December 2005
- More Mailing Lists
- Tony Campbell writes, in response to this post, “I was surprised to see that you hadn’t been using Maps-L. I had taken it for granted that you were on it. I itemise the map lists of which I’m aware at…
- LA Times Column on the Ordnance Survey
- The LA Times’s Susan Spano has a column on the Ordnance Survey. She comes at it from a fairly uncritical, even naïve perspective: this is a rather breathless introduction for novices, not a history of theodolites or a critique of…
- MAPS-L
- Found another mailing list. MAPS-L: MAPS-L Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum is an international discussion forum for Librarians dealing with cartographic information, cartographers, remote sensors, geographers, and cartomaniacs of all types. The subject that ties everything together is cartographic…
- More on Digital Map Field Researchers
- Another look at the digital mapping data providers (i.e., NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas), how they collect their data on the ground, and how it ends up in the hands of Google, Yahoo, et al., from an Associated Press wire story that…
- Canadian Topo Map Update: CBC Coverage
- It’s not online, and I don’t have a URL to refer to, but on CBC Ottawa’s local TV news last night, they had a long feature on the federal government’s decision to get out of the business of producing paper…
- A Gallery of Map Projections
- A huge collection of map projections; they’re just outline maps in PDF formats, and there isn’t much in the way of documentation or explanation, but it seems awfully thorough. If you’re looking for a specific — even obscure — map…
- Mac Geocaching and GPS Software
- Jeremy Atherton’s page on geocaching with a Mac lists a whole whack of Macintosh-compatible GPS software. Via GPS Review. Update, 5:08 PM: GPS Review also points to another bit of Mac software: TrailRunner, route planning freeware that apparently supports importing…
- SF Chronicle Geography Quiz
- Finally, a geography quiz that isn’t a variant of pointing to a country on an interactive map. This quiz, though, isn’t interactive; it’s simply the online version of a feature that appeared in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, so it’s just…
- La Cartoteca
- La Cartoteca is a Spanish-language blog about maps and geography by Alejandro Polanco Masa. I’m always interested in hearing about mapping blogs in languages other than English, even if I can’t understand them myself (I read and speak French, and…
- Environment Map Roundup
- A few links to maps on environmental (and related) subjects. A project by Dutch scientists to measure European air pollution using NASA’s Aura satellite. Some pages in Dutch. Via Treehugger. The Center for Sustainability and the Global Enviroment has a…
- A Roundup: Society, Journal, Blog, Podcast
- A few quick links for the Map Site Directory: Via MapHist, I’ve learned about the British Cartographic Society and its journal, The Cartographic Journal. ArcDeveloper is a new blog that should be of interest to ESRI GIS developers. Via Spatially…
- New Directory Page
- I’ve created a new Directory page: it’s a combination of my old Communities page, which listed associations, online communities and mailing lists, and my blogroll, which I removed from the sidebar in the last redesign to reduce clutter. I’ll try…
- Windows Live Local Privacy Update
- Microsoft developer Chandu Thota responds to concerns about how Windows Live Local gets its “Location Finder” data (about which see previous entry) by explaining how it’s done: Location Finder sends signal strengths and MAC addresses of nearby wireless access points…
- Texas Map Reproductions
- The Texas General Land Office is selling reproductions of antique maps of Texas for as little as $20, an Austin TV station reports. Thanks to Tony Campbell for the link….
- RSS Readership Seems Excessive
- I don’t care what Feedburner tells me; there is no way I can have 88,184 readers of my partial RSS feed. (Until yesterday it was reporting a number that fluctuated between 800 and 1,000.) The culprit appears to be My…
- NYPL Map Room Reopens
- Today’s New York Times has a feature about the New York Public Library’s $5-million renovation of its map room, which reopens Thursday as the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. The map room touts itself as the public library…
- Some Windows Live Local Updates
- The Windows Live Local announcements on the Virtual Earth and MSN Search blogs. Via Boing Boing, some privacy concerns regarding where Microsoft gets its “Location Finder” data were raised on the Geowanking mailing list. James Fee is disappointed with…
- Early Reviews of Google Earth for OS X
- Frank Bisono and Jaron Brass have managed to take a look at the Google Earth OS X preview that seems to be making the rounds; both have dual or quad G5 Power Macs, so naturally they report good performance. Commenters…
- Google Transit
- In other Google News: Google Transit, which seems to be an in-house mashup of Google Maps and public transit data. It calculates costs and displays bus and rail routes and times; the examples give some idea of the parameters you…
- Google Earth for OS X Being Developed: AppleInsider
- Mac rumour site AppleInsider claims that a long-hoped-for OS X version of Google Earth is under development: “Earlier this month, a pre-release version of Google Earth for Mac OS X that uses OpenGL rendering reportedly began making the rounds overseas….
- Windows Live Local Goes Live
- Windows Live is Microsoft’s repackaging of its web services, and Windows Live Local is to Virtual Earth what Google Local (see previous entry) is to Google Maps. (Or have I got that backwards?) Anyway, Windows Live Local went live this…
- Virtual Earth to Become Windows Live Local
- A new version of Virtual Earth, to be renamed Windows Live Local, is due to be released imminently if not later today. The release apparently includes the oblique (bird’s-eye) imagery that made such a stir when Virtual Earth was previewed…
- East African Earthquake
- Kathryn Cramer points to a USGS “ShakeMap” of the magnitude-6.8 earthquake that struck the Lake Tanganyika region today, and has provided a Google Earth overlay of it as well. This was my first exposure to the USGS ShakeMaps site, which…
- Center for the Study of Geographic Change
- According to a press release in October, a $4-million donation to Western Michigan University will establish a Center for the Study of Geographic Change, the purpose of which will be to digitize older maps and aerial photographs. “Geographic change” is…
- Understanding Spatial Abilities
- If you’re reading this, you probably like maps, and quite likely can read them without much effort. So it might be easy to forget that map literacy isn’t necessarily a given, but it is important. Why Some Students Have Trouble…
- Russian Maps Mislead Foreign Businesses
- The International Herald Tribune looks at the disconnect between the official maps handed out by the Russian authorities to foreign businesses, with gridlines diverging from true north and the latitudes and longitudes blotted out, with the relative ease that the…
- Guardian Feature on Map Books
- Yesterday’s Grauniad featured a review of three mapping books with a heavy emphasis on the art of cartography: Charles Booth’s 1889 Descriptive Map of London Poverty, a London Topographical Society reprint that for some reason isn’t on their site; Peter…
- Globe Museum in Vienna
- Opening today in Vienna, the Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library at its new digs in the refurbished Palais Mollard. The collection of more than 400 globes, 240 of which are on display, includes early modern globes by Mercator,…
- Google Earth, India and Security — Again
- India doesn’t seem to want to leave Google alone: after complaining about the satellite data in Google Earth, the Indian government is back to complaining about the labelling of Kashmir (via GeoCarta). See previous entries: Google Earth: Indian Reactions, Google…
- Free Australian Maps, Images and Data
- The Australian government makes satellite imagery, geology maps (1:250,000 scale) and spatial data available free of charge. Via Glenn’s GISUser Weblog. See previous entry: Satellite Images and the Weather….
- Virtual Earth Dashboard Widget
- A Virtual Earth Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and a tutorial explaining how it was done. See previous entries: More Widgets; Houston Traffic Widget; Dashboard Widgets….
- Soviet Mapping Update
- Cartography has an update on John Davies’s research into clandestine Soviet mapping, and points to a collection of World War II era Soviet maps. See previous entries: Soviet Spies Map the World; Soviet Topo Maps; Old Russian Maps….
- Landsat Roundup
- Landsat data in MrSid format, from Landsats 4 and 5 in 1990 and Landsat 7 in 2000, from NASA’s Applied Sciences Directorate. Via All Things Geography. Meanwhile, Landsat 5 is apparently experiencing technical difficulties. Via Very Spatial….
- Google Maps TV Ad — Not
- Screenhead draws our attention to this ad for Google Maps (QuickTime), which is almost certainly not legit, but rather a production done on spec by a firm. Still. Giggle away….
