Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

I’ve always used Google Alerts to let me know when Archaeogeek is mentioned online. It’s very useful for checking that your posts are not used/copied without attribution or permission, for one (this happens on a depressingly regular basis, and it’s just rude).

Recently, however, via Google Alerts I’ve also found out that there are a surprising number of new Archaeogeeks (or close variants) online. Here’s the newest example. It’s not me, though I am interested in tinkering with Arduino! I find this all a little weird. When you build an online persona of some kind, whether deliberately or by accident, you have no control over who else uses your name. Site like Usernamecheck have developed for exactly this reason. As long as the other users are well-behaved it’s not too much of a problem, but what do you do if they start saying things that you don’t agree with? Not only that, but the internet is full of dire warnings about the need to control your personal “brand”, particularly for job-hunting (which I’m not, I hasten to add). How do you tell prospective employers which references are yours and which are not?

This leads me, somewhat circuitously, to a discussion I had the other day about what happens when women get married and have to change their name. In academia, where your publishing record, and hence your job prospects, are closely tied to your name via references, this can be a real problem. I’m not the only person to make the decision to keep my maiden name for work-related business and my married name for social purposes (hopefully Mr Archaeogeek doesn’t mind too much).

I’m reminded of a post I saw a while back about microformats and consolidating your online identity. I think there’s definitely a case here for wider use of this kind of technology to relate the various aspects of your persona together, be that name changes from marriage, or for different types of social networking. It could end up like a paper trail showing the development of both your real life and your online life, with various formats to describe current and past associations. Of course for it to work, it has to be widely used and accepted, but it’s worth thinking about…

Happy New Year everyone. I don’t know about you, but I won’t be inviting 2009 back for a repeat visit any time soon!

Whilst I know it was a tough year for everyone, for me the problems were compounded by health issues (of the chronic rather than serious variety). I won’t go into the tedious details, but even non-serious health problems can take over your life, make you really stressed, and generally cause a nuisance.  Thanks to a very understanding husband, and a very supportive employer, I got through it, but it wasn’t easy.

The worst of it is that having come out the other side (well actually I’m waiting for treatment at the moment) I’m not the person I was a year ago. I’ve lost a lot of self-confidence, and I think it will take a while for me to regain my passion and enthusiasm for things geospatial. I’m not saying I’m giving up (I’m still holding out for a ticket to Barcelona this September), but I want to take things slowly for a while. Maybe. Perhaps I’m just waiting for the right “cool-thing” to come along to get me back into the swing of things…

Enough self-indulgence though, I’m not after sympathy, just a bit of catharsis.  Here’s to better times in 2010!

Crikey,  that’s the first time I’ve left it nearly a month between posts! At the moment it feels a little like one of those games you play when you’re a kid, and someone shouts “red” so you go and hit the red post, then they shout “blue” and you dash to blue, then they shout “red” again, then “green” really quick before you’ can catch your breath, and before you know it you’re stuck in the middle unable to move. So what, this happens to everyone, I know, I’m not looking for sympathy.

Many exciting things have been happening though! I’ve kept quiet here about our technical consultancy, OA Digital (though if you’ve seen me speak over the last year you’ll have heard about it), but we’ve been helping to provide open source advocacy services to the Welsh Assembly Government, at the invitation of Environment Systems and One Bright Space, and we’re working on some interesting web-mapping projects involving Roman Kilns, based on PostgreSQL, FeatureServer and OpenLayers, and Planning Applications, using MapGuide Open Source.

That doesn’t leave much time for anything else, but I am also at the final stages of readying Portable GIS version 2 for general release. It has been ready for a while, but I sent it out to some testers, then what do you know, PostgreSQL 8.4 and PostGIS 1.4 came out, so I’ve got some updating to do. The new version has a much swankier interface and a proper installer (with a 500MB exe to download rather than a 1GB zip file- that’s progress).

Finally, for “fun” and in my “spare time”, I’m also working through the GeoBI offerings and Geoserver/PostGIS versioning. There are some good posts brewing on those just as soon as I can find the extra hours in the day…

If you read anything about blogging you’ll know that you’re not supposed to apologise for not posting, but umm, sorry for not posting for a couple of weeks. Oops, there goes my blogging credentials down the drain!

Anyhow, the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a learning experience. A major IT mishap, which I could have handled better and possibly prevented, coupled with lots of commitments and deadlines, meant that I just had to get my head down and get through each day an hour at a time. Some people might be fine with that kind of stress, but I learnt that I am not one of those people. Thank goodness for lovely husbands who not only understand, but get tea ready for you when you do a 12 hour day in the office.

Back when I started this blog, I used to post occasionally on time management, and Getting Things Done (GTD). I don’t post as much about it now, as I have a system that sort of works for me (a hybrid moleskine/Remember The Milk setup if you’re interested), but one of the key things that has really been hammered home over the last couple of weeks is the need for some kind of weekly review of commitments and tasks. That has just about kept me on target, even though it takes a good couple of hours per week to complete. Just being sure that all the tasks are written down, and therefore not clamouring for head-space, is incredibly helpful in keeping stress to a minimum.

The final things that I should know already, but ignored in a slightly gung-ho style: Never Ever believe that things will “Just Work”, and Never Ever mess with the computers without doing a full backup first. ‘Nuff said. I am chastened.

So- I’m off to Cambridge this afternoon as I’m speaking at the Association for Geographic Information Technical Special Interest Group Open Source Event tomorrow, but hopefully normal service (such as it was) should resume after that. Look forward to my slightly belated take on the whole file formats for spatial data storage and transfer issue, some news about the UK Local Chapter of OSGeo, and perhaps even an announcement on Portable GIS in the coming weeks.