Latest News

The grandparent role has been a major focus for us. We also have some work going on revamping our landscaping and irrigation system in our front yard. We have eliminated most of the grass and are creating a tropical look and feel with masses of ferns and other tropical plants. I have, for a long time, realized that I can no longer do major jobs such as digging, moving large plants, etc. due to my arthritis. One of my neighbors runs a landscaping service. I talked to several of my neighbors who use his company and they had high praise for service So we let our old "Mow and Go" service go and hired him. In effect, we now have a gardner and the yard is beginning to show that. Once the major revamping is done, he will go back into maintenance mode and that frees me up for doing special things such as fertilizing, trimming, and planting of detail plants. That is the stuff I enjoy and can do and the new service will take care of the mowing, major edging, and weeding.

I have been working very hard on administering two of my websites, http://fs-freeflow.Com and http://fs-odg.Com . These sites as you can See are techically based flight simulator sites and I am the technical administrator by self assignment. I have been developing automatic database backups for the two sites as none existed until now. They are driven entirely by databases and those databases contain all of the site info.

One of the sites had a major catastrophe in which they lost the entire site and I had to rebuild the database as well as implement the backup routines. I don't enjoy this work as much as other aspects of the effort but it had to be done.

At the same time I have been revamping our personal web site as you know to convert it to a database driven site. The main reason for that is that in the long run it will be easier to manage. In the process of converting it over I am trying to make it more coherent while transferring a lot of the info from the old site to the new. I am using a software package that once fully implemented makes changing the content a breeze.

I have restored about 75 feet of our 175 feet of fencing that got blown down in the hurricane. I feel that I am getting old after wrestling With 8 foot fence sections and fence posts. I was able to use much of the old fencing on the side yard but the back was totally destroyed and must be built back from scratch. Home Depot cannot keep prebuilt fence sections on the shelves because they are in such demand due to the hurricanes.

Google Cube a Rumor or Reality?

This is one of the more interesting rumors floating around about new products. This one is regarding a supposed new product that Google is developiing, the Google Cube. This sounds very much like the Webtv and MSNTV devices that are out there now. Those set top boxes were the result of an interesting concept many years ago to produce an easy to use and inexpensive device that allowed browsing the internet, sending and receiving email, and displaying digital photos and playing music files. The development of this device has been slow. The potential of the concept is great. It sounds as though Google may pursue something that could inject new life into this small niche market. Read the article below from CNN for a very interesting discussion of the rumored, "Google Cube."

Tracking the elusive Google 'cube' | News.blog | CNET News.com

2005 was a full and active year for us. Bob continued flying his radio controlled helicopter through the spring. Bob also became very involved in a flight simulator scenery development project. You can see the results at http://www.fs-freeflow.com. We had the usual hurricanes to run from. One of them, Dennis delayed the big trip we had planned to drive out west and up into Canada. Dennis was a close call for us causing power outages and the usual wind and rain but it passed far enough south of us that we did not evacuate. That trip did take place and if your browse the Blog archives you can find a lot to read about our adventure. We had to cut it short because our new granddaughter, Amanda, was due to arrive and she did on September 29. We went through the eye of Hurricane Wilma, a category 2 storm. There were major power outages and structural damage throughout South Florida. We are thankful that all we lost was our fence. The house came through ok although inspection revealed that we almost lost our screened pool enclosure. Contrary to our storm plan we stayed put and moved the Mothership up close to the house. After the storm we evacuated to Dunedin, Florida for a couple of weeks until power was restored in our home town.

Today, the first one of 2006, we are thankful for good friends and family and all of the adventures that we have been on. We wish all of our readers a Happy New Year!

Tropical Storm Zeta

I nearly fell out of my chair. I just got an email alert regaring a new tropical storm. A new storm at the end of December? What is going on? Anyway, just in case you think I am pulling your leg here is the bulletin:

ZCZC MIATCPAT5 ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
BULLETIN
TROPICAL STORM ZETA SPECIAL ADVISORY NUMBER 1
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
1 PM AST FRI DEC 30 2005

...LATE SEASON TROPICAL STORM...THE 27TH OF THE YEAR...FORMS IN THE
EASTERN ATLANTIC...

AT 1 PM AST...1700Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM ZETA WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 25.0 NORTH... LONGITUDE 36.9 WEST OR ABOUT 1070
MILES...1720 KM... SOUTHWEST OF THE AZORES.

ZETA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 8 MPH ...13 KM/HR. A TURN
TO THE WEST-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 50 MPH... 85 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. ALTHOUGH SOME STRENGTHENING IS POSSIBLE LATER TODAY...A
WEAKENING TREND IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN TOMORROW.

TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES
...140 KM FROM THE CENTER.

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1003 MB...29.62 INCHES.

REPEATING THE 1 PM AST POSITION...25.0 N... 36.9 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...NORTHWEST NEAR 8 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS... 50 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1003 MB.

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL
HURRICANE CENTER AT 5 PM AST.

FORECASTER FRANKLIN

Smart stuff - the world's smartest stuff.

Smart stuff - the world's smartest stuff.

I love this site. Of course, you all know by now that I am a gadget addict. I think it runs in my family. Nevertheless, I think you all might enjoy visiting this site to view all of the latest and most unique gadgets.

Web maps going head to head

As a retired geographer I am really happy to see the head to head competition between Microsoft and Google to create the best online mapping applications. I must say that the new application Microsoft has come up with is pretty impressive. I have not really learned to use all of the features yet but you can go to their http://local.live.com/ site yourself and decide. Then go to http://maps.google.com/ and compare. I have the most experience with Google Maps at this point and love the ability to create my own applications using their program interface. It is also my understanding that Google Maps does not work that well on the set top internet boxes such as Webtv and MSNTV. I have heard, but not tested it, that the Microsoft application works better on those devices. That would make sense as Microsoft produces those TV based browsers. The bottom line is that this fight between giants to produce the best web maps can only be good for us users and for geographers it is thrilling to see this take place.

Open Everything

Open Everything: My previous post on Google Maps relates to this discussion. API mashups do appear to be the future of web applications. Here is a quote from the posted link:



"Application mashups (not to be confused with the music by the same name) are combinations of already availible APIs in a productive and useful - and usually cool - state. For example, the Google Maps interface allows you to enter in your own addresses to plot. Using this and some zip code data from the popular site 'Hot or Not', there's been an interactive map that shows users' locations. This simple example shows the real power that some of these mashups have, and it's all thanks to the open sharing of information that is offered through their APIs."