CCSF GISEC Website

You will need at least Boot Camp, then for a more friendly experience install Parallels.

1.Apple Boot Camp
Apple Boot Camp will run most popular 32-bit releases of Windows XP and Windows Vista. When you use either operating system on your Mac, your Windows applications will run at native speed. Windows applications have full access to multiple processors and multiple cores, accelerated 3D graphics, and high-speed connections like USB, FireWire, Wi-Fi, and Gigabit Ethernet.

After you’ve installed Windows using Boot Camp, you can start up your Mac using either operating system. Simply hold down the Option key when you power up and choose one or the other.

2.Parallels
Parallels will run Windows, Linux, and more side-by-side with Mac OS X on any Intel-powered Mac, without rebooting. With Parallels’ award-winning virtualization technology, you can run Mac OS X and Windows at the same time. You can even drag-and-drop files between desktops.

The first Google Earth Class was a success! Students were taught about the basics of Google Earth, which include:

1) The location Search Box - This is on the top left hand corner of the program and is used to find location in Google Earth. Just type in the city, area or country you want to visit and hit the return key. You will be flown to your destination.

2) Business Search. This is a tab located behind the Location Search Box. This function will find businesses located in the current view of Google Earth.

3) My Places - This is where your KML or KMZ files are displayed that you have collected. Remember, that KML/KMZ files are automatically loaded into the “Temporary Places” folder and need to be moved to the “My Places” folder if they want to be saved. Students also learned how to create a new folder in My Places and also how to drag files from folder to folder.

4) Students were shown various KMZ files that organizations have created for displaying data in Google Earth. Some of the files included: Bigfoot Sightings in Google Earth (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=321484), Real time fires in the United States http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/kml/conus.kmz , Earthquake monitoring http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/catalogs/eqs7day-age.kmz The South China Sea Project http://www.unepscs.org/google/South-China-Sea-Project.kmz , animated KML files and more.

5) Students also were shown the various available data in the layer window. Some of the highlights included real time Weather links, real time Traffic, Panoramio pictures (over 4 million uploaded so far!), Wikipedia articles, YouTube Videos, 3D buildings and more.

The next class will focus on creating your own KML/KMZ files and how to modify them with HTML. We will also learn how to overlay pictures in Google Earth and use the built in tools to create polyline and polygon data. We will also explore how to create animated KML files.

Hope to see you there!

The GIS Education Center is proud to announce the launch of our new website. We hope this will better serve our users and provide a more pleasant experience.

Sincerely,
GISEC Team