Between the Poles – The Geoff Zeiss Archives Archives - Page 109 of 126

Design Home Improvements Online

1 June 2009 Geoff Zeiss

This is pretty interesting. There is an Autodesk Labs project called Dragonfly, which is a Web-based application for home improvement projects targeting beginning “home designers” like the typical homeowner. Dragonfly provides on-line design tools to […]

Reducing Paper Flow in Utility Infrastructure Management in St Paul, Minnesota

1 June 2009 Geoff Zeiss

One of the challenges facing utilities and telecommunications firms worldwide is an inefficient paper-based process for managing engineering design information. The challenges associated with a paper-based information flow includes poor data quality, low productivity, multiple […]

Open RESTful Architecture for Geospatial Data Web Services: Accessing Spatial Data with No Programming

30 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

Recently the Free and Open Source Software Learning Centre (FOSSLC) held their annual Summercamp in Ottawa. Haris Kurtagic and I prepared a presentation on a RESTful implementation of an open API for data access that […]

Southern California Edison Tops Solar Power Capacity Ratings

29 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

There’s an interesting article in Wired listing the top utilities in the US in 2008 for solar power generation. It is really amazing how many of these are in California. Southern California Edison, which provides […]

Vancouver City Council Passes Motion Endorsing Open Data and Open Standards

29 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

The City of Vancouver has passed a motion endorsing open data, open standards, and leveling the playing field for open source software procurement. I had blogged about this earlier.

Google Maps Creators Design Google Wave

29 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

Google Wave was previewed at Google I/O. According to one source, it is a combination of social networking, Gmail and Google Docs. Google Wave was designed by the Rasmussen brothers (Lars and Jens) who founded […]

AutoCAD Releases for Past 25+ Years

29 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

I wasn’t aware of this site maintained by Shaan Hurley listing every release of AutoCAD and DWG starting with V1 in 1982. Shaan has pictures related to many of the releases. This is a […]

Convergence of Design and Gaming: Stimulus Funds for Virtual Shovel-Ready Projects

28 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

There is a fascinating news item on NPR radio about stimulus money going to virtual shovel-ready projects which is really worth listening to. Gaming Technology One of the things I like to mention when I’m […]

North America Is a Wonderful Place to Live If You’re a Car: Is Mayor Bloomberg Going to Change This ?

24 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

One of the things that strikes many visitors from Europe is the concrete and asphalt wasteland of many North American cities, which were built primarily with commerce in mind. Robert Moses of the Triborough Bridge […]

Google Maps Data API Announced at Where 2.0

22 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

At Where 2.0 Google annouced the Google Maps Data API which alows you to upload spatial data to Google. The Maps Data API means your application can view, store and update map data on Google […]

DATA.GOV Launches

22 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

Data.gov is the Executive Branch data portal. It provides access to machine readable raw data sets and to applications including spatial. There are 47 raw datasets and 27 applications available now, but you’re encouraged to […]

DoE and NIST Announce Initial Set of Interoperability Standards for the Smart-grid

20 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

An initial set of 16 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) interoperability standards for the smart-grid have been announced by the Department of Energy and Department of Commerce, which is responsible for NIST. The standards […]

DoE Smart-grid Grant Maximum Raised to $200 million

19 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

The Department of Energy has announced that it will raise the cap on grants for the development of smart-grid projects to $200 million from $20 million. The Recovery bill (ARRA) included $4.5 billion for smart-grid […]

Between the Poles – The Geoff Zeiss Archives

Autodesk Partnering with Clinton Climate Initiative To Support Project Two Degrees

19 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

At the Seoul C40 Large Cities Climate Summit 2009, Autodesk announced it is partnering with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) to provide visualization technology for Project Two Degrees. Project Two Degrees is an Internet-based application […]

Clinton Foundation Announces Climate Positive Development Program

19 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

Bill Clinton in Seoul, South Korea for the C40 Summit, an annual meeting of some of the world’s largest cities committed to addressing climate change, announced the Climate Positive Development Program in partnership with the U.S. […]

Japanese Stimulus Reaches 3% of GDP

18 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

The Japanese government has announced a 15.4 trillion yen ($150 billion) stimulus package that includes measures to support fuel-efficient vehicles and consumer electronics. This is the third stimulus package announced by the government in the last year. […]

Ottawa Tulip Festival with a Nikon P6000 Digital Camera with Built-in GPS

17 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

I’ve blogged here and here about the Nikon P6000 with a built-in GPS. Here are some pictures taken at the Ottawa Tulip Festival. Select the “Map” option to see the locations of all the pictures. During […]

FOSSLC: Introduction to OpenStreetMap

16 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

At FOSSLC Summercamp, Richard Weait presented an overview of OpenStreetMap. You can watch his presentation here. He relates a fascinating story about a map edit disagreement in Cyprus where two contributors disagreed about the name of a […]

Between the Poles – The Geoff Zeiss Archives

Greenland and Antarctica Not Affected by Economic Downturn

16 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

I came across a blog post by Joe Francica that injected a bit of humour into the otherwise marginally encouraging economic news.

FOSSLC: Introduction to Git and GitHub

16 May 2009 Geoff Zeiss

At FOSSLC Summercamp, John Duff presented an overview of Git and GitHub. You can watch his presentation here. Git is an open source, distributed version control system similar to CVS and SVN. The major […]