Related link: http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7017/

Global Connection is a joint project of Google, National Geographic, NASA, and Carnegie Mellon University. The project’s long-term goal is to help us learn about and meet our neighbors across this globe, and learn about our planet itself. The project is working with the Google Earth browser to develop some ver innovative apps. To date projects have included Hurricane Katrina mapping, Integrating National Geographic data with Google Earth, and a project called GigaPan. See more info at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7017/ or jump directly to the project page at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~globalconn/index.html

Related link: http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/6945/28/

Talbot J. Brooks, Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Geospatial Information Technologies, Delta State University worked within MEMA, FEMA, and the rest of the alphabet soup to start GIS at the Jackson Emergency Operations Center. According to Brooks, the GIS Corps call for help came at his request. He has graciously shared his story of Hurricane Katrina, the role GIS played in the response, and the 27 August - 6 September time period…. in his words… he was “there”. Read on for a look at the response, some Q & A’s, and example maps and images from the GIScorps in Mississippi. The full article including numerous maps created from the massive response can be viewed in this special contribution at GISuser.com - see http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/6945/28/

Related link: http://www.xantech.com/products/p_folder/p_283m.htm

TiVo’s official recommended solution to the recent breakage in serial control of some external receivers is to use infrared control instead. Initially, channel changes were slow to take effect, and quite unreliable. In a different thread on the TiVo Help Forums, another poster suggested keeping the emitters out at least one inch from the face of the satellite receiver. The extra distance helped, but I was still suffering from frustrating digit misses.

When IR is not reliable, the “official” advice is to build an ugly IR tent. I didn’t want an IR tent because I use the display on the satellite/HD receiver as an “at-a-glance” indicator of whether or not I have a lock on the digital channel. If the receiver can’t grab on to the channel, it will display “NO SIGNAL” in letters that march across the display. I wanted to retain this indicator of the health of my antenna system if possible.

So, I went looking for an alternate IR emitter that I could use to replace the TiVo emitter. Stick-on emitters adhere to the plastic in front of the IR “eye” on most equipment, and are a bit more reliable because they beam the control commands right into the device in question. After searching through the TiVo Community Forum, I decided on a Xantech emitter. They are small enough to largely remove the eyesore of the TiVo IR blasters. As a bonus, they also are transparent to IR so that I can still control my HD receiver with its original remote, even though there is an emitter stuck over it. (For those who need to completely block out IR, Xantech also makes a self-adhesive shield that covers the emitter and blocks all incident light.) Xantech makes several emitters. I selected a single-headed emitter, rather than a double-headed emitter. There are two styles of Xantech emitter. “Blink-IR” emitters will flash red when they transmit IR light, while the standard ones do not. I didn’t have a strong preference, and I ended up buying a blinking emitter because I found a liquidator selling blinking emitters cheap on eBay.

Installation is a snap. Pull out the old blasters, and replace the cable with the Xantech emitter. It’s much less obtrusive, as you can see from the picture.

With luck, TiVo will fix the serial port protocol and I won’t have to keep using IR. Although the Xantech emitter seems a bit more reliable, IR control is still slow. Back when serial recording still worked, the TiVo recording would start off on the correct channel because the channel change command would be quick on serial. IR is much slower. The first few seconds of each recording are taken up by the channel change, and it’s possible to see each of the digits being beamed to the HD receiver. So far, the Xantech emitter seems to be working out quite well. I’ll have to see how reliability compares over the next few days.

Have you given any thought to Ham radio? Well, from my perspective (which is as a total newbie - I know almost nothing about Ham or Ham culture) there seems to be a revolution going on in Ham radio.

“Eh?” you say? (yes, sometimes non-Canadians say “Eh”, just not as often).

www.hamsexy.com

These guys are mostly Linux geeks and hackers, just like us, but they have the authority to do things with radios that make you want to go out and get your Ham license. Some of the frequencies they are licenced to operate in overlap with the frequencies assigned to WiFi. This means that a properly-licensed Ham can do things with a WiFi circuit such that one begins to wonder what the point of WiMAX is (and yes, from what I can tell they love WiMAX too - but they think in terms of far larger distances than mere mortal geeks dare to).

You know what makes wireless so incredible? It’s The Last Mile! That means it’s cultural significance is huge!

I’m mostly a telecom geek, but what I’m starting to realize is that people from all different disciplines and technologies are suddenly coming together and realizing that we have everything we need to build a global, community-built network. Each community brings a different strength to the party.

Wow.

No I mean really . . . wow.

You’d better join us at ETel.

If you want to get a feel for what’s in store for the entire telecommunications industry, don’t miss ETel, O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony Conference.

The goal here is to build a bridge between the hackers who are creating the next generation telecom apps, and the business folks who can bring this stuff to markets eager for some useful, creative communications technologies.

Come out and join us!

Related link: http://www.symbianone.com/content/view/2231/108/

Orange Code Camp Opio is scheduled for October 17-19, 2005 - If developing and coding is what you’re interested in you’ll be able to learn about integrating your products and services with the Orange networks, the APIs and enablers that available to you, the Orange service network evolution, how to design for the ultimate end-to-end experience and much more. The date is October 17-19, 2005; location, near Nice, France at the Club Med.. the cost.. only 450 Euro…sweet! More info availab le Here

Related link: http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaysinglethread?rootPostID=10185802&…

Almost a month ago, I received version 7.2 of the TiVo software, and it broke my serial-port channel changing. 7.2 is the first release of TiVo-to-Go, which I was interested in until I found out that it broke my channel changes.

After posting a rant to my blog, I started a thread on the TiVo Help Forum. (I selected the name “tivomythics” because this problem is apparently TiVo’s suggestion that I move entirely to MythTV…) The problem seems to have affected a number of users; the Help Forum thread received four posts today.

First, to set the record straight, I did not receive beta code. I was apparently one of the first users to receive the 7.2 software after it had released. However, that does not excuse the poor performance of TiVo’s support department. I called them with a completely diagnosed problem, and was told to replace my serial cable because it had probably gone bad. The rep I spoke with was unable to access any internal documentation on changes in the new software release, and also unable (or perhaps unwilling?) to file a bug report of any kind. All in all, it was one of my worst technical support experiences ever. In most cases, when I have brought a reasonably specific problem report to a technology company and offer to spend time on the phone running any test they desire to further diagnose the problem, I am not told that my hardware coincidentally broke during a software upgrade.

I suppose I could have called back to find another rep to see if I had better luck with somebody else, but that is the beauty of a help forum. Many affected users have called, so a picture of the problem has emerged. There are two incompatible serial-port protocols used by DirecTV receivers. There is an older protocol, used by my Hughes HTL-HD, as well as some other devices. The long-running thread indicates the Sony HD-300, LG LSS-3200A, and the Pioneer 810H are also affected. I believe the Sony and LG are clones of the HTL-HD. A newer protocol was developed for the latest-generation DirecTV receiver, the D10. (This new protocol may have been pushed out in a DirecTV firmware update to the D10 receiver. I can’t quite tell from the forum.) The two protocols are incompatible. TiVo made the decision to discontinue support for the older protocol in favor of the newer protocol. DirecTV D10 users are happy because they can move off IR to serial. Those of us on older receivers are quite unhappy because we have to start using IR, if we can find our IR control cable after all these years.

Many of the affected customers have been told that TiVo will not be producing any sort of fix. We are supposed to revert to IR blaster control, and call DirecTV and have them fix our old receivers. Some users on the thread have reported doing exactly that, and being told to call TiVo, since their fix broke the software. The excuse that they can only support one protocol is not compelling. My TiVo has supported multiple serial protocols in the past. In the pre-7.2 releases, I had to choose between the MPG and APG serial protocols. Why not have two APG choices for “new APG” and “old APG”?

Regardless of whose problem it really is, TiVo should step up to the plate and fix it. TiVo’s success has been based on their incredible ease of use. While I was able to diagnose this problem readily, I wonder what would have happened if one of my more technophobic relatives had been hit. Can I really recommend a service that has poor support options? Does TiVo treat all problem reports with this level of disdain?

In the last two hours, there has been some confusion about whether or not TiVo will be attempting a fix. One user reports that there will be no TiVo patch, while more recent poster states that he was told they are working on a fix. I wish us mere users could get a better statement of direction.

In the meantime, if you’ve been hit, this post suggests you can call and get your money back for the outage.