Category: Thoughts

Morten Nielsen read Refractions Research’s “The State of Open Source GIS” white paper and wondered why Paul Ramsey categorized open source GIS as either C or Java. I think Paul only wrote about the open source GIS clique that revolves around Refractions and OSGeo rather than the state of open source GIS as a whole.

Tim Martin let me know that he’s blogging GeoWeb 2006 also.

I see that ESRI has posted a “virtual tour” of their Redlands campus. I’m left wondering why ESRI didn’t use their own ArcWeb Explorer and some of those cool demos that they showed at the Dev Summit (you know with the videos playing right inside the flash viewer). I swear if ESRI would just use some of the amazing stuff they do themselves, people would be blown away. This campus tour looks more suitable for a bank than the largest GIS company in the world.

via ESRI UC Blog

Looks like a new survey has been posted on EDN. ESRI lives for these surveys, but I do know they read them so if you want to talk back about EDN, this is your chance.

GeoMullah is working through getting the blogger meetup organized.

Right now this is the status:

Time: 9 August, 8pm (I’ll be there earlier)
Where: I don’t know?

He’s working on getting some more details out so when I learn more I’ll post back here. Hope many of you can come so I can put some faces with names.

For those who haven’t seen, Zillow has outlined their upcoming open API. They will be distribute Zestimates, Zindex info, charts, comparable sales , beds/baths and other data via their open API for you to integrate into your own applications. They are interesting in what people might use this API for and you can email them and maybe get access before the API goes public.

Consume, consume, consume!

The pause that refreshes, I guess….

No not me, but Stefan Lorimer came through with a great detailed post from GeoWeb 2006. Stefan details some Google Earth and Google Maps sessions and has some thoughts at the end of his post about what we should be paying attention to (or at least what makes sense from a Google perspective). Thanks for the writeup Stefan.

ESRI’s ArcGIS Server is a very powerful product, also very expensive. I’ve heard for a couple years they had plans to address this and thanks to a reader who didn’t want to be named they have finally decided what do to. Say hello to ArcGIS Server Basic Edition, ArcGIS Server Standard Edition, and ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition.

There are three editions for ArcGIS 9.2 Server: Basic, Standard, and Advanced. To better assist the geographic data management needs and requirements of server users, ArcSDE technology is included with all three editions of the ArcGIS Server product:

ArcGIS Server Basic Edition: ArcGIS Server Basic Edition is designed for GIS users who want shared access to geographic data. It provides core geodatabase management tools and technology for data storage, management (ArcSDE), and distribution (Web-based data replication).

ArcGIS Server Standard Edition:ArcGIS Server Standard Edition is designed for GIS users who want to visualize and publish geographic data as maps and globes. ArcGIS Server Standard Edition includes all of the functionality of the Basic edition plus a collection of 2D and 3D Web mapping/geopublishing tools, applications, and services. Application developers will have access to components (objects, Web controls, and services) for building solutions on both the Java and .NET frameworks.

ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition:ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition is designed for GIS organizations that want to provide a central, server-based GIS for distributing GIS services across the organization or over the Internet. ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition is the most functionally rich edition of ArcGIS Server. It includes all the capabilities of the Basic and Standard editions, plus it offers a collection of advanced Web applications and services. These applications and services include a browser-based editing application, numerous geoprocessing services, the ability to supply custom tasks to ArcGIS Explorer clients, and much more. For developers, ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition includes multitiered components for building and deploying both J2EE and .NET 2.0 applications and services for traditional desktop, mobile, Smart Client, and enterprise deployments.

But that isn’t all.

ArcIMS will continue to be available and supported with the release of ArcGIS 9.2. In fact, ArcIMS 9.2 has many significant enhancements, including a new Web application and new developer components. ArcIMS users will receive ArcGIS Server Standard Edition as part of their maintenance, which means that ArcIMS users can use both ArcIMS and ArcGIS Server Standard Edition on the same machine. Also, all existing ArcIMS applications will continue to work at version 9.2.

So you get ArcGIS Server Standard Edition with your ArcIMS license.

I need to spend some more time digesting all this new info. A little information overload, but I’m suddenly really jazzed about going to the UC this year.

Looks like Zillow secured even more financing, $25 million to be exact. That coupled to the $57 million $32 Million from earlier sources means that they have been bringing in over $4 million $3 million a month in financing according to my rough estimate. Very, very impressive.

Update – _ Just a little problem with addition_