We need a “cash for clunkers” program to rid us of old busted web GIS

September 22, 2009 33 Comments

A day doesn’t go by were I don’t run into it.  You know what I’m talking about, some busted old ArcIMS or MapGuide website that is the only thing between me and getting what I need out of data.  Clearly new technology isn’t going to just help these websites get upgraded on their own.  No, clearly we need some stimulus money to help foster some new open, standards based, http goodness in our lives.

What I would like the Obama administration to do is start “Cash for ArcIMS” and a “Cash for MapGuide” programs to rid us of these abominations.  It is our patriotic duty to replace these old antiquated web technologies with some fine ArcGIS Server, GeoServer, MapGuide Open Source or many of the other great web GIS products out there.

It is time to stand up and take charge. Sing along men!

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OpenGeo releases OpenGeo Suite, puts price on Open Source GIS

May 28, 2009 2 Comments

OpenGeo has released their OpenGeo Suite to the public.  Most people already know about the part of OpenGeo Suite, so take a look at the Version Matrix with pricing and features and the big reason why you’d look at this suite.

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RESTful GeoServer 1.7.3

March 11, 2009 2 Comments

On the heels of the 1.7.2 release, GeoServer 1.7.3 is now out.   Improvements to ArcSDE Raster support, RESTful interface, Excel support and of course GeoWebCache.  You know you want to get some of this…

Horray GIS!

Horray GIS!

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SOAP is for cleaning…

March 6, 2009 13 Comments

Of course this is not surprising in the least bit, but Google is abandoning their SOAP API to focus on their RESTful APIs.  Most developers, myself included, prefer working with RESTful services and I’m interested in seeing if other companies will start “retiring” their SOAP APIs for their newer RESTful ones.  ESRI, MapGuide, and GeoServer are all great RESTful implementations, but they are still young and immature.  Just looking at the ESRI ArcGIS Server Mashup Challenge submissions, you can see the sheer number of REST API, JSAPI, Flex API projects and the lack of Web ADF projects.  As these RESTful APIs get more mature, it is clear that ESRI SOAP APIs are destined to follow Google’s SOAP APIs into depreciation.

Even John Brown looked at ESRIs RESTful API for salvation.

Even John Brown looked at ESRI's RESTful API for salvation.

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Developing a GeoStack

February 3, 2009 14 Comments

From time to time, someone will stand up and proclaim themselves above “stacks“.  I’ve done it and I’m sure you also do it.  The reality is that we apply our preferences on our own GIS Stacks. Should you fear a stack?  As I often like to say, the best solution for the best problem.  This might mean an ESRI stack one morning, a GeoServer stack in the afternoon and maybe a Microsoft stack at night.  The term stack seems to be getting a bad rap in the geo world.  I suppose being close minded about solutions (even within proprietary and open source stacks) can cause you to implement the wrong solution at the wrong price.  I like the idea of the problem dictating what solution stack you’ll go with in the end.  I’ve got preferences to my solutions, but I rarely enter a project exactly knowing what the whole stack will look like (beyond the OS).  As I begin to prepare to kickoff a project next week with a client, I’m thinking tonight about what I’m working with; ArcSDE 9.2, Apache with Tomcat and Oracle 10g.  Beyond that I’m free to work with whatever solution best meets the customers needs.  Do we go with ArcGIS Server 9.2 or 9.3?  Do we go with the Java Web ADF  or the ESRI REST API?  Do we go with GeoServer or MapServer?  Do we go with the ArcGIS JavaScript API or OpenLayers?  

I can’t wait until next week to find out our stack.

 

Will it be door number 1, door number 2 or door number 3?

Will it be the stack behind door number 1, door number 2 or door number 3?

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GeoServer 1.7.2 continues improvements to Cartography

January 27, 2009 4 Comments

As with GeoServer 1.7.1, the latest release improves some cartographic rendering capabilities of the Open Source server product. 1.7.2 brings wrapped labels and hatching to render some impressive maps. Other new additions include HTML image mapping, OGR extension to output WFS as any supported OGR output formats (I get chills thinking of the possibilities), and improvements to GeoExt Styler. If that still doesn’t get you interested, this little tidbit at the end of the post should catch your eye:

Stay tuned for the 1.7.3 release, slated for release in the next month, which will include improvements to Geo Search, and the official release of the REST configuration API.

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GeoServer gets a new UI

August 11, 2008 3 Comments

I’ve always thought of GeoServer as a great way to get introduced to open source web mapping servers because its Admin page was much easer to use than MapServer.  It looks like at 2.0, the Admin page will get even better as the GeoServer team announced that the new UI is in the 2.0 alpha release.  I can’t wait to see how this develops until the “final” 2.0 release.

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