Author: James

In some sad news, the USCG will suspend the search for Jim Gray tonight if no leads are found.

The U.S. Coast Guard will conduct one more massive search effort for Dr. Jim Gray before considering case suspension this evening.

Based on excellent search conditions, unit availability, and no indications of Dr. Gray’s vessel within previously searched areas, the Coast Guard has decided to search an expanded area today. The expanded search area will be out to 300 miles west of the California Coast and as far south as the Channel Islands. Probability calculations do not place the ‘Tenacious’ within these expanded areas; however, the areas are being searched based on the possibility that he could have sailed farther than originally planned.

The Coast Guard will use numerous search and rescue units from all along the California Coast in today’s extended search effort. Units will include two C-130 fixed wing aircraft from Air Station Sacramento; HH-65 Dolphin helicopters from Air Station Humboldt Bay, Air Station San Francisco, and Air Station Los Angeles Long Beach; three 87-foot Coastal Patrol Boats from Monterey, Bodega Bay, and Crescent City; 47-foot motor life boats from Stations Noyo River, Bodega Bay, Golden Gate, and Monterey.

If no leads develop during todays searches, the Coast Guard plans to suspend the case this evening.

Picture of Sailing Vessel Tenacious in Avalon, California

Back in November, before we all got our ArcGIS 9.2, ESRI posted an updated ArcGIS Desktop Life Cycle PDF that showed that ArcGIS 9.1 had entered “Extended Support”. I guess they changed their minds because it appears that 9.1 is still in “General Availability”. We are back to the:

ArcGIS 9.1 will be moved to Extended support 3 months after ArcGIS 9.2 begins shipping.

which means that if ESRI says 9.2 shipped “mid-November” then 9.1 will transition to Extended Support mid-February. I don’t recall ever seeing ESRI repost this, but that doesn’t mean that 9.1 or even 9.2 will be certified to work with Microsoft Vista.

ESRI does not currently support ArcGIS products on Windows Vista and does not have plans to add Vista support to ArcGIS product versions up to and including 9.2. However, ESRI is committed to supporting ArcGIS on the Windows Vista operating system and intends to add support for Windows Vista in service packs released after ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 2, as well as future releases of ArcGIS products.

So 9.2 will be certified down the road, but 9.1 will not. ArcGIS 9.1 is in General Availability at the time of the Microsoft Vista release and I guess that doesn’t mean that ESRI will support it.

ESRI is running another blog with the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge entries received. Remember (if you are running ArcGIS Server 9.2) to give the code a look and give any comments on the entries.

I’m still confused of the ESRI blog world. They have roller running, they have an ArcGIS Server blog running, yet they use WordPress.com for the code challenge (not that I’m complaining too much because I’m sure it could have been the spam platform Blogger).

My thinking here is that http://blogs.esri.com is controlled by the marketing team and the dev team has to improvise (no that doesn’t make sense because this is a marketing exercise) they can’t figure out how to add a new roller blog. Looks like the promise of blogs.esri.com will never be realized.

Tucked down in a response to a Boing Boing article claiming that VE is just a Google Maps clone (while that might not be true, we all know that Google Earth is a ArcGlobe clone) is news that Microsoft will support Firefox really soon.

** Firefox users can’t view 3d maps yet, but an update in a couple of months should add this functionality.

Great news, but I’m pretty sure it will still be Windows only. For Windows users right now who want to use Firefox with Virtual Earth 3D all you have to do is install the Firefox extension IETab.

The news that there might have been a break on Jim Gray seems to have fizzled. For those who haven’t read, Jim Gray of Microsoft has been missing since January 28th. Jim is Technical Fellow for Microsoft Research and has been responsible for such projects as TerraServer, SkyServer and anything related to ultra-large database and transaction-processing. He received the Turing Award in 1998 “For seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation_.” which is quite an accomplishment.

Update – The Virtual Earth Blog has some thoughts on Jim Gray.

It should.

I’m not sure why 9.1 made it into this FAQ though…

I’ve been looking at MGE because some clients have “issues” with open source software. Not only that, but the thought that you’d have great technical support when needed was an added bonus. After reading Shane Buscher’s post it sounds like MGE isn’t quite what it should be.

Once I figured out that I only had web support (no phone#) from AutoDesk, I logged a support request and got back the regurgitated email indicating I would be contacted within 4 hours. That was Friday morning 8:45 (CST). I’ve been left with no response whatsoever. There’s no way for me to follow up with anyone without a phone#, and replying to the original email is futile.

It looked like Autodesk had hit the sweet spot with MapGuide Open Source and MapGuide Enterprise, but it appears that they need a little time to get there. Telephone support is key IMO as I don’t always have time for an email. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Well the php script hung again bringing down Planet GS once again. I think its time to dump the php and move back to python. At least there I understood what I was doing. It will take me a couple days to get it back in order, but it will be back.

For all those who have emailed me asking where your blog is in PGS, don’t’ worry. I have them all backed up and ready to go, I’m not removing anyone (well I hope so).

Well I’ve got it back up and running. There was/is some sort of weird PHP4/5 thing going on that I’m still trying to debug. Anyway I’ll keep at it and we should be back in business on Monday.

I got it back up and running, but it seems the large amount of feeds had caused PHP to time out. I’ve got a subset of feeds in there right now and I’ll start adding the others back in over th next day or two.

So if you don’t see your blog in Planet GS right now, give it a couple days and I’ll get it back in.