Archives for January 11, 2006

Over the past three years, post-secondary students across Canada have earned $60,000 in cash awards simply by submitting a course project to the Energy Ambassadors student competition – an annual event that showcases the talents and ideas of young Canadians.Sponsored by Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency, the competition selects projects related to energy efficiency – specifically, how using energy wisely reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. The 20 Energy Ambassadors selected each year raise awareness of energy efficiency, not just by participating in the competition, but also by networking with government and private industry leaders. See http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/corporate/awards/ambassadors/about-the-competition.cfm?attr=0

The Starkey-Robinson Award gives recognition to high quality graduate research that furthers understanding of the geography of Canada. The Award is adjudicated annually by the Awards Committee of the CAG. Eligibility for the Award is based on the completion of a thesis or comparable work at the Masters or Doctoral level at a Canadian University within the preceding 2 years. Nominations for the Award should be submitted to the CAG Office by Departmental Chairs or Graduate Supervisors by January 15th, 2006. Each nomination should include a brief statement (maximum two pages) outlining the topic and findings of the work and explaining its significance for the geography of Canada. An extract from the thesis (or equivalent) of a maximum of eight pages may be attached to the nomination. The Award is a cash prize, currently a single award of $500. The number and value of awards made annually will be determined from time to time by the Executive Committee of the CAG. In any year, the Awards Committee may decline to make an award. Nominations and accompanying documents must be submitted electronically to cag@geog.mcgill.ca. The CAG will accept ONE nomination for the Award from each Geography department with a graduate program.

Something of interest for those of you wishing to dabble with the Google map API… GeoSpatial Training & Consulting, LLC, a provider of virtual and instructor led GIS training courses, is pleased to announce the release of its latest virtual training course entitled “Google Maps For Your Apps!”. More info about this can be found in this announcement at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7813/ or go directly to http://www.geospatialtraining.com/catalog_googlemaps.cfm

Another goodie for those of you interested in locating web services and looking for a nifty new toolbar for use in ArcMAP… In our most recet GISuser Spotlight on Web Services… We look at Mapdex, the place to search for geographic data – Looking for data or map services? Look no more… Mapdex (www.mapdex.org) is a global index of 1,781 servers, serving 32,433 map services, containing over 400,000 GIS Layers, covering more than 4,000,000 columns. Taking it one step further, now you can even add a Mapdex toolbar in ArcMap providing you with direct access to the service. By default, the service returns hits based on a geographic search, resulting in servers providing access to DOQQs, aerial photos, and orthophotos. More about Mapdex and the Mapdex toolbar for ArcMAp is now authored at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7829/

New from the official googl earth weblog has it that a MAC version is now available – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-earth-in-mac-world-pc-too.html – The Mac version runs on OS X 10.4 and up – users can download the MAC version here – http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

Minimum System Configuration
OS: Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS X (10.4)
CPU: 600MHz
Free Hard Disk Space: 400 MB
System RAM: 128 MB
Video RAM: 16 MB
Screen Resolution: 1024×768, 32-bit color
Internet: 128 Kbps (“broadband”)