I'm back from a remarkably frosty FrostFest. The weather in Richmond itself was not as bad as it could have been, but the record-breaking blizzard just to the north of us dampened turnout somewhat.

Even so, the folks that braved the snow were enthusiastic, and it was great meeting current, new and future Depiction users.

This Saturday, February 6, Depiction staff (including yours truly) will be at FrostFest 2010 in Richmond, Virginia. We're looking forward to meeting some Depiction users, and hopefully creating many more! If you're going to be there, drop by and say 'hi'--we're on a corner table across from

Wired.com posted an article and interview with Vivek Kundra, USA's new CIO. The benefit of this for us, as Depiction staff and users, is the new website he has initiated: data.gov

It is the clearinghouse of US government data, from census tracts to Center for Disease Control data, much of which can be imported into Depiction. (For more on this, attend our weekly webinar, Depiction 102: Adding, Managing and Displaying Content)

Here's an interesting Google Earth blog post. It is the best explanation I have read of why satellite imagery from any service is so often out of date. I noticed recently that some of the free imagery available in Depiction's quick start data is over 10 years old (Stanwood, WA, USA).

Using Depiction to create and display floods requires having elevation data. The elevation data available through Depiction’s Quickstart resource list is from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) – it is their default “30 meter resolution” – in other words, every 100 feet or so, it measures the height of the terrain. In general, this is good enough for big picture stuff.

Linux.com has a great story this month on open source GIS in government.

Large number of links to data sources and different GIS data visualization tools.