Message-ID: <001c01bf38bb$6dc79760$010300c0@LocalHost> Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 05:39:04 -0400 From: Jose Rafael Leal <mailto:trastor@TRUEVISION.NET> Subject: Help: GIS softwares? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Hello out there!I am courrently designing 3 important projects, the first one is the base of the two others, it is about computers, the two others are one regarding maps and the other regarding communications...
I am helping my fellow Venezuelan indigenous that lives in the jungles and savannahs south of Orinoco river to learn of modern technologies at those matters. I am not indigenous myself, but I got very good friends between them.
Those indigenous are starting to buy computers with the references and teachings I am giving to them... They need to make maps of indigenous territories, and also they need to connect to Internet and publish their own webpages of their problems and their cultures, etc ... We are designing school networks linked to satellites and powered by solar energy, because in the middle of those jungles are no phone lines neither electric power.
We are doing all togheter like a team, I am teaching them how to repair computers, as my advice, they are not buying "ready" computers, but instead they are buying separate parts of computers: CPUs, mother boards, hard drives, cd-roms, and all the things that are inside a computer, and I am teaching them how to put everything togheter inside an AT or ATX case and how to connect everything, then how to check everything and to partition and format the hard-drive to install the operative system and all the programs.
This is the way I designed the project, not just making them to buy computers and teaching them alone how to run internet and some word processor as usual, but to teach them in deep the whole thing about Computers technologies and computer sciences, about Linux and DOS based systems, etc.
They are teaching me in exchange about solar energy matters, because I never worked with solar energy, and they have used this solar systems long ago in their towns to run refrigerators and other things, so they know well of those solar systems..
And also we are learning together about TCP/IP, satellite broad band internet and video for their schools... Actually we are still studying the possibilities in Venezuela to decide wich satellite system should be the apropriate in order to present a project to collect funds, well those indians receive some monetary help and they are already buying their computers as I told, it is just a matter of time to install the first network in an indigenous school.
We are doing all this by ourselves, the indians and me, without exterior help from NGOs nor any other goverment organism. The matter is that I want to help them and they want me to help them, that's all... I used to be a tourist in their lands year after year, but I realised that my computer hardware skills could help them a lot... I am a certfied PC technician, and also I am an audio engineer, beside being a jungle explorer as a hobby.
So far I am working in a complete volunteer way, when our project is ready in the paper, there will be some financial funding to pay my salary so I can dedicate full time to this.
Please help me out to find informations on the web regarding how to learn the use of GIS softwares, if there is some web page to learn how to use those softwares, also some books advices. Also if there is some kind of comparative information out there to know which software is better for us, If map-info or Arc-view, etc. Well I recognize we need to learn a lot about all those things, but the final goal of all this is that we want to be independent with those technologies, without exterior NGOs doing our maps and internet things... It is very important for us.
The indigenous whom I am helping now are of the ethnia Pemon, in Bolivar state in Venezuela, but my plans are to make a project to help all other ethinas too if it is possible.
Thank You for the help if somebody knows something about GIS softwares.
Jose Rafael Leal