Heading to TUgis 2011

By this time tomorrow night, I’ll be in balmy (I can only assume so as it’s been in the low 90s here in Tempe. I assume the rest of the country is dry and warm as well) Baltimore, MD at Towson University for the 2011 edition of TUgis. I’ll be giving a talk on scripting and GIS (Now before you get all depressed, trust me it will be fun plenary stuff, not dry keynote fare) that I’m sure you won’t want to miss.

March 22, 2011 Thoughts






Heading to TUgis 2011

By this time tomorrow night, I’ll be in balmy (I can only assume so as it’s been in the low 90s here in Tempe. I assume the rest of the country is dry and warm as well) Baltimore, MD at Towson University for the 2011 edition of TUgis. I’ll be giving a talk on scripting and GIS (Now before you get all depressed, trust me it will be fun plenary stuff, not dry keynote fare) that I’m sure you won’t want to miss.

March 22, 2011 Thoughts






OpenGeo Releases OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0

What else to do on a gloriously sunny day (Well at least here in Tempe, AZ - YMMV) than release OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0? The OpenGeo Blog has all the details but I’ll highlight a couple that I think are pretty important.

  • OpeGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0 has a nice long name that is hard to say like all enterprise software packages. Kudos to OpenGeo for realizing this and supplying a name only an enterprise would love.
  • Lastest versions of all the OpenGeo Suite packages - staying on top is critical.
  • Analytics so you can either show off your popular site or see that no one loves your maps.
  • GeoExplorer updates including all those great new maps.

Clearly, you could waste your time somewhere else (Was there something going on this week?) or check this stuff out.

OpenGeo Suite; it’s bona fide!

March 7, 2011 Thoughts






OpenGeo Releases OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0

What else to do on a gloriously sunny day (Well at least here in Tempe, AZ - YMMV) than release OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0? The OpenGeo Blog has all the details but I’ll highlight a couple that I think are pretty important.

  • OpeGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0 has a nice long name that is hard to say like all enterprise software packages. Kudos to OpenGeo for realizing this and supplying a name only an enterprise would love.
  • Lastest versions of all the OpenGeo Suite packages - staying on top is critical.
  • Analytics so you can either show off your popular site or see that no one loves your maps.
  • GeoExplorer updates including all those great new maps.

Clearly, you could waste your time somewhere else (Was there something going on this week?) or check this stuff out.

OpenGeo Suite; it’s bona fide!

March 7, 2011 Thoughts






LBS and Fusion Tables and Vector Tiling, Oh My!

Another week has passed and we are all still alive and kicking. Humanity never fails to surprise me. Anyway, Geo (That is Geo” with a big G” vs geo” with a little g”) continues to roll on and keep us excited.

  • Skyhook Wireless and Sony are hooking up to give the next generation PSP some location capabilities. Good news for Skyhook, but aren’t devices like the PSP and Nintendo DS on their way out? I guess we’ll see this summer when everyone is playing the latest EA games on their iOS devices.
  • Work with R? Check out RStudio! IDEs are usually hit and miss with me but this has enough awesome to warrant a download. (HT: PHXGeo)
  • Protected Maps in Google Fusion Tables? Yes please! 2011 may be the year of Google Fusion Tables (oh and the iPad 2, right?).
  • Google Maps labels look better, but why? Justin again analyses how Google does this and compares it to Bing and Yahoo!. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you’ve got to be following Justin’s blog!
  • IBM puts out a weird blog series on the The Case Against Google Maps in IBM Cognos Reports (parts two and three). To me I’m left wondering where the content is on that case to use Esri map services. They sum it up this way, In solid Boolean logic: NOT Cognos BI AND Google Maps.” Say whaaat?
  • Lastly, Matt Kenny brings us the awesome that is TileStache. Seriously now, why are we still using WxS and Esri ArcGIS Services? (Sure, you can give me thousands of edge cases where such overhead is needed, but rarely does one need such things. We need to break out of our bad practices and embrace the future). Read Matt’s blog and get cracking. Bonus points for rolling TileMill and TileStache together!

March 4, 2011 Thoughts






LBS and Fusion Tables and Vector Tiling, Oh My!

Another week has passed and we are all still alive and kicking. Humanity never fails to surprise me. Anyway, Geo (That is Geo” with a big G” vs geo” with a little g”) continues to roll on and keep us excited.

  • Skyhook Wireless and Sony are hooking up to give the next generation PSP some location capabilities. Good news for Skyhook, but aren’t devices like the PSP and Nintendo DS on their way out? I guess we’ll see this summer when everyone is playing the latest EA games on their iOS devices.
  • Work with R? Check out RStudio! IDEs are usually hit and miss with me but this has enough awesome to warrant a download. (HT: PHXGeo)
  • Protected Maps in Google Fusion Tables? Yes please! 2011 may be the year of Google Fusion Tables (oh and the iPad 2, right?).
  • Google Maps labels look better, but why? Justin again analyses how Google does this and compares it to Bing and Yahoo!. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you’ve got to be following Justin’s blog!
  • IBM puts out a weird blog series on the The Case Against Google Maps in IBM Cognos Reports (parts two and three). To me I’m left wondering where the content is on that case to use Esri map services. They sum it up this way, In solid Boolean logic: NOT Cognos BI AND Google Maps.” Say whaaat?
  • Lastly, Matt Kenny brings us the awesome that is TileStache. Seriously now, why are we still using WxS and Esri ArcGIS Services? (Sure, you can give me thousands of edge cases where such overhead is needed, but rarely does one need such things. We need to break out of our bad practices and embrace the future). Read Matt’s blog and get cracking. Bonus points for rolling TileMill and TileStache together!

March 4, 2011 Thoughts