American Surveyor Magazine features “The World” a multi-billion dollar land reclamation project… have you seen TAS lately?? If not I encourage you to check out some articles.. even better, register for a free subscription to the magazine (qualified professionals only though). About The World… When completed, this massive island-creation project underway in the Persian Gulf will have added 1,500 kilometers of shoreline to Dubai’s existing 70 kilometers. The article delves into some of the challenges and surveying obstacles that face the developer who’s using RTK GPS technology to create the landscape… it’s a very cool read! American Surveyor Magazine has some great material and typically combines the best of both worlds, technology articles from professional land surveyors for land surveyors, as well as editorial and historical content that will appeal to anyone interested in American history. See the article “Creating Islands” in this month’s feature article at http://www.theamericansurveyor.com
Archives for August 15, 2006
A few of my favorite things from last week’s ESRI UC
Did you manage to walk around the massive map gallery last week in San Diego at the ESRI UC? If so, did you pick a favorite from the thousands of maps that were on display? Here’s a few things that were on my list of favorites which include favorite map, favorite both/exhibitor promotion, favorite pool, favorite plotter etc… What was your favorite map?? See below for a few faves!
Title – Memphis Blues: The fusion of music, science and art!
Favorite Pool – the Marriott of course! I was at Solamar bit this blows their pool away!\
Favorite display – The STM BC Experience was amazing… I have to get down to Victoria to see the big display!
Favorite booth gimmick – Thales and the find your match promo – nice “booth babes” too!
Favorite late-night eating – Gaslamp Pizza by the slice – I’ve been eating there for years!
Favorite speaker – Every year I try to Catch Clint Brown at least once — twice this year!
Favorite plotter – This Oce unit rocks… where was this technology when I needed it – all for about $15k too!
A few of my favorite things from last week’s ESRI UC
Did you manage to walk around the massive map gallery last week in San Diego at the ESRI UC? If so, did you pick a favorite from the thousands of maps that were on display? Here’s a few things that were on my list of favorites which include favorite map, favorite both/exhibitor promotion, favorite pool, favorite plotter etc… What was your favorite map?? See below for a few faves!
Title – Memphis Blues: The fusion of music, science and art!
Favorite Pool – the Marriott of course! I was at Solamar bit this blows their pool away!\
Favorite display – The STM BC Experience was amazing… I have to get down to Victoria to see the big display!
Favorite booth gimmick – Thales and the find your match promo – nice “booth babes” too!
Favorite late-night eating – Gaslamp Pizza by the slice – I’ve been eating there for years!
Favorite speaker – Every year I try to Catch Clint Brown at least once — twice this year!
Favorite plotter – This Oce unit rocks… where was this technology when I needed it – all for about $15k too!
US Census Press Releases
A first test post to the blog using Windows live writer (beta) – the US Census bureau has released some new data and population estimates – an updated look at how the nation’s population has changed, and the first for many communities since Census 2000 For more see http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/users_guide…
A typepad moblogging solution from sixapart
Always on the look for blogging and moblogging tools and resources for our readers, here’s one that will interest you smart folks who use a symbian S60 device. Mobile is a free application for S60 smartphone that enables users to post photos and entries to their TypePad blogs and photo albums. See http://www.symbianone.com/content/view/3537/108/ for more on this cool app!
Placebase Pushpin LE API and the dataplace offering up some fine functionality
Have you checked out the dataplace recently… this resource offers some amazing mapping functionality plus a wealth of data. For example, see the demographic profile of Fort Collins at http://www.dataplace.org/area_overview/Fort_Collins,_CO – users can also easily compare search results with other regions, view charts of maps of the results… this is awesome! The mapping is provided by Placebase who also have an enhanced Pushpin LE API available, providing google-like mapping capabilities but loads more – See http://www.dataplace.org/ and www.placebase.com
Do you know who handles your domain name registration? Beware
Do you know who manages your domain name registration? You best be careful or you could get screwed around big time! Some advice.. recently I had a really bad experience with a company that handles some of my domain name registrations (luckily its only my personal and secondary stuff.. not all the important ones!!) I renewed 3 domain names and paid the annual fee via credit card, no problemo. Then, low-and-behold, about 2 weeks later the updates hadn’t taken effect. Naturally I’m getting weirded out thinking that I may lose the rights to the domains. So I start contacting the company via the contact form, tech support etc… I do this over and over again and get nothing back, no feedback, nada. So now I’m getting really weirded out and move a couple of the more important domains over to godaddy… luckily the move takes effect. So, I continue to try to get in touch with them to no avail. Naturally, I decide to do the smart thing and I totally flip out on their tech support via email…. really, it was a masterpiece! Their reaction… they yank the freaking plug on all my domains.. yes that’s right.. now none of them are accessible, and get this, they have locked them up so that I can’t transfer any of them… NICE! NEedless to say that I’m pretty much prepared to rip someone’s head off. I’m still battling with them and hearing nothing, thankfully I have a friend who does webhosting for me and also handles domain reg. so he’s slowly having luck getting the names moved but its a real pain. So, let this be a lesson.. use only reputable firms (tucows, godaddy etc…) and NEVER ever use jumpdomain.com – lesson learned! Obviously I’d love to go legal on these guys but it really isn’t a feesible option
Dell recalls notebook batteries
Puchase a Dell notebook lately? The company has issues a recall on the following: The batteries in question, made by Sony Corp., are in notebooks shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18 of this year. The recalled batteries were sold with the following Dell notebook computers: Dell Latitude(TM) D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810; Inspiron(TM) 6000, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 500m, 510m, 600m, 6400, E1505, 700m, 710m, 9400, E1705; and Dell Precision(TM) M20, M60, M70 and M90 mobile workstations; and XPS(TM), XPS Gen2, XPS M170 and XPS M1710. (Source: CBC) – now I wonder if the recall will enable me to trade in my piece of crap “premium, long life” battery that I upgraded to which provides me with a whopping 3 hours of life! – for more see www.dellbatteryprogram.com or call toll-free at 1-866-342-0011.
another not-so-familiar face absent from ESRI UC
Not a surprise to me at all, I didn’t see Geocomm, gisdatadepot, geocommunity, thinkburst, Geocomm International, or whatever the hell you want to call them – at the ESRI UC this year. Not sure what they would sell or promote anyway since free GIS data is pretty much available everywhere on the web WITH metadata too! The company actually used to be an ESRI reseller, however, I suspect that since they were into ESRI for so much cash for past ArcView sales (as well as countless other creditors who’ve never been paid) they likely used up the old welcome invites…
Intergraph 2007 in Nashville next May
A little bit of irony here since “ripping” on Intergraph earlier.. I just received this tidbit from them. Apparently Intergraph 2006 was a “resounding success”, playing host to more than 2,100 attendees from over 64 countries. From INGR… “We hope you will join us as we top the charts at Intergraph 2007. Announcing Intergraph 2007 in Nashville, Music City Tennessee. Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, May 21-24, 2007”.