Cities Moved in the Chile Earthquake

An interesting fact due in large part to GPS technology is the determination that several cities moved during the recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile. The city of Concepcion, Chile near the epicenter of the earthquake has moved at least 10 feet. The capital of Chile, Santiago, moved about 11 inches. Both of these movements were to the west. Therefore, the maps on a handheld GPS might be inaccurate. To learn more about this go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35780643/ns/technology_and_science-science/ and for a dynamic map of the area visit our map located at http://216.69.2.32/chilean_earthquake

Microsoft Live Sync

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How many times have you left home only to realize that data that you needed was back on your home computer and you cannot access it directly or you want to share a file with an out of town colleague only to realize the file size is larger than your email limitations or that you and your colleague both updated the file and the files are not synchronized.

Potential solutions might be found in cloud computing by the use of online application that stores information in the 'cloud'. For example if the application software is online such as Google Documents then you can write your document online and share it with colleagues or access it yourself through the web on any computer. But if the files are your not typical applications like spreadsheets, word processing files, etc. then the cloud computing might not solve the problem.

For our application we will be looking at geospatial files (geodatabase) that will be generated by one team of researchers in Illinois and another team in Kentucky that uses a Flex map server located in Kentucky. So when the geodatabase is edited by Illinois team and saved it will automatically port to the Flex map server and will be displayed when the map is accessed via of the Internet. This collaboration should be seamless to the user and the researcher, since each team will be updating files in local folders, but will be synchronized in the background. The solution that the team will utilize is Microsoft Live Sync. http://sync.live.com

The test that we have run has three different users accessing the same file folder that contained over 2000 files and multiple gigs of information, one of the users has three different computers connected to the sync folder; one on an on campus computer a pc, another on campus computer which is a mac, and the third is an off campus computer. Therefore, five different computers have a common synchronization with one folder; any changes made to any of the five local folders will result in a change on all five computers. One of the computers used in the test has the folder on an external harddrive. The Live Sync will also work on single users personal folded, in addition once the sync program is running on the remote computer of one user, it can be browsed and files accessed via the web.

What happens if multiple people access the same folder? Since the folders and files are saved on each local computer and there is no interconnection between the files, there is no locking of the file, as would occur on a single computer or a server. Therefore, if two people open the same file at the same time, they both can modify the file, when the file is saved a synchronization will occur on all computers, so the first saved file will be synchronized and then when the second file is saved it will not have the information from the first user since that file was open when the save occurred. So when the second user saves the file, it will overwrite the work of the first user and those edits will be lost on all computers once the synchronization occurs. There are server solutions that will keep the files synchronized or lock other user out of the files, but this solution is free, easy to install and ports through firewalls.

Microsoft Live Sync seems to be a powerful free tool for three uses, synchronization of personal files, sharing files among colleagues and the ability to browser your own personal remote computer passing through firewalls. The limitations are the ability to do simultaneous editing of common files. It does not appear to have any size limitations on the amount of data that will be passed between individuals. The initial synchronization does take some time depending on the size of the file folder.

WolframAlpha

A friend recently made me aware of the following application which might be of use to you in your work. It is called WolframAlpha and can be located at http://www.wolframalpha.com/.

It is a computational engine that appears to be very powerful. It uses the mathematic form. The image below is one of their examples.
I typed in fall 100 m and I got this:
Ss I explore this engine in more details I will write additional information. This is a partial list of what claims it can do:

GPS Workshop

A half day GPS workshop is being help on September 18^th on the Southwest Campus of Jefferson and on September 25^th on the Downtown Campus of Jefferson. The material for the workshop is posted at http://techcenter.jefferson.kctcs.edu/RS/topics/GPS/Pages/default.aspx which is part of an online remote sensing course and the slides are posted at http://techcenter.jefferson.kctcs.edu/presentation/Vince/091809/Pages/default.aspx. Additional information about the workshop can be obtained by contacting me directly.

A Netbook as your GPS

Netbook computers while they may have a small screen as a computer they have a very large screen as a GPS. I recently load Delorme Street Map software onto my Netbook, connected a Delorme USB GPS and drove to an out of town meeting. This particular Netbook has a battery life of approximately 3 hours. So therefore I did not plug in an inverter into my power port in my car since the trip was about an hour away.

There are definitely cheaper GPS units with a much smaller screen, but for the screen size and the fact it is a computer also, it did a great job as my GPS.

To load the software onto the netbook I used an external CD/DVD USB player (a must for software loads, unless your software is online).

Netbooks computers cost between $300 and $400 in general. You can get the software and GPS bundled at a price between $70 and $100 http://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10091. An inverter will be approximately $30 for a small one to power your netbook.

So for between $400 and $530 you can have a really nice GPS and a netbook computer which you can use in the car (did not include price of the media drive).

I am finding Netbook computers are really useful for meetings and they certainly are light weight; they can also serve as your navigational aide. The combination is a little large for geocaching, but it easy to upgrade your software for your GPS.

Netbook Computers with Terminal Server 2008

As I stated in my last posting we have purchased three Netbook computers to be used for evaluation of capacity and also to use at professional meetings and in the field with GIS. One of the areas that we have done a fair amount of work recently has been in the area of 'Cloud Computing'. We have used applications both on an on campus Terminal Server and also in the public cloud. Cloud computing is the use of application resources that are not resident on your own computer. For those of old enough this is how we got started in computing that the application ran on the main frame computer and we used a 'dumb' terminal (I actually used punch cards also). I recently tested an Acer Aspire One Netbook using our terminal server. I ran three different applications from the server, ESRI ArcInfo, Microsoft Word and OpenOffice Writer. I was very impressed at the speed the applications performed on the Netbook computer; performance was similar to my quad core desktop computer. The Netbook computer was connected wirelessly to the college network and my desktop computer is connected by an Ethernet Cable.

On the very large graphic operation of creating a map, I used resources on my data server as well as my ArcGIS Server and the operations ran very smoothly once they opened, which took a few seconds. I did some querying and zooming of the data sets and they ran very quickly. When I ran the two word processors, they both operated just as if they were on my desktop. While I might not want to sit and work on a 10 or 11 inch screen for an extended period of time, I found they worked very nicely with the terminal server.

We are going to test the Netbook Computer in the next few days with a larger monitor and external wireless keyboard and see how they function as a desktop computer. We are interested in seeing if a Netbook along with an application server (terminal server) can replace the desktop for many faculty. Another test will be utilizing a USB GPS and mapping software to determine the response time and view ability of the maps in a car.

Is a Netbook Right for YOU

We have gone through multiple ages of bigger is better, faster is good. Laptops constantly got bigger and bigger screens and the weight increased also, plus the power supplies increased in weight to power the machine. What was once a portable device now has the power of a desktop and approaches the weight of one. Now I am still a big fan of the tablet PC and have used one since they first appeared on the market, this summer I began to experiment with Netbooks.

A Netbook is a light weight small PC. There are many brands out on the market. I have experimented with three different ones. They in general are built around the Intel Atom chip. The chip comes in three speeds, N270 - 1.60 GHz, N280 – 1.66 GHz and N540 1.86 GHz. Most Netbooks come with one 1 GB of RAM (you can find 2 GB versions) and a harddrive in the 160 GB range. They do not have a DVD/CD drive built in, but have in general lots of USB ports. Most run on the XP Home Basic operating system, but a few run on Vista home. Google is planning on having an OS out before the end of the year for the Netbooks. Most have a 10.1 inch screen; I have an Acer with an 11.1 inch screen. Most weigh in at around 2.5 to 3 pounds and have a reasonable battery life approaching 3 hrs. They have built in Wi-Fi.

So in the day of 3GB Quad core processors (or faster) and 8 GB of RAM with a 22 inch screen desktop or laptop with a 17 inch screen what is the purpose of the Netbook.

First it is light weight, something my shoulder appreciates. I have loaded a full version of Office and it functions just fine, so therefore emailing is no problem nor is document creation. Over the past weekend I spent a lot of time surfing the net and it did a wonderful job, still have to get use to the touch pads.

My only concern is the size and closeness of the keys on the keyboard, which vary between the three models which I have experimented on. I have not tried to load any of my larger production applications.

I think for what most people use a computer for, email, document creation and web searches these are great little portable machines. I would not want to look at the small screen all day, but for a trip or a meeting I think they do an outstanding job. The price in general is between $299 and $399.