beTech :: Evolve Already

On November 19th at 4pm in Harrison-Small Auditorium, noted map collector DAVID RUMSEY will present “Giving Maps a Second Life with Digital Technologies.”

Mr. Rumsey will show how technology has transformed his work as an historical map scholar and collector. Using imaging software, GIS, and popular applications like Google Earth and Second Life, Rumsey has given new life to old maps, both in their dissemination and in our ability to analyze and understand them in a variety of disciplines. He will demonstrate how he offers rare maps and innovative software tools on his free, public website:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/

Come early to the talk for a guided tour of the Seymour I. Schwartz collection of North American maps: “On the Map,” beginning at 3pm in the main gallery of the Harrison Institute / Small Special Collections Library:

http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/onthemap/

And stay late for a reception to follow Mr. Rumsey’s presentation!

This lecture is co-sponsored by CERSA (the new Center for Emerging Research, Scholarship, and Arts) and the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia Library.

The Scholars’ Lab is also hosting a luncheon, open house, and other map-related events on November 19th, which is International GIS Day:

http://www.gisday.com/

Please say hello to Michael Prichard, the owner of Willow Tree Consulting and a Flex developer!

This is a quick update for you regarding our Flex Discovery Group meeting next Tuesday. A detailed agenda will go out on Monday. This week the annual Adobe MAX conference is happening in San Francisco, so expect big product news to come soon from Adobe. Don’t forget the focus of this group is to build a Flex Application together utilizing: multi-page forms, web services, web cam inputs, validation, video, video cue points, animations, file uploads, wysiwyg editor and more! Place all code here: http://code.google.com/p/flexdiscoverygroup/ .

MEETING DETAILS:

When: Tues, Oct 28th, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

Where: Brown Science and Engineering Library, http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/brown/, [location see map: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/map.html ]

Who: Everyone is Invited and encouraged to share ideas and parcels of finished or unfinished Adobe Flex work for discussion purposes.

Please join us for a presentation on XUL on Wednesday,October 15th from 10:00 - 11:30 am in Clemons Library, Room 407.
What: Introduction to XUL Development
When: Wed. 10/15, 10:00 - 11:30 am
Where: Clemons Library, Room 407 (to the left of the reference desk)
Who: RJ Bruneel
Introduction to XUL Development
An introduction to XUL development and discussion about what worked while RJ worked on a XUL project for Opensource Connections. XUL (XML User Interface Language) is Mozilla’s XML-based language that lets you build feature-rich cross platform applications that can run connected or disconnected from the Internet. These applications are easily customized with alternative text, graphics and layout so they can be readily branded or localized for various markets. Web developers already familiar with Dynamic HTML (DHTML) will learn XUL quickly and can start building applications right away.  

RJ Bruneel is a seasoned Software Developer since 1997 currently working for Opensource Connections. 

For more information about the location, check out http://www.lib.virginia.edu/map.html

I’d like to ask for input on an idea I’ve had for some time now. Would there be significant interest in a new community that included both ITC’s Local Support Partner (LSP) program, as well as the input and expertise from the beTech community? The community could be called the “LSP Developer Community.” It could perhaps piggyback on the existing infrastructure already in place with the current LSP program, but expand on it, with the help of beTech.

In other words, this would not take the place of beTech. BeTech could live on as-is. Instead, could the LSP program be expanded upon to include content that sort of sits in between beTech and the LSP developer content?

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For the designer or pre-production person, one of the top-ranking moments of dread has to be when you need a logo for the client’s Web site and print materials and they send you a 150 pixel JPG (or other bitmap/raster image) file. You, of course, need a vector graphic that will scale nicely between icon size and billboard size without pixelating; and they, of course, have nothing of the sort. This is where a vectorization tool comes in.

Unfortunately, most vectorization tools cost too much, are a pain in the keister to use, and don’t really produce usable results without a lot of finagling. I haven’t tried the Corel product in years, but Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace leaves much to be desired. It tends to round corners in the strangest of places and make up new colors to fill in the pixelization blend areas. Thankfully, we now have another alternative: Stanford University’s VectorMagic.

VectorMagic is a free online application that takes your randy little raster images and converts them into amazingly accurate vector EPS or SVG file. Comparing it to the Adobe and Corel products is unfair, but we’ll do it anyway. Looking at the images side-by-side, VectorMagic does what we’d expect and want a vectorizer to do: take a big-picture view of our messy, aliased (that stair step, building-block appearance) artwork and churn out something appropriate. The other applications seem to be taking a pixel-by-pixel approach which probably accounts for the additional colors and the unusual corners. It looks as though the big boys (Adobe and Corel) have some catching up to do. Kudos to James Diebel and Jacob Norda, the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory research project developers, for their work.

All that’s required to run it is a modern browser, a Flash player, and an image to vectorize. And, while we’ve been talking about logo conversion, you certainly don’t have to restrict your images to graphics. There are already a couple of photos in their examples that look quite stunning as well. Take it for a spin and let us know how it works for you.

UPDATE: See update notes below.

Recently I needed to crank out a visual sitemap (or is it a directory tree?) from a rather large site and had a devil of a time finding decent tools to help. Everything I found in my search was either too costly, too complicated, or too unattractive for my purposes. A case in point was CSS Diagrams—a damn fine piece of work (and free), but it really didn’t suit my needs. But it did give me an idea. Why not roll my own sitemap diagram in HTML and CSS? (Note: If you want to cut to the chase, check out the demos in vanilla and chocolate flavors.)

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Sure the iPhone is a slick piece of interface and hardware design. Yeah, I want one real bad. But, sorry, I just can’t justify the initial cost plus the monthly service agreement with AT&T. (the University didn’t want to help me out there either, drat!) Furthermore, even though there was an initial burst of buzz and tools for developing applications suited to the iPhone’s 480×320px screen (e.g., the Aptana iPhone Development Plugin), it just didn’t seem prudent to take the leap as a Web designer/developer yet.

Yesterday’s Apple Special Event announcements changed all that. The entry price for the iPhone was dropped to $399 in time for the holidays—and that was nice. But what’s really got me turning from naughty to nice for Santa’s list is the new iPod Touch. Holy Smokes! For $299 I can have the internet in my pocket! And not some mobile version of the web*—nay!—I’ll have the real McCoy! That’s right. A Wi-Fi-enabled (802.11b/g) mobile web browser (Safari) that actually renders pages as they’re seen on the laptop/desktop, only smaller (until you zoom in!).

And if I’m planning a future with my little iPod Touch buddy, my gosh, I bet the rest of you are considering the same. Holy smokes! There’s an imminent iPhone/iPod Touch critical mass approaching. It’s time to start developing!

What applications are you contemplating or already developing for the iPhone/iPod Touch? What site design changes will you make to better suit this duo? Will affect your approach to the mobile Web?

* BTW: The Office of Web Communications has a great resource for the mobile Web at UVa. It’s worth checking out!