Seems many bloggers are reporting that the 9.2 beta is beginning to show up on their desks this morning. I’m traveling for the rest of the week so I’m going to have to wait and see what the new .NET web ADF can do.
…or I can live though others. 🙂 I hope to work on something for the ESRI Developer Summit Contest using the new 9.2 Beta (Probably ArcIMS or ArcGIS Server).
I’ve cleaned up my GIS blogroll and added a few blogs that I’ve discovered over the past month. As always you can view them here. If you know of any that aren’t in that list, please feel free to email me (james.fee at gmail.com). Not all of them are in Planet Geospatial so you might want to add some of these to your own RSS aggregator.
It appears that ESRI has rolled out a new search tool for their support site. The new search also has a link at the top to perform the same search in EDN. One nice feature is that you can customize your search settings by product (ArcCad, ArcView 3.x, ArcWeb, etc), areas (ArcScripts, Data Models, E-mail List, etc) and display (results/page, date created). This really simplifies the search process right from the front page of the support site, rather than having to go into the advanced search. EDN’s search has been similarly upgraded as well. We’ll have to see if the results have been improved as well, but the interface is much easier to work with.
Interesting, the MapPoint.WorldRoutable data source allows you to create routes that span multiple countries and even continents. On top of that, the API supports 13 languages for driving instructions on these routes. The MSDN Library has more on this MapPoint Web Service so if you do live somewhere other than the United States, you might want to take a look at Microsoft’s offering. The Virtual Earth Weblog also teases at what might be in store for the next Virtual Earth/Live Local release.
via Virtual Earth Blog
PostGIS 1.1.1 is now available up on their website. It appears to be a minor release so I’m not sure if we’ll be rushing out to update just yet. Then again my DBA hasn’t been one to not pass up an update. 🙂 Still waiting for locking and mult-versioning, but maybe that will happen soon. Oracle Spatial is still the gold standard in my book.
In regards to my insistence that the Data Interoperability extension be included with ArcGIS ArcView by default, I’ve been emailed that at least OGC GML Simple Features data will supported without the extension license. Also that KML support will also be included with ArcGIS 9.2. The beta should be here next week so we’ll have to see what exactly this entails.
Both Art Haddad and Steve Citron-Pousty have posts up asking for users to ideas for their respective SIGs. I’ll keep an eye out for the Cold Fusion SIG and post back when I learn more.
Phillip Holmstrand has put together a very interesting site that allows you batch geocode addresses in your browser. He’s using the Yahoo! Maps API to geocode address you can pretty much just copy and paste out of any spreadsheet. I love how its so easy to use, no longer will you have to pay people money to geocode addresses as just about anyone can use it. Best of all it uses REST so there is no reloading your browser window while you perform the tasks. Its a great idea with a wonderful interface.
Steve’s got the contest announcement up right now (glad to see he actually remembered his blog admin password).
If you are going to be at the Developer Summit in March, make sure you come to our contest Thursday night (the 16th). If you have developed a .NET or Java (or even a really cool MapObjects) application you can demo it for us and win a prize (trust me, these prizes will be most sought after when you see them). I can’t think of a better time or place to show the ESRI developer world your best application. I’ll bring my fancy new ArcIMS application (.NET of course and maybe even updated for 9.2) to get things started even though I won’t be eligible for any prize or fame. Trust me, we’ll have a blast!
It looks like Steve and I were not synced up on our rules, but that is OK as the only rule set in stone is that we make the rules. 🙂
Anyway I assumed ArcIMS was included in the contest, but we didn’t spell it out so yes any ArcIMS application (.NET, CF, Java) is fair game. I’ll even go one further, if you have a great MOIMS or ArcView IMS MapCafe application, be my guest (though you might get laughed at). As I said in my comments, if it uses an ESRI product it can be demo’d, though Steve and I probably won’t rate any Avenue or VB6 examples very high. Lets try and keep the programs and languages to this decade, OK?