New home for AnyGeo blog

This blog will no longer be updated from this location, however, you can still follow AnyGeo and bookmark this new home — http://blog.gisuser.com

Meet Me In the Middle Thanks to Google Reverse Geocoding

According to the Google geo dev blog this week, Google now is making reverse geocoding available to developers. This is pretty huge for developers… in a nutshell this enables developers to add functionality that generates an address from a lat/long pair – a much tougher process than the reverse, which is grabbing a coordinate pair from an address (geocoding). See more on this in this article

Please visit http://www.GISuser.com and http://www.LBSzone.com for more from the author

A cool video tour of Nokia house, Helsinki Finland – retro Nokia devices!

I just dug up this video clip that i captured in HElsinki at Nokia House… some very cool retro mobiles… check out the leopard skin communicator – awesome!

Please visit http://www.GISuser.com and http://www.LBSzone.com for more from the author

The online marketing virtual conference mashup

Can’t find an event of interest… why not create your own. With a ton of fine user-generated media on the web it has to be simple to locate speakers on hot topics that have appeared at events around the world (search youtube, blip.tv, ustream, qik etc…) Do you need to know more about online marketing, the new media, web2.0 and social media? Well here’s a nifty virtual conference that’s been put together for your enjoyment. Sit back in your office chair, grab a coffee and enjoy the event.. no travel, no hotels, no lost luggage, no security lineup hassles etc… what a great idea!
Enter the event here

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Event update – O’reilly Media iPhone Live 2008 event postponed

As a media partner for the event we were surprised to find out the event has been postponed. In a message from an O’reilly Media rep we hear the following…

We’re sorry to inform you that we’ve made the difficult business decision to postpone the O’Reilly iPhoneLive event. We apologize for the timing, and for any inconvenience this postponement may cause.

We are grateful for your support of the event and appreciate your desire to participate. O’Reilly is committed to exploring this space, and we’ll keep you informed of plans for a possible future version of the conference.

See the event website here... stay tuned!

Please visit http://www.GISuser.com and http://www.LBSzone.com for more from the author

VanMap (Vancouver, BC) Gets Update with 2008 orthophotos

An update from Jonathan Mark, GIS Manager, IT Department with the City of Vancouver informs us that the city has recently added the 2008 orthophotos to VanMap. They are of the same
high quality you are used to from VanMap and they join a large set of orthophotos and satellite imagery dating back to 1994. The 2008 images were acquired in late April, 2008. Enter VanMap here

Please visit http://www.GISuser.com and http://www.LBSzone.com for more from the author

Imagery for highlighting poor energy efficiency

Bluesky thermal maps reveal property ‘hot spots’ using a colour coded temperature map. Matched to Ordnance Survey maps and Council Local Land and Property Gazetteers, visitors to a Council’s website (UK) can simply type in their address and instantly get an idea of how much heat is escaping through their roof.

I’ve often wanted this ability in my area.. how cool would that be?? See details here

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A map should be worth 1000 words and more than a simple PDF

Indeed a map is worth at least 1,000 words in my mind.. I wish the mainstream media would realize this. The only reason I bring this up is because today I’m browsing through the local paper (The Colloradoan) which serves the Fort Collins area. Within the paper I see a story titled “Windsor Map shows future trails”. The article rambles on about a new map the Town has created, then meanders off into discussing future proposed crossings etc… so what about the map?? Unfortunately there was no picture of a map with the article, no link to a website where a map could be found etc… pretty strange! So I investigate for myself and hit the Windsor website where a link is found to trail map – there I find a lone PDF showing what appears to be trails along with the proposed trails. I can’t help to think how much more useful the article in the paper would have been by simply posting the actual map or a link and forget about all the blabber. Hopefully by the time the trails are done the maps provided online by the Town may be more informative, perhaps at the minimum served up as Geo PDFs, heck, even a Google map that provides more information, perhaps some multi-media or ?? The town does have a GIS and a GIS Dept. so seeing some form of webmapping should be expected shouldn’t it? A tip for you small towns, see also some of the tools offered up by Avenza Systems , TerraGo Technologies, or Alta4 to help bring your webmaps alive or at a minimum give them a pulse!

Windsor trail map PDF… yawn! Imagine how much more effective a map with imagery as a base layer would make this. Much more is expected of local government agencies in my mind, particularly given the fine, low cost tools that are available.

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Check out R 2009 via The AutoCAD Resource Center

A new online educational resource is now available for AutoCAD 2009 users or would-be users – the AutoCAD Resource Center, a Web site providing an abundance of free resources and information on AutoCAD 2009.

The resource takes advantage of video clips to provide readers with useful educational and tutorial material. For example, a video on layers shows how users managed layers pre-2009 and then how to manage layers using AutoCAD 2009 products. Additional material available to users includes:
customer stories
white papers
how to articles
tips and tricks
Naturally, free trial download software is available. See more at http://resources.autodesk.com/autocad/

Please visit http://www.GISuser.com and http://www.LBSzone.com for more from the author

Nokia Email Service (NES) the Free Beta service, Questions Answered by the Project Team

Today I was offered an invitation to sit in on an informal Q&A with the Nokia Email Service (Beta) Management Team. Via Tangler, we bombarded the team with questions for an hour. the following are some of the items of interest I picked up on during the conversations. This feedback is valuable in helping us to get a vision of what we can expect from this service down the road – thanks Nokia for taking part in this.

Some of the interesting tidbits I picked up on during the Q&A :
At Nokia we believe, even though mobile email has been available for years, the amount of users who use mobile email has been dissapointgly low

– Nokia is shifting into being an internet company, and email is a top priority for Nokia, and at this time our focus is on the S60 platform.
– When a consumer walks into a phone store, and asks to see all the email phones, the clerk pulls out seven qwerty keyboard devices… three blackberries, two nokias, two other phones. today, chances are, the blackberry gets picked quite often… they have a nice email solution with nice phones.
but, most people come into a phone and say “show me your best camera phone”
or your best music phone
or the phone with the longest battery life
or phones for active lifestyle
or phones with GPS navigation
or phones under $100
Chances are for those categories, there’s more Nokia’s in those categories than any of our competitors.
Nokia will win its generous share of these phones… and once they choose the Nokia, the operator has the opportunity to sell the consumer email on their phone.

Based on feedback, it’s clear people want some shorter options for polling and not as many longer ones (for instance, 2 months is an option right now).. we’re looking into this.

Through our research, our design is focused on the five mail things: scanning inbox/reading/deleting/reply/composing email. We’re spending our resources optimizing those core mobile email functions.

“Through our research, we have found that there are three main obstacles to the adoption of mobile email”

1. discoverability – people don’t even know that their phones can get email, even though it’s been on the phone for years”
2. those who discover email on the phone have a very difficult time getting it setup and functioning.
3. Unpredictability of cost – users don’t have control over how many emails they receive, worry about receiving large bill at the end of the month”.

Nokia’s strategy is to solve these three problems and to become a leader in the mobile email space. To solve the discoverability problem, our intention is to include email on the phone (preinstalled on the phone, to answer earlier question)., and make it readily apparent on the home screen / initial startup that the phone supports email.

“Our strategy is making email easy to say “yes to” and opposed to the reason someone buys a phone.”

See the full Q&A article here

Please visit http://www.GISuser.com and http://www.LBSzone.com for more from the author