Peter Sinclair: Mapping keeps pace with the times

By PETER SINCLAIR

Mapping the Earth and the heavens has been one of man's chief preoccupations since he first needed to get from A to B.

Long before the printed word came into general use, the work of cartographers like Ptolemy, Eratosthenes and Strabo were in general use among those rich enough to afford a scribe.

The concept of the Shortest Way is as important today as it was when our forefathers scribbled a few rough directions on a sheet of deer-hide - millions upon millions of one kind or another are sold each year - but now the paper we used for it, like almost everything else these days, is being digitised.

This year's 430 Lexus sedan, for example, comes complete with a DVD-based navigation system which offers the entire North American continent on one disc.

Other cars are offering portable readers for digital maps.

Is manual cartography becoming a bit of a dinosaur? Some wonder if paper maps, too, are becoming a lost art.

How much longer, they ask, will drivers be willing to scrabble through the glovebox when they need to find their way to Smith St.

On the local scene Wises doesn't plan to be left behind. Building on its already useful Street Finder, the company has added directory services to mapping software to produce E-Map and GISMap.

E-Map is a CD-based professional mapping tool for commercial and office applications which lets customers create and save data files for recall, identify and define territories, increase the efficiency of sales and delivery routes and print full-colour AO size customised maps.

GISMap bills itself as "the ultimate tool for targeting prospects geographically" as it overlays the UBD Business Database on a Wise's street map and defines searches in a number of different categories.

Covering 57,000 New Zealand businesses in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, it's an extraordinarily useful advance.

E-Map is great for monitoring business productivity. Wise's sees it as the essential tool for marketing and sales managers, planners, engineers, geeks - nearly everyone in the average developing business.

The combination of directory and map is a growing trend.

Local company Livingstone Guides is another that's taking the concept to new heights.

It has created downloadable, "geo-referenced" moving "mapules" of New Zealand and Britain designed for use on pocket PCs.

Not only can they be used with a GPS (geographic positioning system), there are also plans to integrate some of them with Reed Publishing's New Zealand tourist guidebooks on fishing and tramping.

What's more, the mapules let you create your own "pushpins" - so you can mark with satellite positioning precision just where it was you caught that 2.2kg rainbow trout.

BOOKMARKS

MOST ANTIVIRAL (1): PrivateBase

It's another bad year for viruses, but show me one that isn't. Auckland-based Ripple Effects has launched a new weapon in the antiviral fightback which differs from other email antivirus software by storing the addresses outside the browser.

Since most viruses spread by replicating themselves to address-book entries within the browser, this new system can stop them dead in their tracks. Not only nifty, but free.

Advisory: Foiled!

MOST ANTIVIRAL (2): IP-Mail

Ex-pat Kiwi Tony Jones, now based in Queensland, is doing his bit in the Virus War. He has come up with a new stand-alone email client called IP-Mail. IP-Mail has a number of features for dealing with email-borne viruses.

IPM filters all attachments, determining whether they contain macros, renamed malicious files, file extensions and so on. IPM also filters the contents of the email itself, seeking profane words and replacing them with asterisks.

This applies to incoming and outgoing mail. 1024 bit encryption is built-in for companies which need maximum email content protection. IPM logs all read, forwarded, or replied-to messages to a central log file.

It does not log the contents, as this goes against most Western countries' privacy legislations.

Advisory: Fighting the good fight.

* pete@ihug.co.nz

Links


Wises

Wises street search

UBD Business Database

Livingstone gides

PrivateBase

IP mail