// June 8th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Home, Map Stuff
If you are ever stuck for a birthday present, one of these would be perfect for a map-geek like myself. Berlin, LA, and Shanghai are pictured, there are 12 in the range. From notneutral.com
// June 4th, 2007 // No Comments » // Map Stuff
I love the Google Maps integration
// May 23rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Map Stuff
Found at AdGoodness
// May 9th, 2007 // No Comments » // Design, Map Stuff
This fly swatter is based on a map of Milan! I love it! Anyone want to by me one? It is avaiable from Charles and Marie Modern Living
// April 16th, 2007 // 11 Comments » // Map Stuff
My new Nokia N95 arrived on Friday, and the phone is packed with some awesome features including integrated GPS, WLAN, and HSDPA. The WLAN is one of the greatest features because I can access the net from my home network (I share my broadband connection with other computers in the house through my Power Mac with Airport).
When the phone arrived I tried to connect the WLAN to my work network, and it could see it, connect, and then when I tried to open a page I got the dreaded “No Gateway Reply” error message. I really wish Nokia had made this process more simple, I am not using a complicated network, also I do not consider myself to be a power user, but I would hate to think what would happen if a less-experienced user tried to set this up.
2 days later (it is now 6pm Sunday) I have finally managed to connect it to my home WLAN network. These are the step I took:
On your Mac:
Apple -> System Preferences -> Sharing -> Internet
Select: Share your connection from Built in Ethernet
To computers using: Airport
Click: Airport Options
Note the name of your network (usually your computer name)
Click: Airport options
Click: Enable WEP security and select 128-bit encryption.
Go to http://www.andrewscompanies.com/tools/wep.asp and generate a random 128-bit key, copy the HEX key (you may also want to past this somewhere safe too or write it down)
In internet options enter a “$” and then paste your 26 digit key
repeat to confirm and click OK
Then click: “Start” to start sharing your internet connection through Airport
On your N95:
Click: Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Access Points
Click: Options -> New Access Point
Connection Name = Any name (I used the same name as my WLAN network)
Data Bearer = Wireless LAN
WLAN Network Name = The name of your network
Network Status = Public
WLAN network mode = Infrastructure
WLAN security mode = WEP
WLAN security settings:
WEP key in use = #1
Authentication Type = Shared
WEP key settings:
WEP encryption = 128 bits
WEP key format = HEXadecimal
WEP key = The 26 digit key you generated before (without the “$”)
Click: Back
Click: Options
Click: Advanced Settings
Click: IPv4 Settings
IPv4 Settings:
Phone IP address = 10.0.2.5
Subnet mask = 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway = 10.0.2.1
DNS Address:
Primary DNS address = 10.0.2.1
Secondary DNS address = (go to www.whatismyipaddress.com) and get your IP address and enter this
Click: Back until you are at your standby screen and then try to connect to this network. I was then able to browse the web and use maps with ease!
I also had a problem with the phone terminating the connection after some inactivity. To prevent this I did the following:
On your N95:
Click: Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Wireless LAN
Click: Options -> Advanced settings
At this point there is a message about this being not recommended (I accept no responsibility)
Automatic Configuration -> Disabled
Then change the Power Saving to Disabled
I hope this helps any other users having the same problems.
// March 14th, 2007 // No Comments » // Map Stuff, Travel, Work
Last week I was in Adelaide press-checking a series of 4 touring maps. I arrived in Adelaide on a red-eye flight Thursday AM, and as per usual the printer were running behind schedule so I had to spend the morning entertaining myself. The after lunch the press-checking began, and it went on to the week hours of next day. To make things worse, I was really run down and tired after Mardi Gras, and had an infection in my left eye. The press check went really well and the maps looked great.
After that i cabbed back to my upgraded suite hotel room for a few hours kip, woke up, the infection had hopped over to the other eye. I checked out, and headed back to the printers in the morning for the final presscheck. And a coffee with the print rep.
The afternoon was spent touring the beautiful Clare Valley McLaren Vale wineries with my friend and fellow cartographer Pam. Which is always fun. But I wish I had more energy. I lost my sunglasses at the airport and then headed home on an evening flight with a screaming child behind me. Thank god for noise-cancelling headphones and iPods.
I was really stuffed when I got in, and headed to be and did not wake until 1pm the next day. I am not as young as I used to be… but then when I was younger I would always sleep in till 1pm on a Saturday.
// February 25th, 2007 // No Comments » // Map Stuff, Work
This map is a map that is going to be displayed in a convent run by the Canossian nuns. I have used the National Geographic Executive World map as a base. National Geographic created the pacific centred version of this map exclusively for Hema Maps, and it looks great. The brief form my client was to create a large map (3 metres wide) with a time-line showing the places the Canossian Nuns have been to. The heading is done with a font called Bible Script which is quite appropriate. I think they plan to put some LED’s behind the map highlighting the countries the nuns have been to, I personally think that will look a bit tacky, but the customer is always right eh?
// February 21st, 2007 // No Comments » // Map Stuff, Work
It is 9.30pm and I am at work which is really sad I know. But at this late hour I am sitting here watching progress bars in several applications and I am wondering many hours, or days for that matter of my life is wasted watching proress bars? There is not much I can do while waiting for my Mac… maybe I should be filing my nails, or even better, just going to a real bar!
// February 15th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Map Stuff, Travel
Image courtesy Flickr user Simon Clayson
Geologists have warned that Whakaari/White Island near to blowing it’s top. The water temperature of the crater lake is 74°c, the hottest ever recorded, the level of the crater lake has plunged buy 6m, signaling a possible imminent eruption.
The Island is almost 50km off the coast of a small town where I used to live called Whakatane (pronounced fuck-a-taney), circular in shape, about 2km in diameter, and is only 321m above sea level [Yahoo! Maps Link]. However this is only the peak of a much larger submarine mountain, which rises up to 1600m above the nearby seafloor. When I lived in Whakatane I could see it from my office. Major eruptions between 1981–83 altered much of the island’s landscape and decimated the extensive p?hutukawa [wiki] forest. The large crater created after the erruption time has become a lake. White island last erupted in 2000. After the eruption a plume of ash and steam could be seen from the island for many years, but the crater lake since has filled up with water and mud, capping the volcano, causing a pressure build-up.
The island is remotely monitored by Volconologists by Surveilance Cameras, Survey pegs, magnetometers and seismograph equipment for early earthquake warnings via radio have also been installed on the crater walls. The island is usually on an alert level rating of 1 or 2 on a scale of 1–5. In may 2004 John Callan of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) wrote the the New Zealand Herald column Sidswipe.
Some wag has glued a pink dinosaur in front of our digital camera on White Island in the Bay of Plenty. The camera takes a pic of the White Island crater every hour and puts it on the GeoNet website – for all to see. A number of people have been emailing us asking what the dinosaur is all about. I advise them that ‘Dino’ has assumed the role of White Island mascot and protector of our volcano monitoring equipment. We at GNS hope Dino sticks around for a while, but we doubt he will have the staying power of his ancestors. The acid environment on White Island gives plastic a fairly hard time.”
The camera can be viewed on the GeoNet webcam, and dino is still there.
Image courtey Flickr user Xole
Attempts were made in the mid 1880s, 1898-1901 and 1913-1914 to mine sulphur from Whakaari but the last of these came to a halt in September 1914, when part of the western crater rim collapsed, creating a lahar which killed all 10 workers. They disappeared without trace, and only the camp cat (named Peter the Great) survived. Some years later in 1923 mining was again attempted, but learning from the 1914 disaster, the miners built their huts on a flat part of the island near a gannet colony. Each day they would lower their boat into the sea from a gantry (a kind of tripod with a boom) and row around to the mining factory wharf in Crater Bay. If the sea was rough they had to clamber around the rocks on a very narrow track on the crater’s edge. Sulphur before the days of antibiotics was used in medicines as an antibacterial agent, in the making of match heads, and for sterilising wine corks. The miner’s diggings were handled in small rail trucks to the crushing and bagging process in the factory built on the island. Unfortunately, there was not enough sulphur at Whakaari and so the ground up rock was used as a component of agricultural fertiliser. Eventually the mining ended in the 1930s because of the poor mineral content in the fertiliser. The remains of the buildings can still be seen, much corroded by the sulphuric gasses.
Whakaari is privately owned and was declared a private scenic reserve in 1953 and is subject to the provision of the Reserves Act 1977. Visitors cannot land without permission or remove or disturb any wildlife and must leave only their footprints.
However, it is easily accessible by authorized tourist operators. Weather permitting a luxury motor launch leaves Whakatane daily for a six-hour day trip. Children should be aged over eight years. Helicopter trips are also available from Rotorua and Whakatane.
Some of the info in this article is from Wikipedia and the New Zeland Herald.
Copyright © 2012 pantone801. All rights reserved.
