WHOS-IN Pro 2006 (a who's in and who's out office board)

http://www.hudsoft.com/products/whosin/index.html WHOS-IN Pro 2006 is THE multi-award winning, easy-to-use, in-out board for businesses and organizations that would like to know who's in and who's out of the office.

Eric Gunnerson's C# Compendium : Using GC Efficiently

Eric Gunnerson's C# Compendium : Using GC Efficiently Using GC Efficiently Spending lots of time on C++ means I haven't been paying as much attention to managed code as I did in the past, and I missed an excellent series of articles by Maoni about the GC. They are: Using GC Efficiently – Part 1 Using GC Efficiently – Part 2 Using GC Efficiently – Part 3 Using GC Efficiently – Part 4 Go read Maoni's blog for lots of other useful information (Large object heap, etc.) Published Thursday, May 11, 2006 12:35 PM by ericgu Filed Under: CSharp, Programming

NMEA Parser Design

NMEA Parser Design Other interesting GPS coding links: edjez's WebLog http://blogs.msdn.com/edjez/archive/2005/02/20/377187.aspx Where the Heck am I? Connecting .NET 2.0 to a GPS Scott Hanselman (Coding4Fun) http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/someassemblyrequired/whereami/default.aspx

Adding Dogpile search to the Internet Explorer 7's Toolbar search box

Add DogPile search to the IE7 SearchBar Add DogPile search to IE7 SearchBar

Adding Merriam Webster to the Internet Explorer 7's Toolbar search box

Did not find a link to add M-W to the search box of IE7 from Microsoft's site : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/default_new.mspx Found out that its based on the OpenSearch description standard. So created one for use with Merriam Webster and here it is for your use. Click on the following link to: Add Merriam Webster Search to the Internet Explorer 7 Toolbar Search Box

Type Changes between ArcGIS 8.3 and ArcGIS 9.0

Type Changes between ArcGIS 8.3 and ArcGIS 9.0 This page documents the changes in namespaces as well as assembly names between ArcGIS 8.3 and ArcGIS 9.0. A required resource, when you are trying to port code from Arc83 to Arc90.

Overwatch Systems Purchases Visual Learning Systems - Official press release

From : http://www.geospatial.overwatch.com/ow_news_pressreleases/VLS_acquired.html The official press release: Overwatch Systems Purchases Visual Learning Systems MORRISTOWN, N.J., USA, 1 May 2006 – Overwatch Systems today announced that it has acquired Visual Learning Systems (VLS) of Missoula, MT. The purchase became effective on April 28, 2006.Founded in 1999 by Dr. David Opitz and Stuart Blundell, VLS is the worldwide leader in automated feature extraction solutions (AFE) for geographic information systems (GIS). The company's innovative software applications provide assisted and automated tools for extracting geospatial features of interest from imagery with the highest measure of speed and accuracy. VLS’ tools provide a key bridging technology between the raster based world of imaging and the vector based world of mapping. VLS's flagship product, Feature Analyst®, debuted in 2001 and quickly garnered industry-wide attention. Feature Analyst earned "Most Innovative Solution" in the 2002 ArcGIS Challenge Contest sponsored by ESRI, the world's leading provider of GIS software. In 2005, VLS introduced LIDAR Analyst™ to automate the extraction of 3D terrain surfaces, buildings, trees, and forest areas from LIDAR.The VLS product line is an outstanding extension of the current Overwatch Systems product offerings. Overwatch Systems was formed from the combined the resources of five companies – Sensor Systems, Paragon Imaging, Austin Info Systems, ITSpatial and Federal IT – to provide a suite of integrated geospatial and intelligence fusion software tools for the defense/intelligence community. This toolset, known as the Overwatch Intelligence Center (OIC), focuses on providing situational awareness by enabling analysts to generate relevant, actionable intelligence faster and more effectively for the warfighter, first reponder and decision maker. The Overwatch OIC will contribute to transforming the Intelligence Community with low-cost collaboration tools. The addition of VLS to the Overwatch OIC family will enhance analysts’ productivity by streamlining the way they examine, evaluate, learn and record geospatial information. The senior management of VLS has chosen to use a portion of its transaction proceeds to invest back into Overwatch Systems and will continue to manage the company. VLS will report to Kirk Brown, President of Overwatch Geospatial Operations, formerly Sensor Systems, based in Sterling, Va. Brown was a key advocate for acquiring VLS and expressed his enthusiasm for the transaction.“Visual Learning Systems enables us to offer our customers market-leading feature extraction tools that fit well within our historical engineering design philosophy. VLS enhances analysts’ productivity with feature extraction tools that are fast, accurate, and require only a minimum of user interaction and guidance. Their market offering will also deepen our customer relations with the growing cadre of geospatial analysts in the military and intelligence community both here in the US as well as in the international community. VLS helps Overwatch fulfill our mission to deliver collaborative analysis systems across the Intelligence Community that speed actionable intelligence to the warfighter,” said Brown. “The VLS team is a strong addition to our Geospatial Operations. While VLS will continue to service their existing customer base, we are eager to offer our combined customers the synergy of VLS technology within our exiting Geospatial Operations product offerings.” Dr. David Opitz and Stuart Blundell the principal shareholders of VLS said at the time of the closing, “We’re very pleased to become part of the Overwatch team. We could have taken VLS in any number of directions, but felt the Overwatch strategy of linking intelligence sources together with easy-to-use data extraction and analysis tools provides the greatest benefit for our customers and our employees.”

Overwatch Systems

Wondering why the name "Overwatch" Systems.... I did too. Seems to me, the most likely reason for the company's name is the way the word "Overwatch" is used by the U.S Military. Overwatch is the term used when one unit provides support for another unit. Usually the support is of covering fire and looking out for enemy movement. Guess, in that context, Overwatch is an appropriate name for a company that is into providing tools for intelligence gathering as well as use in the field for the war-fighter. According to Wikipedia: In modern warfare, overwatch is the state of one small unit supporting another, while they are executing fire and movement tactics. An overwatching, or supporting unit has taken a position where it can observe the terrain ahead, especially likely enemy positions. This allows it to provide effective covering fire for advancing friendly units. The term overwatch originates in U.S. military doctrine.

Visual Learning Systems (VLS) gets acquired by Overwatch

On friday, April 28, 2006, Visual Learning Systems (VLS), the company that I work for got acquired by a New Jersey based intelligence company called "Overwatch Systems". Overwatch Systems has been on a buying spree for some of the best tools used by intelligence agencies all around the world. It has tools such as RemoteView, used for analysing satellite imagery, as well as tools used for monitoring communications. VLS having been acquired, I guess is a testimony to all the great work that we have been doing here and also to the quality of our products FeatureAnalyst and LidarAnalyst. Most importantly, I think that this acquistion will have the following meaning for our customers: "nothing". We will continue to work and operate just as VLS did for the past 6 years. VLS even gets to keep its name and r&d will stay here in Missoula. I guess a formal announcement will be made on May 1, 2006. Here is a summary about Overwatch from their website. (www.OverWatch.com) "Overwatch Systems provides a suite of integrated software tools that enable analysts to generate relevant, actionable intelligence faster and more effectively for the warfighter, first responder and policy maker. Using capabilities from the Overwatch Intelligence Center to counter current threats, we deliver fieldable collection and analysis capabilities in months where the traditional approach is measured in years." Overwatch Systems develops and markets intelligence analysis products and develops custom intelligence systems as specified by our Government customers. Overwatch Systems develops multi-band single feed SATCOM systems for DOD/HLS customers and have significant communications experience directly related to satisfying intelligence systems communications requirements.

RSAC conference 2006

I am heading to Salt Lake City on April 24th, to attend the Remote Sensing Applications Center 2006 conference. I am presenting a paper on LIDAR Analyst. Find me, let me know if there are features you would like to see in the next version or tell me how you like (or dont like) the current version http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/RS2006/ I also presented a paper on terrestrial LIDAR at the International Lidar Mapping Forum 2006 at Denver. This one was on the current research we are doing with side-sweep lidar data http://www.lidarmap.org/program.html