Re: hardware research budget

Hey Tracy, I agree about the circulation of new tech to test when
possible; limiting factors being time, money and purpose.  
Some analyst having none and others all three or combinations.  

Not all have to be passed about and tested, for example, I completely
trust your evaluation (house peer reviewer) of the Triton and do not
have to have it hand and tested it myself.  It is more important that we
are able to return it and perhaps get something else to use/test.  

We currently have a hardware, software, etc listing... that are shared
via Will's documentation (see attachment) and I'm assuming he is
managing.  
This is a great addition and makes a bit less informal a previously
very informal and less known process of resource sharing.  We can add to
this listing by emailing Will.
A database would be cool, but not sure if the demand and frequency of
transactions are there.  

Also, not sure about (could be wording issue here) buying JUST to test
and pass around.  Generally,for me; there's enough of an issue to get
hardware for which I have a sense of purpose so I doubt that I would
spend the little money that I have, just to buy to test and pass around.
 And I'm in a fairly good position being a hybrid of BDB and OSPR
(source of equipment funding-wise).  

Perhaps since BDB is GIS central; it can take some of the XX percent
overhead for GIS positions and allocate towards R/D and have the GIS
folks collectively decide what new tech to try out?

My 2 cents....  What do you think?

Isaac





Isaac Oshima
ioshima@...
Research Program Specialist 1, GIS
California Department of Fish and Game
><((((º>
Office of Spill Prevention and Response
1700 K Street, Suite 150
Sacramento, California 95814
916-324-9817
916-324-8829 fax

>>> "Tracy Love" <tlove@...> 2008-03-12 10:25 AM >>>
what i was thinking of was more along the lines of being able to
purchase hardware JUST to test and pass around for everyone to play
with. maybe its a silly idea, but im thinking of a hardware library sort
of, and i see this as part of fulfilling our science initiative and the
directive that "a modern scientific infrastructure forms the basis of
the Departments ability to uphold the integrity of current scientific
programs and to study emerging challenges" (directors memo from
November).
 
it just seemed kind of a shame to send back the magellan triton i just
had. it didnt fulfill my need but it would have been great to have sent
it to sac and put it on a list somewhere for anyone to check out like a
library book. it doesnt mean that your going to do a critical review of
it but if someone does a critical review of the unit then that person
can act as a in house peer reviewer.
 
Along these lines we would have a hardware library that went beyond GIS
gear and included stuff like remote sampling and data loggers,
UMPC/tablet pc, bar code tools, rfid, etc etc.  
just a crazy idea
 
 
Tracy Love
Research Analyst
tlove@...
California Department of Fish and Game
Bay Delta Region
p.o box 47
Yountville, CA
707-944-5532
(cell) 707-227-4568

>>> "Steven Goldman" <sgoldman@...> 3/11/2008 11:01 AM >>>
Hey all,

Regarding a hardware budget, at BDB we generally have a decent
equipment budget so there is potential there.  If we're going to be
purchasing stuff for testing though we really need some standard
metrics
to report back to the group.  This again is really where a wiki site
on
the intranet would come in handy.  ITB is really stalling on doing
anything about that - I'll bug them again.

Alex, I know you have some standard accuracy testing that you do,
which
is great.  BTW, it sounds like you have a Juno, yes?  I'm purchasing a
couple for Isaac to use at OSPR and was thinking of adding one more to
the order for wider testing use, if that would be helpful for anyone.
-Steve

>>> "Tracy Love" <tlove@...> 3/6/2008 11:17 AM >>>
(fyi ; ive been doing allot of google mashup stuff lately, super cool
not so hard turns out)

its an ARM processor and the screen resolution is 800 * 480 so some
things would be a pain i would think to port.  

i have been spending a fair amount of time looking at x86 based UMPCS
particularly the ones with GEODE or VIA  processors but few have
daylight readable displays and the cost is still up there for an
agency
like DFG. but yes cross platform application would be tremendous but i
have a hard time seeing staff useing say QGIS or UDIG on a UMPC in the
field, just not tailored enough.  

the n810 mapping application apparently is purely orriented towards
raster and those developing it have no plan on integrating reading say
KML ontop of the raster background. thier raster method is apparently
to
read google style tile sets directly from disk. so i believe you can
create your own tile sets (ive seen the tools) without needing to work
through a server. but i have been wondering if a server setup on the
unit could facilitate dynamic shp/kml rendering.  

i need to buy one of those bluetooth ones and try it out (geeez i need
a real hardware research budget)
the one that caught my eye recently was at the semsons site under data
loggers....

http://www.semsons.com/hogr3bldalog.html 

it uses a AA battery and still runs for a fair time, works as a data
logger or bluetooth

DFG needs a general hardware research budget where we buy gear and
pass
it around for groups JUST to test
so for gps we would buy members of the trimble line
and also buy a number of PDA/ tablet/UMPC products for mobile
computing
testing





Tracy Love
Research Analyst
tlove@...
California Department of Fish and Game
Bay Delta Region
p.o box 47
Yountville, CA
707-944-5532
(cell) 707-227-4568


>>> "Alex Mandel" <amandel@...> 3/6/2008 12:47 AM >>>
I'll be real interested to hear about results. Keep in mind since it's
a linux platform it shouldn't be to hard to package up some really
good
software for it. I'll check up with the QGIS developers to see if any
of
them have a had chance to try it yet. I bet we could also setup a
local
WMS service with an OpenLayers html page locally on the device to
server
raster tiles ourself in a web browser as well as any other Library
layers we want over the web.

What interests me the most though is that with a real OS we can look
at
things like Python and Java more realistically for cross platform
multi
device programs.

In terms of the GPS you can easily add a bluetooth one from this page
http://www.semsons.com/bluetgpsrec.html 
I've used the Holux m1000 but heard good things about the iBlue too.

I'm currently running field tests of statistical significance with the
Holux M1000, Garmin 60Csx, Trimble Juno and Timble Geo XT and will let
you all know the results of that test when they become available.

Alex


>>> On 3/5/2008 at 18:08, "Tracy Love" <tlove@...> wrote:
> so we recently ordered and are about to return a new magellan triton
2000
> the thing can display raster maps
> but overall it sucks so back it goes
>
> today i just ordered a Nokia n810 to test out for the same pourpose
> 1. daylight read able screen
> 2. built in keyboard
> 3. cheap nokia battery
> 4. built in gps (not the best one though)
> 5. Maemo Mapper which apparently downloads google tiles as the
mapping have a much
>
>> better battery life then all the UMPCs I've looked at.
>> For kicks also take a peek at the Asus eepc.
>> http://eeepc.asus.com/global/ 
>>
>> Alex
>
> Forgot to mention the Nokia 810 too.
>
http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-N810-Portable-Internet-Tablet/dp/B000Y4AH3C/ref=pd_b



> bs_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1204755981&sr=8-11
>
> Alex






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