Google Earth Looks Up

Posted on August 22, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Google Earth has added an astronomy feature today.  It took me a few tries to get through to the server once I had the free software installed.  Tonight it seems to be much faster.

The new feature is called Sky view.  You can switch between it and Earth view in the View menu.  All the functionality is similar to the normal Earth view.  You can drag the sky around and wheel-mouse in and out to see more or less detail.

The layers include Backyard Astronomy, Hubble Showcase, Moon, Planets (Moon and Planets in Motion is really cool), User’s Guide to Galaxies and Life of a Star.  Text has been embedded in each of layers with explanations of the images.

Once it stops raining in Findlay, I can see us sitting out on the deck with the telescope and a laptop running this thing.

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Dry Summer

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

This has been a dry summer. It was so dry that I didn’t mow the grass from the beginning of June until the end of July (about seven weeks). And then the rain came.

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My wife likes to garden and she wanted to know how much rain we were getting so she did not over water the plants.  She brought home a rain gauge yesterday.  A colleague also interested in gardening had left it in her mail box at work.

It had rained all day.  I jokingly said that I would deploy the rain gauge in case it rained more over night.  I had not looked at a forecast.

When I got up this morning, the gauge was completely full… six inches of rain fell overnight.  I didn’t really believe it until I started into the office.  The highway going into town was closed.  Not only was the highway closed but the county road going north and south was also closed in both directions.  In other words, the highway going into town was a dead end.  I literally had to backtrack to higher ground and circle around to the other side of town.

It was enough rain that we were featured on the Weather Channel.  It is also the first time I can remember the county being on a level three road emergency because of flooding.  Usually that kind of thing only happens during a blizzard.

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Modern Text Book

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I am looking through a half dozen recent textbooks for information on newer technologies.  The oldest text in my pile is two years old.

Here are some interesting technologies that I’m having a hard time finding.  Half the books do not have “blogs” listed.  The other three texts have single paragraph listings that define blogs as a “personal journal.” Only one book mentions that blogs can be used as a two-way communication tool.

Only one book has “wiki” listed.  That particular text gives an excellent definition and examples of how wikis can be used in an educational environment.  Unfortunately, five of the books do not even mention the term.

Comparing these books with texts I have from the nineties is almost comical.  One of the books goes on and on about “gopher” and “archie” and how each can be used in education.  There is no mention of Google.

What will our textbooks be talking about in five more years?

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Image of Mother Ohio

Posted on August 19, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

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Tonight at dinner my wife had this perfect image of Ohio fall onto her fork.  It is from the graham cracker crust of a wonderful butterscotch pie. 

Does it have a prophetic meaning?  Is it an omen?  Could we get cash from it on eBay?

We have left messages with the Pope, Jim Tressel and the Golden Palace .

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Vistativo

Posted on August 18, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I have had a TV tuner card for many years.   I have used it as a streaming TV server that I created using the tuner card and Microsoft Media Encoder.  The TV signal comes into the computer with the tuner and Media Encoder streams the encoded signal out to any PC on my network.  It works great, but I don’t use it that much.  I don’t watch that much TV period.  Then I do it is something on the History Channel.  Using the system as a homemade Tivo was doable, but required a fair amount of manual interaction any time I wanted to record something.  First I had find out when the show would be on.  I do not get TV guide, so that wasn’t always easy.  I had to manually put in the date and start time followed by the duration of the recording.

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Vista’s Media Center changes all that.  I popped the TV card into a Vista machine.  The OS asked for my cable provider.  Based on my zip code it figured out all the channels I get.  Periodically it goes across the Internet and gets an updated schedule.  At any time it has about ten days worth of scheduling data.  I can scroll through and select something to watch.  If the show isn’t on at the moment, it asks if I want to schedule it to be recorded.  If the show is a series, it asks if I want to record the whole series.  Really cool.

All this is built into Vista’s Media Center and costs nothing extra to use if you have a TV tuner card.

All the recorded content can be viewed from other computers as well.  You do have to watch the hard drive space.  One hour of video takes up about 4 GB of disk space.  You can archive recorded TV on a DVD or CD, but that takes time and planning.

I still don’t watch that much TV, but it is nice to have the convenience of making a digital copy whenever something as big as High School Musical 2 hits the Disney Channel… at least the kids think so.

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