In the “slightly off-topic” category… More fun stuff for those of you that enjoy flickr as much as I do. this fun app enables you to create a slick motivational poster to hang on the wall, use in a presentation or what have you. Motivator enables a user to quickly and easily point to a flickr photo or upload an image to the server. then you simply enter a catchy title, a catch phrase and create a frame. Then you can save, print, or upload to flickr… fun and likely some useful applications, particulalry for you geospatial evangelists… have fun with this one. See Motivator here, see my motivational poster here.
Archives for September 22, 2006
To Review or not — Joel Rips on Sprint and the LG Fusic
A bit of fun here… To review or not to review… it’s always interesting to read product or application reviews. Typically media outlets get stuck in the middle as many people request them to review their goodies.. but what to do when a big company sends you their stuff and you want to rip on it? I had the pleasure this morning of reading a weblog (Joel on software) who reviewed a “music” phone and a network service provided by Sprint and man, this guy totally ripped on the device. I have to say it was rather refreshing to see such an honest take. Here’s a few tidbits from the review:
– there’s no better way to make me not want to write about something than to ask me to write about it
– The phone they sent me, an LG Fusic, is really quite awful, and the service, Power Vision, is tremendously misconceived and full of dumb features
– Overall this phone seriously looks like a Fisher Price toy
– I have literally never seen such a useless MP3 player
– No amount of pampering bloggers and calling them Ambassadors is going to get around the fact that you’re sending us plastic junk phones that look like bath toys
Wow.. talk about being honest! Anyone care to have this guy review your app or device? I dare you ;0) – See the review at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/19b.html
Compliance with Open Source licensing
Roger Longhorn shares an interesting read regarding Open Source software in a recent thread to the Freegis-list. He references some licensing issues from this month’s WIPO Newsletter for SMEs… “Continued acceleration in the use of open source software has made developing and implementing an open source compliance program a business necessity. While using such software, however, most companies do not
take any measures to comply with the requirements of open source licenses. This may result in unintended violations of open source licenses and other potential liabilities. To avoid this risk and also to realize other benefits, the author Jason D. Haislmaier, a partner in the Intellectual Property Group of the law firm of Holme Roberts & Owen LLP, identifies the best practices that companies could use to close the
*open source compliance gap*.” See the paper at http://www.hro.com/pubs/closingthegap.pdf
take any measures to comply with the requirements of open source licenses. This may result in unintended violations of open source licenses and other potential liabilities. To avoid this risk and also to realize other benefits, the author Jason D. Haislmaier, a partner in the Intellectual Property Group of the law firm of Holme Roberts & Owen LLP, identifies the best practices that companies could use to close the
*open source compliance gap*.” See the paper at http://www.hro.com/pubs/closingthegap.pdf
A smartphone tip – Woize (think mobile Skype)
From our mobile resource comes word of a very cool application that is reported to provide free WiFi enabled calling between users… the Woize BETA client for Nokia phones with Symbian OS 9.1. The app is supposed to come in Q4 and will provide free calling for users who install the app on the Symbian OS smartphone. See more details in the PR of jump to www.woize.com
Any uses for Windows Live writer?
Just curious but is anyone out there using the Windows Live writer for anything? I noticed Jeff tested it the other day. I have to admit that I installed and tested it way back and since then have not really found any useful reason to go back and use it again. I have to admit that my PC was getting really bogged down and running like a gutless pig so during my weekly clean-up, defrag, yadayada I removed all the malware, crapware, spyware and whathave you… on the list of things that went included the Live writer app. I guess if I was an avid user of “Spaces” I’d likely find it a bit more useful – see http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/ for more on this topic.
Raster data freaks can now go and Rasterbate!
Thanks to our friends at VerySpatial for a tip about this cool app… the Rasterbator. I have to admit I pretty much spewed coffee all over my Dell 6000 when I first read about this one! The rasterbator rasterization service does to rasters in their terms “rasterbation”… what a great keyword for the Glossary! Here’s the skinny… The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size. You can go Rasterbate at http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/
Jason’s notes from FME user conference – Vancouver
Leave it up to Jason Birch to provide us with an update from the FME user conference taking place yesterday and today in Vancouver. Jason gives a brief run down about the event including reports on the intro plenary, some session notes, a report from FME Idol and more… great stuff Jason! An interesting pointer to some FME art and JAson’s always candid but up front comments are a welcomed addition to the blog… I like the note to Autodesk! See Jason’s FME notes here. Always tough to get up to the minute event info, I’d suggest down the road organizers like this and others might look at posting a team event blog where their crew can blog away from the event. O’reilly does this for all their conferences and its awesome! … or, maybe invite yours truly to the event and I;ll be glad to blog for you ;0)
Jason’s notes from FME user conference – Vancouver
Leave it up to Jason Birch to provide us with an update from the FME user conference taking place yesterday and today in Vancouver. Jason gives a brief run down about the event including reports on the intro plenary, some session notes, a report from FME Idol and more… great stuff Jason! An interesting pointer to some FME art and JAson’s always candid but up front comments are a welcomed addition to the blog… I like the note to Autodesk! See Jason’s FME notes here. Always tough to get up to the minute event info, I’d suggest down the road organizers like this and others might look at posting a team event blog where their crew can blog away from the event. O’reilly does this for all their conferences and its awesome! … or, maybe invite yours truly to the event and I;ll be glad to blog for you ;0)
Bowling Green prepares new Geospatial Sciences Program
Looks like Bowling Green’s School of Earth, Environment & Society (SEES) is nearing completion. The new school will offer new and innovative multidisciplinary programs that highlight the commonalities between the academic disciplines while maintaining undergraduate degree programs in Geography, Geology, Environmental Science, and Environmental Policy. The graduate program in Geology will continue to offer an MS degree, and beginning in Fall 2006, a new graduate certificate program in Geospatial Sciences will be offered by the school. The school has also just announced a new faculty position for the program – see http://geology.bgsu.edu/sees/
Processed SRTM 90m Digital Elevation Data (DEM) for the Entire Globe
The CGIAR-CSI GeoPortal is now serving up processed SRTM 90M Global DEM data. Digital elevation models (DEM) for nearly the entire globe, covering most of the countries of the world, are available for download on this site. The SRTM 90m DEM’s have a resolution of 90m at the equator, and are provided in mosaiced 5 deg x 5 deg tiles for easy download and use. All are produced from a seamless dataset to allow easy mosaicing. These are available in both ArcInfo ASCII and GeoTiff format – see http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org