Economical GPS Receivers

Okay, so I’ll bet that every OSM advocate has been asked by an OSM newbie: “so what GPS receiver should I buy?” A mapper at my NYC Saturday party was frustrated practically to the point of tears that he’d bought a GPS receiver that didn’t keep a track for him to download. It had a memory card, yes, but it didn’t store tracks on it, just maps.

I don’t want that to happen again, so I’m doing some research on affordable, economical GPS receivers which are appropriate for the kind of mapping that we’re doing. You don’t really need a display, because you’re not using the GPS receiver as a guide, you’re using it as a recorder. That’s good, because it eliminates the color screen GPS receivers from consideration. It also eliminates all personal navigation devices from consideration; they never keep a track anyway.

Thus, we’re now looking at GPS data loggers. I see three general kinds: a very bare logger (just a power switch and a couple of LED status lights — and I already have one of those), a logger with a pushbutton which lets you take a waypoint, and a logger which records audio. I’ve bought the two kinds that I don’t already own. The push-to-waypoint model is the Amod AGL3080 ($70) and the audio-waypoint model is the Columbus V-900 ($100). They both have enough memory for a full day’s worth of 1-second track logging, and enough battery life for a full day’s work.

I’ll post another blog entry when they’ve arrived and I’ve tested them. If anybody has any suggestions for alternative economical GPS receivers, please comment here.

February 28th, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 3 Comments

Window seats are detremental to your health

I did something extraordinary last week… I flew from Denver to Los Angeles.
Ok, ok. That’s not that special. True, I wasn’t the one flapping my wings (my arms would tire out!) I was on a Frontier flight with Trixie on the tip of the wing as the mascot… but it was the flight itself that was spectacular.

I’m supposed to be working. Diligently plugging away at a spreadsheet, entering every contact and outreach I’ve done for parties lately. Tedious, yes. Necessary, unquestionable.  It is an efficient use of my time. If I had an aisle seat…
But I prefer the window. Our world is so beautiful and I knew I would be passing over some of my favorite parts of this planet. To start off I have a bluebird day view of my favorite ski resorts from 30,000 feet. I saw in fine, tiny detail, the road zigzag over Berthoud Pass on it’s way to Winter Park. And from this high up, Loveland is just one peak away! So close, yet over an hour away when you’re on the ground.
From Loveland I then saw the engineering feat of Eisenhower Tunnel that crawls through over a mile inside the Continental Divide. It didn’t look any less amazing from my view. That is one long tunnel!

Next I could pick out Silverthorne and Keystone where I went skiing and mapping last weekend! I could see hwy. 6 wind its way north towards Steamboat. No, I couldn’t see Steamboat exactly, but I knew it was part of that beautiful white landscape in the distance. The Gore Range was just as dramatic from the sky as it is staring up at it from the hiking trails. The sharp peaks separating Vail Valley and the Blue River Valley.  Vail seemed huge, which it is.

My eyes followed the curves of the valleys and canyons westward as the plan turned slightly south. Perfect! We headed straight for Aspen! The Aspen and Glenwood Springs area is unique for its red rocks and the snow coverage made it that much more stunning. The south facing slopes were a rusty red while the northern slopes were buried in more that 60 inches of fluffy white stuff (I checked the snow report yesterday ).

In a few weeks, I’ll be working in Aspen at the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse finishline and from 30,000 feet I could imagine the tracks the racers will soon be making, with a starting time at midnight. This is one heck of a race folks, but this is a story for another time.

After enjoying the breathtaking views of the Colorado 14ers I did turn my attention to the computer screen.
That is until I recognized the most beautiful scenery I have come to see in my short life. The Grand Canyon. It was more of a physical pull to glance out the window again. And when I finally couldn’t resist anymore, I gazed upon the Lee’s Ferry, where a year ago I launched on the most amazing adventure of my life. I’m not ashamed to admit it brought me to tears. There is nothing quite as magical, spiritual– heck it’s difficult to tag words to the way that canyon changes you. I snapped 78 pictures with my iPhone of the canyon. I could pick out some of the rapids! Holy moly, from 30,000 feet I could see the whitewater thrashing through the canyon! That my friends, is some BIG water. But I know that, I did it last year. It was quite a treat to see the faults and rifts from the air. I had studied them and worked my way through their labyrinth, but this view put it all in perspective. This– is the big picture. To end it all, while I wiped away my last tear (seriously) I spotted Vulcan’s Throne. It looked so tiny! But I knew better.

For those of you who don’t know much about that canyon, know this– the biggest rapid in that mile deep canyon is Lava Falls. Massive doesn’t even begin to give it credit.  It is so big, from 3,300 feet above it, you can still hear it roar… while camping above Lava Falls (you know, so we can steel our nerves by listening to the deafening roar all night long– totally comforting) we took a day hike across the river. This was day 23 of being deep inside the Grand and we made plans to ‘rim out’.

A crazy scramble up to the top of Vulcan’s throne. There was no trail, we just went up. Smart? Probably not.

Our campsite is down on the river bank below me...

But we wanted to see what flat land looked like. After toping three false summits, we finally climbed to the outer rim… only to see this 300’ dome of rock to the north. Heck, if we’ve climbed this far, we aren’t going to let anything stand taller or higher than us! So we clambered up the side of the scree pile. Two steps up, only to slide down two steps worth and then some…not exactly fun when you’re already tired, out of water and hungry. But none of us quit. We all two stepped up, slid down somehow  miraculously going forward to the top.

Our scramble up Vulcan’s Throne…

Vulcan's Throne

This is our rewarding view.

Flat land view

View from the plane

And the best reward at all, and the moral of the story (gee, I didn’t start this with a moral)… is there’s always a beer at the finishline. Thanks to Mark, who carried 3 precious Heineken’s to the top of Vulcan’s Throne.
Go find your mountain, or better yet, it’ll probably find you and climb it. Trust me, it’s worth it and the beer tastes that much better.

And yes, the spreadsheet is done

February 27th, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 0 Comments

OSM Education Pilot Project at SFSU

Over the past two weeks I piloted the first OpenStreetMap educational program with students in Professor Paula Levine of San Francisco State University Locative Studio course. During the three day program, students focused on mastering the OSM editors, mapping their campus, and brainstorming unique ways to use OSM in their art projects. You can find our wiki page for the project here.

The students also had the opportunity to work with the CloudMade Style Editor. During this session, students were able to create their own styles of the Cloudmade OSM tiles. If you are interested in learning more about our education project, please contact me, Sarah Manley, at Sarah@cloudmade.com.

February 25th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments

Midwest forecast: A warm map front moving in.

As a lifelong resident of the Midwest, I have a deep-seeded affection for the wintertime traditions that we pride ourselves on.  I find happiness in a good session of ‘shoveling the sidewalk‘.  I delight in a lengthy and brisk regiment of ‘trudging through the snow‘.  I jump at the chance to go ‘dig out the car‘.

As much as I relish these seasonal activities, I also enjoy another tried and true pasttime….‘getting the heck out of here and going somewhere warm’.

The next couple of weekends I’ll be leaving the cold behind, and traveling to the Lone Star State of Texas.  I’ll be following in the footsteps of fellow Community Ambassador Sarah Manley as I host mapping parties in San Antonio on Saturday, Feb. 28th, and Austin on Sunday, March 1st. The following weekend I’ll be hosting a pair of parties in the Dallas area, and doing my best to fill in for Central Region Community Ambassador, Hurricane McKewen.  If you know anyone in the Dallas area, have them mark their calendars for March 7th and 8th.

This past weekend, I got things started in my neck of the woods with a mapping party at Chicago’s aptly named Map Room Tavern.  It was an enjoyable time with several friends, OSM contributor Nick Vetrovec (nickvet419), and several patrons whose interest was piqued amidst a lively Sunday afternoon crowd.  Mother Nature was not on our side, the streets and sidewalks were still covered in snow and slush from Saturday’s winter storm, and temps were in the 20’s (that’s Fahrenheit mind you).   -For those who made it, twas a perfect day for ‘armchair’ mapping.

With the weather prohibiting us from enjoying an afternoon of mapping the neighborhood, we stayed inside and kept the laptops humming throughout the afternoon.   Our group fit in well amongst a laptop heavy crowd.   I was particularly pleased that Chicago-area map champ, NickVet419, was able to make it.  It was great getting the chance to see first hand some of the numerous contributions he has made to the Chicago-area map, and US wiki pages.  One highlight I enjoyed were ‘parking aisles’ that he’s worked to have added to the map, here’s a sample of his work from Chicagoland’s Woodfield Mall:

As spring starts to rear its head here in the Midwest, you can look for additional mapping parties and other exciting developments occurring throughout the Midwest in the coming months.  In addition to a series of springtime mapping parties, Chicago is also preparing itself for a potential visit by CloudMade’s own, Steve Coast.  Steve is scheduled to address the Flourish! Open Source Conference, taking place April 3-4 in Chicago.

If you have any thoughts/suggestions/or questions about CloudMade and OpenStreetMap’s activities in the Midwest, please contact Midwest Community Ambassador Dirk Munson at: dirk@cloudmade.com.

February 25th, 2009 - Posted by Dirk Munson | 0 Comments

OpenStreetMap at SCaLE 2009!

There always seems to be a great mix of conventions going on at the same time. If you’re ‘lucky’ in Las Vegas, you might get a porn convention next door to the technology expo, which was the case this past year. In LA,  the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) was in full swing as well as movie tryouts and a poker competition just down the hall at the Westin LAX. This all made for some interesting conversation at the bar after work… but that’s another story. Thursday Things kicked off on Thursday when I got stuck in the elevator with Mr. Joe Guarino of Evolutionary IT. Joe hails from Boston and was in town to give a presentation on FOSS games. After riding the elevator on it’s choice of ups and downs for several minutes (the doors wouldn’t open, otherwise yes– I would’ve just gotten off and taken the stairs) we decided to join each other for dinner to continue our conversations. We took a taxi to Manhattan Beach (my idea– being that I’m land-locked in Colorado, I had a strong urge to see/feel the ocean) and took in the pier, walked the tourist shops and settled in to Rock n’ Fish restaurant, which came recommended not only by the hotel but also the locals we stopped on the sidewalk. If you’re ever in Manhattan Beach, I also recommend Rock n’ Fish! Excellent fresh fish, great wine selection and entertaining people watching. http://www.rocknfishmb.com/ Friday Friday was formally a day to set up booths and get registered for SCaLE. I met up with Blars Blarson late in the morning for a tour of LA. Blars is a long time OpenStreetMapper and had organized a speech on OSM as well as helped at the booth. He was very generous to drive me around LA to look for venues for the upcoming parties next month. At the sponsored lunch I met Stormy Peters! Cool name, eh? She is very involved with the GNOME project as well as a resident of Colorado and RICE alumni. She will be a great contact for Houston parties! She gave several presentations this weekend with topics from “women in open source” to “communities and communication”. My afternoon was also spent outside researching venues for OSM parties. I met up with my old buddy Ron Bostwick who I hadn’t seen in 6 years. He was in town for the Oscars. He has been visiting LA for 35 years and had a few choice places to show me. We drove over to Venice Beach as well as Marina del Rey, both great areas that not only need mapping but are beautiful places with several ‘musts’ for parties (easy parking, wifi, etc.) Thanks to Ron for driving me around and helping me pick up my Kinko’s order! Ron is from Boulder, Co and has several contacts for cycling clubs as well. At dinner Friday night, I met Jesse Trucks with the League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA) and David from Cononical.

Saturday Saturday came quickly and it was a busy day at the OpenStreetMap booth! Our location was the first table to the right as people walked in to the convention room. You couldn’t miss us! It was great exposure.  We had a large desktop computer to play with OpenStreetMap online, JOSM and Potlatch ‘get started’ handouts (about 800 were handed out!), Cloudmade business cards (I went through a whole box!) as well as pins, stickers and a bowl of almonds (it’s amazing how those nuts disappeared ) Richard Weait was at the convention and was super generous with his time at the OpenStreetMap booth! Sometimes we were seriously swamped with people and he would come up to help answer questions, talk about the upcoming parties and hand out information. He is a long time mapper and was a great resource for me to learn from as well!

At 11:30 Blars gave a presentation on OpenStreetMap to a full room, about 50 people. It was quite informative and well tailored to a techy audience. His speech led to several conversations afterwards that continued at the booth. In the afternoon I followed Richard around to meet new people in the industry. Being a great networker, he introduced me to Cat and Leslie of Google, Pete from Intel and Aaron with The_Source. I also ran in to Kat from ‘Linux Gazette’ who would like us to write an article on “How OSM makes Linux Fun”. At 9pm later that the evening Blars hosted a BoF (Birds of a Feather) for OpenStreetMap. It was at the same time as the reception for SCaLE so I networked with that group while he was at the BoF. Blars brought the group  over to the reception where we continued to talk about the possibilities with OSM for a while longer. Sunday Sunday started out with the same mass of passionate open source people. I worked the floor more Sunday, visiting the other booths to expand my knowledge of the Open Source community and Linux users. Watch out, Hurricane’s turning techy! I also filmed a Podcast with Aaron Newcomb of The_Source. He was super curious about OSM and asked all the right questions. It should be a great show! Look for a blog in the coming weeks– I’ll let you know when the Podcast goes live! The types of people who came up to the booth were quite varied. Some of the more interesting groups that came to learn more about OSM was a Black History Club that wants to map all of the historical sites,  a gentleman who was passionate about mapping gas stations and a couple who wants to mark the trials in the state parks in their area. Several students from the universities in the area stopped by as well: USC, Cal Tech, and LMU to name a few. I hope to see all of them at the upcoming parties!! Beyond Los Angeles, I met folks who want OpenStreetMap Ambassadors to visit their cities: Phoenix and Tempe, AZ, Lexington, KY, Boston, MA is just a short list. There were also a few individuals who want to know more about OSM for Peru, mission work in Central America and Paraguay.

Blars Blarson and Hurricane McEwen

Monday Whew! It has been a whirlwind week of SCaLE and I’m looking forward to getting back to Colorado! I will be organizing the new contacts and letting my fellow ambassadors know about the outreach to their areas. Then I’ll probably take a ‘weekend’ to recharge my batteries and do my second favorite thing after mapping parties: mapping my ski resorts Happy Mapping everyone!

February 24th, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 0 Comments

Party renders for Somerville

I did party renders for Saturday and Sunday in Somerville. Enjoy!

February 18th, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 0 Comments

Somerville mapping party goes to 11

This mapping party goes to 11, even in spite of going up against Boskone. I hung out in the lobby of the Westin where the Boskone science fiction convention was being held, and ran into three people who were excited about the idea of OpenStreetMap, but were going to the conference instead of my party. Still, there were 11 people at the mapping party, some of whom had already mapped, or tried to map but ran into software obfuscation. Hopefully they’re past that problem now, and mapping like a pro.

February 15th, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 0 Comments

Winter Wonderland

So it’s cold outside. White, frozen, windy.. and did I mention cold? Why fight the winter when you can join it! That’s the plan this weekend in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. The local ski resorts have received up to two feet of new fluffy snow, depending on where you want to go and we’re in search of the deepest stash!

Tomorrow I set out on an adventure with some new friends who are passionate about boarding.  I unfortunately haven’t been on my snowboard in over a decade, so I’ll be tagging along on my tele-boards, knee-dipping with every stride.

I’ll be setting up everyone with GPS units as we divvy up the mountain maps and track the resorts! But it doesn’t end there– oh, no! We’ll be checkin’ out the latest night hotspots, best apres parties and local clubs!

Sarah is on a similar mission in California, where she and friends have lots of fresh powpow to enjoy too!

We’ll report back next week on all the fun and hope to make a dent soon on the Open Piste Map here in the States.

Enjoy your weekend! And remember to embrace the winter

Until next time, keep on tracing!

Hurricane

February 13th, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 0 Comments

Thanks for helping map Mountain View!

Before the mapping party                                                After the mapping party

What a difference a weekend can make! The above OSM maps, are a comparison of downtown Mountain View before and after this past weekend’s OpenStreetMap mapping party. The weather Saturday was ideal for mapping (Sunday sadly was not), and we were able to get more points of interest, parks and even Foothill College onto the OSM map. Approximately 25 people attended the event at Red Rock Coffee, for great conversation and mapping! Below is a picture of participants learning how to create traces and waypoints on their GPS units. Check the OpenStreetMap site to find and add more detail to the Mountain View Map!

February 11th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 1 Comments

Texas Hospitality

Howdy from Dallas, Texas!

Where the BBQ is known to be wet and dry, they call you ma’am or sir and always wish for “y’all come back now, ya hear.”

It was a whirlwind weekend in northern Dallas for our OpenStreetMap event. Saturday began with a brunch meeting with the Dallas Open Source group, led by John Fields. We had about 10 people join us for a presentation on the OSM project and how they can locally impact the map!

Several people switched venues to Trinity Hall Pub where the OSM meeting based from. Saturday’s weather was beautiful and we held the event outside with free wifi!

One group made a big impact on the West Elm area of town, way-pointing several places from Coldstone Creamery to GAP and the local independent movie theater.  Another open source group went out to map some of Southern Methodist University while John Fields and I ‘armchair mapped’ the Greek Street.

Fellow Dallas Open Source member Nathan has already taken lead on teaching others to ‘armchair map’ as well!

Sunday we didn’t luck out with the weather as rain fell in the early afternoon, but it cleared later on. By car, a new OSM member drove out to their favorite little niche which has a bar called “hurricane alley”. It’s now officially on the map!

We also stayed inside at Trinity Hall, enjoyed a pint and worked with aerial data as well as an info session to learn more about Potlatch and addressing.
A  special shout goes out to all my new OSM buddies in Dallas, they are gracious hosts, fun tour guides and I look forward to mapping with them in the future!

Yeehaw,

Hurricane

February 9th, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 0 Comments