Author: James

Jeremy Bartley just posted an interesting “hack” to make ArcIMS image services easier to use in Google Earth. The problem has been that by default you were only getting coverage of the GE window, meaning that once you panned even a little bit, you had to wait for a whole new image. Jeremy figured out that if you request 4 images you get coverage beyond the display window allowing you to pan and still see the image. Of course it still isn’t perfect, but in his quad implementation, I actually didn’t mind an ArcIMS image service in Google Earth for practically the first time.

Go over to his blog and check out the two network links, one with the quad tiling and the normal one image link. I’m impressed!

**Update – I logged out of my ESRI Global Account and then back in and that seems to have worked. I guess my account login was corrupted somehow. Weird, but I’m back in. 🙂 **

I seem to have lost my access to the beta forums and had to resubmit my request to join them.

Anyone else have that problem?

A client of ours asked about how the licensing of ArcGIS Engine works. We wrote a “classic” MapObjects application years ago for them, but they want to take it to the next level. I started to explain how it works (yes I’ve finally figured out the licensing), but then remembered a video that Brian Goldin and Rob Elkins did a couple months ago that does a very good job of explaining it. If you still have trouble understanding how ArcGIS Engine works you might want to watch the video.

I know Brian has been busy, but hopefully there will be more videos from ESRI soon.

I posted about Zillow earlier today and I started looking at other solutions out there for finding the cost of homes. I knew Realtor.com had a solution and went to check it out. I was surprised to see ArcWeb Explorer being used. The API isn’t out yet, but if you want to get an idea of what it might look like navigate over to Realtor.com and take a look at their mapping tool.

I think I’ve lost how many times Borland has “rebuilt” itself over the years and it seems like they have decided not to be in the IDE business anymore. Delphi has its roots in the first “real” programming language I learned, Pascal but I never went beyond Turbo Pascal (on an Macintosh even). I’ve never really seen much GIS built around Delphi (if these is any please let me know) so its always taken a back seat to Avenue, VB6, C++, Java and .NET. Of bigger news to GIS folks is that JBuilder is also leaving the Borland family. This might be good for JBuilder as its beginning its transition to Eclipse and I was wondering how Borland could keep the product focused when their focus began to drift with their new focus on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). Of course Borland tried to spin off InterBase a couple years ago and couldn’t make it happen so the jury is still out in my opinion as to whether this will succeed or not.

WeatherBug has a new feature via their “labs” that takes either Live Local or Google Maps and overlays their weather data on top of it. Its got some bugs (if you switch between Live Local or Google Maps the zoom doesn’t stay constant), but it does allow you to use whatever mapping product you wish. They have an API that you can use so I’m sure this would be just as easy to add to Google Earth (I’ll assume someone already has done that) or even ArcWeb Services.

Zillow.com blows me away. It has been so hard to get home prices around the country on the internet. You usually have to enter some information and run the fear that a real estate agent might give you a call even though all you want to see is how much your house is valued. I’m not sure how accurate the values are, but looking at my neighborhood its pretty much right on. The service itself is really easy to use. The front page is almost like Google, just fill out a simple form and away you go. The map viewer is AJAX based so you barely have to wait for the housing values to come up.

Zillow gives consumers power they haven’t had in the real estate market before. Now if someone can only figure out how to reduce real estate agent commissions we’ll all be set. 😉

Update – Looks like the New York Times caught on to the story. Everyone will be using Zillow this week.

I’ve been getting a ton of email (thanks) and rather than answer them all, I’ll just post here:

1. Do you work for ESRI?
Nope

2. Can I have a copy of ArcGIS Explorer?
Nope

3. Can you add my blog into Planet Geospatial?
Sure, if it is related to GIS, just email it to me.

4. You have a very cute son. Any more pictures?
Check out my Flickr page.

5. Why do you post so much about ESRI?
This blog’s major focus is on ESRI, thus the topic does come up from time to time.

6. Can you post more about GPS?
I’m pretty good with technology, but there are two devices I have tons of trouble with; telephones and GPS units. I’m like oil and they are like water. The less said, the better.

7. OK .NET fan boy (yes I get called a fan boy all the time) why don’t you blog with a .NET site?
I use whatever works the best for me and WordPress is it right now.

8. Can I PLEASE have a copy of ArcGIS Explorer?
Nope

9. Don’t you think that Google Earth is the most important development in GIS in the past 10 years?
Actually I’d say ArcView 3.x probably did more for GIS than Google Earth has ever done. Google Earth is an important mapping tool, but it really isn’t a true GIS system. Bringing ArcView to the desktop changed GIS more than Google Earth has (up to this point).

10. Are you going to the ESRI Developer Summit?
Yep, I’ll be there and so should you.

11. Can I send you an instant message?
Sure, MSN Messenger you can contact me at cageyjames@hotmail.com and on Google Talk you can use my Gmail account james.fee@gmail.com

OK that was 11, but close enough. 🙂

Jeff Archer, David Maguire and Brian Goldin post to their blogs on the same night? Don’t tell me you guys have run out of things to do! 🙂

Oh and Rob Elkins has been on fire lately too… I’m going to hop on over to Art Haddad’s blog and see if he got into the catnip too.

Seriously, though glad to see you guys posting again.

Looks like you can submit bugs directly to ESRI rather than post them in the forums. When you login to the Beta site and go the the ArcGIS 9.2 beta, you’ll see a search dialog and a submit bug link. I tried to search for some topics, but nothing came up so I guess it isn’t live yet.

We’ve all been asking for a bug tracker for years and now it seems like we have access to one. Very cool!