ohmygosh will those spammers ever go away... here's a good one!

A little Friday wind-down... you gotta love those emails that come through about every 30 seconds. In particular, I love the one's that have a disclaimer at the following like this one..."Please note that this is not a SPAM even though I understand you may wish not to receive email in such way"... Thanks for clearing that up as I may have accidentally thought of that offshore contracting message as spam! BEAUTY... I think I'll respond by sending this guy about 100 emails each having a couple of nice big GeoTIFF file attachments!

Got a Web2.0 App or need one.. see Listio the web20 directory

Are you a social networking or bookmaring junkie? If so and you know about a cool web2.0 app or have a Web2.0 app or maybe need one then check out Listio - the everything Web2.0 directory - see http://www.listio.com

N95 Hits North America - we get the N95 lite!

As I suggested earlier this week, the Nokia N95 GPS-enabled multi-media computer (aka. smartphone) has been officially launched in the US - eventhough there's quite a few already in use. What's really weird is that North American users get the "lite" version.. think of it as the spanky device but with training wheels! While everyone else over the pond is being told about the 8GB N95 we get the 1GB standard version here... I guess North American's don't need the cooler looking version whith a whackin pant-load of memory... too bad! Nonetheless, if you want GPS-enabled mobile communication then Check out the N95. You get A-GPS, radio, awesome MP3 player, Nokia MAps app, a great web browsing experience, 5MP camera, video, loads of apps, and more. See www.nseries.com for more info - for N95 news and updates see here - see N95 photos and related images HERE

Nokia N95 USA version coming - a pointer to a first look

Over at Engadget they've rolled out a pretty decent look at the Nokia N95 which will be officially rolling out here in the USA and Canada very soon - although there are already a number of lucky users (like yours truly). If your interested at all in this powerful GPS-enabled smart phone be sure to give this one a read - be sure to check out all the comments (some good Canada/USA bashing there too!) I'll be really interested to see which carrier(s) gets the bulk of the business on this one... T-Mobile or AT&T... or will you have to go through Nokia's sales channels? See http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/08/29/hands-on-with-the-us-nokia-n95/

What are people saying about your company? Get custom Google news alerts

Here's a how-to tip that will help you and your company stay abreast of who's taking about you and which resources (like GISuser.com) are promoting your news or publishing material about your company - Google news alerts. Hopefully many of you already subscribe to alerts but if you don't then I suggest you consider doing so. Personally, I like adding these alerts to my custom google homepage (iGoogle) but you can also get these alerts via email. Here's how it works:
- jump to the awesome Google news home - this resource aggregates industry news from only bonafide news resources around the world (there's also a blog/news option as well collecting "news" from blogs. (yes indeed, a blog is different than a traditional news resource)
- search on a keyword like "esri"
- request email alert to the results of this news search
- optionally, view the output in RSS format
- it's very simple but very useful!
- you can now view news alerts as they appear online or get daily or even hourly alerts via email - once again, this is but one of the many great benefits of getting your news etc... featured at online news resources like GISuser,com, LBSzone.com or amerisurv.com!

Search for your company name or even your name using google.com/news

Create an alert to receive results via email

Results are also available as RSS feeds which can be added to yoru custom iGoogle page

Display all your alerts and news feeds (RSS) on your custom iGoogle homepage - a HUGE time saver!

The 8GB Nokia N95 - GPS, loads of memory, now games!

Rumors of the 8GB Nokia N95 are not exagerated. I have to admit, info about this device is tough to locate on the Nokia website although there are many images posted in the press area (no wonder people have a hard time buying this awesome device!) I wish I could tell you more about the availability on this elusive device, however, if you have a Nokia shop near you (New York, Chicago) you might see this cool device for sale. Like the traditional N95 its a quadband World phone, complete with integrated GPS, loads of cool apps to leverage you location information and memory - lots of it. With the supported 8GB card (supplied with this one) you can store all kinds of apps, videos, music and as of today you can try ALL the N-Gage games for free! N-Gage has matured from a device (mine got stolen from my car a couple of years ago - want some games??) to a platform. More on the 8GB N95 can be found (I think) at nseries.com or nokia.com (see also the N95 support site) - actually, nseries.com has a page devoted to this unit, however, it doesn't appear to be available in the US yet... sorry! A tip.. Nokia, to sell even more of these units maybe bundle some integrated GPS supported apps on the deck that work without the need for doing loads of research, for example, send and MAP the photo to flickr, Google maps (like a MyMap) and try a couple of cool colors like Pink and maybe even a "Trimblish" yellow with a ruggedized, grippy shell.. that would sell! This device appeals to mobile field force workers and outdoor enthusiasts, maybe try marketing to them!

The 8GB Nokia N95 (Source: Nokia)

site update and housecleaning

FYI, anyone hitting www.gisuser.com this week may have noticed the site being bogged down, perhaps unavailable (sporadically) or just dead slow - actually its been pretty slow lately regardless! Well, we've been making the move to a new ISP this week (loads of fun - and a couple of long days ;0) We're getting back to normal now and the site is moucho speedier I'm glad to say. Stay tuned for a site rework too! Thanks for your patience if you've been inconvenienced

The anti-nuclear weapon Google map mashup

An interesting Google maps mashup at http://www.stopnewnukes.org/ from the team at Peace Action West - this one maps all the nuclear facilities in the country (do we really want to be sharing all this info and making it so readily available?) and then provides additional info as well as a link to sign a petition to stop the facility. Obviously this resource caters to the anti-nukes crowd but you see they are we're going with it. A nice UI and clever app for this organization - please note: I'm simply sharing info about the map mashup and don't endorse the anti-site or nuclear facilities in any way - I'll just stay neutral here! This takes me back to my poli-sci days and I have to admit that I'm likely from the camp where the best defense is a good offence!

YAhoo! Pipes news map - a great mashup

An interesting find in this clever Yahoo! Pipe that mashes up news (topic of your choice) with a Yahoo! map. Try it out - search on a term like "esri" then scroll through the results on this map interface. The app grabs news from google news (yes indeed, GISuser.com news gets crawled by this news crawler - a great benefit of getting your news listed here) and displays on the map where you can then scroll through the results, view a synopsis and click-through for a full read if the caption looks interesting. To top it off you can get the results as JSON or KML... sweet! See the News Map Pipe HERE

The results of this search for "esri" news using the pipe shows a hit that has been pulled from GISuser.com news headlines. Source of inspiration was a post on Mapperz via BlinkGeo!

Reverse Geocode with Google Maps API

This is cool (I missed it the other day)... reverse geocoding using the Google Maps API. This developer figured out a clever solution for extracting the address of places rfom the lat/long coordinates provided via google maps. See more at http://nicogoeminne.googlepages.com/reversegeocode.html

Can Miss South Carolina even find a map?

I know, this one's been circulating a bit, but it's simply too flipping funny to leave alone! A couple of questions re Ms. South Carolina.. is she saying Iraq or did she discover some new "Asian" country?? I have to wonder if she would be able to locate the USA on a map??? Somehow I doubt it!
Enjoy.. below is a second vid you may not have seen where she ventures off to the library!

Pipeline Field Data Collection Seminars (Houston, Denver)

I heard from Glenn over at Spatial Data Technologies (SDT) here in Fort Collins, CO - the company, along with ESRI and Trimble, will host a seminar series focused on complete field data collection solutions specifically addressing the problems and challenges faced by field data collectors in the oil and gas industry. Seminars will be hosted in Houston, Texas on
September 5, 2007 and Westminster, Colorado on September 11, 2007. About the event... Attendees will learn about the complete data life cycle as it relates to oil and gas asset management, how to interface with an enterprise geodatabase, the value of structured data collection using SDT’s CartoPac Enterprise software solution, hardware to collect highly accurate GPS data, automated GPS data post processing and streamlining the data flow from the field back to the enterprise database. For more info see http://www.spatialdatatech.com/seminars.html