Category: Thoughts

Looks like ESRI has gotten the message on the ESRI Support Survey that was released last week.

Where To Improve: Some Early Results

If you haven’t taken the Support Survey yet, please do so.

Huge update to Virtual Earth and I’m stuck in the middle of the desert…

Wish I were here!

Of course this little house in Palm Springs wouldn’t be too bad either…

There have been quite a bit of posting about REST in Planet Geospatial over the past couple weeks. Steve looks back on a post from a couple of years ago that suddenly became very relevant.

I am glad ESRI is thinking about putting a REST API in front of server but it is also not that hard to build one yourself.

As was suggested in the ESRI Web Mapping Sites post, post your favorite open source web mapping sites. One of my favorite sites is the OpenStreetMap project. I’m a sucker for Open Layers, but the concept and implementation of OpenStreetMap as a whole is wonderful.

Found while looking up my optometrist’s phone number…

Looks like ESRI interviewed Dave Bouwman at the 2007 Developer Summit and has posted a Podcast of the discussion.

Listen to Bouwman discuss developing custom GIS solutions for forestry and describe some of the large projects he has worked on.

I’ll probably listen this weekend while I’m painting at the new house (no jokes about paint drying and listen to podcasts please).

Direct Link to MP3

On a side note, someone needs to fix the ESRI podcast directory. The current system is broken with so many podcasts and links buried behind weird javascript links. One should be able to link to the Dave Bouwman podcast permalink at ESRI.com rather than a direct link to the mp3. Where is the search, tags and comments?

Typical, typical site from ESRI. 🙁

**Update – **OK, I had to break down and listen. If you want to know more about what Dave is up to and hear him say SOC many times, you’ll want to jump in and listen.

I received a good suggestion via email:

How about creating a post where users can add their favorite ArcIMS/ArcGIS Server/ArcWeb sites? I think this would be great for those of us struggling with ESRI server products.

Sounds like a great idea. I’ll get this started with one of my favorite sites (ArcIMS no less):

Greenwood County, South Carolina

Someone emailed me asking if I had any luck using the National Geographic TOPO! extension with 9.2. My reply?

National Geographic TOPO! map series @ AGS Online

ArcGIS Online TOPO! in ArcMap

This layer presents land cover imagery for the world and detailed topographic maps for the United States. The layer includes NPS Natural Earth physical map at 1.24km per pixel for the world at small scales, i-cubed eTOPO 1:250,000 scale maps for the contiguous United States at medium scales, and National Geographic TOPO! 1:100,000 and 1:24,000 scale maps (1:250,000 and 1:63,000 in Alaska) for the United States at large scales. The TOPO! maps are seamless, scanned images of USGS paper topographic maps.

No sense in bothering with all those CDs and extensions anymore. What is even better is that you don’t need ArcMap to use this. Download ArcGIS Explorer or even ArcGIS Reader and utilize the layer.

ArcGIS Online TOPO! in ArcGIS Explorer

I’m going to be at the house today with a bunch of contractors (still have not moved it, but close). I’ll be off the computer all day so it seems like the perfect time for an open thread.

While there is no truth to the rumor that no one at ESRI can go to the bathroom without a survey, the ESRI Support Team has a new survey out to see what improvements we want to the support site.

Where Would You Like To See the Support Center Improved?

We’ve been talking about improvements to the ESRI Support site since this blog started and some of the main points that have been hashed out here in posts and comments are in that survey. The keys for me and many others are:

• RSS feeds
• Better Search Results (please use the Google Search Appliance, no need to fool around with this)
• User Comments Section on Knowledge Base articles
• Tagging of articles

Go ahead and fill out that survey and let ESRI know what you want to see. We all are great at complaining about the site, but we need to be just as good with our comments and this is the perfect opportunity to be heard.