Work is continuing on the EPmap program.

The following discussion is from someone who is not an expert on this particular subject (me). So, there could be some inaccuracies here.

I finally accumulated enough information to be able to make a decision on one part of the earthquake research and forecasting work. And I went out an bought a small NetBook computer to help with part of the effort.

These are fully operational and highly portable miniature computers that have monitors that are around the 10 inch diagonal range. The one I obtained runs XP. But I believe that it will also run Vista or Windows 7.

One reason for getting it was to have it serve as a GPS system for road trips. I put the Windows Streets and Trips program into it and am delighted with the results. It is a complete GPS with a nice display. And the GPS receiver that plugs into a USB port is just a little larger than a flash drive.

The main reason that computer system was purchased is to develop a forecasting resource that will help with what is presently the slowest step in my personal earthquake forecasting program. And that slow step has for months now been preventing me from keeping my forecast charts current.

One of the steps in the program involves translating verbal type information to text that the computer programs can work with. And that has meant keeping notes and then entering them manually into a word processor.

I purchased a copy of the latest Naturally Speaking voice recognition program. And between that program and Perl if necessary I am expecting to be able to organize things so that all of the information that I have had to manually record in the past and then transfer from computer to computer etc. will be done automatically by the voice to text program.

Each voice entry also needs to have time data along with it for the programs to work properly. And that has been a major problems so far. It should be possible with some combination of that voice to text program and Perl. And both the voice to text and Perl programs will now run on that new computer.

If this works then the system can be duplicated by other earthquake researchers around the world. And when someone spots an earthquake cloud etc. they will be able to report that information via the Internet to the EPmap program (or whatever it is called at that time). The program will then be able to display the earthquake cloud observation at my Web site.

Smart cell telephones can do some of this already. But for maximum flexibility, an actual Windows PC needs to be used for the original work.