meeting the AUGI Dawg in 2005!

oh those wonderful emails

oh Lord.. more of those wonderful emails! Ever wonder what kind of email us media folks get inundated with? Here's just a sampling of an email I just received - I get a ton of these!

Dear Sir,

Give me some details for GIS job in India.

thans

Ok man... I'll get right on that for ya! Actually, I have no idea which job you are talking about (is it on our GIsuser job board?) I also have no need to actually hire someone for a position in India since we have no office there etc... good luck though

A little help on Geotagging N95 photos with GPS info in EXIF

A little help from any Nokia N95 users out there?? I've been dabbling a bit with the N95 trying to get geolocation elements associated with photos... sureley this has to be the most desired feature of this phone! Apparently Shozu does indeed support this functionality, however, I can't seem to get GPS coordinates written to the EXIF associated with images. Does Shozu do this to anyone's knowledge?? I've tried getting a gPS fix, then snapping images, however, no GPS coords seem to be getting tagged to the image. Can anyone shed a bit of light on this for me? I found this statement on the Shozu forum... "I've added putting the GPS data into the EXIF of JPEGs as a possible future feature for ShoZu" so I have to assume that its not currently doable. " Source: Forum post titled "Nokia N95 - GPS Support?"
Kudos to Stefan over at Ogle earth blog for a great write-up on his experiences tagging his photos from a recent mountain trek. He goes to great lengths describing how he tags his images, uploads to flickr, then streams to Google earth.

ArcGIS Explorer updated with Build 410 - Includes Enhanced Resource Center

This comes from the ArcGIS Explorer downloads page - ArcGIS Explorer has detected that a newer version (Build 410) of software is now available. From the AGX blog, Among the new features in Build 410 is the revamped ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center. The Resource Center now includes a Contents tab that provides easy access to both maps and layers. See http://blogs.esri.com/Info/blogs/arcgisexplorerblog/Default.aspx
At the heart of this release is the Resource Center where users can locate free stuff, collaborate with others and more... http://resources.esri.com/arcgisexplorer/

Latest features include:

New Resource Center
A new ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center has been published, offering direct access to individual ArcGIS Online Layers as well as Maps. The Resource Center also includes a new Share tab. This tab provides access to an ArcGIS Explorer Community Showcase site which allows you to view and share screen captures, maps, layers, results, and tasks.

Get Driving Directions Task
When using the Get Driving Directions task, when you toggle the Regions setting between Europe and the United States, and Canada, the text boxes for From Here and To Here are cleared, making the entry of new locations easier.

Route Source Data Shown
Previous versions indicated that the route source information was available for North America; this has been renamed to United States and Canada to reflect the route source data more accurately.

Import File Now Supports 3D
When importing a text file or CSV file, you can now specify an elevation field in the Import File dialog.

Decimal Seconds Added
Support for decimal seconds in the status bar and the GoTo Location dialog has been added.

Easier Access to Manage Layers
You can access the Manage Layers dialog box by right-clicking any layer. Manage Layers gives you the ability to reorder or remove layers, or clear the layer cache.

Navigation Enhancements
Navigation with ArcGIS Explorer has been enhanced in the following ways.

and much more!

Ibiseye tracking Hurricane Erin - Hurricane map mashup

ibiseye provides real-time hurricane reports and updates to the user.Using the app the user can toggle on/off a satellite image backdrop and also display storm models (ie. possible tracks). Under the topic of very useful, clikc the news link tab and links to headlines from a number of useful sources are at yoru fingertips... updates from the NHHC, local news agencies, and weather underground. Links are also provided to recent alerts.

 

The following information was recently reported from the app:

Data Time:2007-Aug-15 1130 EDT Lat/Lng:Lat: 25.6 Lng: 93.500 Wind Speed:40 (sustained) 52 (gusts) mph Pressure:1005 mb Category:TS
Heading:West Bearing:-77 degrees Forward Speed:10 mph Hurricane Radius:0 miles Tropical Radius:60 miles

 

More about IbisEye - Perhaps the most ambitious feature of the site is the IBISEYE Risk Estimator, which approximates the value of the property in the path of any storm since 1960 should the storm hit today. (All hurricanes between 1851 and 2005 can be plotted on a map.) See http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/9089/ for details.

 

The app is best used with Firefox according to the developers - see http://www.ibiseye.com/

Mashable Tips for WordPress Bloggers

I'm not a WordPress user (although i do have a test blog there) but those of you who are will appreciate this great article on 30 cool thinngs you can integrate with your WordPress blog from Mashable. You'll learn how to create sticky posts, create PDA friendly formats, add google spell and much more... nice stuff! See http://mashable.com/2007/08/15/wordpress-posts/

AAA mobile now available to Sprint customers

Today via webcast, non-profit AAA announced the launch of AAA mobile.. a mobile service designed by Networks in Motion (NIM) to bring AA membership services to the handsets of users... don't freak out though, unless your a Sprint customer you'll have to wait. Simply put, the service is available as a pay-per use monthly subscription from carriers (Sprint in this case). For about $9 a month users can download the application and get up and running - the service is supported currently on 9 Sprint devices (see carrier for details). AAA currently has more than 50 million members, some 85% of them owning wireless devices (most have atleast 2 in their family) no word on how many are on Sprint. The application will first and foremost provide AAA services to users... turn-by-turn navigation, POI search, emergency roadside assistance (imagine, your location is automatically sent to the operator when you call in a flat or other emergency situation), and travel service discount bookings. Safety is a big concern for users of the service so AAA has incorporated voice-enabled navigation so users can listen to directions rather than trying to fumble through the UI while driving.. makes sense. More on this LBS service available from www.aaa.com/aaamobile

Once again, the service is tied to Sprint customers but hopefully we'll see more activity from other carriers soon. Reps from NIM have stated that the application will run on CDMA and GSM devices. See also http://www.lbszone.com/content/view/2194/2/

Getting Those flickr Photos on the map

If you have GPS data associated with your digital photos it should be easy to get them on a map. In theory, yes, however, there are a TON of utilities out there and finding exactly the right one for your needs can be tough. Since I now have a Nokia N95 with GPS I would like to have all my photos available via a map UI.. should be simple right? I'm getting close but it hasn't been easy. Geobloggers blog reminded me that RSS and KML formatted Flickr data is easily availabel from flickr.. thanks! So, this means I can grab a KML output file of all my geotagged flickr photos - here's a sample of my photos output as KML. Now I can easily grab this string and enter it into the Google MAps search dialog and then voila, I can see my geolocated images on the map... nice! One problem though... I'm still manually adding my photos on a map using flickr's map this photos utility.. this is the step I need to get rid of. Hopefully soon I'll have the tool I need to enable flickr (and other apps) to recognize and read the GPS data from my photos. A great starting point is this page on the Google Code section on Geotagging photos.

Mobile GIS Data Collection Software Announced By PWS Solutions

This comes my via a GISuser reader... PWS Solutions, a Milford, NH company, has developed a municipal asset management data collection solution that solves the time and cost issues associated with in-field inventorying of assets (e.g. Drains, Signs, Roads, etc.).  This GIS application, in conjunction with a tablet PC hardware solution, provides highly accurate and extremely fast data collection, with or without the use of GPS.  The Tracker program, which is available for download (collect up to 20 assets), sells for only $199.  Leasing options are available for a hardware/software bundle, which include full in-field mobile protection services to keep you up and running 24/7.   A trial download of PWS Tracker is available at www.pws-solutions.com.

The Glide Desktop Atop Linux

Tired of your Windows PC? I know I've wanted to toss mine onto the Interstate lately! Today' a new Linux solution hit the market... The Glide Desktop Atop Linux.  Details - Glide Sync is available today for download at http://www.glideos.com/ completing the Glide Desktop solution for Linux. Glide Sync currently supports Linux 2.6 / x86 architecture (Intel x86 and compatible CPUs including AMD x86). Glide Sync support for Linux x64 architectures (Intel x86-64 / IA- 64, and AMD64) will be added in September.

DigitalGlobe's WorldView 1 Satellite to lift off Tuesday, September 18, 2007

DigtalGlobe has delivered their latest satellite to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for its scheduled launch on Tuesday, September 18, 2007. Some specs on World View 1:

 

Highest resolution available commercially
 50 cm panchromatic at nadir
55 cm out to 20° off-nadir

 

Orbit
Altitude: 496 kilometers
Type: Sun synchronous, 10:30 am descending node
Period: 94.6 minutes

 

Mission Life
7.25 years, including all consumables and degradables
(e.g. propellant)

 

Spacecraft Size, Mass & Power
3.6 meters (12 feet) tall x 2.5 meters (8 feet) across,
7.1 meters (23 feet) across the deployed solar arrays
2500 kilograms (5500 pounds)
3.2 kW solar array, 100 Ahr battery

 

Sensor Bands
Panchromatic

 

Sensor Resolution
(GSD = Ground Sample Distance)
0.50 meters GSD at nadir
0.55 meters GSD at 20° off-nadir
(note that imagery must be re-sampled to 0.5 meters for non-US Government customers)

See http://www.digitalglobe.com/about/worldview1.html for mroe info - FYI, World View 2 is tentatively scheduled for a launch sometime in 2008.