One of my clients suggested that I have a look at World Wind from NASA, which is a world globe program with plugins to allow other data to be displayed. The software has a cute model of the earth, and from what I can work out a lot of maps of various types – satellite, elevation models, infra-red etc. The only problem is that I cannot find the ZOOM button. And the fact that it takes 170 MBytes to download.

It does come up with a cute message on startup – “initializing earth”. The last time that happened it took 4-5 billion years. This time it only takes a few seconds. There is also another minor problem. They have some landmarks linked in. They use the sails of the Sydney Opera House on the toolbar as the icon. The only problem is that the location shows as being about 1000km off the NSW coast on the way to New Caledonia.

My software has arrived from India… It looks like more than US$40 worth for this package – I am impressed. The GPS parser does need some work but looks great apart from that. Right now I am feeling like having an afternoon nap. I think my body needs a rest after the run this morning. I will try to resist..