We've updated our ranking system to redistribute our hotspots to better show the hotspots of the world. It was basically acknowledging that the hotspots were not objectively distributed when only US hotspots were showing, even though the system was objectively designed. We've basically applied a weight that ensures that there is a highest possible rank for every country.
More to come next week!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Hotspot Notebook
We've put together a small field notebook to help document birding hotspots. Basically it is a half-letter size spiral bound notebook with standard fields printed on one side of the page and a place for birds seen on the other side of the page. It is printed on stiff card stock for easy writing in the field or car and has a vinyl cover for protection.
We are very proud of our little conception and would like to share it with anyone who might think they would use it. Just drop me a line an i'll ship one out to you at no cost (I don't expect to many responses, though we have already shipped one out).
We are very proud of our little conception and would like to share it with anyone who might think they would use it. Just drop me a line an i'll ship one out to you at no cost (I don't expect to many responses, though we have already shipped one out).
Friday, September 5, 2008
The world is small...
and it is completely connected by the internet! Somehow we have managed to spread to 21 countries now??
A short update on some new killer features put together by our dedicated developer -
- aa
A short update on some new killer features put together by our dedicated developer -
- I think I've mentioned this before but the SEARCH has gotten a whole new body and is worth checking out: Aviatlas (I know I've bragged about this previously but really it is much better now)
- We've also added a Longitude and Latitude box in the lower left that will show you the coordinates for the center of the map, which is now marked with crosshairs! (that are able to be turned off if you want a clean look) These coordinates can be displayed in either decimal degree format or degree minute second format. On top of that we can now navigate the map to a specific coordinate by just typing the coordinate into those same fields and hitting the enter key or pressing go!! Aviatlas
- aa
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
We are giddy...
As of this morning (without really any marketing) we have now reached birders in 15 different countries! Including the likes of South Africa, Norway, Germany, Australia, Argentina, Thailand and Canada. Now, we've just got to get these guys adding and editing hotspots! It is so exciting to see Aviatlas begin to grow on it's own and we are beginning sense a horizon that is full of possibilities unknown to us right now. Ideas for getting users to contribute are welcome! visit our Forums to give us input!
On a personal note, we survived a classic Arizona flash flood this weekend while birding in the Blue Range Mountains. We were sitting at the beach of a calm clear canyon stream, sun shinning and completely relaxed when we heard a rumble up canyon and the tear of branches as the flood turned the corner rushing downstream. We can count our blessings now but at that point adrenaline was at it's highest peak while we scrabled up the mountainside. Fun stuff...
-aa
On a personal note, we survived a classic Arizona flash flood this weekend while birding in the Blue Range Mountains. We were sitting at the beach of a calm clear canyon stream, sun shinning and completely relaxed when we heard a rumble up canyon and the tear of branches as the flood turned the corner rushing downstream. We can count our blessings now but at that point adrenaline was at it's highest peak while we scrabled up the mountainside. Fun stuff...
-aa
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
User Forum Launched!
We just launched the Aviatlas Forum for user feedback and peer to peer help. Hopefully this will help track down some of those bugs and give users a better place to learn about Aviatlas!
Right now the forums we have set up are:
Right now the forums we have set up are:
- Aviatlas Announcements
- Main Discussion Board (post questions, answers and misc. topics)
- Tips + Tricks (for better ways to use Aviatlas)
- Bug Reporting (for issues and bugs found)
- Wish List (post what you want Aviatlas to be)
- Feedback (give Aviatlas direct feedback)
UPDATE:
The latest search engine is live on Aviatlas! It is now accessed on the Aviatlas homepage and in the 'Search' tab. We've combined googles map navigation search with the Aviatlas search and are now displaying results in a tab type format.
I'll be posting a short video to show the best ways to use the new Aviatlas Search Engine soon. Keep checking back - aa
The latest search engine is live on Aviatlas! It is now accessed on the Aviatlas homepage and in the 'Search' tab. We've combined googles map navigation search with the Aviatlas search and are now displaying results in a tab type format.
I'll be posting a short video to show the best ways to use the new Aviatlas Search Engine soon. Keep checking back - aa
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Screen Shot - showing UI
Here is a screen shot of our google maps birding mashup. Check out the beauty of the fullscreen map navigation - ah the space! This shot shows the birding hotspots around Wilcox and the Portal Arizona. - aawww.aviatlas.com
Monday, August 4, 2008
User Testing Aviatlas
Eva just finished up our first round of user testing at Aviatlas and as always it has opened our eyes and brought smiles to our faces! Thanks much to those willing soles that subjected themselves to Eva's eagle eyes! note to self: Never argue the benefits of user testing!
What did we learn? That it was a bad idea in the first place to bring in dueling searches for hotspots. Ofcourse users are going to jump right to our 'find' box to find a hotspot. Somehow we managed to ignore that for the entire development process. I'm curious how other map based navigation sites deal with using and find to navigate the map while still having an overall search available for the site? Well that is one of many subjects to be addressed! Our solution is posted above... we'll have to test it out to see...
_aa
www.aviatlas.com
Mini Aviatlas Launch!!!
Dear Friends and Family; birder's, web developers, and others that have been curious :)
Finally, it is time to release a small portion of our baby out into the public. It has been a long long time coming, with endless hours of scratching our heads, but it's basic form has finally arrived... We'd like to introduce: Aviatlas! a public birding toolbox. Pronounced a-v-atlas, it's a map based web application, designed for the content to be added and edited by the users. Check it out at: www.aviatlas.com
High Speed for Now
For those of you still in the Stone Age with dial up internet (just kidding I know it isn't your fault!) I'm sorry to say that your pretty much out of luck with Aviatlas at this point in time. You can give it a whirl if you like but I can't guarantee it won't be very frustrating. We are working on a text only version of Aviatlas but that unfortunately won't be available for a while to come yet, our apologies.
Test it out
What we'd like to encourage right now is for birder's to jump on board to share some info about their favorite local hotspots and test things out. As a web application this is no run-of-the-mill web page so be sure to e-mail any blips you might come across or thoughts for improvements. Also let us know how you use Aviatlas so we can further refine the project. With a little luck we hope to charge up some interest in joining the challenge Aviatlas. Our personal network of birders is rather small so if you would please pass Aviatlas on to birders that you know.
18,000 Hotspots on the map
You'll notice that when you open up Aviatlas it is already jammed packed with hotspots, nearly 18,000 in fact! These markers are what we call hotspot 'stubs', that were generously provided by ebird. These are unedited and unconfirmed Hotspots that need contribution and their locations confirmed. When the map first loads it appears that only the US is populated with these stubs, this is because we are using a complex ranking system to bring the most popular hotspots to the front. Be sure to explore other parts of the world. Don't get us wrong though, you don't have to take a trip halfway around the world to utilize Aviatlas - we already use Aviatlas to plan trips to the surrounding mountains in Tucson, but just imagine when we begin to get contributions in Peru, New Zealand, or Kenya!
A little history and purpose...
Aviatlas began as one of those light bulb thoughts while sitting on the couch over two years ago and has budded into one heck of an after-hours-project. At conception it seemed like a simple enough idea... to bring birding information to an interactive map, but we were quickly reminded that the simplest things are by nature the most refined and complex things.
As budding birders and world travelers we desired multiple scales of birding information - local to worldwide, we wanted both opinion and facts about places, we wanted refined bird lists and ways to plan, document and share birding trips. Basically, we wanted a better way to harness and contribute to the knowledge in the absolutely massive birding community. So for us, the challenge and necessity was to build a seamless framework of tools for a public built, refined, and managed birding database. The solution was to utilize two technologies that were just beginning to take root at the time: Web 2.0 and place based information (interactive maps). Since then these two concepts have taken over the web and absolutely revolutionized the way we get information.
Hotspot Wiki
What you see today at Aviatlas is a result of a long period of massaging a broad framework of tools down to a very simple user interface. The first tool we are revealing is the Hotspot wiki tool that allows users to add, edit, move, delete, print and share birding hotspots. This simple tool at Aviatlas is only one of many that are in the oven. As Aviatlas builds we hope the users will take pride and responsibility in refining the descriptions of their local hotspots to be accurate and useful. So today we start simple and keep our fingers crossed that our tiny server can hold up!
Before it crashes! We'd like to give special thanks to Glen Eller, Scott Jackson Ricketts, and Allen Boynton, along with Blue Ridge Birder's for their spark and fire of inspiration. And a huge thanks to our developer Bob Anderson - who has magically brought our ideas from chicken scratch to reality!
Good Birding,
Aaron and Eva
Tucson, AZ
www.aviatlas.com
Please let us know how you put Aviatlas to use!
Also be sure to pass Aviatlas on to fellow birders, the whole thing relies on community input!
Questions, comments, ideas - you can reach us at: info@aviatlas.com
Some examples on the site:
Each individual Hotspot has it's own URL address:
http://www.aviatlas.com/#h3aa6e3ea5f355e84a606139f22aa9635
http://www.aviatlas.com/#h8be6dc24c49e93447e29aba3d50fa077
Each hotspot can also be opened in it's own window for better viewing:
http://www.aviatlas.com/hspsolo/3aa6e3ea5f355e84a606139f22aa9635
Some quick Tips on how to use Aviatlas:
for more tips visit: www.aviatlas.com/tips
Finally, it is time to release a small portion of our baby out into the public. It has been a long long time coming, with endless hours of scratching our heads, but it's basic form has finally arrived... We'd like to introduce: Aviatlas! a public birding toolbox. Pronounced a-v-atlas, it's a map based web application, designed for the content to be added and edited by the users. Check it out at: www.aviatlas.com
High Speed for Now
For those of you still in the Stone Age with dial up internet (just kidding I know it isn't your fault!) I'm sorry to say that your pretty much out of luck with Aviatlas at this point in time. You can give it a whirl if you like but I can't guarantee it won't be very frustrating. We are working on a text only version of Aviatlas but that unfortunately won't be available for a while to come yet, our apologies.
Test it out
What we'd like to encourage right now is for birder's to jump on board to share some info about their favorite local hotspots and test things out. As a web application this is no run-of-the-mill web page so be sure to e-mail any blips you might come across or thoughts for improvements. Also let us know how you use Aviatlas so we can further refine the project. With a little luck we hope to charge up some interest in joining the challenge Aviatlas. Our personal network of birders is rather small so if you would please pass Aviatlas on to birders that you know.
18,000 Hotspots on the map
You'll notice that when you open up Aviatlas it is already jammed packed with hotspots, nearly 18,000 in fact! These markers are what we call hotspot 'stubs', that were generously provided by ebird. These are unedited and unconfirmed Hotspots that need contribution and their locations confirmed. When the map first loads it appears that only the US is populated with these stubs, this is because we are using a complex ranking system to bring the most popular hotspots to the front. Be sure to explore other parts of the world. Don't get us wrong though, you don't have to take a trip halfway around the world to utilize Aviatlas - we already use Aviatlas to plan trips to the surrounding mountains in Tucson, but just imagine when we begin to get contributions in Peru, New Zealand, or Kenya!
A little history and purpose...
Aviatlas began as one of those light bulb thoughts while sitting on the couch over two years ago and has budded into one heck of an after-hours-project. At conception it seemed like a simple enough idea... to bring birding information to an interactive map, but we were quickly reminded that the simplest things are by nature the most refined and complex things.
As budding birders and world travelers we desired multiple scales of birding information - local to worldwide, we wanted both opinion and facts about places, we wanted refined bird lists and ways to plan, document and share birding trips. Basically, we wanted a better way to harness and contribute to the knowledge in the absolutely massive birding community. So for us, the challenge and necessity was to build a seamless framework of tools for a public built, refined, and managed birding database. The solution was to utilize two technologies that were just beginning to take root at the time: Web 2.0 and place based information (interactive maps). Since then these two concepts have taken over the web and absolutely revolutionized the way we get information.
Hotspot Wiki
What you see today at Aviatlas is a result of a long period of massaging a broad framework of tools down to a very simple user interface. The first tool we are revealing is the Hotspot wiki tool that allows users to add, edit, move, delete, print and share birding hotspots. This simple tool at Aviatlas is only one of many that are in the oven. As Aviatlas builds we hope the users will take pride and responsibility in refining the descriptions of their local hotspots to be accurate and useful. So today we start simple and keep our fingers crossed that our tiny server can hold up!
Before it crashes! We'd like to give special thanks to Glen Eller, Scott Jackson Ricketts, and Allen Boynton, along with Blue Ridge Birder's for their spark and fire of inspiration. And a huge thanks to our developer Bob Anderson - who has magically brought our ideas from chicken scratch to reality!
Good Birding,
Aaron and Eva
Tucson, AZ
www.aviatlas.com
Please let us know how you put Aviatlas to use!
Also be sure to pass Aviatlas on to fellow birders, the whole thing relies on community input!
Questions, comments, ideas - you can reach us at: info@aviatlas.com
Some examples on the site:
Each individual Hotspot has it's own URL address:
http://www.aviatlas.com/#
Each hotspot can also be opened in it's own window for better viewing:
Some quick Tips on how to use Aviatlas:
- To navigate you can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Click and hold to pan the map. Double Click to zoom towards the location you want to go.
- Use the 'search' on the upper right of the screen to find any hotspot on the map (just try it, it tickles me how well it works!) example: mentidero wash
- Use the 'find' box in the lower left of the screen to navigate to a particular place in the world, example: riva san vitale, switzerland (no hotspots there yet though...)
- Be sure to try the different map modes for viewing (towards the top of the map) - my personal favorite is by far 'satellite' or 'hybrid' modes, it blows my mind every time i use it.
- If you get tired of seeing all of the hotspots and would rather just see the map, you can always turn off the hotspots under the 'viewing' drop down towards the top of the screen.
- Once you've signed up for an account you'll have the ability to contribute and also if you like a chance to make a public profile to share a little about yourself.
for more tips visit: www.aviatlas.com/tips
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