Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Red October

I should have the October I&A finished by the end of next week.  The biggest issue has been the Russian air defense overview.  Russia moved to four OSCs rather than the previous military zones, meaning I had to change all of the placemark files (said changes will show up in the next SAM Site Overview update as well).  This is causing some problems with map generation, as the new OSCs are (except for the Southern OSC) a lot bigger than the previous military zones.  I'm trying to find a map style or template that works best to show the entire zone and it's taking a bit longer than I wanted it to.  Everything else was relatively simple to update.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

August/September I&A

See what I did there?  The current issue of I&A has begun distribution.  Due to my different workload this semester I didn't get around to 1) doing this on anything close to a normal schedule, and 2) get around to a separate September issue.
 
Also, don't expect to see anything else "new" from I&A until 2013.  The next two issues will be October and December, focusing on Russia and China and primarily consisting of updated articles on air defense, strategic forces, etc.  There won't be anything in November, the idea is to leave a lot of space open to ensure that all of the updating is complete on time (in theory). 
 
Because of the current workload issue, I may go to a bimonthly schedule in 2013.  We'll see.  If I get things under control the rest of the year, I may be able to retain the hypothetical monthly schedule.
 
Finally, anything notable will appear either here or as an I&A special report for the rest of the year for the reasons listed above.  I also have a rather large (over 100 sites) update to the SAM Site Overview to process as well.