Same same, but different

Cool tool which enables one to convert almost anything, SVG to image, Image to SVG, Music formats, …. Great!

Very interesting website, where one can search for alternatives for specific software products. Type in ArcGIS, and one gets a full load of alternative software packages.

This is Adobe’s version of a videoconferencing tool, sharing screens, PPT etc. Nice.

Nice example (beta) of an attractive SDI interface. Still some work to do in respect to user friendliness. But neat.

Interesting talk of Klaus Töpfer about Climate Change, the need to change and more…

Two citations out of his presentation:

Every MS acquisition is comprised of the four standard spectral bands of the SPOT4 sensor which come with the following “unorthodox” order (!): NIR – RED – GREEN – SWIR.

Spot 5 (FAQ):
In what order are the spectral bands in SPOT products displayed?

> SPOT spectral bands: The spectral bands in SPOT imagery are:
XS1 = green
XS2 = red
XS3 = near-infrared
XS4 = short-wave infrared (SWIR) for SPOT 4 & 5

> RGB display: The RGB display scheme is:
1st band (1) in the extracted raster file displayed in the red channel
2nd band (2) in the green channel
3rd band (3) in the blue channel

> TIFF file: To conform to the RGB display scheme, spectral bands in TIFF files are extracted in the following order:
1: XS3
2: XS2
3: XS1
To obtain the following display scheme for SPOT products:
- XS3 displayed in red, since it is the 1st spectral band extracted (1)
- XS2 in green (2)
- XS1 in blue (3)
The DIMAP file describes how spectral bands are assigned to channels to obtain this display scheme:
1
2
3

> BIL files: In BIL files, spectral bands are extracted in the following order:
1: XS1
2: XS2
3: XS3
The DIMAP file describes how spectral bands are assigned to channels to obtain the SPOT product display scheme:
3
2
1

> SWIR band: As only 3 channels can be displayed in colour at once, the SWIR band is not displayed. To display the SWIR band, you can assign XS4 to the green channel, XS3 to red and XS2 to blue.

Be careful not to confuse the names of SPOT spectral bands (XS3, XS2 and XS1) with the order of display channels (RGB).

That’s actually what I always thought one would need. You’re already quite advanced if you use an external hard drive for backing up your computer. But imagine – worst case scenario – your house is burning down. Or lightening destroying all electronic equipment…. Gush, everything (digital) !!! is lost. So, here is the solution: Back-it-up on a remote server… Mozy does it for you.

Interesting “website“: it’s actually a platform where one can access a couple of software packages, alike Photoshop, Firefox, iChat etc… But you only need a browser for all of it. That’s really what I think Web 2.0 and the future will more and more look like…

World City-to-City Connections