Comments on: Software that changed your life http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/ Geospatial Technology, Web Mapping and Spatial Services Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:09:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: The editblog » The software that changed my life http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1927 Mon, 07 Aug 2006 03:41:16 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1927 [...] Software that changed your life at James Fee GIS Blog [...]

]]> By: Tyler http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1926 Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:24:43 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1926 1. Qbasic – Changing “Gorillas” so that one throw of the banana destroyed the whole city, began my love affair of programming in grade 6 so I could enjoy..

2. Turing – or at least, getting into it. Highschool Grade 11, the syntax seemed perfect, which confused me when I finally started programming in..

3. C, which launched me then on into OOP and a variety of languages.

4. ArcInfo .. 9. Call me young, I’ve been working in GIS for two years, and only got the job because of limited experience, and the face that I’m a systems engineering student, and they wanted someone with technical background, to “figure out this new software we bought”.
Luckily we goto U of Guelph and our environmental engineers take GIS, so some extra lab time and I was prepared for the world.

5. ICQ – You’re from England? what time is it there? … haha, cool.

]]> By: frankieknk http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1925 Mon, 24 Jul 2006 02:21:24 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1925 It was probably that old FidoNet mailer programm “Trapdoor” on the Commodore Amiga.

]]> By: Traces of Inspiration http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1924 Sat, 22 Jul 2006 12:33:00 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1924 [...] I recently came across this article (via The Unofficial Apple Weblog. I thought it was a great idea and I figured I’d brainstorm about software that I may consider life-changing to me. [...]

]]> By: Kevin Woo http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1923 Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:16:33 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1923 1. MacWrite: changed what I had thought of word processor permanently. I was only a high school student that time, so word processing was the single most important application in my computer (Mac 512)

2. Solo/Powerpoint: Solo is an application that none of you may have ever heard of, but it is a Powerpoint-like software that was designed by ex-management consultants, so it was incredibly easy to use for any consulting-like presentation. It is long outdated by Powerpoint but Powerpoint still dominates what I do everday.

]]> By: Pressepapiers.net » Blog Archive » Logiciels http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1922 Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:02:34 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1922 [...] Pas mal l’idée des logiciels qui nous ont marqué. Sans pouvoir dire qu’ils ont changé ma vie, il y en a quelques une qui ont fait un impact durable [...]

]]> By: Tim Case http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1921 Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:26:40 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1921 Being witness to the changing relationship of people and software on these machines can get sentimental and surprisingly personal. These days I try to make sense of the bookends:

A. TRS-80 BASIC and Assembly started it all at home on that “fancy new high resolution” 160×90 addressable display to create bar and pie charts. When I could “go to market” with a program beyond what my parents did with their TRS-80s at work (statistics and writing), well that was cool for the teen ego.

B. Google Earth is the other bookend, when now I visit my going-on-80 folks and they boast about the cool 3D maps they created recently … and it is more fun than what I did with GIS at work!

Come full circle with a smile. Isn’t that what really changes life?

Wonder what software my progeny will smile about in 2040.

]]> By: Ryan Arp http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1920 Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:20:06 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1920 Wow, some of these programs mentioned makes me want to push my Turbo button or to log on to #singlegisers on dalnet..anyways, here’s my 2 cents.

1. ArcINFO
I’d have to say that ArcINFO 7.whatever helped me understand how scripts and code worked (.aml). Then I learned to adjust scripts (.ave’s and .avx’s) in ArcView 3 for my evil deeds and then ultimately to dissect corrupted .apr files.

2. UNIX
Knowing UNIX or Linux commands (as well as any command line program) impresses your bosses, sometimes undergrads and justifies your your paygrade..

3. Flash
Just the output from this program is really fun. I spent an entire summer just making goofy 15M cartoons in 1999. I’ve never restarted my computer so many times!

4. Google Earth Fusion and Server. This app is currently challenging me on so many different levels in that I’m trying to automate my workflows for land research while at the same time trying to build nice presentation output for land salespeople.

]]> By: Steven Citron-Pousty http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1919 Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:42:18 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1919 In thinking about this more I have to add google search. I still remember the days of lycos/dogpile/alta vista and sorting through pages upon pages of search results trying to find that one gem. It was a glorious day when someone – I think Dvorak – mentioned there was some sort of small startup in the search space from some Stanford Grad students. My wife and I would gape in amazement at how well the “I’m feeling lucky” button would work. I really feel like it transformed the web into a much more useful place for information retrieval.

]]> By: Tom Kralidis http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/07/20/software-that-changed-your-life/#comment-1918 Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:51:28 +0000 http://zhun.pair.com/spatiall/blog/?p=883#comment-1918 - UNIX: I sheepishly asked a colleague back then about what would I should learn, to which he replied “learn UNIX”. Best thing I ever did (thanks Mike Adair!!)
- Perl: the swiss army knife. There’s not alot you can’t do in Perl :)
- ArcView: handy lightweight GIS tool. Got points, map ‘em! Got a database, map it!
- Avenue: my first exposure to an app API and that one can actually customize an application
- vi: I learned vi the hard way when I took C training and the lab didn’t have emacs (Sorry Allan!), so I plugged through vi that week. Since then, I’ve stuck to it; any UNIX box you logon to, vi is almost a lock to be there
- MapServer and the underlying tools/libs (GDAL/OGR, proj, etc.). For a geo-geek like me, open source tools like this allowed for very quick hacks, as well as full blown apps.

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