Near Real Time Info: Amtrak
We took care of near real time information for airplanes yesterday. Today, near real time information for Amtrak trains. Enter a city pair OR a city an train number. A page with one or more trains will appear. Select the train of interest and click "resubmit." Another page, with departure/arrival info will appear along with any info about delays and estimated departure/arrival info. Btw, don't worry about the potential error message at the top of the page. [Update: correct link is here. Thanks to the anonymous commenter who alerted us!] Continue reading
Near Real Time Info from the FAA
One area (of several) in the info retrieval world of extra special interest to me is real time and near real time access to information. Some of the largest providers of this type of data are governments. I will plan to post on several of them throughout the month. We will begin with near real info from the FAA. There are MANY sources of it but I'm going to focus on two. Additionally, some cost money. These two services are available at no charge. I use both of the two services listed below. Each has its strengths. Both are worthy of your attention. It's a case of which one works best for you. + Flight Aware http://www.flightaware.com Near real time info and historical info (free) for aircraft in the U.S./Canadian database. Search by Airline, Tail #, Airport. You can also access: + All flights in the air by airline + by aircraft model + others Maps and pages that auto-refresh if you're logged in to the service. Examples: Current Planes departing/arriving Boston's Logan International. Data for a specific flight also includes minute by minute lat/long, ground speed, altitude. All planes in the air this minute, by fleet. + Flight Stats http://www.flightstats.com/go/Home/home.do Widgets for several sites, RSS feeds. Mobile Site http://mobile.flightstats.com/go/Mobile/ Note: Flightware.com works and looks OK on a mobile browser. Historical ontime ratings (also on the FAA site) Airport info Maps Airport delays (also on the FAA site) http://www.flightstats.com/go/Airport/currentAirportDelays.do Flight Status by Route, Flight, Airport, Alerts Airports and airlines of the world lists Hide or view codeshare flights. Example (O'Hare Departures) Continue reading
New Statistical Reports: Business in Europe & Global Employment Trends for Women
Here are two recently released reports loaded with statistics: + From the International Labour Organization Global Employment Trends for Women 2007
...the Global Employment Trends for Women Brief 2007 focuses on whether the tendency toward increased participation has continued more recently and whether women have found enough decent and productive jobs to really enable them to use their potential in the labour market and achieve economic independence.+ From Eurostat European businesses seen through statistics Summary ||| Full Text (418 pages; PDF) ||| Download Individual Chapters
[From the] Statistical Office of the European Communities, gives a comprehensive picture of the structure, development and characteristics of European business and its different activities: from energy and the extractive industries to communications, information services and media. It presents the latest available statistics from a wide selection of statistical sources describing, for each activity, production and employment, country specialisation and regional distribution, cost structures, productivity and profitability, the importance of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), external trade etc.Continue reading
Is E-Government Ready for Prime Time?
Stephen Ruth and Soogwan Doh, Is E-Government Ready for Prime Time?, IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 11, no. 2, 2007, pp. 80-82. (IEEE Distributed Systems Online)
This is an interesting take on e-government with an international and technical perspective. It includes a sidebar, "Touring E-Government Web Sites" that cites "Possibly the world’s best known e-government site, the US government’s official Web Portal" (USA.gov), as well as sites from the World Bank, The European Union, and North Korea. The article notes problems with e-government intitiatives quoting one study that says that only about "15 percent of e-government projects meet their goals and more than a third are complete failures." The authors do express optimism though. They say that "Some day, perhaps all citizens will be treated like customers" -- a statement that caries a lot of unstated political and information-access assumptions that should be examined closely.
Continue readingSocial Bookmarking in a half hour
Still don't get our del.icio.us page? Don't have a clue about social bookmarking, de.lico.us, etc? Have a clue but think it's a waste of time? Try listening to Rachel Bridgewater's explanation at a half-hour Sirsi/Dynix Institute event A Little Help from your Friends: Social Bookmarking. I listened to this presentation on my MP3 player, which I do with all SIRSI/DYNIX Institute podcasts. Even without her slides and other materials, I found it to be a both a solid introduction for beginners and a refresher for people like myself who have de.licio.us accounts but haven't done much with them. Something Ms. Bridgewater said gave me a flash of inspiration involving de.licio.us, rss feeds and feed2js. If anything real becomes of it, I'll let you know. The social bookmarking session is available in the Institute's archive. If you have a broadband connection, you owe to yourself to subscribe to these events and maybe even participate live. There's just no excuse for missing out on great continuing education these days. I realize this isn't about government information at all, but it is a tool we can use to promote it. Continue reading