Author: James

I’ll be heading out from Tempe on Saturday for the annual ESRI Business Partner Conference and the ESRI Developer Summit. As many of you already know, I’ll be presenting a talk on using the ArcGIS Server REST API with OpenLayers.

Using OpenLayers with ArcGIS Server REST API

Should be a good time getting everyone who is working with OpenLayers and ArcGIS Server or those who want to start working with it. OpenLayers support for ArcGIS is messy, but the pieces are coming together quickly so is a great time to get involved. And I’m not the only talk that covers using ArcGIS with Open Source tools. It isn’t about closed development environments anymore, it is about using the best tools to get the job done.

As I said above, I’ll be there all week so if you’d like to talk over an adult beverage GIS at either the Business Partner Conference or the Developer Summit, email me (james.fee@rsparch.com) or call me on my mobile phone (602-819-2142).

Oh and don’t forget to RSVP for the DTSAgile DevSummit Party!

James takes his lion “OpenLayers” out on the GIS Wall of Death at the Developer Summit.

OK, so maybe you aren’t a Microsoft MVP for .NET or maybe you think Java is an island of Indonesia (we are all Geographers of course) . But darn it, you know how to work with the Google Maps API or you dream about jQuery. Does that mean you don’t get a “professional” magazine of your own? Well wonder no longer, say hello to JSMag. Their mission?

“JSMag aims to brings you quality JavaScript content to educate, movitate [sic] and inspire you in your work with JavaScript.”

Issues are PDF only and cost $4.99 each. You can view a sample from the first issue here. Exciting topics from this months issue:

• Debugging JavaScript without alert()
• Introduction to ExtJS
• Community News
• Unit testing with YUI
• What’s new in jQuery 1.3
• Functional Programming in JavaScript

Mark Twain used to end up every day on his porch reading JSMag and enjoying a stogie.

UPDATE: OK, it has come to my attention that these links actually don’t do a thing. ESRI requires you to use the email that was sent to you. Yea, you’d assume they’d track this better than some URL, but alas no. So if you voted by clicking on the links above, you’ll have to **VOTE AGAIN** using the email you received from ESRI. If you didn’t get an email, ESRI doesn’t let you vote. Have to pull the siren out for this one folks.**

The voting is open for ESRI’s 2009 ArcGIS Server Mashup and ArcGIS Mobile code challenges.

Vote for ArcGIS Server Mashup Code Challenge
First prize – $7,000
Second prize – $3,000

Vote for ArcGIS Mobile Code Challenge
First prize – $4,000
Second prize – $2,000

Take five minutes and vote for the one you think deserves to win.

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!

I can almost predict that every conversation about data sharing will have one person stand up and declare, “Just give me FTP access and I’ll be fine”. I used to think that way and while I probably still would like file based access to datasets, I just can’t see FTP being a viable data transfer method anymore. Just it makes it easy to grab a data dump, but there isn’t anything that allows users to know if the data has been updated (other than I suppose checking the metadata). So many times I see people using old data because they have no idea data has been updated. Personally I don’t like the idea that I’m offering up spatial data web services for data I don’t control and most others should be worried as well. Users want to grab data from the source, not some middle man who probably knows less about the data than the creator.

There has been a huge jump into SDI since the pork bandwagon started up in Washington and I’ll be honest… I haven’t paid much attention. One thing I am sure of is I don’t want to see something introduced that has two choices, WxS and FTP. Data needs to be both discoverable and usable and I’m not sure WxS and FTP get us there. WxS no matter what defenders might say is not discoverable and FTP is not secure and has no method of tracking changes.

AtomPub to me looks like the best method of publishing and sharing datasets. There is a huge risk here of inventing something new when a superb solution already exists. Workflows change quickly and WxS/FTP can’t adjust sprightly enough. Read “How to GET a Cup of Coffee” and think about how easier this could all be.

Gatekeepers want to limit you to FTP/WxS so that you can’t change the world.

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 ESRI’s RESTful API for salvation.

Sure this was news last week, but it can’t hurt to revisit it. ESRI has released an update to their JavaScript API and Google Extender to version 1.3. Check those links to see what has been updated and make sure you update your pages to take advantage of the update:

    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/1.3/js/dojo/dijit/themes/tundra/tundra.css">
    <a href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/ v=1.3">http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/ v=1.3

or

    <a href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/gmaps/ v=1.3">http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/gmaps/ v=1.3

I don’t see any update to the Virtual Earth Extender and the docs still seem to reference v1.2 (not that anyone really uses the VE Extender anyway).

**Update: **Apparently the Virtual Earth extender was updated to 1.3. I suppose ESRI hasn’t updated their doc just yet.

Update 2: A couple people have asked, yes you can change the reference from 1.2 to 1.3 and publish. Aren’t JavaScript APIs much easier to use

Dave Smith has blogged about the first day “highlights” and I have to say I’m not impressed with the FedUC this year. Not much news coming out which is surprising since most people I know on the east coast are treating it at their UC this year (travel to San Diego is not happening for many people). The FedUC has always been more about application of technology than anything else so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the big news is ArcGIS Explorer Build 900 being showcased.

I suspect the real news will happen at the Business Partner Conference and Developer Summit where we’ll learn more about ArcGIS 9.4 and get some hands on with ArcGIS 9.3.1. Maybe we’ll hear more about the new Silverlight API which I was thinking would have been shown more than it was at the FedUC.

I guess for now we’ll just have to imagine what this means since no one is explaining it.

…ESRI is introducing the concept of ‘layer packages’ which they believe will facilitate better data sharing. Layers referencing features can be packaged as an email or sent to the ‘cloud’ as a searchable data file. ‘To me, this is a big deal,’ said Dnagermond [sic]. Users will share the data and the knowledge acquired in creating their data. ESRI see users setting up a communities to share data but only those working on the project can have access to it. For those in secure environments this will be able to be used in their own back office environment.

the cloud eh?

http://www.hulu.com/embed/de7ie6dj36OHI34pFeWZiQ

If you are looking for a really simple way to move datasets from ArcGIS Desktop to Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Vish has you covered. ArcToSQL2008 is an ArcCatalog command to export FeatureClasses to SQL Server 2008.

Much like Fletch deams of being a Laker, we dream of direct connect to SQL Server 2008 from ArcGIS.

So last night I go to pick up the latest SI Swimsuit edition to read the articles and noticed on the front cover there was a girl wearing a painted on map swimsuit. I can’t believe Microsoft and Google missed out on an opportunity to sponsor the shoot like that. Maybe next year Cloudmade will put a little OSM on the cover, so to speak.

Brooklyn Decker – Sports Illustrated 2009 Swimsuit Model (Link is probably NSFW)