So a little off topic, but hey I’m not sure I have a topic…

The Colour Lovers Blog has a really interesting post on the color of currency around the world. The comments are now hosting quite  a selection of currencies the original post didn’t include.

Creating maps for years on end will certainly force you to learn about the proper use of color. Some of these currencies are actually quite stunning in their design.

So after having a week off somewhere cold, its back to the grind… and my occasional poorly written rants at loggedout.

Don’t get too excited, it’s mostly (entirely) bug fixes,  but the folks at ESRI have released SP5 for their GIS Suite.

Don’t trip over yourself downloading it.

So the Windows Home Server team has released a statement informing users of their data destruction device (WHS) that a fix is in internal testing (yay!).

Unfortunately internal testing will require a few more… days? No… Months. June 2008, 7 months after the bug was initially identified.

Now this is absolutely nuts,

I see licensed, experienced surveyors make errors every day (not to bash the profession, I see an enormous amount of survey data) and the fallout from such mistakes can be dire. Now Alabama feels fit to introduce a bill to allow un-licensed surveyors to practice in rurals parts of the state. I don’t understand the logic here; if this passes they will be cleaning up this mess for years. The folks over at the Surveying, Mapping and GIS blog have an exhaustive series of posts on why this is a really bad idea.

Interesting development. The MapQuest developer blog is reporting that they will offer a free version of there API to developers, to be known as MapQuest Platform: Free Edition.

It appears to have good functionality maintaining the bulk of the paid API’s features. Good news from the folks at MapQuest.

   

So, my brief hiatus has been due to a heavy dose of field work over the last two days. I’ve had the pleasure of tagging along for some Archaeological work our company has been engaged in over the last year. Always fun to apply GIS in new ways. Hopefully my 7 (count em) readers (hits ) were able to tide themselves over.

loggedout

ESRI’s latest Press Release states that SQL 2008 Server’s Geometry type will be ‘fully’ supported in ArcGIS 9.3. While this is a great move and one that will surely be well recieved, I’m left wondering what’s going to happen to SDE? Will How will ESRI justify the expense of a middle ware that does nothing beyond write to the DB’s already well defined Geo-Types?

 

Looks like the folks at ASUS have finally made the 9″ EEE PC a reality.

 Blogeee.net is reporting that the ASUS should provide full specs during a press release tomorrow.

Engadget has posted a few photos, and has claimed the device will sport up to 12GB SSD and 1GB of RAM. The resolution of the 9″ display is still under wraps, as ASUS will not turn the device on until its official unveiling tomorrow. Base price of the device will be €399. The device is reported to be scheduled for release ’mid 2008′.

 We should here more about this device during ASUS’ official press release tomorrow. 

Sounds like this guy has some distributed model for GIS Analysis. Could be interesting, but no doubt the practicality of it all will not be as rosy as the picture he paints.