10 Years Ago on Spatially Adjusted - “Being Open Doesn’t Guarantee Success”
I never “celebrated” 10 years of Spatially Adjusted mostly because I forgot about it. I was cleaning up the site earlier this week and noticed there was some good content back then, it definitely had a different tone but hey, I’m 10 years older now. I’m going to post a “best of” link every week to a 10-year-old article for the rest of the year. Some of it will be thought-provoking[footnote]disclaimer: probably not[/footnote] and some of it will be laughable. At any rate 10 years ago this week there were a couple posts about hurricane tracking that were interesting given that it was about Katrina, but this one caught my eye.
Being Open Doesn’t Guarantee Success
All the openness in the world won’t make any product successful, but listening to your customers will. The feeling that I’ve gotten from ESRI over the past year is that they have finally begun to realize that their road to continued success is supporting users like us. Don’t confuse the hype surrounding Google Maps/Earth with them being open and listening to their customers. There is no company that likes to hide behind their logo more than Google and they will do whatever it takes to not have to be open. There is a reason people are beginning to realize that Google is the next Microsoft (while Microsoft seems to have becomethe next IBM). Believe me, ESRI has a LONG WAY TO GO before they are as open as we’d all like them to be, but they do listen to their customers and that is a start.
Well the whole post is sort of like that, me claiming that Esri has been more open than Google or others. The context with this is they started allowing their employees to blog and contact people directly, it was a big shift from the traditional call a phone number support. So we were all so excited to see Esri employees blogging and responding to our articles. Well eventually it all collapsed into a corporate marketing blog cycle but at that moment it looks like we felt like Esri was changing.
Google Maps Gets Lost in Photos
Look I love iOS but I still use Google Maps as much as possible because it works better than any other mapping service out there. But I’m beginning to wonder what Google is thinking by adding some new features.
Now Google is looking to capitalize on this ongoing trend with a new feature in Google Maps that encourages users to share their “foodie pics” with others by posting the photo to Google Maps itself.
It could be that I live in a car town and navigation is the reason I use Google Maps but the idea that I would use my mapping app to take pictures of food is a bit out there. I mean don’t they have their own social media network to handle this? Oh right…
Google Maps Gets Lost in Photos
Look I love iOS but I still use Google Maps as much as possible because it works better than any other mapping service out there. But I’m beginning to wonder what Google is thinking by adding some new features.
Now Google is looking to capitalize on this ongoing trend with a new feature in Google Maps that encourages users to share their “foodie pics” with others by posting the photo to Google Maps itself.
It could be that I live in a car town and navigation is the reason I use Google Maps but the idea that I would use my mapping app to take pictures of food is a bit out there. I mean don’t they have their own social media network to handle this? Oh right…
Google Map Maker is Officially Back in the USA
Well good news for those who want to help a down on its luck company like Google update their maps.
Google Map Maker, the tool which allows anyone around the world to contribute information to Google’s worldwide map, has re-opened in 45 countries after going live again in 6 countries two weeks ago. The product was temporarily shut down in May after it was discovered that some nefarious edits to the map, like geographic polygons shaped to depict an Android peeing on what is ostensibly an Apple logo, were being approved.
If you want to help Google, just go to Google Map Maker and start editing. Just know your edits will get locked up and used to make a ton of money. Here in the USA you can’t create polygons yet but I suppose that will be back soon.
Google Map Maker is Officially Back in the USA
Well good news for those who want to help a down on its luck company like Google update their maps.
Google Map Maker, the tool which allows anyone around the world to contribute information to Google’s worldwide map, has re-opened in 45 countries after going live again in 6 countries two weeks ago. The product was temporarily shut down in May after it was discovered that some nefarious edits to the map, like geographic polygons shaped to depict an Android peeing on what is ostensibly an Apple logo, were being approved.
If you want to help Google, just go to Google Map Maker and start editing. Just know your edits will get locked up and used to make a ton of money. Here in the USA you can’t create polygons yet but I suppose that will be back soon.
Esri Geodatabase Archive Updated
Something I started in 2006 is still widely used. I created it originally as I was trying to create ArcGIS 9.1 Personal Geodatabases with ArcGIS 9.2. It wasn’t possible then to create older Geodatabases but Esri eventually added in functionality to create older versions. The reason we need these is that you can use older Geodatases in newer versions of ArcGIS but not the other way around. So if you are on ArcGIS 10.2 and your client is on ArcGIS 9.3, you’ll have a problem sharing data. But if you have a 9.3 version Geodatabase, then you can save your data to that version and share away.
I like this archive because each one of these Geodatabases was created with that version of the software. They will work perfectly since they are natively created. So next time you need to have a 8.3 Geodatabase (You totally know that day will come), you’ll have a native Geodatabase to work with. Bookmark and use!
Special thanks to @GIS_katie for providing the updated blank ArcGIS 10.3 File and Personal Geodatabases.