Finally, after completing my Christmas shopping, I lucked out and got my MacBook. Future Shop was clearing them out and I took the opportunity to cash in my points and take the plunge. I ended up buying the same model as I originally planned, but in white (apparently there’s a significant price diff for the colour). I declined the “extended service plan” due to my bad past experiences with them (it comes with a one-year warranty from Apple).
Whoever said it just works is right. I was up and running in no time. No need to search for digital camera software, I just plug in and it works. Same with my printer and iPod. In about an hour, I was upgraded to Leopard and the latest software updates and up and running on my wireless network.
I then downloaded NeoOffice, Skype and Adium and I was off to the races. All this ease, and with the flexibility to use the native UNIX core when I want. Porting over and plugging in my content (music, photos, etc.) was a snap. Smooth sailing ever since.
Some initial thoughts:
the corded mouse (I didn’t want a cordless and the battery dependencies that came with it) has a mighty short cord, which is not bad, but a bit iffy when the USB port is on the left of the MacBook (I’m a right handed mouse guy)
What do folks do about warranty? Is it better to buy an AppleCare package?
Say I wanted to build MapServer, is there a specific/preferred way to do this? Maybe I’ll ask Steve (Lime) or hobu
Now I just need a way to manage my bookmarks across browsers…
This past week has seen alot of activity in MapServer’s SOS Server Support. Remember when I posted about DataBlock? Well, Assefa did a great job in initially implementing this, and you can see the results in action right here. I’m going to be working on ensuring the XML conformance as per the SOS and OM standards, but it’s great to see this working!
This weekend, I added POST support. The SOS standard states that POST must be supported for all requests (except for GetCapabilities, which may be GET only). As a result, both GET and POST are now supported for all requests. I used libxml2‘s XPath support to parse the requests. XPath is an awesome way to parse XML! Support is not fully completed yet, as eventTime, result, and featureOfInterest are still yet to be implemented for POST (they are implemented for GET).
It will be interesting to see the mileage DataBlock gets. Especially seeing that now MapServer SOS presents a nice compact option to disseminate observation data over the web.
As part of MapServer’s support for standards-based interfaces, the SOS Server support is coming along quite well. With SOS 1.0.0 now adopted (although the schemas and standards document are not on the OGC public website yet), this provides a good opportunity to update the SOS support (which was previously at 0.0.31 and 0.1.2). This also was also a good time to move some of the GML code out of mapogcsos.c and into modular functions within mapgml.c.
In what will probably be my last major renovation for some time, I have started my basement renovation project this past weekend, starting with ripping things down!
At this point, the plan is for a new washroom++, laundry area, and rough in for a kitchen. No rush here, so I’m hoping to have this done by the spring 2008. Wish me luck!
I think this is awesome, and that there is not enough on SDI and foss4g at the college/university level. Maybe there is confusion on whether this sort of thing belongs in computer science or geography programs (or both). Maybe it’s still in early stages to introduce into formal curriculum.
What I do know is that this would help students hit the ground running when they begin their career.
I’m in Boulder, Colorado for the OGCmeetings. I had a chance to check out Denver earlier today (16th Street Mall, as well stumbling upon a Latin-American festival), which was very nice. The mountains are absolutely breathtaking!
I’m going to try to hook up with Sean sometime this week, as he is close by. In the meantime, check out some photos from today — I’ll be updating these as the week goes on.
Saw this via digg earlier today, and couldn’t help but appreciate the “magic” of UNIX for the nth time.
My first foray into the UNIX world (years ago) was the result of a colleague (Mike Adair, of mapbuilder fame) who advised me to take UNIX training. I needed to script and chain processes together as part of a system to create a ground control point database. The rest, as they say, is history.
As the years go by, and as things become more packaged, “easier to use”, and “frameworks” popping up everywhere, I have found time and time again that the trusty UNIX command line and tools have saved the day when the pressure was on (this includes stuff like perl and [recently] python scripting), without the overhead of setting up grandiose configurations and such.
How did you get started with UNIX? Stories involving hacks and / or someone over your shoulder looking in amazement are welcome 🙂
(preamble: if you know me well enough, you’ll know that I use the term “disaster” in multiple modes / contexts. In this case, “disaster steak” is a good thing).
This was a steak night. I had some friends over this weekend and sparked up the BBQ. I picked up some (big) sirloin steaks from Costco, made sure beer was stocked and away I went. Here’s how one makes a simple steak to die for:
wash down steaks with cold water
place steaks in a large bowl
douse steaks with balsamic vinegar (white or red) and rub
douse steaks with olive oil and rub
sprinkle steaks with Montreal steak spice (you can make your own if you really want)
seal the bowl and place in the fridge for an hour or so to let the steaks marinate
heat up the BBQ and slap on the steaks (N.B. have booze, appetizers, both, or whatever you want along the way — it’s always better than everyone just sitting there watching [and waiting]!)
cook steaks as desired (I like mine _well_ done)
serve and enjoy!
Click on any of the photos to see the whole process in pictures. Pretty simple, not much fuss and tastes awesome — disaster!
Anyone have any pointers or other ideas? I’d be glad to hear them!
Finally, after completing my Christmas shopping, I lucked out and got my MacBook. Future Shop was clearing them out and I took the opportunity to cash in my points and take the plunge. I ended up buying the same model as I originally planned, but in white (apparently there’s a significant price diff for the colour). I declined the “extended service plan” due to my bad past experiences with them (it comes with a one-year warranty from Apple).
