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120 years of National Geographics

A few years ago, a friend who was moving to his country gave me his collection of the National Geographics magazine, which with everything and moths now takes a good portion of my bookshelf, so when the digital version was announced on a hard drive of 160 GB I got that mania for not letting it pass. After browsing for many years, knowing how the best computer was advertised in 1972 and finding that every so often we redound on the same subject but with more research, I recognize that it has been an invaluable acquisition.

Content

120 years of material, from 1888 to 2008 contained on a disc of 160 GB, although the content solo It reaches 100GB and leaves 60 of free space, not at all wasted. It is also much more practical than the collection of DVDs that is uncomfortable for having to change two out of three searches.

National geographics disco

You can search by year, with this a catalog is displayed that shows the covers in the form of a carousel. Then you can select, browse and zoom in like the online magazines that are now in vogue do.

Nat geo dvd You can also search by geographic area, which displays a Bing map (formerly Virtual Earth). Once located in an area, refine the thematic search, indicating a radius of miles. This option requires being connected to the Internet, it is slow to display the map but an improvement is expected in the future, which could well be a larger window.

The search engine for keywords is wonderful, for example, if I wanted the flags of the states of the American Union, I should only put Flags states america, and voila, it was published in October of 1917. 

Heh heh, look how curious the Colorado shield. I'd swear I've seen it somewhere.

National geographics disco

There is also a collection search and a markup functionality called a reading list, in which you can place marks in the form of labels according to interest. For example, as I navigate, each time I find an interesting map, I can load it to the tag "maps of interest for geofumed" or "maps of Mexico", to find them in one click at any time.

Usability

It is built on Adobe Air, so updating online is a delight, aspects that the old encyclopedias could not overcome. The first time you ran it, it took a while to download a new build, but it runs like a charm.

The functionality is kind of strange, because the menu for accessing data, creating reading lists and navigating back and forth is not very friendly. After an addictive couple of hours it feels better, although it could do with an easier side panel to navigate through the content and improvements to understand how to go back.

The price

It can Acquire online for US $ 199, which seems high but if we break it down, assuming there were 12 magazines per year, it would be:

160 GB hard drive: US $ 80.00

Name recorded to disk: US $ 9.00

120 years of magazines: US $ 110

With this, each magazine in digital would be worth:

  • Nat geo2 8 cents
  • Or 5 Euro cents,
  • 1 New Mexican weight,
  • 39 Chilean pesos
  • Or 1.53 Honduran Lempiras

 

In conclusion, a great acquisition. My son loves it, his innocence has touched my soul:

Can you give it to me when you no longer occupy it?

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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