Release of AstroGrid Desktop Suite

[Andy Lawrence]

Dear all

we are very pleased to announce the release of the AstroGrid Desktop Suite : get it from http://www.astrogrid.org  This was time to coincide with the UK National Astronomy meeting, currently happening in Belfast.

After various prototypes over several years, this is the first release we consider a complete set of software and working services. From the user's point of view we are releasing three applications that run on your desktop - VODesktop; Topcat; and AstroGrid Python - and providing links to other Euro-VO tools that interoperate seamlessly - Aladin, VOSpec, SPLAT-VO. We also link to other VO tools - NVO services, VOPlot, etc.

In the background we have operating services - Registry, VOSpace, and Community - in several sites - and we have used our own DSA component to help UK data centres establish working data services. Of course we can see thousands of services worldwide.

The website is aimed purely at end users. Shortly we will also launch related web  sites aimed at deployers and developers and casual readers (with names like project.astrogrid.org and deploy.astrogrid.org and develop.astrogriod.org)

Help yourselves, and enjoy !

   andy lawrence

==========================================================================
Andy Lawrence                                 e-mail      al at roe.ac.uk
Head of School of Physics                     phone (UK)-(0)131-650-5247
University of Edinburgh                       http://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/
PA : Doreen Hamilton                          email  D.Hamilton at ed.ac.uk
                                              phone (UK)-(0)131-650-5249
                                              fax   (UK)-(0)131-650-5902
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Regius Professor of Astronomy                 email       al at roe.ac.uk
Institute for Astronomy                       phone (UK)-(0)131-668-8346
Royal Observatory Edinburgh                   http://www.roe.ac.uk
IfA Administrator : Liz Gibson                email eg at roe.ac.uk
                                              phone (UK)-(0)131-668-8356
                                              fax   (UK)-(0)131-668-8416
==========================================================================
Email Note : 
al at roe.ac.uk reaches me
Andy.Lawrence at ed.ac.uk reaches me
A.Lawrence at ed.ac.uk DOES NOT 
- this is Andrew Lawrence in the Centre for African Studies