tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-159299252011-12-14T21:47:04.539-05:00This weblog focuses on the non-programming aspects of GIS (Geographic Information Systems), GPS devices, general mapping, and demographics.blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.comBlogger211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1153116812560166352006-07-17T02:11:00.000-04:002006-07-17T02:13:32.586-04:00

Hope Island Golf Club in Australia is the first in that country and nearly first in the world to install GPS units in all of their golf carts. [via iSeekGolf] Not only that, the units have large screens that display in simulated 3D what a particular hole looks like, from the point of view of where the cart is currently positioned.These displays give players an opportunity to make a better choice

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1153111493655704542006-07-17T00:38:00.000-04:002006-07-17T00:44:53.666-04:00

Massachusett's state Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Gatzunis recently suspended 20 of 24 state building and engineering inspectors because of their refusal to carry GPS-enabled cell phones that would monitor their whereabouts. Gatzunis considered their refusal as an "act of insubordination."These inspectors typically inspect amusement park rides. Management members of the inspector's union had

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1146093627650330902006-04-26T19:20:00.000-04:002006-04-26T19:24:00.163-04:00

The number of jobs available in GIS-related disciplines has grown significantly since the seven years that I spent in GIS work and research in the late 1980s to early 1990s. GIS (Geographical Information System) packages have come a long way since then, with numerous free mapping programs now available online.Although I am no longer involved GIS work, beyond any of my own personal research and

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1143824905180479142006-03-31T12:04:00.000-05:002006-03-31T12:08:25.896-05:00

It's difficult sometimes to decide what to do when it comes to weblog publishing. Despite what I've said previously, after much thought, I realized that it would still be beneficial to continue posting entries to this journal. The focus will still be on all things GIS and demographics. However, anything that smells of programming will be posted to the WebGuru blog, as previously mentioned.That

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1129676923504354112005-10-18T19:08:00.000-04:002005-10-18T19:08:43.520-04:00

This blog is about to be incorporated into a single blog called "WebGuru" that will be available at my new geekSchool/MathGurus Online website (http://www.mathgurusonline.com).The WebGuru blog will contain posts about webmastering, web programming, and website analysis in general. This includes tips and techniques for Perl, PHP, XML, CSS, mySQL, javascript, data mining/ net metrics/ web analytics

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1127629434817456172005-09-25T02:23:00.000-04:002005-09-25T02:23:54.820-04:00

One of the first applications of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) packages was for home-ranging animal herds to determine their habitat. Another important application, since the mid-1980s, has been by police forces to track crime locations and to show geographic patterns. Criminals tend to be creatures of habit - pretty much like most human beings - and will stay within a certain territory -

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1127510847870474732005-09-23T17:27:00.000-04:002005-09-23T17:27:27.920-04:00

GeoCommunity has a great treasure trove of links to free maps and DEM (Digital Elevation Maps) data. GIS.com, run by ESRI, also has a number of no-cost data and services, including the Hurricane Disaster Viewer, a slick-lookin, web-based map viewer showing New Orleans and various areas in the path of hurricanes.A question for any reader that cares to comment. What would you like to see more of

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1127345056160026492005-09-21T19:24:00.000-04:002005-09-21T19:24:16.206-04:00

While one side of North America has been repeatedly battered by tropical storms, etc., the other side is suffering from forest fires for yet another year.From time to time, I'll list various mapping-related resources. Here's a link to some free map/GIS data for North America.(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://geoplotting.blogspot.com <!-- Tag links generated by Zoundry Blog

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1127191249910341152005-09-20T00:40:00.000-04:002005-09-20T00:40:51.143-04:00

If you haven't already seen it, physorg.com, has a neat map showing the results of tracking several thousand cell phone users in Graz, Austria. This website also has a story on how the state of California in the United states plans to use GPS devices to track sex offenders, once they've been released.(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://geoplotting.blogspot.com <!-- Tag links

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126981603921888502005-09-17T14:26:00.000-04:002005-09-17T14:26:44.243-04:00

For those of you on the road a lot or just gadget freaks, Navicom has a small new GPS device out that fits on your keychain. Just more proof that GPS devices are becoming household gadgets and aren't just for truckers, hikers, and wardrivers.(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http//geoplotting.blogspot.com <!-- Tag links generated by Zoundry Blog Writer. Do not manually edit. http://

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126666914631401522005-09-13T23:01:00.000-04:002005-09-13T23:10:49.516-04:00

<!--StartFragment -->Just a little aside for map junkies... The USGS (United States Geological Survey) has a regularly updated map that shows recent earthquake activity around the world. Now while it is logical when you consider plate tectonics, it's rather scary that the vast majority of earthquakes seem to be taking place along coastlines rather than, say, in the middle of the ocean.<!-- Tag

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126589851890891532005-09-13T01:37:00.000-04:002005-09-13T01:37:31.940-04:00

[With apologies to Barret Strong, Norman Whitfield, Edwin Starr, authors of the song "War, What Is It Good For?"]Several weeks back, I was in a friend's car trying out my new, long-range wi-fi antenna for my laptop. We were planning to have dinner together, but it was early and E wanted to go for a drive. Still obsessed with my, then, new toy, I wanted to see how far it could pick up wi-fi

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126492162680897632005-09-11T22:29:00.000-04:002005-09-11T22:29:22.686-04:00

With the invention of the wi-fi laptop a few years ago, it's become harder to accurately track unique visitors to your website/ RSS feed/ blogsite visitors. Anyone who commutes a lot with a laptop may end up appearing as 3 or 4 different visitors in your web server access logs, possibly even as being from different cities. This of course inflates your readership/ subscriber numbers, which

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126408705816559142005-09-10T23:16:00.000-04:002005-09-10T23:18:25.820-04:00

Over the past week, while trying out a number of different free visitor tracking services, I've noticed some interesting discrepancies. I access the internet from a number of different points. Depending on the tracking service I've used, one access point alternately shows up as either of two cities, neither of which I live in.The reason for this sort of thing is two-fold. First, a bit of

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126319835064741312005-09-09T22:33:00.000-04:002005-09-09T22:38:05.386-04:00

After I posted yesterday's summary about some of the visitor tracking services available, Ahmed from BlogFlux left me a comment about their Google Map hack visitor tracking service, MapStats. They do the same as gVisit but also offer information about where a visitor came from before visiting one of your web/blog pages. What's more, they also offer several breakdowns of visit statistics. And

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126215841683767252005-09-08T17:39:00.000-04:002005-09-08T17:44:01.686-04:00

Scientists who study animal habitats use a technique in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) called home-ranging. Animals are tagged with radio-frequency devices, the positions of which can be captured by satellite. Over time, each animal in a herd gets tagged, and scientists can determine what part of a plain, a forest, etc., that that herd tends to inhabit. Usually, a map is plotted with all

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1126140886304640682005-09-07T20:19:00.000-04:002005-09-07T20:54:46.353-04:00

Some of this info has been mentioned in my other blogs, but here's a summary of some of the services available for "geo-plotting" your website and blogsite visitors:gVisit is a very cool Google Map Hack that shows which cities of the world each visitor is from. It only shows a maximum of 20 visitors at a time, so older visitors disappear. There's even an RSS feed available with latitude/

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1125774277746551942005-09-03T14:48:00.000-04:002005-09-03T15:05:14.166-04:00

One of the concepts that we are going to be revisting several times in this blog is the conversion of IP addresses to the corresponding country code. From a standard, two-letter country code, we can derive country names. The reason this is relatively easy to do is because every country is assigned a one or more blocks of consecutive IP addresses. The current IPV4 (IP Version 4) protocol uses

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1125727854546172242005-09-03T02:04:00.000-04:002005-09-03T02:10:54.550-04:00

When someone visits your website or blogsite, your web server records information in a log file. This log file is a rich source of information, which I'll be referring to repeatedly, especially in my Perl-Tips blog. Note: For those of you that have a blog hosted on a web server which you have no control over, don't fret. There are several ways you can track visitors. I'll discuss several methods

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1125348804999369882005-08-29T16:43:00.000-04:002005-08-29T16:53:25.010-04:00

Back in the late 80s, when I first started working with GIS (Geographical Information Systems), there was no public Internet. In fact, when I last officially stopped working with GIS, there was no public Internet. Over the past few years, however, my interest in GIS has been renewed due to all the great OpenSource GIS packages that are available. Sorry, but I don't 5, 10 or 50 thousand for a "

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929925.post-1125339660530815222005-08-29T14:14:00.000-04:002005-08-29T14:21:00.530-04:00

Greetings. This blog will be used mostly in tandem with my Perl-Tips blogsite to show you how to determine where your web and blog site visitors are coming from, and how to analyze the historical data. (I'll also have a PHP site, but that's in development.) Whenever possible, I will separate the concepts from the hardcore programming, so that those of you who are only interested in the ideas can

blogslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09263250561416943757noreply@blogger.com0