Blog

So the Esri UC Q&A seemed to show that you could not only direct connect to just about any spatial RDBMS, but edit as well. In that spirit, we started to think tools such as zigGIS were no longer needed. Well Bill Dollins asks Esri for some clarification on the matter because the scuttlebutt is that you may still need SDE for editing of spatial databases.

Look, there are times when organizations need SDE. But there are times when SDE is a middle man that has no purpose other than to drive revenues for a company. Let’s not screw this up Esri, let ArcGIS for Desktop and ArcGIS for Server 10.1 edit spatial RDBMSs directly. The proletariat is restless, you don’t need a revolution on your hands.

UPDATE: Nothing fixes the DNS like a good night sleep. Planet Geospatial is up and running. Let me know on Twitter if you notice any issues.

In the spirit of no good deed goes unpunished, the internet is giving me the preverbal middle finger on my move of Planet Geospatial to a new host and a new backend. Some of you may see the old website built on WordPress and some of you may see the new (Well Planet Geospatial used to be based on Venus, but my old host screwed up Python and I had to migrate it to WordPress. That was a big mistake and I’ve regretted it ever since. This is to make up for thinking PHP is a good choice for any website scripting language.) website built on Venus.

I picked the wrong week to quit PHP!

So for now Planet Geospatial goes 404, 500 or works perfectly and you’re wondering why I’m complaining.

Use this backdoor into Planet Geospatial until planetgs.com gets updated on the interwebs.

So about a year ago, something happened with my old hosting service. They made some backend change where they switched out the version of Python that worked with all my websites, to a weird flavor that basically broke everything. So I had a decision to make, I had to move Planet Geospatial to a new host and get everything set up again. The only mistake I made back then was thinking I was smarter than I am. Rather than just migrate the code of Planet Geospatial, I’d convert the service into a WordPress site using FeedWordPress. I exported the feeds and easily got Wodpress working as well as the plugin. Everything looked great…

You many have noticed a couple things about Planet Geospatial in the past year. First off the site was slow as a dog, basically PHP ran every time you accessed the site and checked to see if any of the hundreds of feeds needed to be updated. If so it updated the feed in the database which by itself wasn’t too slow, but coupled with people accessing the site, things were very pokey. On top of it, the entries in Planet Geospatial sometimes pointed to the Planet Geospatial website itself and not the actual blog location. This meant that you couldn’t get to whatever article you wanted to read. The feed parser choked on a couple feeds and generally these were the ones that were updated often.

Last week I decided I couldn’t take it more. The WordPress version of Planet Geospatial had been under my skin for months and people started noticing that it wasn’t working right. Clearly something had to be done. So I did what I should have done a year ago, moved Planet Geospatial back to running on the Planet Venus aggregator. As of this morning, the DNS has been updated[ref]I would appear I brought down both Planet Geospatial and the NY Times last night[/ref] and things appear to be running perfectly.

This all taught me a lesson. Never use a CMS for anything that is important to you. WordPress, Drupal, SharePoint, etc will do nothing but disappoint you. That’s why I’m going to convert my blog here in the next month or two away from WordPress to a flat file Markdown formatted system built using either Blosxom[ref]Going back to my roots with Perl[/ref] or Marco’s Second Crack if he ever releases it. Blogging will be nothing but zen…

Update: @tooshel points out that Octopress might just be what I’m looking for.

Unlike the other “large” proprietary vector editing program in our space, AutoCAD now has a version in the Mac App Store.

The new AutoCAD LT for Mac software brings powerhouse drafting tools to the Mac. Providing native support for DWG file format, AutoCAD LT for Mac helps you efficiently document and share designs. With the powerhouse tools you expect from AutoCAD LT software along with an intuitive Mac OS X interface it’s now easier than ever to create design documentation on your platform of choice.

In a past life I would have been all over that. Today though I don’t use DWG enough to justify paying $900 for AutoCAD LT. Too bad though, it looks very nice.

Now SEXTANTE is one of those projects that not only has some really useful tools but also has a wonderful name. I love bragging to my friends that I was working with SEXTANTE (said with a Latin accent) all day. Seriously though, if you work outside of ArcGIS for Desktop, you probably already use SEXTANTE for your geoprocessing. But what about the idea of using SEXTANTE in ArcGIS itself?

Here is a first video of SEXTANTE for ArcGIS, so you can see what it is like to access the power of SEXTANTE from the popular ESRI product.

Still, a bit of work to get done before it can be released, but I have to admit, I like the idea of using SEXTANTE in all my GIS apps.

I’m the first to admit I’m not a huge Flex supporter, but maybe this is interesting to all those who tell me Flex is where the magic is happening.

WebMapSolutions.com seems to be working with ArcGIS Flex 2.4 and Flex Builder 4.5 and ported them to AIR for mobile devices. For those organizations that are locked into Flex, this might be a simple solution to get their apps on mobile devices.

So the big news out of the Esri UC was direct connect to spatial databases at 10.1. Sounds full of awesome. Oh but wait, what about the 99.999999% of us not on 10.1? How do we direct connect without SDE? Bill Dollins looked at PgMap when ZigGIS was closed. Says Bill:

I think PgMap is an impressive tool that should be able to support the needs of ArcGIS 9.x and 10.0 users going forward. It’s good to know that a tool is out there to continue meeting that demand.

Clearly those wanting to direct connect to spatial databases without SDE using today’s releases of ArcGIS need to use PgMap or QMap. The fact they integrate directly into ArcGIS Desktop workflows means that you can use them and quickly get working on PostGIS or SQL Server Spatial quickly. What are you afraid of?!?!!

One of the minor complaints about the File Geodatabase API was that there was no API wrapper for those who wanted to use it with .NET projects (Where is the Avenue wrapper Esri?). Clearly Esri heard the talk and rolled out a simple wrapper for .NET users. The File Geodatabase API 1.1 has all that and some bug fixes.

I can’t wait to start using the File Geodatabase API.

Look, I’m a realist when it comes to software and philosophy. Use what gets your work done faster, more efficiently, and without killing the penguins down in Antarctica. I can’t even remember if open source software is “free as in beer” or “free as in I’m a cheap bastard”. But what I do know is that if you aren’t familiar with all the tools available to you, there is a chance you maybe be doing things inefficiently and probably incorrectly.

That’s why I think this year, a great opportunity for everyone in North America (I’ve got nothing but love for our brothers and sisters in Canada, Mexico, and Central America) to make time to visit Denver for FOSS4G 2011 next month. Since FOSS4G was last in our neck of the woods in 2007, the geospatial world has changed a ton. So many new projects are available and more mature than ever before. The choice that we all have today is greater than ever before and FOSS4G 2011 will give us all a chance to see what’s new and how we can use these projects in our workflows. 3 days in Denver will give you the information you’ll need to succeed in this space as it rapidly changes. Sitting back and letting the world move forward without you is a recipe for obsolescence.

A quick look at the schedule shows that there are tons of great sessions to be involved with and for those who haven’t been exposed to open source projects before, there is a great Introduction to Geospatial Open Source that will help you get a better handle on your options. I’ll be there all week and so will most of the big geo-personalities in our space. They all realize that this is an opportunity that only comes around once every 5 years (yes it’s been that long since we’ve had one in North America) and you can’t afford to miss out.

FOSS4G 2011 is a “super” choice!

We’ve soft launched the registration for WhereCampPHX but you can still sign up to attend (its free). Right now, registration stands at 71 so we are well on our way to being a sellout. We’ve been lucky enough to be able to have the event at the Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism in downtown Phoenix. The space is full of awesome so we should all have a great time. I’d also like to thank our sponsors for stepping up and helping us put on this free event.

This will be the first WhereCamp in Phoenix so it should really be a special time. Make sure you register to attend if you are going to be there. I know I will and so will many others.