VISAGE, Air Traffic Control and Google Earth!

Flatirons is doing some VERY cool work with the FAA. One result of this work is a tool called VISAGE, a geospatial visualization and analysis tool that processes data into files that are loaded into Google Earth. These faces of VISAGE provide aeronautical viewing for the FAA legacy En Route system adaptation (ACES) and the modernization effort (ERAM).

You can check out the solution brief here:
http://www.flatironssolutions.com/downloads/VISAGE_Datasheet.pdf

If you are interested in seeing a demo, check out one of the following links:
http://www.flatironssolutions.com/VISAGE/Demos/VISAGE_ACES_Demo_lores.rm
http://www.flatironssolutions.com/VISAGE/Demos/VISAGE_ERAM_Demo_lores.rm

Move to ROA

Saw an interesting post on the O'Reilly blog from XML 2007:

Instead of SOA (SOAP, XML Schema, WSDL, UDDI, WS-*) move to ROA: RelaxNG, REST, Atom, AtomPub, and OpenSearch.) [I’ve never heard “Resource oriented architecture”/ROA before.]

Sounds right to me! Of course, you know my famous quote:

If you're not RelaxNG, you're working too hard!

Sounds like the industry is finally catching on! I'll have to look deeper into this ROA approach as well.

Missing XML 2007

Once again, I'm left disappointed because I couldn't get travel authorization from my company. This happened when I was at Sun, and now at Flatirons. It's frustrating because the big XML conference is one of the best opportunities to learn about cutting edge developments in the industry and to network with industry leaders. It's about the best form of training I can get anymore. Once you are at a certain level of XML expertise, web courses just don't cut it!

Unfortunately, my paper wasn't accepted this year, or I would have tried to find a way to pay my own way to get there. I had to do that one year when I was at Sun, and swore I shouldn't have to do that again.

I'm also disappointed, because I'll miss the annual DocBook Dinner! Hopefully I'll get a chance to see everyone at some point during the new year...

Following the Star...

As yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, we studied Prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah. The Star of Bethlehem also plays a significant part in foretelling the coming of the King.

We watched an extremely interesting video concerning the Star and research that was done matching the Scriptures and celestial positions using the Starry Night software. More information can be found at: http://bethlehemstar.net/.

If you have any kind of interest in astronomy or are looking for deeper meaning to this Christmas season, I would highly encourage you to check it out!