Category: Thoughts

Conspiracy theorists are taken aback by the news that Realtors are supporting Zillow in their fight to keep Arizona from banning it from us poor Grand Canyon State saps.

A state agency’s efforts to stop Zillow .com from offering property-value estimates in Arizona are drawing criticism from some Realtors who think regulators are overstepping their authority.

The critics also are targeting an Arizona Board of Appraisal reform bill they fear will muzzle anyone from offering an opinion about property values unless he or she is a licensed appraiser, Realtor or attorney.

Phoenix real estate broker Greg Swann said that the legislation, Senate Bill 1291, is narrowly written to block Zillow from offering its estimates. It also could affect other online services from offering property-value estimates using what are called automated valuation models, he said. “This is legislation to stop progress,” said Swann, adding that state regulators are being Luddites in trying to halt the advance of Internet commerce.

Of course there are claims that this isn’t a Zillow bill:

The Arizona House is expected to consider the bill on Monday, said Deborah Pearson, director of Arizona Board of Appraisal.

The legislation is not aimed at Zillow but rather is intended to update statutes that have not changed since 1991, Pearson said. The Board of Appraisals has not found any other online entities that are violating the state law, said Pearson, the board’s director.

I’m guessing that they Board of Appraisals must be needing their eyes check if they can only claim that Zillow is in violation.

For fun you can read the whole Senate Bill 1291 and see what this fuss is about, specifically:

“Appraisal” or “real estate appraisal” means a statement independently and impartially prepared by an individual setting forth an opinion as to the market value of real property as of a specific date and supported by the presentation and analysis of relevant market information any of the following:

(a) the act or process of developing an opinion of value.
(b) An opinion of value.
(c) Pertaining to appraising and related functions such as appraisal practice or appraisal services.

I believe such a change to the Arizona Revised Statutes would mean that I would be in violation if I told my neighbors how much their house might be worth. Slippery slope if you ask me!

ArcIMS died April 11, 2007, the day Arc2Earth Publisher was released. With the ability to serve up even dynamic layers using Virtual Earth, there is no reason to invest any money in ArcIMS anymore. Save the money you would be using licensing ArcIMS and take a look at ArcGIS Server which does bring the promise of modern functionality to ESRI map servers. I mean wouldn’t you rather have this (via Virtual Earth Blog):

than this?

And at a fraction of the cost? Plus given how much of a pain ArcMap Server has been, you can get better utilization of your MXDs with Arc2Earth than you can with ArcMap Server.

By not being able to serve up tiles, ArcIMS is slow, outdated and ugly. Time to move on (and I say this with great regret because I’ve rolled out more ArcIMS sites than I can remember over the years). Invest your time and energy in ArcGIS Server as well other more modern web mapping servers.

Putting ArcIMS to rest

While it was announced at the Developer Summit, the “official” news that [ArcGIS Image Server](http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/imageserver/index.html) will be part of EDN is welcome.

ArcGIS Image Server, a server-based solution that provides fast access and visualization of large quantities of file-based imagery processed on the fly and on demand, has been added to the suite of software provided to ESRI Developer Network (EDN) subscribers. Both ArcGIS Image Server extensions, Orthorectification and Seamline, are also included.

I guess my JRE has been updated and as a result I now have a huge indicator when Java plugin is going to crash my browser.

What is it with orange anyway? When did that color become cool again? Frankly it stands out like a sore thumb. At least I have a better alert to avoid any web pages with applets.

I’m sure many of you got an email this morning detailing a new survey for ArcObjects that ESRI has posted:

The ESRI development team seeks your feedback on ArcGIS 9.2 so that we can incorporate your needs into future releases. We are specifically interested in how you use ArcObjects.

We’d like to know how you work with the ArcGIS 9.2 platform, what language you use, and what types of enhancements you would like to see in the future to make your work easier. Our areas of interest include

• Libraries you use
• Libraries you extend
• Engine commands and tools
• Engine controls
• .NET and Java technologies
• More specific tools that could make you more productive

Thank you in advance for your help.

Please complete the survey by April 25, 2007.

As always, these surveys are a great opportunity to get feedback to ESRI so if you use ArcObjects, you’ll probably want to complete it. The question about a “simplified API” in ArcObjects is something I know people have been asking about for quite some time.

Since there seems to be a huge need for people to debate Manifold vs ESRI vs Open Source vs Autodesk vs ____, I’m opening this thread for you folks to get your anger out. To get you started, I leave you with a picture of Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Mike Tyson.

As ESRI announced at the Developer Summit, April would be the month that ArcGIS 9.2 SP2 would be released. As luck would have it, SP2 arrived tonight. You can begin hitting the ESRI servers when you get into work in the morning:

• ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 2 – ArcGIS Desktop/Workstation, ArcReader, ArcGIS Engine and ArcGIS Server
• ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 2
• ArcIMS 9.2 Service Pack 2

Despite the fact that ESRI no longer sells ArcSDE, you’ll need to download the ArcSDE SP2 to update your ArcGIS Server Workgroup and Enterprise. Why they feel the need to confuse the issue with a separate ArcSDE Service Pack update these days baffles me.

Anyway, as I noted before, these Service Pack updates are critical, especially if you use the Web ADF. You can think of these service packs as 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 rather than SP1 and SP2. Many new features are included in these (in addition to many bug fixes) so you’ll want to keep on top of these updates.

Zillow.com estimates draw fire, state ban – Arizona Republic (may require free registration)

An Arizona regulatory board has ordered Zillow.com to stop offering its online estimates of home values.

The Arizona Board of Appraisal has issued two cease-and-desist letters to the popular real estate Web site, claiming Zillow needs an appraiser license to offer its “zestimates” in Arizona.

“It is the board’s feeling that (Zillow) is providing an appraisal,” said Deborah Pearson, Board of Appraisal executive director.

Yea I too don’t see how anyone could confuse an automated valuation with an appraisal, but we are a wacky breed here in Arizona.

If it’s all the same to you, Honey, I think I’ll skip this little get together, slip out with the boys and knock back a couple of appraisals.

Having just bought my wife a 24” iMac for her birthday, I’ve got a nice Dell PC ready to do something with. I figure since my son is now 4, he’s ready for his first computer of his own (I think I was 8 when my Dad passed his Apple ][ down to me). I’m taking the Windows XP license off of that computer so my wife can run Parallels with it so I figure Linux is a good choice for him. I’ve looked at Edubuntu a couple times and it appears like it will be perfect for him, but I’m wondering if anyone else have any experience using it. Should I bother or would it be better to just install Ubuntu itself?

It looks like ESRI has rolled out their new support pages.

It is a little easier to manage than the previous setup. The search still hasn’t been improved IMO and a search for ArcSDE still results in ESRI offering “Did you mean: arcade “. Now if they can get the backend search product up to 2007 standards, we’ll have something here. Someone on the support team needs to get on the ball and offer up RSS Feeds for the “Latest Additions” section. I’ve heard from multiple people at ESRI that they _code their RSS feeds by hand_ so I suspect that is why they haven’t offered this as an RSS feed as the person who would have to maintain this code would be busy 24/7.

Most of ESRI’s RSS feeds don’t validate anyway, but that is another issue altogether.