Spatially Adjusted

Author: James

  • Thinking about the 2005 ESRI User Conference

    Esri UC 2005 Logo

    Well by this time next week, most of us will be enjoying yet another ESRI User Conference. I believe this is my 10th and 5th in a row. My focus on the UC has changed over the years, but I still enjoy going. I’m just amazed at how big it has become since moving to San Diego from Palm Springs. There are a couple things I’m looking forward to and I thought I’d list them here in no real order.

    • ArcSDE on PostgreSQL – I’ve got no problem with Oracle, just that many of our clients just can’t afford it. PostgreSQL would fit that bill perfectly. I’m not too high on MySQL so I don’t care too much about support of the RDBMS, but PostgreSQL would be super.
    • Open ArcWeb Services – Given the press that Google Maps has gotten, I’d love to see Jack announce that they will open up a reduced functionality version of ArcWeb Services for free. Then all ESRI has to do is convince people to start using it (blog about it!).
    • Meeting everyone at the blogger meet up – I’m looking forward to meeting many of you.
    • ArcGIS 9.2 – I’ve seen some peaks at what might be announced with 9.2 and I’m quite interested. I’m going to try and go to as many Technical Workshops as I can.
    • ArcGIS .NET Developer Special Interest Group Meeting (dead link) – Art Haddad has posted some interesting thoughts on his blog over the past week. I’d like to see more of what he’s talking about.
    • Jithen Singh on ArcGIS Server Implementation – I’m always interesting in “real” implementations of ESRI software. We usually have tight deadlines and it sounds like Jithen did too.
    • ESRI Developer Network – We’ve got one subscription and getting ready to order another. I want to make sure we get the most out of EDN so I’ll try and spend some time with folks over at the EDN Island (can I assume you’ll have an island?).

    Oh I’m sure they’ll be more that will creep up during this week as we learn more about what will be announced. I’d also like to stop at the Thales Navigation booth and take a look at the MobileMapper CE GPS unit. We are getting ready to replace our old one and I like what I’ve seen from Thales.

  • Corporate Blogging – Doing it Right

    Naked Conversations: Chapter 11-Doing it Right

    Robert Scoble and Shel Israel have posted some hints on corporate blogging. This is mostly a follow up to my post last week on ESRI Taking Control of the Conversation. I think everyone can admit that ESRI has made some poor decisions over the past few years (who can forget this one?), but taking an active roll in the blogging community can totally change

    My favorite is “Demonstrate Passion”. If you truly love what you are blogging about, it will come through. Lets face it, there are few companies that are hated as much as Microsoft, but when you read their blogs you begin to understand what they are trying to do (right or wrong) and that is compelling to read. You might still not agree with what they are saying, but at least you can see why they make the decisions they do. The reason I called my other post “Taking Control of the Conversation” is that you need to be proactive in this blogging medium because if you don’t, you’ll end up with with this situation, which is painful for everyone involved.

  • Ryan Olson is Blogging

    Ryan Olson’s Space

    I am a developer on the .NET Application Developer Framework at ESRI. Lots of people here at ESRI have blogs and it seemed like the cool thing to do, so I decided to try it out.

    Thank’s to Art Haddad for the heads up. Go ahead and add him to your RSS Aggregator.

  • New Title Graphic

    I’ve updated the title graphic (dead link) in preperation of the ESRI User Conference. The SDCC will be rocking about a week from now.

  • Sean Gillies Reviews Web Mapping Illustrated

    Link: Web Mapping Illustrated Reviewed.

    Tyler Mitchell’s Web Mapping Illustrated, published by O’Reilly, could have spared me about a week of hair-pulling back in 2000 when I was just beginning to discover open source GIS software. Our projects are reasonably well documented, and there is an enormous amount of knowledge within the community, but there has never before been a broad and coherent synthesis of that information. Finally, new users can see the entire domain of open source mapping from data creation, to data processing, to digital map. We’ve needed this book for a long time.

    Sean Gillies posts a review of O’Reilly’s book, Web Mapping Illustrated. I liked Sean’s approach to the review and if you are uncertain that the book might interest you, check out his review. I picked it up a couple days ago and even though parts are a little basic, it was a great value to me in learning more about PostGIS and MapServer.

    Web Mapping Illustrated

  • Site Template

    I’m playing around with the template a little bit so I’ve removed some of the links from the side. I’ll put them back as soon as I like the look.

  • Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds in Excel

    I was trying to catch up on some reading this weekend, with all the traveling I’ve done this month my mail pile was beginning to tip over. One article that caught my eye was convert coordinates from decimal to DMS. We’ve all done this one way or another, but getting it done correctly in Excel was something I had never tried. Take a look at the link below to see how to create a formula that will convert decimal to DMS.

    Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds in Excel – via PCMag

  • Art Haddad Talks About AJAX

    Link: AJAX (dead link).

    Art (dead link) talks a little bit about AJAX implementations and GIS. He’s a little unsure of the performance on Mozilla, but having used the alternative IFRAME “hacks” in the past I’d rather figure out an AJAX solution. Personally it sounds like a great idea for discussion at your special interest group meeting (dead link).

  • Corporate Blogging Policy

    I’m not sure if ESRI has a corporate blogging policy, but I can tell you that my company does not. Some day I’m sure that the blogging policy will be part of every employee’s handbook, but until that day I thought I’d share some examples on the Internet that I use as my own personal blogging policy.

    If you are unsure if you are allowed to blog, print out some of the policies above and talk to your supervisor or HR rep. Going in with a policy is much better than being found out via a Google search and then reprimanded.

  • Developer Training – EDN

    The EDN website has recently been updated to include information on recommended training courses offered by ESRI. This is a great site to find out what instructor lead training is offered for the different products that make up the EDN subscription..

    Rise and Shout

    A nice new feature of EDN is now the ability to find out what recommended training courses ESRI think would be beneficial in successfully programming with their different tools. Rob, I don’t see any ArcWeb Services training courses. How cool would it be if there was a free one to get people started?