Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

This morning I took delivery (thanks to the nice people at Amazon UK) of Time Management for System Administrators from O’Reilly. I’m really looking forward to reading it, because I could do with something to help me deal with the many different calls upon my time at work. The trouble with being a sysadmin (in everything but name) AND working on GIS projects is that I find it difficult to focus on any one task when I am constantly being interrupted for assistance with Microsoft Word, printers, changing backup tapes, getting together deployment kits of computers and associated gear for remote sites, etc, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and it’s never dull, but I could do with some pointers on how to keep the plates spinning!

I have been a big fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach for a year or so now, though I admit that I fall off the wagon occasionally! I’m still looking for the perfect To-Do list upon which to record all of my tasks though. I have been looking at the myriad online solutions, but what I want (no, need) is something that I can carry around and use offline on my zaurus pda. The browser on the zaurus is somewhat old-fashioned now (Opera 7.25) and it doesn’t really do all of this shiny ajaxy stuff very well, so I’ve been sticking with Ko/Pi, which is a platform independent version of Korganiser. I use that on a USB stick on my desktop, and synchronise it with the copy on the zaurus whenever I remember. At the very least I need to set it to synchronise automatically when I connect the zaurus to the desktop, but I’ve got a Windows XP machine at work, and a Mac Mini and a Fedora Core 4 Desktop at home, so I could do with something a little more slick.

Though, as I said, I do fall off the GTD-wagon occasionally, and have never managed (or needed?) to implement the whole system, I have incorporated several aspects of GTD into my work and home life. The idea of “Next Actions” (What is the very next thing you need to do to move this project forward?) and, following on from that, the “Two Minute Rule” (Can you do this Next Action in two minutes or less? If not, delegate or defer it) now seem absolutely fundamental. They don’t stop things piling up, or stop me procrastinating about a job because I can’t see the way forward, but at least I’m learning to recognise this state of mind and do something about it.

Back to Time Management for System Administrators though. The biggest area of frustration I have in my day to day work is not being able to see projects through to completion because so many other things have got in the way.I’m hoping that this book might give me some clues as to how to get the bigger things done as well as the little things. We’ll see, and I’ll keep posting on this subject. I’m off to FOSS4G 2006 in Lausanne on Monday so I’m hoping to get started with reading it on the journey to La Suisse.

After yesterday’s post, I was wondering about geotagging, and specifically whether or not it’s possible to export the location data created in the geotagging process as standard flickr tabs. If I’m going to put my photos in Flickr and Google Earth I don’t really want to have to go through the geotagging process twice! Anyway, in the Flickr Geotagging Group I found a link to a great Greasemonkey script for adding visible lat and long tags to photos, which I’m hoping to explore further.

Yahoo’s idea of where the photos were taken is, however, somewhat different to mine- it has labelled the photos taking in Tobermory as Ledaig, and those in Iona as Baile Mor. It did get Oban right though, which is a relief!

Well, everyone’s got to start somewhere!

I’ve just been trying out the new Flickr Geotagging capabilities, uploading photos of my recent wedding on the Isle of Mull, just off the west coast of Scotland. As countless people have said elsewhere, Flickr have got it pretty much spot on with this geotagging interface. Being able to drag and drop the photos is great- does it get more intuitive than that?

My only qualm is the quality of the mapping for the UK. It’s not as good as Google, showing only major roads and towns, and believe me there aren’t many of them on Mull…

Anyhow, this is a work in progress, and I want to investigate the different methods of getting the geotagged images into Google Maps/Earth as well.

Welcome to Archaeogeek

Archaeogeek is about one person’s experiences using modern computing technologies in archaeology, in the UK. My name is Jo Cook, and I am the Information Systems Coordinator at the northern office of Oxford Archaeology, based in Lancaster. My job is pretty varied. It involves sysadmin duties, GIS, databases, and anything else that’s thrown at me. My real passion is building web-based interfaces to maps and data, but more generally I simply want to improve the digital tools and processes that my colleagues have available for doing archaeology.

The problem is that archaeology should be one of those disciplines that embraces digital technologies, GIS and the web, but it isn’t, yet. Furthermore, given the nature of what we do, we should be much better at open standards and data preservation, but we’re still working on that as well. Finally, we should investigate the ways in which modern technology can make our workflow more efficient, both in terms of time and money.

At Oxford Archaeology we’re investing a lot of time into improving this situation, and in the process I am learning about a lot of new things (new to me anyway). Some of these are new technologies, and some are simply new ways of doing things. So, as well as documenting the company’s progress into a new, more open and standardised era, I hope to document my own learning process, and in particular flag up those things that really inspire me.

I’ve amassed a fair collection of useful links and documentation over the last few years as well. Some of this at least might be useful to other Archaeo-Geomatician/Sysadmin types, so hopefully over the next few months I’ll start including it on this site.

If I had to sum myself up in one sentence, I think Howies said it best: Half Geek, Half Luddite. To expand, I love technology, but I’m not an early adopter. I like to watch and see how things pan out before spending my money. Radically,Â� I’m quite happy having all of my portable gadgets separately, that way if my phone gets nicked I don’t lose my camera or my pda, and if I want to change the operating system on my pda I can still use my phone…

Outside of the tech, I live with my husband of ooh, about six weeks (circa September 2006), who’s a web-designer. I’m passionate about environmental and ethical living, and have been since way before Al Gore got everyone enthusiastic about it. I enjoy being out in the countryside a lot more than in the city, and wouldn’t move back down South (I was born in Kent) unless you paid me an awful lot of money. Sports I enjoy currently include Kayaking, Scuba-Diving (since I was 14) and fell-running (well, fell-staggering anyway).