Monday, August 30, 2010

Blogs in China

For a couple of days after arriving in China, we had no connectivity. It turns out that we needed Gateway IP's among other things and so we do have connectivity here, though more limited that I imagined. Also, almost all of my earlier Blogs are censored in China, this one being an exception. In any case, I'm hoping this post won't be my last one!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Audio Gadgets

Of course, Skype is still "King"; but Google Talk is making inroads. Check it out here. When you are logged into your Google Mail account, you can participate in voice and video chats. It's a little cumbersom to set up if you don't already have a Google Email Account. There is still the question of "where to you answer" an invitation to chat. And the question of the relation of Google Talk to Fring. I was hoping that a Google Talk handle would enable contact in Fring, but so far, no such luck.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Cleaned Out My Office....Everytrail

Packing Office at EveryTrail


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Okay, it did manage to get everything out of my office. Now I can go off to China with a clean conscience. (And a test for using Everytrail.)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Home Page: James Manley's Photo Explorations

This leads to photos used in the Palladium Exhibition at the SCA Gallery, the associated Blog, the Blurb catalog, and some information about me (look for the link on the signature line of the "Five Camels" image).

Silk Route versus Palladium Prints Blog

The Sense of the Distant Past: Palladium Prints Photo Blog featured a number of palladium prints that were in this summer's SCA Project Gallery show. Many of these prints were from the Dunhuang area in western China. If you have happened on the Silk Route Blog without having visited this earlier one, you might want to do so now. It is a record of a show featuring palladium prints along with information about how they were made, how one might acquire them, and so on. The Silk Route Blog on the other hand will be a travel blog focusing on a record of my three month trip beginning this August. It will include a lot of referencing and cross-checking of what exists of the old silk route paths, images along these routes, together with audio notes, GPS data and speculation and so on -- a different set of goals. I'd recommend following both!

Audio Field Notes

Can't find an embedded player which plays the native format of the two recorders I have on iPhone. But clicking here should launch the *.m4a field note test file using your browser's default audio player. Or here for an aiff file.

What happened when I launched these two links was the same. My iTunes poped up and played each one just fine. Not elegant, but it works.

The audio files need to be served. I put them on Google Sites and copied the shortcut to them, then pasted that in in the link window on Blogspot. Just takes a minute or so to put them on Google Sites. The m4a file is quite compressed, just about 140k. The aiff file is 10 times as large, but the sound quality is the same so far as I can tell. So I'll use the m4a files on the bundled iPhone recorder.

Embed Uploading to Picasaweb by Email.

Jim at Apartment


Picasaweb, Flickr and YouTube are all using email attachments to upload pictures and video. The key is the find the unique email address which each provider gives you. Then don't forget to use the Subject field and the text body for caption and description. Anyone can get the link using this URL. Does the quality differ?

Easy Posting of Video!



I do find this quite neat! I've just recorded a short 50 second video in my apartment. I've then followed the instructions to get that video to my You Tube account. (It involves sending the video as an attachment to a unique email address at YouTube.) A few minutes later it becomes available on YouTube. I play it on my lap top. It works (though the sound could be louder). I then look for the "Embed" on that same page. Clicking on it gives me a new page with the code already highlighted. I copy it, then go over to Blogspot, open the "Edit Html" view and copy the code in at the top. Then I enter this text and create the new post. Voila! The YouTube video is available in the post window.

You can even add Subject and Descriptions captions. Put the subject on the Subject line of the email to which you are attaching the video. This becomes the main label ("Notes for YouTube"). Adding further text in the body of the email will become a description label. This is the way it works in Flickr as well. No problem adding tags with the "tag: Notes" including on either the subject line or in the message body.

This makes it very easy to upload video and pictures. (And audio notes -- must check on that as well.)

Embedding YouTube Video: Huashan Plank Walk



This is really remarkable, not only as a trail but as a record of a trail. One can embed a video from YouTube quite easily. From the "play" URL, just look for "Embed" and copy and paste the code into the "Edit Html" tab of your blog or website page. This will become the top window for the post. You can place the text under the code.
Now about the trail itself. It is on Huashan (Mt. Hua) near where I will be in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. I think I shall not walk that plank.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

More from Everytrail

Uluggchat to Kashgar at EveryTrail


Plan your trips with EveryTrail iPhone Travel Guides

This embed features the cyclist "lent" with pictures. But aside from the city names and pictures, the details are sparse. Also, it is not clear that the track can be downloaded into, say, a Garmin 60Sx. The embed can be created in a number of formats including Google Earth 3D, which is how the Singing Sands entry is formatted.

Garmin Embed



Garmin recently took over the old Motionbased website where you could upload your geotagged exercises from a Garmin GPS unit. You now have connect.garmin.com. Here you can explore others postings, and embed ones of interest, such as the one above, which is a tour of Xi'an.

Good Old Bikely Comes Through




Many cyclists have recorded extended bike trips in western China. Here is one. As with all Bikely routes, they are downloadable into your GPS unit. But the Bikely site has the capability to permit sharing in a variety of ways, including the generation of map code that embeds the route window, as you see above.
The Route is Dunhuang (not labeled) Urumqi.

Finding GPX Waypoints and Routes for the Silk Route

Actual Route from Kashgar


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With the interest GPS tracking and routing, it's natural to ask whether there have been recent information posted. Indeed that is the case. Here is a great site with periodic downloads of data between Europe and most key places on the Silk Route. It is also possible to use gadget-like apps to embed mini-maps as we will see in a minute.

Click here to open a map showing a segment from the author of "GPS Jottings" showing a track in the Dunhuang area.

But some of the GPS sites like Everytrail offer some cool ways to share waypoints and tracks. Here is a web page on Everytrail where a cyclist describes riding to Kashgar in Xingjiang province. The image above is the result of pasting in the html code generated by the site "gadget."

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Google Earth Embed Test: Singing Sands



Instead of just a picture of what you see in Google Earth, you have Google Earth! You can zoom in, out, tilt and rotate in this embedded Google Earth window - if of course you have the Google Earth Plug-in and the Google Gadget that generates the embed window HTML and the instructions on how to do it. [This page loads fine in Chrome, but does appear to have some hic-cups in IE, especially after the two more recent postings load.]

Friday, August 13, 2010

And Video of a Rail Trip Through the Tian Shan Mountains

It's possible to add sound and video to Tours in Google Earth -- a great way to share information beyond the old photo album. Here is a video done some time ago to celebrate the completion of the rail over the mountains in about 1980.

Here's a Great Silk Route Tour

The Google Community is doing some very nice things. Here is a fast-paced tour (no audio) from Xi'an to Venice in under four minutes passing through all of the major Silk Route stops. I found that when I cllicked on the link I could "Run" the file and Google Earth would do the rest.

Looking Towards Using the Google Earth Tour Feature

It would be nice not just to overlay tracks of places you've been on Google Earth, but to lay out a tour as well. This has been possible for some time in Google Earth, but it is non-trivial to set up. The key is the kmz file which can record the places you are visiting and then lead you from one to the other -- with sound annotation if you'd like. I've played with this but haven't gotten it to where it is an easy enhancement. Check out this link for a rudimentary example (which is hopefully still working). [But apparently not! But download and open this link in Google Earth and you'll get some activity. They key is to package everything you need the viewer to see in the kmz file. In this case, the Snow map is bundled in the kmz file.]

Using Overlays in Google Earth Manually


The IDP maps are impressive. The overlays are integrated into an embedded map window - either Google Maps or Bing's. This is a good evolution over an earlier approach. There is a Rumsey Map collection which houses early maps of London from the mid-1800's. I used them in the 2009 London class in Google Earth itself, but the process was more intricate that it should have been. For those who are interested, check out this link to my London Blog of 2009. It describes the steps for setting up John Snow's cholera map of 1843 on the "pump house" area near what is now Soho London as an overlay in Google Earth itself. A second link provides a "step by step" guide for using the Rumsey map overlay as served through Google Earth. It is very likely that the International Dunhuang Project will do the same thing. I'll keep you posted. This image is an image-save from Google Earth of the Snow map superimposed on London together with some key places associated with that great detective story. (You can read about it in Steven Johnson's great "The Ghost Map.") Here is an entry on the John Snow pump area from that class. It's possible to add GPS tracks to the overlay as well. Here is a London example of that when my class did the John Snow geocache.

Using KMZ Files in Google Earth


KMZ files are bookmarks for locations in Google Earth (and more). They are quite small and can be sent as attachments to email. They can be generated in Google Earth under File>Email>Placemark and sent from Google Earth. The one corresponding to this image is called Singing Sands Oasis.kmz. Click on it and see what happens. If you have Google Earth, you should find Google Earth opening and taking you to this place on the Earth. (You may have to save it on your computer, then click on it. Or, save it to your computer and then open it from Google Earth. A lot depends on how your security and other defaults are set up.)

Views In Google Earth: Singing Sands Oasis

This is vantage from which I took the "Quadtich" looking down the dune ridge, but about 3:00 o'clock from the Oasis. There is plenty of detail here, but one can zoom farther in and tilt and rotate in Google Earth. I do want to see whether I can find the IDP map which can then directly be overlayed in Google Earth.


Google Versus Bing


Okay, I was worried for a moment, but the Google Earth overlay on the same Japanese IDP site worked as well as the Bing overlay and the detail was better. In fact, zooming in on Dunhuang left the historical map in the stratosphere and had breathtaking detail to spare. It is possible to zoom to individual buildings. I'll be looking for the Crescent Moon, the "Singing Sands" Oasis at this level.
It is interesting, however, that the 3D tools are not available in the embedded Google Earth window. They would be on Google Earth itself, but then the overlay may not be available. It would be, however, likely available via a *.kmz save and could be orthorectified fairly easily. So I would stick with Google over Bing at this point. But it is nice to have them both.

Silk Route: Historical Map Overlays


The International Dunhuang Project is really first-rate in its utilizing technology in the service of understanding ancient texts and cultures along the Silk Route, but it is especially to be commended for putting together some great maps and integrating those maps into Google/Earth/Google Maps and now Bing maps. Follow this link to a Japanese site (a part of the IDP) to see some browser-challenging overlays. When the link opens, look for the red boxes at the top. Clicking on one brings up an overlay from an older map together with a slider. You can control the transparency of the overlay with the slider. Be prepared for a delay for the slider to activate the change in transparency. Curiously, the Bing map seems to work better than the Google Earth overlay which I will put up next.
(The overlay detail is REALLY impressive. It appears fuzzy in the default view, but if you zoom in using the "+" button the overlay map is extremely detailed at the 1-mile resolution. And the "3D Beta" Bing option is awesome and works like a charm. With it you can rotate and tilt while still controlling the opacity of the overlay!)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Silk Route & Marco Polo


IDP's Silk Route traces are state of the art. Wiki also has a good account of how the segments are connected and some comments about where Marco Polo might have entered China. From the Travels, it would appear that he came through Samarkand and Tashkent.

Silk Route: A Hint of Topographic Data


This is from the excellent International Dunhuang Project. It not only shows the traces of the several "silk routes" (both north and south) but also the routes traced by the IDP research team on a recent trip. It is described in this IDP Newsletter (#32).

The Silk Route: Overview

Let's start with a good map of the many Silk Routes. I'll be focusing on the area between Dunhuang on the East and Kashgar on the West. This map is from the Silk Route Project set.