A smart swiss Google Maps user posted an interesting example where SVG diagrams are added as overlay to a Google Map.
Very clever!
Though the diagrams are static and don’t make sense, it should be easy to connect them to dynamic data. The example demonstrates a promising method of overlaying vector symbols and point signatures on Google Maps, only based on a few lines of Javascript.
Compared to raster graphic symbols, e.g. PNGs or JPGs, any SVG symbol attribute like color, size, transparency, etc. can be changed easily on-the-fly, without the need of producing and storing tons of new files somewhere in the server-background.
The example doesn’t work with Adobe’s SVG Plugin, it’s only accessible with Firefox so far.
Looks like under certain conditions – e.g. using those infamous Dell or Apple laptops equipped with Sony batteries – IT workers can demand some extra danger bonus.
On Flickr appeared a few photos today about an exploded Dell which set off all fire alarms and caused Yahoo! MC1 to be evacuated.
Sony introduced a whole new set of geek health risks: you can add now severe injuries to the list of postural deformities and overweight.
Flickr’s famous mugshot collector Least Wanted made it from his Flickr photo stream to a photo exhibition and publication of a photo book. Congratulations!
Least Wanted is still one of the most interesting photo streams you can find on Flickr!
Don’t you dare giving more or detailled information about your articles on eBay by providing links to external manufacturer datasheets or something!
eBay won’t just deactivate your hyperlink if one is detected, no, they remove your entire article.
Nice policy!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it should be easy to avoid external links from eBay sites as (a) the method for a “disabled a-html-tag input text field” appears to be already invented and (b) why don’t they just cut down every link targeting outside of eBay if they don’t want it.
Amstetten, a middle sized town next to Austria’s major highway A1, now offers Wifi over the FON network in their public library.
Don’t get me wrong, I highly appreciate FON, got my own FON router last week (btw, bid here for my good old NETGEAR WGT624) but what would be the advantage of FON for a local authority over offering 100% free Wifi?
I hope for the financial situation of Amstetten that it’s not the price of the router (FON is sponsoring Wifi routers) or the possibility to “milk your wifi” either.
My personal motivation for participating in FON is and offering my connection to other FON users is being able to use their hotspots in return, without any credit card transfers and being charged absurdly high fees for Wifi.
I think FON is quite a good choice for public places like restaurants, coffee shops, etc. You can easily setup and offer Wifi for a reasonable price (or for free) to your guests and make some extra profit if you want.
FON does look promising indeed. From time to time I check the FON maps where you can observe the growing number and location of FON hotspots.
How weird is that: yesterday at the the pool we saw a guy swimming with an iPod!
Listening to music while your work out is probably quite common – cf. Nike + Apple cooperation or Jane Fonda’s aerobic soundtracks – but hey, underwater too?
Actually I love the silence underwater, the few moments when you hear nothing but dull underwater sounds. Listening to music would destroy this rare moments. Our world above water is loud enough.
If you’re interested in waterproof iPod accessories you should check OtterBox (yes, the water loving furry animal) for iPod.
However, next time I see somebody answering a call underwater it won’t surprise me anymore…
Mikel Maron probably hit an important nail on the head titling his FOSS4G talk “It’s About Time for Time”.
During the last month we were producing a short animation film based on maps for a public exhibition. Working on that project was extremely interesting because for the first time we had a tool to visualize changes over time not as static calculated values (e.g. rates of change) but as dynamically changing images, as animations. Though we deal a lot with temporal aspects in our day-to-day work (spatial and regional development is all about changes over time) we found the new possibilities given by the medium film very exciting.
Rather difficult was that our audience was defined as “normal” people visiting an exhibition about a certain region. Our short film should stress and explain some important aspects of changing regional structures during the past 30 years in this particular region, within a timeframe of 10 minutes. Whereas we expected two thirds of the visitors stopping no longer than 3-5 minutes at our installation. However, developing this animation was an interesting experience and thanks to the amazing work of our graphic artist we are all very happy with the result (I’ll post a trailer here soon…).
Almost at the same time when the idea for our project was born I read that ArcGIS 9.2 comes with a built-in animation feature too (for displaying time lines). Now I’m pretty curious about how ESRI has implemented this new feature.
Google released today a new version of Google Earth supporting KML TimeStamp and TimeLines. Check the nice GPS track example in Mikel’s post to get a picture about how this works in Google Earth.
I hope they make the papers available soon and I can read some more about Mikel’s FOSS4G presentation!
Hey, this new flip-through-your-music-collection feature is simply A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!
It almost feels like going through good old large-sized vinyls. The best point is that suddenly it’s possible again to recognize music by its cover art. Great!
I never would’ve thought that cover art can be an such an important part of mp3s. Without cover art this new visual music browsing method would be pretty useless…