Kyle Mulka's Blog

It’s not quite Google Maps but its close. Here’s a little image of where viewers of my site are coming from:

So, after several weeks of waiting, Merit was finally able to upload the webcast of the Google Maps presentation I gave at the Merit Joint Technical Staff Meeting on October 11th, 2005.

Just as a warning, the video is 45 minutes long and my not be the most simulating thing you’ve ever seen before. It is basically, an introduction to the Google Maps API on a very high level. I didn’t go into any code. It lays out what you can and can’t do with the Google Maps API, ho

“The space, the social network, thinking tools and the network interface in the same field of view. The boundaries between what is interior and what is exterior intersecting tangibly in front of your eyes.”

If you have interest in continuous computing, location aware devices, social computing, or similar stuff check this out. At least start reading it. I just started, and it is amazing me. It has a lot of good ideas about where we can take the location sensing technology. The PDF is linked to on the left of the main page.

The Headmap Manifesto

I’m excited that we got funding next semester for a project called Blue Puddle thanks to GROCS. Here’s the vision:

“The Blue Puddle software takes advantage of the Internet’s distributed authorship capabilities to create maps that draw on users’ collective memory and subjective experience of a city. These maps foster the emergence of stories about the city that are richer than any single author could create. The virtual digital environment created by Blue Puddle will serve as a catalyst for engaging the real built environment.”

We have a team of four consisting of students from the schools of Art, Architecture, Information, and Engineering. This should be both interesting and exciting considering we are from a variety of backgounds and I am the only undergrad.

Some of the technologies we are considering using include PHP, MySQL, GIS, and the Google Maps API. Fortunately, I am pretty familiar with them and am excited to be able to use them.

I just got and email from Evan Cooke who I know through MESH at the University of Michigan.

He had asked for some help with the Google Maps API. After a little bit of work, he ended up with some nifty data visualization apps. Basically, he has huge 2D representations of network traffic and needed an easy way to map them. Google Maps to the rescue!

Any other ideas of data that needs 2D visualization?

For those interested in some of the things you can do with the Google Maps API, here’s a demo of one of the things I did this summer. It requires flash. Sorry for the bad audio. I need a better microphone.

Google Maps API Video Demo #1

This morning I was playing with the trial version of Camtasia Studios which is a really nice multmedia capturing tool for computer presentations and software demos. I’m considering buying it, but its pretty expensive. That’s what I produced this video with.

UPDATE: I’m employed this summer… yey! Here’s the old post:

I’ve gotten several emails from people at Microsoft and Google asking me if I’m looking for work. No, they haven’t offered me a job yet, but have seen the blog and wanted to know if I had applied. I’d like to let you all know, that, yes, indeed I am looking for an internship. Summer 2006 is currently free, so that would be a good time for me to pick up an internship.

I’m interested in web services, service oriented architectures, object oriented design, social software, agile software development, developer friendly APIs, location based services, geographic information systems, machine learning, and open source software. There’s probably stuff I didn’t list, but that covers most of it.

You can check out my resume in various formats here.

On the flip side, I am also interested in starting my own business or teaming up with some people to start one or continue on an idea related to my interests. I have several posible ideas which could be very exciting to implement and see people use.

So, if you are a web software company, large or just getting started, contact me if you are interested in working with me.

If you are an individual looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference on the web and have the technical expertise to make it happen, contact me. Let’s see what we can work out.

Time has been ticking… Next week Tuesday (October 11th) I visit Michigan State for the Merit Technical Staff Meeting to talk about what I was working on this summer with Google Maps and other Geographic Information Systems stuff.

Most of the people at the meeting will be the top computer networking people from the colleges and universities around Michigan.

So, things that I think they would be most interested in would be mapping out all of the backbone lines and other network cabling. In addition to cabling, they could pinpoint the location of each router and other network devices by latitude and longitude. Putting this data onto a map of the area would be much more helpful than just having the data. They could even overlay campus maps like I’ve done with the University of Michigan.

Each device on the network is probably dumping a large amount of status data which is collected, monitored, and analyzed both in real time and after the fact. A good organization for this type of information would be by location. In computer networking, I assume that you would want to connect points which are close together and therefore around the same location. When there were problems with the network it would be easy to see if they were centralized around one location.

Over the course of this summer I worked for the Great Lakes Commission on various projects. In this entry I’m just going to list some of the things I worked with while working there more for my own benefit than for anyone reading my blog. But, feel free to contact me if you are an employer or potential business partner interested in these things. Also, if you have any general questions about anything listed below, I can probably help you out.

Technologies
Javascript
XML
Javascript DOM
PHP
PEAR (DB_QueryTool)
Mysql
Oracle
Google Maps
LDAP / Active Directory with PHP
Wordpress
Webcalendar
Mapserver
ArcGIS (ArcMap)
WMS
WFS
PmWiki
Apache
HTML
CSS
VPN

Installed and Configured Software on Development Server
Apache
PHP
MySQL
Mapserver

Projects
Intranet (MySQL hooked up databases, authentication, security, )
Wordpress (connected to Active Directory via LDAP, customized)
PmWiki (customize/style/content design)
WebCalendar (setup, administration, connected with Active Directory via LDAP, staff training)
Contacts (customized system)
Google Maping
Circle Tour (Google Maps demo including geocoding, WFS, GML, XSL, WMS, Mapserver)
MiCorps Data (designed login, search, browse, database backend)
Browsing System (scrapped)
Lake Search
MySQL Database Design
Converted two web applications ASP/Access/Windows to PHP/Oracle/Unix
VPN (Windows Server 2003)
WFS into Google Maps
XML Schema for Google Maps API
WMS Overlayed on Google Maps (two layers)
Documentation for WFS and WMS

I’m extremely excited and honored to be invited to the Fall Merit Joint Technical Staff Meeting on October 11th to speak about the Google Maps API. Most likely, I will also be talking about other related technologies such as geocoding and WMS/WFS using mapserver which integrate nicely with both Google Maps and other online mapping software.

There will be a live webcast presumably available here. That webcast will also be archived on their webpage, so those who can’t view the presentation live are able to later.