by Scott Miller on August 28, 2009
We have a satellite imagery group that is responsible for analyzing imagery of nuclear sites. They were looking for ways to allow their data to be used by others who are not spatial imagery experts. The data included raster data(Satellite imagery), vector data (Shapefiles), and photos and documents. They were interested in using publicly available imagery data(e.g. Google earth, Bing Maps) and integrated all this into a single application.
I did a prototype using Microsoft Silverlight and the Bing Maps Silverlight Control. The requirements for this prototype were:
- Quickly navigate to nuclear sites
- Show pictures and documents for that nuclear site
- Overlay our internal satellite data and vector data for the site
- Integrate a spatial search capability
The prototype was done in 3 weeks. I had already done projects with Windows Presentation Foundation so learning Silverlight was straightforward. The difficulty in using Silverlight is knowing what was missing.
Six usability tests(nuclear inspector persona) were done and that feedback plus the feedback from the satellite imagery group was used to update the design.
I had to remove the satellite imagery layers due to license restrictions, but you can view the demo without those layers.
Click here to view the demo…
Or you can view 6 screen shots below
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Navigate to a nuclear site
Choose a country. Map zooms to country.
Choose a site. Map zooms to site and the site icon and the layer panel appear for that site.
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by Scott Miller on August 22, 2009
Recently I purchased a Logitech Squeezebox Duet to allow me to wirelessly stream music from my Windows Home Server. I ran into a number of problems, so I decided to document the steps I took to get this working.
Steps Overview:
- Verify your wireless connection can stream music(optional)
- Upgrade your Windows Home Server hardware(optional)
- Setup the SqueezeCenter software on your Windows Home Server
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by Scott Miller on August 12, 2009
I live in Vienna Austria and here we use a payment system called Bankomat. Some machines were found with a cover over them that allowed criminals to get your card security details to either steal money from your account or make purchases.
The cover looked like the original and did not interfere with the purchases. Some people did report that their cards had to be inserted farther into the machine and they were difficult to remove, but otherwise you would not notice
How did it work? As the card was inserted it would record the magnetic strip details. When the PIN was typed it would be recorded while at the same time allow the original keys to be pressed. The cover was later collected and the information was used to steal money from your account.
