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July 29, 2005
Scheduler, Roster, List, Planner
One can find almost anything on the web. All it takes is a bit of determination and a lot of perseverance.
Recently, I was asked to help build a prototype scheduling roster for a local First Responders group. A group member, Mike, had seen the MACLA Events Calendar and at first we thought that it could be adapted to suit their needs.
I installed a copy of the Calendar onto a development site and spent a couple of nights trying to get it flexible enough to meet their needs. After the second night, it was obvious that it wasn't suitable. A third night was spent trawling for an application that had the right sort of flexibility. An application that was intended for an office manager to cope with absences and holidays was discovered, TeamCal Pro.
It was quickly installed and amended to suit the First Responders' needs, Mike liked the demo so much that he sorted out a domain, installed the application and configured it himself. There were a couple of late nights for Mike and a bit of email ping-pong but he didn't need any hand holding. I was impressed at the speed with which he got things done.
It was then presented at the next group meeting and whilst it was accepted by the group I got the impression from Mike that online rostering may be a step too far for some of the members.
Unfortunately the roster is not open to public viewing so I can't show you the results of Mike's late night efforts.
Posted by weaver at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 24, 2005
Virtual Earth - first look
Virtual Earth Beta.
Oh dear, in all the initial excitement, it would appear that Virtual Earth has fallen over. The servers can't cope with the demand and are refusing connections. Its the fault of those people at Slashdot. I'll be patient and wait for tomorrow's official announcement.
First impressions are that Virtual Earth is nowhere near as good as Google Maps. For a start its misnamed - It should be Virtual US, as the rest of the world barely exists. Using the search facility to find London, UK & Paris, France fails to find any location outside the US. Imagery is non existant for Europe. To be fair, Google Maps imagery is only patchy for Europe anyway. The World Trade Center is still their on the New York imagery. Oops, that'll please the majority of American citizens.
Zooming to Lincoln, UK on the road map and then switching to Aerial photo is interesting. Lincoln UK gets instantly transported to the US, fascinating. The zoom cursor is a bit erratic and not smooth or stepped like Google Maps. The pan feature is a direct lift from Google Maps. Nice to see that Microsoft can pinch (sorry... learn from) its competitors.
One plus point, I will give it is that, when it works, it works in Firefox as well as IE although some of the popup window options don't appear to work in Firefox.
Visual Earth gives the impression of an application that's been rushed out in a vain attempt to stifle a competitor's stranglehold. I wouldn't mind so much if they had taken the Google idea and built on it or expanded it in new directions. Sadly, MS have failed to do so. Overall, a poor imitation of Google Maps.
Posted by weaver at 06:34 PM
...and into the ring...
Virtual Earth Beta
.....steps Microsoft with their online mapping offering, Virtual Earth. Pre-release today pending an official launch tomorrow, its pretty similar to Google maps. We really do live in interesting times.
With the power of MSN serach behind it, will MS go to head to head with Google or will Virtual earth have a different spin on it to Google Maps?
Microsoft's view of the world is obviously Flat earth, unlike Nasa's World Wind and Google Maps/Earth.
I like the idea of the Locate Me feature but there is a dearth of imagery for the UK. Hopefully this will improve.
With this flood of mapping applications, its time to start a new blog category - mapping
Posted by weaver at 05:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 23, 2005
Getting better
Google. What a company. Not content with resting on their laurels and hot on the heels of the Google Earth release, they have improved their Google Maps offering.Undecided if you what a map view or satellite image, you can now have both, together, using the Hybrid option. As far as I can see the two line up perfectly.
It works by changing the alpha transparency level of the PNG images. This site gives a better idea of what is happening. Use the slider at the bottom of the image to vary the transparency.
As an added bonus, Google have also added a small scale bar to the bottom left of their map screen.
Posted by weaver at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 20, 2005
Giant steps are what we take..
....walking on the moon.
Only 15 people have ever walked on the moon. To celebrate their achievement Google of Google Maps & Google Earth fame, have launched Google Moon using NASA imagery and showing all 6 manned Apollo landing sites.
I especially liked the view of the Apollo 11 site viewed at maximum resolution. It confirms something I believed as a child!
Posted by weaver at 05:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 14, 2005
Upgrading
I've recently upgraded a friends PC from Windows 98 to XP. In the end it took a couple of afternoons but we were erring on the side of safety, so that no files were lost during the process.
Windows XP prefers a fresh install (or perhaps its just easier for the guys doing the upgrade). As we wanted to preserve the existing data , I first tried an upgrade to the existing OS. The XP install routine failed due to a piece of software called 'GoBack'. This is a proprietary piece of software that gives Windows 98 a restore facility.The online advice was to remove GoBack and try again.
Erring on the side of caution, we decided on a safer but longer route. Purchase a new hard drive. Move the primary hard drive to the secondary channel and install the new hard drive as the primary. Then do a fresh install on that. At the same time the CD writer was upgraded to a DVD writer and a complete backup made of all the files (slightly over 20 GBs).
Success.We then copied all his old file structure to the new drive and reinstalled all the applications ensuring they all pointed to the new drive's My documents. In effect the second drive acted as a snapshot of the system just before the upgrade. Smooth as a button. Almost!
The Web browser wouldn't talk to any Microsoft sites, so the security updates could not be applied. Any attempt to contact the MS updates page resulted in the browser timing out. Tried AOL Loaded the page but timed out on checking for updates. Tried IE - wouldn't load any MS page. Tried Firefox. That failed too. Back to Online help.
The router is a wireless ADSL router by Netgear and the ISP is AOL. Googling highlighted an incompatibility between the two. Editing the configuration of the router (tweaking the MTU down to 1400), save the settings and success. All XP upgrades applied and set to auto.
Result. One PC humming along nicely and One Happy friend :-)
Posted by weaver at 10:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 13, 2005
Taken to the cleaners
This story about a French bus company and a car load of cleaners made me laugh out loud..You just couldn't make it up.
Posted by weaver at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 07, 2005
Staring into the abyss
Today in London. Awful. I was there at King's Cross, on the Piccadilly line yesterday. Missed by a day. Fate? Kismet? Whatever?
Not since the days of the mainland IRA bombing campaign have we experienced anything like this. But perhaps because of this past experience, we Brits are much more stoical.
Yes, we will hurt. Yes, we will grieve.Yes, we will survive!
Posted by weaver at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 06, 2005
Starry, starry night..
As Don Maclean used to say.
Try zooming in on this image of Van Gogh's painting, 'Starry Night'.
Posted by weaver at 11:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack