An environmentally friendly resource launched today – The Renewable Energy Atlas of Vermont, built on ESRI’s ArcGIS technology. Visitors to the Renewable Energy Atlas of Vermont Web site can select from biomass, efficiency, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, and wind renewable energy data layers and use geographic information system (GIS) tools to view existing and proposed projects by area. The suite of renewable energy options is further broken down into 20 categories of data for specific renewable energy analysis. See more details in this announcement
Archives for April 22, 2010
A first video post from Justin.TV
I’ve seen some pretty impressive livestreams recently via Justin.TV, enough that interest got the best of me and I had to setup an account… even cooler, the service also has a very fine iPhone app – honestly, I’ve found it much more stable and better in quality than what I’ve seen from Ustream! And so, bear with me as I test out some of the functionality and have embedded the first video test below. What’s your take?? Would you watch future videostreams if I actually had something interesting to Share?? Any ideas for topics of conversation for livestreams + live chat?
Watch live video from gletham on Justin.tv
Social Location 101 – How To Add Your Business & A Special To foursquare
Foursquare has taken off in popularity, for the geeky mobile tech gadget user anyway, however, for the business owner who is actually too busy working to even have a clue what foursquare is all about, how do you take ownership of your business listing on foursquare and perhaps more important, how to offer visitors a special discount, freebie, or special offer?
Creating foursquare specials for your business is relatively easy thanks to an update to the process by foursquare. Here’s a quick primer on how the whole process will work. Foursquare has a section devoted to the Business Owner – see http://foursquare.com/businesses/. To accomplish this you’ll need to locate and Confirm your business information and Create your first special. Start off by logging into your foursquare account – if you don’t have one yet then create one – no doubt many business owners may not have one yet. Then you can start your claim for a business.
Start at the Business Page and use the search for a business name to identify your business or see if it exists in the database – create it if it doesn’t exist (note, your business may already exist although it could have been created by a foursquare user who paid you a visit – if so you’ll want to correct/valifate the info). Then you start your claim, this is where you can add details, verify metadata, and add useful information and even specials (like a freebie offer for visitors). Currently foursquare has a somewhat archaic, albeit manual verification process so once you claim a business you’ll need to wait on some form of verification performed by the foursquare team. Interesting to note that there is an option for a marketing firm or third party rep to claim the business on behalf of the owner. The most common form of special currently is a prize offer for the Mayor… somewhat cool I guess, although I have my doubts about this one and would prefer to see reward style discounts to customers for repeat use… for example, get a discount or free cookie for every 5th checkin!
Add A Venue to foursquare – a form enables you to provide contact information, address, phone.
As a testbed, I created a new Venue for a special event. Now attendees will be able to discover and check-in to the venue while attending the event. We also have a special offer for anyone who checks-in!
I also suggest adding your business to CitySearch
National Geographic Global Atlas (Beta) Connects People With The Planet
Just in time for Earth Day, National Geographic has released an impressive resource designed to connect users with the planet and provide users with the ability to search and track important conservation projects around the Globe. The Global Action Atlas enables you to support local projects tackling the major challenges of our time. This beta is under development; more projects, action opportunities, and other features will appear soon. See more details including an intro Video HERE
Celebrating Earth Day with Amazing Images – Earthrise
To celebrate Earth Day, let’s share an amazing image from one of my favorite sources of incredible imagery, NASA – enter the historic “Earthrise” photo captured on the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968.

About the photo… That evening, the astronauts–Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders–held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. Said Lovell, “The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth.” They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis. Source: NASA
For more amazing images see the NASA Earth Day Gallery for more about the Apollo 8 broadcast from Space See HERE
For more news from Geo Earth Imaging providers See HERE
Presentation Lineup Announced for Ignite Spatial NOCO @IgniteSpatial event #isnoco
If you don’t already have your free ticket then unfortunately you’ll be out of luck (fire regs allow only a set number of attendees) but don’t worry, word on the street has it that @ignitespatial #2 is already in the very preliminary planning stages! Over on the event blog (http://ignitespatialnoco.wordpress.com/) the speaker lineup for the lightning presentations has been set… here’s the lineup of what will be a fun session with some great speakers!
- Kas Osterbuhr – GIS in 3-D AviationAccident Reconstruction
- Mark Newby – GIS Collaboration via Community Web Application
- Gretchen Peterson – Mapping: Please Dont Do this….
- Heather Paskevic – Place Based Decision Making
- Jason Kord – Economic Viability of Aquifers via Model Builder
- Peter Batty – Location and the Internet of Things
- Nick Armstrong – TweetSniffing: I just Geo-located my way to your mom’s house
- 600-610 pm : Break Announcements & Acknowledgements
- Matt Seitz – Geo-web Application for Elevation Determination
- David Vaillancourt – The Geographic Approach & Spatial Thinking
- Glen Rhea – GIS in Disaster Events & Server Uptime
- Michael Hinke – Server-side Analysis & Visualization
- Dawn Betz – The Power of Digital Globe Constellation
- Shane Michael – Time Lapse Development using ArcMap & Windows Movie Maker
- Jeremiah Lindermann – ArcGis.com, Community Base Map & Free ESRI Services
For more about IgniteSpatial NOCO (taking place May 7 in Fort Collins, CO) see Twitter @IgniteSpatial , see the Blog HERE, or ticket and sponsor info see HERE. to You can even purchase yourself a cool IgniteSpatial T-Shirt HERE – NOTE, on Twitter the official event hashtag is #isnoco