Friday, May 29. 2009

Update: Does a Vancouver proposal related to open source mean a new GIS?

Update: Passed.

Continue reading "Update: Does a Vancouver proposal related to open source mean a new GIS?"

Thursday, May 28. 2009

NASA to open source tools to make WorldWide Telescope Format Data

TechFlash filed the Freedom on Information Act request to see the documents that detailed an agreement between NASA and Microsoft to put imagery of Mars and the moon in the company's WorldWide Telescope. It turns out that while NASA will convert its data into Microsoft's format, the agency will also make the conversion code available under an open source license.

- TechFlash

Tuesday, May 26. 2009

Outdoorsy Mac-based Routing Software based on OSM

Berbie Software's latest update to TrailRunner, outdoor oriented route-planning and journaling software for Mac OS X adds a routing feature based on openStreetMap, the biggest mapping community worldwide. Route sharing with GPSies, an international route portal, has been improved.

- press release

Thursday, May 21. 2009

Google Docs, ESRI Technology for Colorado Middle Schoolers

Deb Hooker who works for the Poudre School District in Colorado writes in the Coloradoan about the new computer curriculum the be launched next year.

Beginning with the 2009-10 school year, most sixth-graders will take a new nine-week Web 2.0 technology course that includes units on researching on the Web; Internet safety (appropriate use and ethics); data analysis; introduction to programming; Web site design; geographic information systems, or GIS; and Google Docs (collaborative Web-based office tools).

Seventh-graders may also choose to take an additional 18-week computer gaming and digital technology class that expands on the sixth-grade class, including units such as digital video production and video game programming.

The new courses involve using free, open-sourced software available on the Internet. Recently, representatives from Google and the Environmental Systems Research Institute, or ESRI, trained PSD middle school teachers and school technology coordinators on how to use tools such as Google Docs and GIS software.

I think may be some confusion about what "free, open-sourced software" is. Still, this sounds like a great start to preparing students for the Web 2.0 world.

Tuesday, May 12. 2009

Aussie Local Gov Open Source-based Fire Mapping Site up for Award

Tablelands Regional Council in North Queensland was nominated for an Excellence in e-Government Award, which pits its wildfire management app against all sorts of apps from all levels of government. The winner will be announced Wednesday by the Australian Government

The app is a shared mapping and data exchange facility for wildlife management, called the North Queensland Wildfire Mitigation Project (NQWMP). The council was the only local government shortlisted for the awards.

“We are surprised to be shortlisted alongside such significant projects,” said GIS Coordinator Alistair Hart, “I think one of the attractions of this project was our integration of free and open source software to both minimise the capital cost of creating it, but also to take away that ongoing maintenance liability.”

The website is free to use by approved stakeholders, and offers access to over 60 detailed GIS mapping layers, over 140 downloadable fire-district maps prepared for 90 rural fire brigades, some of which had no prior access to current and accurate maps of their brigade areas.

“What we’re doing is breaking down the institutional barriers to data exchange, and we’re providing an ‘in’ for non-government stakeholders in fire mitigation to access that information aswell,” Hart said.

- Government News

Thursday, May 7. 2009

Open Source GIS Alive and Well in Massachusetts

There's another of those local paper stories about how GIS is good at explaining how Sudbury, MA is taking advantage of the technology. It has the quotes from local officials about how they use it and plans for future use. It even cites pricing:

To create the fly-over, the aerial photograph, and the GIS data development used for the different data layers, Sudbury paid about $100,000. Additionally, the town pays $3,500 annually for unlimited use of MapsOnline.

The one thing that's not noted in the article which focuses on PeopleGIS implementation of MapsOnline in Sudbury and Weston is that the underlying code is open source. The reason it's not noted, I'd guess, is not because anyone is trying to hide anything, but because it doesn't matter. The software does what it's supposed to, the company hired to implement it supports the implementation and town workers and citizens use it. The Sudbury app is available to the public here.