July 02, 2009

Novo relevo global (30 metros) - servidor abriu o bico

Nem bem foi anunciado a disponibilidade do GDEM (modelo digital de elevação que cobre o mundo todo com resolução de 30 metros) e o número de download entupiu o servidor de arquivos. Vejam em:

http://www.ersdac.or.jp/GDEM/E/index.html

.

Working in the Cathedral

In February, at the Toronto Code Sprint, the PostGIS team looked each other in the eye (for the first time) and committed to get the 1.4 release out by late April.

Well, it's late June now. It seems very likely that I will get to cut 1.4.0RC1 tomorrow morning.

My personal preference has always been to release early and often. In the hacker ethic, this sounds like a good thing, it's the "bazaar" model that Eric Raymond promoted over the "cathedral" model of development. In the bazaar, you dump out regular releases, and let the community dictate whether they are of quality ("don't use 2.31.2a, it's garbage!"). I still remember being told by a more knowledgeable Linux user that I could upgrade to 1.1.53 (?), but not any further than that, because the succeeding releases were unstable. In the cathedral, you release no wine before its time, aiming for a polished diamond of a release.

So, 1.4.0 has taken much longer than expected, the confluence of a development team that is now unwilling to accept the existence of any "crasher" bugs at all (no matter how unlikely they are to be exercised) and a growing comprehensiveness in the test suite, which is now covering all the functions, in most every combination of inputs. Because of the enhanced testing, we discovered crashers we didn't know we had – and then we had to fix them.

Despite chafing to release! release! release! I have come to appreciate our new conservatism. Among my favorite feedbacks on PostGIS is the users who say "it just works, install it and forget about it, rock solid". That feels good, and to keep things that way, our new austerity is only going to help.

The maturation of PostGIS into a product you can just "install and forget" has been multi-stage.

Prior to the 1.0 release, Sandro Santilli added the first regression tests. These tests have been growing ever since and have been invaluable in ensuring that old bugs don't re-enter the code base, and that new features don't break old features.

For the 1.4 release, the documentation was upgraded substantially, by adding a great deal of extra structuring to the reference section. Regina Obe discovered that a side effect of the extra structure was that she could automatically generate a test for most every documented function using XSLT on the docbook XML. This new "garden test" found a number of previously undetected bugs, that have since been removed.

For the 1.4 release, I added the start of a CUnit test suite that exercises the PostGIS functions without requiring a database back-end. Even in it's early state, it has saved me from a couple booboos already. For future releases, this extra regression suite is going to help keep things stable.

For the 1.4 release, Mark Cave-Ayland re-worked the logging and debugging infrastructure, to make the coding cleaner and easier to maintain during debugging cycles. He also split out the underlying geometry implementations, which are now used in the loader/dumper utilities, for a more consistent approach to geometry handling.

These are all under-the-covers improvements that end-users never see. But they all contribute to that "it just works, it just runs" end-user experience that I have come to treasure even more than the sensation of slamming out a point release at 2am. I hope everyone tries out RC1 so that we can slay any remaining bugs before the 1.4.0 release!
 

Lies, Damn Lies...

"Green shoots..." ah, for the good old days of only two weeks ago, when green shoots were in our future...

Job Losses

I never really understood why decreases in the rate of change of unemployment were considered such great news. "Good news, the second derivative has gone positive! we're plunging into the abyss slightly less quickly!" Only in a world of rampant, congenital optimism – or statistics-induced myopia – could four months in which 18,300 Americans lost their jobs every day be described as a period of "improving conditions".
 

IMAP for migrating from OSX Mail to Thunderbird

There is a common online question about migrating from Apple's Mail app (Using .emlx format mail files) to Thunderbird (or any other non-Mail app). I looked at a few options and have decided, as strange as it may seem, that installing an IMAP service was the best solution.

read more

GeoExt BaseLayerContainer and OverlayLayerContainer together


If you want to use  GeoExt widgets BaseLayerContainer and OverlayLayerContainer in the same tree, like this:

geoext baselayer and overviewlayer containers

GeoExt BaseLayerContainer and OverlayLayerContainer

var layerRoot = new Ext.tree.TreeNode({
text: "All Layers",
expanded: true
});
layerRoot.appendChild(new GeoExt.tree.BaseLayerContainer({
text: "Base Layers",
map: map,
expanded: true
}));
layerRoot.appendChild(new GeoExt.tree.OverlayLayerContainer({
text: "Overlays",
map: map,
expanded: true
}));
var layerTree = new Ext.tree.TreePanel({
title: "Map Layers",
root: layerRoot,
enableDD: true,
collapsible: true,
height: 200,
expanded: true
});

GeoExt is now at 0.5RC1 and it is rather good!

L'interopérabilité de la plate forme géospatiale Autodesk

Fotolia_7238913_XS

Nous organisons un séminaire gratuit sur le web pour parler de l’interopérabilité de la plate forme géospatiale Autodesk.

Au menu, FDO, Oracle, ArcGIS Server (ArcSDE), SHP, MapInfo, et comment les outils Autodesk permettent une utilisation directe de ces données, sans copie ni conversion. Nous présenterons notamment ce type d’utilisation dans un contexte web.

Si le sujet vous intéresse, que vous disposez d’une connexion Internet et êtes disponibles pendant une heure le vendredi 10 juillet, n’hésitez pas à vous inscrire.

July 01, 2009

Il codice di EveryBlock va in opensource

I miei siti di ispirazione di web-mapping sono diversi. Nella mia top five c’è sicuramente EveryBlock, perché unisce leggibilità, efficacia, eleganza e attenzione alle buone pratiche (non soltanto dal punto di vista tecnologico).

Risponde ad una domanda “necessaria”: cosa avviene attorno a me?

Sono raccolte essenzialmente tre tipi di notizie:

  • Informazione civica — permessi di costruzione, informazioni sulla criminalità, verifiche sui ristoranti, eccetera. In molti casi l’informazione è già sul web ma è dispersa in database dell’amministrazione difficili di individuare. In altri casi l’informazione viene pubblicata per la prima volta in collaborazione con gli enti pubblici.
  • Notizie — dai principali quotidiani, settimanali locali, TV e radio, pubblicazioni e blog. L’informazione viene classificata geograficamente in modo da evidenziare la copertura mediatica di uno specifico rione cittadino.
  • Divertimento — fotografie relative alle zone coperte pubblicate su Flickr, opinioni sulle attività commerciali recensite su Yelp, annunci di oggetti smarriti/ritrovati su Craigslist e altro.

E’ un servizio disponibile soltanto per alcune città degli Stati Uniti. Questo ad esempio l’URL per New York: http://nyc.everyblock.com/

L’interfaccia è raffinata e semplice allo stesso tempo, ed è notevole il numero di informazioni che trovate raccolte. Qui una lista di quelle del quartiere “DUMBO - Vinegar Hill - Downtown Brooklyn - Boerum Hill”.

Di ciascuno di questi report è possibile averne una visualizzazione cartografica e molto spesso anche un grafico che illustra l’andamento della variabile in oggetto (ad esempio la richiesta di rimozioni di graffiti!). Le città sono esplorabili per quartieri e per CAP.

everyblock

Da oggi il codice che sta dietro EveryBlock è rilasciato in opensource, e già sogno di vederlo in azione per realtà a noi più vicine. Questo è quello che ci troverete dentro:

The main package (probably the thing you’re looking for) is the publishing system, known as ebpub.
Second, the packages ebdata and ebgeo contain Python modules for processing data and making maps.
Third, the packages ebinternal and everyblock round out the code that powers EveryBlock.com. They’re internal tools and are likely not of general use, but we’re including them to be complete.
Finally, ebblog and ebwiki are our blog and wiki software, respectively. Because, dammit, the world needs another Django-powered blogging tool.

Il codice è scritto Python sfruttando il framework web Django. Mi piacerebbe potermici sporcare le mani, ma in Python non vado oltre la dichiarazione di una variabile.

Se qualche lettore di TANTO dovesse fare qualche esperimento, ci contatti subito ;-)

Via O’Reilly Radar.

Service Discovery and Orchestration (in IEOS or elsewhere)

Has anyone ever run a service discovery and orchestration scenario like the one on page 7 of this document in any setting other than a demo? How far away from being able to do this in “real life” are we?

Where 2.0 & Free our old maps!


Well over a month ago I went over to the Bay area for Where2.0 and Wherecamp 2009.

Presented at the Ignite Where on the Thursday evening, after the workshops, about Map Warper.

Map Warper Ignite Slides on slideshare.

Video is here!

I’m near the end at 34:15 minutes in.

In fact, http://where.blip.tv is where to go for all the presentations.

Ignite format was fun, the lights were quite bright on stage so it appeared that I was scowling!

Scowling, and not from slagging off the Ordnance Survey too. Rather I think the OS deserves the love that it’s maps generate – it’s the people who use them that deserve the criticism.

I gave the example of an anti-pattern used in local governments in the UK:

  • Councils have old map archives.
  • Councils have Ordnance Survey mapping.
  • Councils have statutory obligation to look at contaminated land, and the history of land for planning and development etc.
  • Councils use OS mapping to georeference and rectify old maps using OS mapping. Often at great expense, sometimes outsourcing to other countries.
  • Resulting rectified maps are derivative works from the OS, and cannot be shared, or given away for free because of this.

As a response to this, and knowing that all the councils probably had digital collections of (unrectified) out of copyright maps, I am proposing “Free our Old Maps” project.

Lets use crowd sourcing techiques to free these old maps get layers and layers of old historical maps for the UK.

The rest of the conference was good.

Michal Migurski had a nice slot entitled “Flea Market Mapping” where he  showed off his own attempts at a map warper, but was mainly highlighting the love of old maps. He was unaware of and didn’t see Map Warper or my talk before at the very same conference! (But liked it when he did see it later)

Wearabale Haptics talk captured my imagination.

The horizonless map from Autodesk was v. cool too. Can’t find the relevant link though…

Ugotrade writes up a nice review: http://www.ugotrade.com/2009/06/02/location-becomes-oxygen-at-where-20-wherecamp/

OpenStreetMap was a given, no longer a new thing that people didnt know about, it was pretty much mentioned casually throughout. The Stamen fellas did a nice workshop with mapnik, cascadenik and OSM data, which was very well attended.

Also over from Leeds was my buddy Mohsin, fresh out of Leeds Met, and presenting at Wherefaire his Snapture project. Using Leodis images, location on a mobile app, we can view Leeds through time. V. cool project.

http://www.slideshare.net/chippy/map-warper-ignite-talk-where20-2009

Dobříšský Tvrďák 09

Celý svůj krátký (ale prodlužuje se nám to) život jsem si říkal, že bych si rád někdy zkusil královskou vytrvalostní disciplínu - triatlon. Když se ségra odstěhovala na Dobříš a začala navštěvovat akce klubu Vlaška, začala mě na akce lákat taky. Zahájil jsem tím, že jsem asi 2 měsíce po chemoterapii zúročil zbytky tréningu na pražský marathon (běžel se v době, kdy do mě řezali Na Františku) a zaběhnul půlmarathon. Atmosféra závodu mě nadchla, prostředí také a když jsem k narozeninám od sestry a Karla dostal startovné na všechny závody, které pojedu, Dobříšský Tvrďák se vysloveně nabízel. Hned po Malevilu druhá akce.

V březnu v Roudnci otevřeli bazén a já navázal na zimní přípravu - běhání na Říp s Chlupem - plaváním. Zvedalo se to docela rychle a za dva měsíce jsem plaval víc, než kdy před tím. Občas jsem se dostal na kolo a trénoval jsem výjezdy na Říp (resp. kroužil jsem okolo kopce a občas na něj vyjel). Oproti Malevilu byla cyklistická příprava trochu méně intenzivní, ale rozhodně systematičtější. Pro jistotu jsem si šel po plavání nebo po kole ještě zaběhat s Chlupem. Říkal jsem si, že víc pro přípravu nemůžu udělat. Poslední tréning v úterý (jenom silnice a běh, bylo těsně po dešti) a rozhodnul jsem se, že do pátku musím zregenerovat.

Cestou na Dobříš jsem se stavil na Suchdole v cyklu Adam a koupil jsem si zcela nové cyklistické botky s pevnou podrážkou. Dorazil jsem na Dobříš, nechal kolo u ségry, namontoval jsem si špunty na svoje nové botky a prošel jsem se v nich v obýváku. Konstatoval jsem, že to nějak půjde a šel jsem spát k tetě kousek za Dobříš.

Ráno jsme se sešli ještě s Karlovým šéfem a jeho dcerou. Oba mají dohromady asi tolik co já sám (tedy váhu) a musí celý závod jet na tubu s cukrem, protože si nedovedu představit, odkud jinak tu energii berou. Mája je spolu s Adélou vítězka závodu Brdman Cross, Míla odjel dlouhej (100km) Malevil - zkrátka zkušení borci.

Pomalovali nás čísly, zaparkovali jsme kola, počasí nám přálo. Se ségrou jsem se ani nerozloučil - holky startovali o 15 minut před námi. Dohodli jsme se ale už dřív, že jak doběhnu, hned se jí vydám na pomoc - na půlmarathonu jsem doběhl dost napřed, na Malevilu jsem dojel snad o hodinu dřív - to nebude problém. Výstřel startovní pistole a holky huply do Papeže a hnaly se kolem dvou bójek a zpátky. Mája se vynořila z vody asi 4, Áďa asi 7 a vyrazily na kolo. Bezprostředně potom jsme startovali my.

Adélka leze z vody

Adélka leze z vody

Na vodu jsem si hodně věřil. Jednak jsem dost trénoval a jednak Majk zkrátil trasu na 500m. Ale když jsem viděl borce v neoprénech, jak se štosujou do první řady, stáhnul jsem se do zadní. To byla chyba, protože jsem až po první bójku nemohl proplavat přes hradbu těl, nakonec se ale podařilo a já plaval - oproti svému předsevzetí, totiž šetřit síly - jako o život. Voda měla prý asi 17°C, ale mě přišla v pohodě. Vynořil jsem se z vody ve velice slušném čase - i s převlečením asi 9 minut a vyrazil ke kolu, provedl striptýz, a vystřelil směr kopec Kazatelna.

Jaja leze z vody

Jaja leze z vody

Oproti Malevilu jsem nedostal křeč až na 30km, ale už na 3km - hned na prvním kopci - Kazatelně. Naštěstí jsem měl preparátek od ségry, nějak jsem se vyškrábal nahoru, nepoblil jsem se (ale moc nechybělo) mezitím mě všichni předjeli a pokračoval jsem dál. Na 10 km mě dojel Míla a pak už jsme jeli spolu až do cíle. Cestou jsme si občas povídali, ale postupně jsem na to musel šlapat víc a víc, abych mu stačil. Kromě jednoho pádu (mého) nám cesta ubíhala celkem bez zádrhelů. Míla říkal, že má za letošek naběháno už 6 kilometrů, říkal jsem si - s přihlédnutím k jeho věku a mému dosavadnímu tréningu - že to bude v pohodě. Furt jsme si říkali, kdeže ty holky jsou…

Jaja na kole

Jaja na kole

Když jsme dojeli, Míla se sebral a po asi půl kilometru mi utek’. A mě začalo osmi kilometrové trápení, kdy jsem si přiznal, že jsem fakt prostě nemoh’. Alespoň jsem pomohl kolegovi s křečema, protože jsem měl ještě tabletku a jemu asi pomohla. Ještě jsem se v závěru zmohl na finiš, kterým jsem předběhl asi 4 lidi (náhoda) a posunul se tak na kulaté 60 místo asi z devadesáti účastníků v mé kategorii. Ségra už v cíli byla - sedmá. Nejlepší nakonec: byl jsem asi o 9 minut rychlejší (což na skoro 2 a půl hodině není moc), ale v běhu mě vzala o 2 minuty! :-)

Maja běží

Maja běží


Míla běží

Míla běží


Kája běží

Kája běží

Celkové zhodnocení akce 0,5k-30k-8k tedy velmi dobré: Teplo ale ne vedro, vlhko ale ne rozbláceno, jeden pád a všichni dojeli. Největší respekt jde Ádě a Karlovi. A já holt budu muset ještě potrénovat. A velký dík Majkovi za skvělou organizaci!

Des logiciels libres aux données libres (partie 2 sur 3)

Modes de fonctionnement Parmi la multitude de projet libre les plus connus sont sans aucun doute les projets de logiciels libres. Cette section présente le fonctionnement des projets en tant que projet de logiciels libres. Ce qui me semble définir un projet de logiciel libre est l’existence d’une communauté de développeurs dont des règles écrites ou [...]

June 30, 2009

La licence ODbL d'Open Data Communs : à considérer pour l'information géographique!

ODCFrançois Van Der Biest de CamptoCamp informait la communauté sur la liste osgeo-fr de ceci : Hier a été publiée la tant attendue licence "ODbL" (Open Database License) qui combine "Share Alike" (redistribution sous les mêmes termes du contrat) et "Attribution" (il faut créditer la source si vous redistribuez) sur la

Lire la suite...

5th gvSIG Conference: We keep growing

News Office. gvSIG Project writes "The 5th Edition of the gvSIG Conference, organized by the Regional Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (CIT), will be held from December 2nd until December 4th at the Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Center, and will once again host the eclipseDay.

In these difficult times when collaboration is most important, we cope with the adversities together with the aim of coming out strengthened by them. We continue moving ahead together. This is part of the gvSIG project and through this approach we keep on growing. This is our slogan for the fifth edition of the gvSIG Conference: We keep growing.

The call for papers for the Fifth Edition of the gvSIG conference is now open. As of today communication proposals can be sent to the email address: contacto-jornadas-gvsig@gva.es; they will be evaluated by the scientific committee as to their inclusion in the conference program.
There are two types of communication: paper or poster. Information regarding to regulations on communication presentations can be found in the report's section. Abstracts will be accepted until September 21st .

Organizations interested in collaborating in the event can find information in the section: How to collaborate?"

gvSIG has been mentioned several times in the past, see selected stories below.

Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

New US Federal IT Dashboard

Federal IT Dashboard logo The new Federal IT Dash board is available.  This is one of the first initatives of Vivek Kundra the new Federal CIO.

ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Released by NASA and METI

GDEM NASA and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) have released the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) global digital elevation model (DEM), which covers about 99% of the Earth's surface. The global DEM was built from 1.5 million individual scene-based ASTER DEMs. The global DEM is in GeoTIFF format with lat/long coordinates and a 1 arc-second (30 m) grid.  It is referenced to the WGS84/EGM96 geoid. Accuracy is estimated to be 20 meters for elevations and 30 meters for horizontal data.  

The ASTER GDEM covers land surfaces between 83°N and 83°S and is comprised of 22,600 1°-by-1° tiles. Tiles that contain at least 0.01% land area are included. 

The ASTER global DEM is available at no charge to users from the Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC) of Japan and from LP DAAC.

June 29, 2009

OSGIS UK meetup

I've just got back from a trip to the UK and Italy last week for the OSGIS event and the OSGeo Hacking Event. It was a great time of connecting with so many people that it exceeded my expectations.

Before heading up to Nottingham I was able to meet up with Martin Daly from Cadcorp (a GDAL/OGR sponsor) in London. We hadn't met face to face before, so I was glad to get a firsthand chance to see their SIS GIS Desktop product in action. Our very own Mateusz also works there so it was treat to catch up with him as well. Of course he couldn't resist going to Nottingham too and overworking his camera - his flickr feed is always helpful after an event :)

From the word go, Suchith Anand, Mike Jackson and the rest of the University of Nottingham's Centre for Geospatial Science crew had us hopping. I didn't realise it was possible to pack so much into a single day event! Thank you for the opportunity to deliver a keynote there and for lining up so many good speakers and people to meet with the following day as well. Three cheers! I'm sure next year will be even better.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2468/3654724029_8a6a5a9ee6.jpg

It was a truly international event with close to 20 different countries represented. It was really good to catch up with many of you from all over Europe, I'll be going through my notes this week, but still feel free to drop me if you remember anything in particular we should pursue together.

One recurring theme of interest from several groups and and individuals, was the interest to partner with OSGeo to write case studies relating to their domain. I'm really looking forward to following up on these. If you want to help write, please let me know.

The OSGeo UK Chapter held a meeting as well, with Jo Cook leading the charge. It's always fascinating to see how different each chapter is - each with their own interests, strengths and local challenges. This was only the second time they met...sort of. Last year there were less than a dozen who met up to discuss the idea of forming a chapter. This year it was more like 50 or more people with broad interest from around the UK. Coming from a Canadian, it might seem strange to say that the UK chapter is spread out over large distances, but it is large enough that some more regional local groups are likely to pop up. There were contingents from Scotland and Wales talking about meeting and I know there are some Irish interested as well.

They have high hopes, so if you are the UK, join their list and find a good reason to get together and chat.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3367/3654556927_386ac70d49.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3551/3654544713_f4e6805fe9.jpg

(Photos from mlsoskot's photostream under under these terms - good job Mateusz!)

Reboot into Action

So I just finished attending my first Reboot – and as many people tried to explain before hand, “it’s weird”. Not just European Conference weird with completely different crowd, most attendees speaking in a foreign language (their own, or in English which is foreign to them), varying minor variations on “what matters”, and of course dealing with wall plug adapters.

No, Reboot is weird in a different way. In attempting to learn if it was more traditional conference, or unconference, the answer was never clear and often just “yes” to the multiple choice question. Now I know why they said that, it actually makes sense. But let me hopefully be slightly more lucid.

What is Reboot?

Reboot asks for anyone to submit topics ahead of time, and these are then chosen both by a committee as well as public voting – so it’s a very open system, BarCamp-like, but these talks are then chosen with a speaker and assigned times. So then Reboot becomes more traditional conference with many “stage talks” in a face-forward audience setting. There are some side rooms that will have sessions scheduled that are discussions, but that definitely isn’t something to plan on. So the presentations are more traditional.

But then where Reboot was really surprising is the amount of the conference that happens outside of the sessions. This isn’t just a “hallway track” discussions – they are full-fledged, conference long sessions working on projects. People are dedicated to building things, gathering together information, creating, ideating, collaborating, advising – all during the conference. I’m quite sure a sizable number of Reboot attendees never go to a ’session’ but merely use the venue as a mechanism to gather together many like-minded people who are driven to do something, and leverage the brain-power and thoughts that are coming out of the sessions to act on something bigger.

I love BarCamps – they’re discussion-centric, synergistic, and connect people in networks to carry forward and achieve great things in the future. What Reboot does, by comparison, is not wait. Have an idea? Get started on it now. Or at least be very good in capturing the idea, disseminating it widely and getting it moving as quickly as possible.

Now perhaps with a little better, or at least verbose, explanation of what Reboot was like from my perspective – it also makes the name itself more meaningful. The conference is Reboot, not “Reinstall”, or “Start-over”, or “Redo”, just “Reboot”. When you Reboot something you retain some measure of the longer-term state it was in; applications are installed, configurations are set, and so forth. But what Rebooting does is to go back to a fresh state, with the long-term memory and skills and infrastructure, and get up and running and back into business.

So the conference is about considering what’s around you, what you’ve built and have, and through the sessions, collaborations, projects, whatever, to take a fresh perspective and jumpstart on moving forward.

Action

Reboot Yourself

The theme, or topic, of Reboot 11 was “Action”. Simple, single word: Action. Take action, make something happen. There is a parellel in Tim O’Reilly’s “Work on things that matter”.

The proposed reasoning behind having Reboot focus on “Action” was that we are in a global economic crisis, there are short-term issues such as disasters, corrupt governments, and long-term problems of environmental quality, health, and education. It was a push for us to work on these issues and figure out how we can help enact change.

However I found through talking with many people that had attended several Reboots that there was “nothing new”, or “revolutionary” in many of the topics and that the individual felt they already had a good grasp of what was going on in the space. It was this malais of “amazing things” that made me realize why it’s really time to take action – and Bruce Sterling to cast just enough “Gothic Hi-Tech” to make it solidify”"

We have the tools, we have the power

The tools we’re all using and building with have been in active use for several years now. We have our wikis, blogs, social networks, mobile devices, media devices, connectivity, realtime communications, hardware interfaces, API’s, and more. We have all created an amazing toolset that has been used to create many varied, and some quite crazy, applications, worlds, communities, or systems.

Reboot Actions

And if we have these mature tools, with many choices and the ability to quickly pull them together to accomplish nearly everything – we have to grow up and realize that these are not just toys or hacks nymore. These are the very tools that can, and are already, making the world of the future.

And we, the technologists, designers, thinkers, citizens of the next generation that are now in control. We have grown up with these tools, and in many ways we’re already using them to change governments, raise communities, run businesses, and live in our world.

Act now

For me, what I took away is to take responsibility and consideration for what I choose to do. Hacks and toys are fun – but as Bruce said, “if it’s not beautiful enough to show your friends, and doesn’t have a narrative attached to it, throw it away”.

Work on things that matter, and make them work by focusing on them like they matter. Your actions will make a difference, and if they don’t – you’re doing it wrong. Put it down, and move onto something else. Collaborate and work together to achieve great, actionable outcomes. You’re an amazing person with many talents, and we can all use amazing people like you. What action are you going to evoke?

OSGeo Hacking Event Bolsena

Attended OSGeo Hacking week in Bolsena. To get an impression you can watch the media mix I made from various photo's/videos made by me and other participants.

Geo-Spatial Solutions in Challenging Economic Time

Matt Sheehan writes "At the recent excellent Where 2.0 conference, I noted a number of repeated themes; the challenges of the current economic downturn, the development of rich internet mapping applications (RIA's), new tool releases and mobile. I thought it might be useful to write an article on low cost solutions to building rich mapping applications across multiple platforms. I have posted the article on my blog" The summary: "There are many low cost solutions available for building geo-spatial applications. This article walked through the GIS stack, discussing some of these options. Increasingly, as budgets tighten, companies are turning to these open source development tools. Often they are surprised by what they find." See also related stories below.

Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

FDO Toolbox v0.7.7 Released

The FDO Toolbox is a multi-purpose .Net geospatial tool to manage spatial data. It is written in C# and uses the Feature Data Objects (FDO) API.

A new version of the FDO Toolbox has been released.  This version includes custom file drag and drop handler support and supports FDO 3.4.0.   Jackie Ng recommends that you get this release if you use the bulk copy feature, as this release fixes some major defects.

Updated Tool Released for Migrating MapGuide 6.5 to MapGuide Enterprise

A new version of the MapGuide 6.5 Data Migration Tool including documentation has been released by Autodesk. The tool now supports MapGuide Enterprise 2008, 2009 and 2010.  You can use the Autodesk MapGuide Data Migration Tool to migrate your MapGuide 6.5 data files including MWF, MWX, UDL, MLF, and SMB (Symbol Library) to Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise.  You can find the tool and documentation here.

June 28, 2009

Spatial Relations for Dummies

My friend Jo asked on GEOS mailing list for approachable explanation of spatial relations and Dale Lutz from Safe Software suggested something I’ve not came across myself before and what (in generalised form) I’d consider as a great idea for…a book really :-)

Spatial Relation for Dummies

US House of Representatives Passes American Clean Energy and Security Bill

Waxman-MarkeyCleaneEnergyBill The American Clean Energy and Security (Waxman-Markey) bill was passed by the US House of Representatives.  The bill aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.  A limited number of pollution permits would be issued.  Most of the permits would initially be given away free to utilities, manufacturers, state governments and others.  The permits could then be traded or sold.

The major features of the bill are

  • Requires electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.
  • Invests $190 billion in new clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including energy efficiency and renewable energy ($90 billion in new investments by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).
  • Mandates new energy-saving standards for buildings, appliances, and industry.
  • Reduces carbon emissions from major U.S. sources by 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.
  • Protects consumers from energy price increases.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if passed by the Senate  the bill would cost an average of $175 a year per household.  As I blogged about recently, according to a recent survey of 2,164 Americans conducted  by researchers at George Mason and Yale Universities, a large majorities of Americans support policies for addressing climate change and renewable energy.  And they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.   Most of the respondents said that they were prepared to pay more to support renewable energy policies.  For example, 72 percent supported a renewable portfolio standard that would require electric utilities to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from wind, solar, or other renewable energy sources, even if it cost the average household an extra $100 a year.

June 27, 2009

Scottish Parliament Passes Bill Targeting 42% Reduction in Emissions by 2020

DualSGlinear_Rev_RGB The Scottish Parliament has passed a bill with very aggressive goals for green house gas emission reduction.  The long term objective is to reduce emissions by 82% by 2050. The bill includes a shorter term objective of 42% emissions reduction by 2020.  The government has released a delivery plan that oulines how these reductions will be achieved.

  • Increased power generation using renewables
  • Carbon sequestration (CCS)
  • Low-carbon vehicles
  • Electrification of the rail network
  • Low-carbon heating through reduced demand, better energy efficiency and more use of renewable and low-carbon heating system
  • Reduced emissions from agriculture
  • More woodland planting.

geomatic blog en barcamp Valencia


barcamp es algo así como una red internacional de conferencias (o desconferencias como se autodenominan) de ámbito técnico, orientadas a la interacción siendo más bien una reunión donde todo el mundo está invitado a participar, es decir uno asiste sabiendo que ha de contar algo a los demás.

Con estos tintes un grupo de gente capitaneado por Juanjo Martínez, de Open Sistemas, ha conseguido (les ha costado lo suyo) un sitio en el que celebrar una reunión, con un lema muy concreto: “Web 2.0, Open Source y Social Media“. La conferencia tendrá lugar el 25 de julio en Alfara del Patriarca (un pueblo muy cercano a Valencia) en las instalaciones de la Universidad Cardenal Herrera. Tienes toda la información en http://www.barcampvalencia.com.

En este contexto, y si no pasa nada, dos miembros de geomaticblog participarán presentando dos proyectos que casan a la perfección con el lema, Pedro-Juan presentará la fundación OSGeo y yo (con la ayuda seguramente de Iván García del ITI) el proyecto OpenStreetMap.

Los organizadores están buscando a gente que se anime presentar proyectos, porque ya que han conseguido dos salas, ¡¡hay que llenarlas!! Así que si te apetece contar algo en lo que andes metido (no hace falta ser un gran ponente ni nada parecido) no lo dudes y ponte en contacto con la organización. Si no te apetece contar nada pero te interesan los contenidos, puedes apuntare enviando un correo a inscripciones@barcampvalencia.com.

La conferencia se hace en una zona vecina a Moncada, donde Vicente que es del terreno ha hecho un gran trabajo, pero Alfara no estaba terminada así que le he pegado un repaso para que tengamos un bonito mapa que enseñar allí.

Actualización:

Han pasado unas horas ya tenemos renderizado la ubicación de la conferencia. Como wordpress.com todavía no deja insertar mapas dinámicos, podéis pinchar en la imagen para ir al mapa de la zona. Por cierto que tenemos una piscina cerquita para ir a darse un chapuzón o tomar una cervecita fresquita.

Ubicación de la barcamp (sigue el enlace para ir al mapa)

Ubicación de la barcamp (sigue el enlace para ir al mapa)