Author: James

I’ve finally decided that the most important feature of ArcGIS 9.2 Desktop will be the ability to calculate area from right inside the table view (forget all that dumb VBA code). I was playing with 9.2 a couple weeks ago and used that feature all the time, but now that I’ve moved back to 9.1, I so miss it. Calculating Area (or length) seems like it should have been implemented back in 8.x but now that it is almost here, all is forgiven.

Did anyone else notice this last week?

Looks like ESRI has posted the ArcWeb Explorer Javascript API but not linked to it from other parts of the ArcWeb website. I’m sure this isn’t the official release, but I guess it can’t hurt to take a look. It was pretty easy to create some simple maps using the simple Javascript API and maybe with I’m done working through my inbox I’ll take a closer look.

We all survived my son’s first trip to Disneyland. He had a great time and that made it all worth it. I’ll try and go through me emails and get back to everyone as soon as possible so please be patient. 🙂

OK, Adena Schutzberg has confirmation in my comments that ESRI will release a ArcGIS Explorer public beta in late June.

I’ll be on vacation until May 13th. Make sure you check out Planet Geospatial while I’m gone.

ArcGIS 9.2 Beta 2 Phase 2 showed up today despite UPS’ best efforts. It didn’t come out in the photo, but the footprint is a nice touch.

In the old days there was only a couple places one could get aerial imagery and it was pretty simple. You’d ask if they had coverage of an area and they tell you no and how much it would cost to get an airplane up in the air and fly it. These days there are thousands of resellers of imagery and one can almost get lost trying to figure out which is best.

At least I have what I want and it is going to work out well but maybe I miss the days of just calling a contact and getting the information. The Internet just makes this process too complicated for me because I already know what I want and the wizard based ordering is a hassle. Next time I’m calling rather than deal with an Internet server. Heck, where did all those wonderful Landiscor photo books run off too. I guess they are just too expensive to carry anymore, though I bet I could walk over to Arizona State and take a peak at some. 🙂

Update: Thanks to David Guidera over at Aerials Express for taking care of me.

According to Directions Magazine Jack Dangermond says ArcGIS Explorer will be released in June. I posted a couple weeks ago that ESRI’s ArcGIS Explorer page changed the release date from Second Quarter to “Later this year” so either this is a new update to the release date or Jack hasn’t been updated to the new release plans. Either way maybe a new beta will be out soon as June isn’t too far away.

So I was updating my Windows Messenger Live (aka MSN Messenger) and I got an interesting dialog:

Microsoft recommends that I close Windows Live Messenger Setup Wizard before continuing the install of Windows Live Messenger. Of course it never asked me to close Outlook which if anything I would think would need to be closed to get Messenger to install.

I was beginning to wonder if we’d be warming up or not this year. Of course early May is usually the time it first hits 100 degrees, but we’ve had a “cold spell” the last couple week so I was getting worried.