Headed to Bryson City this weekend for the US Open, it would be handy to get online in the evening. A quick internet search revealed a few local businesses offering free wireless internet.

This map shows the locations for anybody else interested. Please be advised, locations are approximate based on Google's ability to locate addresses. They should be close though.

For information on any of the points, simply click on the marker. Included is addresses, phone numbers and website url's if there is one I could find.

Fort Stewart, Gerogia, it is not entirely land, nor entirely water. Whatever it is, there are a lot of trees on it and the Army loves to practice artillery and small arms around here. Charged with the task of managing all the timber on this Army Post is the forestry services, who are updating their GIS software from 10-plus year old software to the latest and greatest.

Monday through Wednesday of this week found me just north of Boston in Danvers, MA teaching. I had heard people talk about the roads in Boston. However, what the roads and driving in Boston truly embody, this is something only fully understood through first person experience.

On a typical day, I will be working on at least two and usually three operating systems. ArcGIS Desktop for work only runs on Windows. Thus, my work computer is a Dell Laptop running Windows XP. For video editing, I recently bought a MacBook Pro. My aging desktop, running short on processing power, but long on storage space, is mostly a network file server doing double duty for basic computing tasks at home such as internet browsing and email. On this desktop, I have Ubuntu Linux.

Geograpy, the study of the earth, it matters! Studying and learning about the earth in terms of the inhabitants, phenomena and features on it, this is geography. Why should you care? Why does geography matter?

What exactly is this thing called GIS? Most who are even remotely familiar with the discipline and technology already know it is an acronym. GIS stands for a geographic information system. Great, now we know what it stands for, but what does it mean? To understand what GIS means, it is easier to start from the end and work backwards.

GIS is a System

First, a GIS is a system. So then, what is a system?

Announced last Wednesday at the ArcGIS Server Confrence, the winners are:

1. Hussein AlSayegh, Khatib & Alami of Manama, Bahrain for their Sample AJAX TOC
2. Ranjit Menon, Telvent Miner & Miner of Fort Collins, Colorado for their
   Persisting and Retrieving Data Using Server Object Extension

Source: Boulder County Business Report
Author: Barbara Hey

BOULDER - Douglas Scott, like all backcountry sports enthusiasts, knows both the delights and dangers of ungroomed, off-the-beaten track slopes.

His quest for knowing where that avalanche danger exists and his desire to share that information with others evolved into his business - Avalanche Mapping.

Imagine leaving work on Friday night and checking the traffic on your phone. With a wreck ahead, your phone detects your position and provides navigation around the mishap on local streets. After getting home, a friend text messages with an address of where to meet up in a few minutes. Although not familiar with the area, you capture the address from the text of where to meet up and your phone directs you the entire way.

Chief technologist of Google Earth, Michael Jones recently shared his views pertaining the benefits of data standards and data sharing at the Map World Forum in Hyderabad, India. There is a summary article of his talk in Directions Magazine. He is correct, data sharing unlocks the true powerful potential of spatial data, allowing virtually anybody to utilize spatial data. However, if Google Earth truly supports these efforts, then why is the default format for Google Earth their own KML (Keyhole Markup Language) instead of the Open Geospatial Consortium's (OGC) GML (Geography Markup Language)?