Michael has an interesting post about an unlocked iPhone running under the Austrian carrier One (recently acquired by French Orange). Hmm, I really wonder whose iPhone this may is…
So there is no reason to sign one of those rumored and ridiculous iPhone mobile plans to get the super gadget.
…are the natural enemies of urban cyclists.
It’s daily proven fact!
A discussion yesterday made me think of how you can possibly prepare a mapping site to fulfill WAI standards.
Naturally any map produced by a map server comes as image. So the focus on improving accessibility on a mapping site will be to make images better accessible. One step is to improve map graphics and visualization such as contrast, color saturation, color scheme, strokes, etc., something cartographers are well aware about.
In addition to graphic qualities, another WAI requirement is to provide text equivalents for any non-text element, such as images are. A descriptive list, containing the main map elements like places, roads, rivers, mountains, etc. or even a statistical layers could be given as alternative output easily from any map server I’d suppose.
A more advanced solution would be an intelligent textual map output. Not only listing map elements but describing topography, relations among map elements and thematic layers. As if you would give an interpretation of the map to somebody else.
A quick research regarding mapping and accessibility didn’t lead me to much information. Besides, every mapping site I tried, failed Cynthia really badly (even this simple text-based site btw, maybe I should switch templates).
I know, SVG always has been the next big thing and never really took off, but in terms of web accessibility and mapping it offers the important ‘desc’ element:
Each container element or graphics element in an SVG drawing can supply a ‘desc’ and/or a ‘title’ description string where the description is text-only.
The ‘desc’ element basically allows you to provide textual information attached to every map element and deploy that way an (hidden) alternative textual map in addition to every map image. Clearly a major advantage of SVG over raster graphics regarding web accessibility.
That’s what I’m not. Definitely!
It takes me at least 40 minutes to get out of bed, usually an hour or longer. Still worse are my ambitious intentions to get up early which make me set the alarm clock almost in the middle of the night. Worse because when the alarm goes on, I start repetitively turning it off for “another 10 minutes” instead of stepping out of bed. This stupid habit makes me even more tired than I’d be if I’d actually get up in the middle of the night.
So time has come to find another morning strategy and I started looking around for smart alarm clocks. That’s what I found so far:
So far so good. Each of them would be worth a try to improve my morning situation. Strangely enough that none of those products is available for sale yet. Even though their concepts, prototypes or press releases are around since 2005.
How do you manage to get up in the morning within a reasonable time? Any tricks or hints of how to successfully conquer mornings are highly appreciated!!
As I found out today, one major usability drawback of the new iPod touch could be the fact, that you’ll need two hands for interaction: one hand holding the thing, while the other hand does the fancy music selection.
On my way home I noticed how easy I can switch albums on my iPod nano by only using one hand. Pull the player out of the pocket, a quick look at the screen where I am, two or three thumb moves on the click-wheel. Done. Artist, album, playlist or podcast changed. No need to stop walking (or cycling).
I don’t even believe all other basic features, like adjusting volume or go to next/previous song, can be done easily with one hand. And those things are really essential in my opinion, at least for my everyday use much more worth than any fancy touch screen navigation.
So I guess I’ll stick another while with my good old nano. It still covers everything I expect from an mp3 player.
Stefan Geens from Ogle Earth points out the possibly most important change in Google Earth’s EULA:
For a business entity user, the Software may be used by you and your employees for internal use…
First of all, this is excellent news for GIS professionals. Ok, but what exactly does “internal use” mean? Our IT staff is now allowed to install Google Earth by default on any business PC and Laptop. I’d assume our employees can then legally use Google Earth for preparing business trips for instance.
But how far does “internal use” go when it comes to enterprise GIS support?
Available tools like Arc2Earth make GIS result presentation in Google Earth very easy and convenient. Instead of setting up map servers, where employees explore GIS results in web browsers, an internal enterprise information strategy could shift to Google Earth as client and KML as data storage (cf. Brian Timoneys smart KML S3 solution). Would that be considered as “internal use” by Google?
Imagine the GIS department of the city of Vienna serving their data as KML to Google Earth clients on 12.000 internal workstations across the city administration. Basically it’s internal use, but I’d assume such an “internal use” would probably upset Google.
Clearly, I’m now allowed to run Google Earth on my business PC, but, as GIS professional, I’m still not sure if I can consider it as possible way to go for “internal” data dissemination strategies.
There is a lot of legitimate criticism around: closed and not extendable, missing software, poor hardware features, little storage, over-prized, etc.
But,
the usability of the new iPod touch is simply sexy.
Watching the demo video instantly produces this must have feeling in me…
Especially after a day like this, with 20 responds following 5 different strategies as answer to a quite simple question, I really wonder how some large companies can possibly function.
Days like this definitely do show me the benefits of working in a small sized business.
…a comprehensive resource about WHERE to, from a tax saving point of view, ideally start up your start-up.
Bahamas or Cayman Islands together with a hurricane resistant mansion sound like an excellent combination for a future company address.