Category Archives: Web Wanderings - Page 13

One thing leads to another

Posted by on November 14, 2005 Comments Off on One thing leads to another

Just to demonstrate how I can end up spending a lot of time on a fairly simple web inquiry, while I was researching that last blurb about Google Games I ended up on some sites with open source versions of more familiar games.

FreeCiv is one that I’ve seen before. It’s obviously a F/OSS implementation of “Sid Meir’s Civilization” game.

In a similar thread, Stratagus is a F/OSS clone of WarCraft, it was formally called FreeCraft.

The board game Risk has been recreated in software several times over the years but two F/OSS projects attempting this are Jrisk and JavaRisk.

Google Games

Posted by on November 14, 2005 Comments Off on Google Games

There are a lot of interesting games people have come up with for Google. Early on people were entering keywords to try and come up with the shortest string that would return only one result. Later people started posting lists of keywords and you would have to guess what site would come up. Now with the advent of Google Maps and the associated API people have re-created a “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” type spy-hunt geography-learning game called Brewster Jennings Protects America. Others have re-created the board game Risk. These are popping up so quickly that someone has already created a Wiki page for Google Maps games.

MSP and nothing to do?

Posted by on November 14, 2005 Comments Off on MSP and nothing to do?

There’s always something going on at the University of Minnesota. Two of the calendars that will help you find events including concerts, plays, lectures, movies, workshops, meetings and more are the Campus Events calendar and the TCSU & SAO calendar. There’s usually more listed on the campus events calendar which is farily comprehensive but the Student Activities Office calendar might be a little more student friendly for those just looking for something fun to do after class.

Web Resources for TechEd Instructors

Posted by on November 14, 2005 Comments Off on Web Resources for TechEd Instructors

The Minnesota Technology Education Association may not have the best looking webpage around but it’s full of useful information for TechEd teachers and not just those in Minnesota. With sample lab safety manuals, curriculum resources, funding suggestions and more it’s a great first stop when looking for something TechEd related.

Telephone Collecting

Posted by on November 13, 2005 Comments Off on Telephone Collecting

I’ve got a couple of old thephones with real bells in them that I keep for nostalgic purposes but nothing like some of the folks at Telephone Collectors International do. One of the more recent projects a group of them has been working on is linking old electromechanical switching gear together via the Asterisk PBX software. The group calls itself CNET but I can imagine some trademark names with that. In any event they have a website up with some details about it, but be paitent the site loads quite slowly.

There’s also a Telephone Pioneers Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska.

More Public Domain Photography

Posted by on November 1, 2005 Comments Off on More Public Domain Photography

Aside from NASA (as found in my previous post) there are other government agencies that have public domain photos availible. One such agency is NOAA, that’s right the folks that do the weather forecast and issue hurricane alerts also take pictures. At the NOAA Photo Library you can find everything from animals to tonadoes, sunsets to ships and satellites to airplanes.

Space Photography

Posted by on October 30, 2005 Comments Off on Space Photography

While NASA makes a lot of public domain images availible via its six websites devoted to imagery, I find that some of the most stunning photography can be found at the third party “Project Apollo Image Gallery” site. Among these images you’ll find some truly amazing photographs of both earth and space.

Cool Desktop Wallpaper

Posted by on October 30, 2005 Comments Off on Cool Desktop Wallpaper

I don’t think I’ve shared this link here but there’s a really cool site with “Nearly-Live Planetary Desktop Backgrounds.” It’s basically a site that takes a static satellite map combines it with current cloud data and shading to show day/night and generates an hourly image to use as a desktop background. The site also includes instructions for automatically downloading and changing the background hourly so you’ll always have a current world view.

Satellite Imagery Virtual Globe

Posted by on October 29, 2005 Comments Off on Satellite Imagery Virtual Globe

It was brought to my attention that NASA has released a product that shares some similarities with the popular Google Earth program. While it doesn’t include the comprehensive mapping data fo Google Earth, World Wind does had some pretty cool features. For example, using GLOBE data you can superimpose weather information on the virtual globe, SVS data to watch storms develop or MODIS data to see where current natural world events are taking place. NASA World Wind is a fun and educational way to look at some of this cool (and free!) government data.

When the command line says it best

Posted by on October 29, 2005 Comments Off on When the command line says it best

Sometimes nothing beats a command line tool. Especialoly if you’re writing batch files it’d helpful to have a way to control your operating system from the command line. Microsoft has a list of the command line tools for Windows XP on their web site. If they won’t do you may want to check out the CMD/Command Prompt Tools for 32 bit Windows site which has a number of third party command line utilities.