HARDWARE CRASH -- In June 2007, the computers making and storing GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST image sectors failed, as did their backups. Consequently, the goesest and goeswest collections went down. Image processing was moved to a new system, and a number of improvements were made to the image files. Link-path names were changed. Image file sizes were reduced by using LZW-TIFF compression. Colorized CONUS images service was expanded. Maps and navigation files were improved and relocated.

LZW TIFF -- In June 2007, TIFF production changed over to images that are internally LWZ-compressed. The images are typically half the size of uncompressed images. This makes it possible to keep more data on-line, and to make faster downloads to the users. Modern browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) decompress LZW-TIFF automatically, as do most image-processing applications. For a free image-processing application, try ImageMagick, which offers binaries for Unix, Windows, and Mac OS-X.

NEW COLORIZED CONUS -- In June 2006, the colorization of the CONUS sector was improved to add a seasonal MODIS background true-color map. The GOES cloud overlay software was also changed to improve details in the cloudtop shadows during the day time. The source files for the new colorized conus were put in the hurricane2 and pacific sectors instead of the hurricane and pacific sectors.

RECONFIGURATION -- In the fall of 2005, the high volume of web and ftp requests during hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered a problem with local area networking, and so the disk containing the GOES images was attached directly to the web server in October 2005.

SECURITY CRASH -- On 10 September 2004, the computers serving this web page and GOES image repository were seriously hacked. On 4 October, public service was finally restored.

NEW SERVER -- At the end of August 2004, the 10-year old computer serving this web page and image repository was replaced. Most of the active links and bookmarks will remain the same for a while. Links to disk names (e.g. "goesd") should be converted to generic names (e.g. "goeseast"). Links or bookmarks to "rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov" should be converted to "goes.gsfc.nasa.gov". Please let us know if something has gone awry.

NEW AND IMPROVED LINKS -- On 20 May 2004, the GOES image sectors for GOES-EAST were switched over to larger disks with fully spelled out sector names (e.g. "hurrican" became "hurricane"). These sectors now hold the last week of images, instead of only a day or two. There was similar switch-over for GOES-WEST.

MODE-A CALIBRATION -- To provide the science community with a wider dynamic range of IR calibration from the GOES Imagers, we are converting from the 192-to-320K linear calibration curve to the 163-to-330K dog-leg calibration curve known as "mode A". This change in IR calibration happened for the GOES-EAST 8-bit images as in July 2001, and for the GOES-WEST 8-bit images in March 2003.