Geographic Information Systems (GIS) GeoBlog

New Website!

2007-05-06T15:31:00.000-05:00

As most of you have noticed, I've discontinued my blog. It got to be too time consuming and I was really kinda getting bored with it. I hope to be starting something new soon. Once I have it up and running I will announce it here and then delete the GIS-Geoblog. I really do appreciate all of the positive feedback that I received from this experience. Thank you!

GIS in the Face of Tragedy

2006-12-06T19:31:00.001-06:00


The story of how GIS was used in the recovery of the space shuttle Columbia.

toEat

2006-10-16T21:14:00.000-05:00

It's been a while! We have been busy as ever at work. Our focus has been on process flows and quality control for our data that we got back from our consultant. The time constraint has made me half way consider discontinuing the blog, at least for a while. I'll see how the next week goes and then decide. Have a good one!

"toEat.com aims to be the central point for hungry people and restaurants to congregate. Our first release, the restaurant browser system, is only a small piece of what is on the toEat.com roadmap. In the next 6 months we're going to be building up features to allow restaurant owners to manage their own Internet websites, online advertising portfolios, and interactive solutions for bringing more customers into their restaurants by effectively showing people what is available to them." Check it out at www.toeat.com.

Global Hotel Index

2006-10-09T07:35:00.000-05:00

Good morning! It's been a while since I posted last. Part of the reason is that I was at the Oklahoma SCAUG conference in Oklahoma City. I gave a presentation on the GIS Certification Institute and GIS certification. Also, as a SCAUG officer, wanted to show our support to the Oklahoma chapter. They are by far a model of what we want to create in all of our chapters. I didn't do much over the weekend, but work most of the day on Sunday. Today, we continue on our mission of mapping process flows for all 64 of our layers.

"Global Hotelindex Ltd, founded in Switzerland, is a privately held company focused on hotel search services and tourism related advertising." So what do they have to do with geospatial technology? Not much, but they have a really cool flash based map that is used to zoom into your area of interest. Check it out at http://www.globalhotelindex.com/.

Population Action International

2006-10-03T08:11:00.000-05:00

G'Day! Well, the GIS Specialist came back today. I didn't scare him off with the thought of doing process flows and quality control on 64 layers. Today, we have another GIS Day planning committee meeting. We will be discussing the "What is GIS" section of our event. This afternoon the GIS Specialist and myself will hopefully wrap up our discussion on current projects. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that our GIS Technician got a new title with the new budget year. He is now the GIS Data Steward. I don't think he is too keen on the name, but it is fitting. Has anyone else heard or used this title?

"How many people will live on the planet 20 years from now? Where will they live? Where will population grow, and where will it decline? The map on Population Action International page illustrates a projected possible answer to these questions, applying new methods of mapping population density and of projecting its future." Check it out at http://www.populationaction.org/resources/publications/mappingthefuture/index.htm.

National Geographic MapMachine

2006-10-02T07:48:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! I've been slacking on making my posts again. Since I last posted I attended diversity training at the City. It was an excellent class and taught in a unique way. It was more fact based than "you should do this" or "you shouldn't do that". Hopefully it will help to improve some attitudes. Friday we got all of our data back from our consultant and it was loaded into the geodatabase. Now the big work starts of quality control. Today, our new GIS Specialist starts. We will be spending the majority of the day reviewing policies and work projects that need to be worked on immediately. I'm going to leave you today with a couple of quotes that I got from the diversity training that I think could help us all get along a little better. "Life, at its' best, is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "You must be the change you wish to see in the World" - Gandhi.

The National Geographic MapMachine powered by ESRI allows you to locate nearly any place on Earth, find country facts, and search and print historical, weather, and population maps, and more with this dynamic atlas. Check it out at http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/index.html.

Free GIS Data & Imagery GeoBlog

2006-09-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

Evening! The second and final day of Intro to ArcGIS went smoothly. I even got an awesome crystal globe from one of my students. Too cool! I'm also working late again! It's hard to keep up with the day to day and teach. What am I complaining about? I love it!!

The GISUser, aka Glenn Letham, has a new blog out called the Free GIS Data & Imagery GeoBlog. This is Glenn's attempt at stopping folks from paying for public domain GIS data. It contains public domain GIS data and Free GIS data repositories and clearinghouses. As Glenn says, "Are you still paying commercial data resources for Free, public domain GIS data? If so STOP IT and WAKE UP! Are you looking for Free GIS data products like DRG, DEM, DLG, DOQQ, Census data, or ? Search no more!" Check it out at http://gisdata.blogspot.com/.

World66

2006-09-26T12:46:00.000-05:00

Nî hâo! I'm teaching Intro to ArcGIS today. So far we haven't had any major glitches (with people or computers). I'm getting excited because we are getting our data back from our consultant this Thursday. They will be loading it into SDE and then we will be ready for quality control. Too cool!

"Let's start with their credo: We believe that travelers are the best source of travel information. World66 is an open content travel guide, where people from all over the planet can write about the places they love, the hotels they stayed in, the restaurants that have eaten. Every part of the travel guide can be edited directly, just click the [edit] button and go ahead. You can change the info you find, do a write up, add a complete city or just a bar or a restaurant. Thanks to this approach World66.com has become one of the most complete travel resources on the internet, with 94,510 articles on 34,732 destinations all over the world. Good info, more up to date than you find in travel books. Check for yourself. And should you find some wrong info, a hotel that has closed down, whatever, don't complain, but act. You can change it. It's up to you." You can also create maps to use on your blog or MySpace that show where you have traveled or where you want to travel. Check it out at http://www.world66.com/.

The Daily Render

2006-09-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

Guten Tag! As you might have noticed I missed another post on Friday! I have been such a slacker lately. This weekend I used our wares to help in the search for Brandi Wells, a missing woman here in town. It is interesting to see the inner workings of a major search effort like this. If you ever have the opportunity to help with something like this, please do so. You will be surprised to learn that the search organizations don't even know you exist, but will be very happy to have your help. I have many meetings today and I'm teaching Intro to ArcGIS tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Nikolas Schiller uses imagery to create what he calls geospatial art. The photo I have posted here is from Dallas, TX. From what I gather Nickolas is a Geography student at George Washington University, but his true love seems to be his art. He also is a strong proponent of the Green Party and the fact that our country is run by big business corporations. Check it out at http://nikolasschiller.com/blog/.

Yes.com

2006-09-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

Talofa! Does anyone know what that means? Anyway, another day down and it's almost Friday. I've actually been getting caught up on alot this week since I haven't had many meetings and the requests have been slow. I do have a few meetings tomorrow, but nothing major so the flow of productivity should continue. Be sure and take a look at the pics from the Austin City Limits Music Festival that I posted at the bottom of the page. The captions are courtesy of the girlfriend.

Yes.com, a website that covers the most listened to stations in the top 150 locations in the US, has created a "an online geographical visualization of the songs that are currently played on those stations in real time." It's pretty cool because you see the titles of the songs pop up all around the country on a Flash map. Check it out at http://www.yes.com/yesnation.swf.

Geospatial Industry Workforce Information System

2006-09-20T20:18:00.000-05:00

Good evening! I got quite a bit accomplished today since I didn't have any meetings. Tomorrow will be the same. So, if you have been waiting on an email or phone call from me, tomorrow may be your lucky day. We are getting close to officially announcing the East Texas Geospatial Conference that is in the works for November. We are also making some progress with GIS Day. Oh yeah, we are also getting all of our data back next week from our consultant........too busy!!

"GIWIS, or the Geospatial Industry Workforce Information System, is the nation's first and only online geospatial workforce information network. Whether you’re a veteran to the geospatial industry or you've just heard about this exciting technology, GIWIS is Colorado's one-stop resource for finding jobs, qualified employees, educational resources, schools, industry data, salary information, and much, much more! This exciting and constantly evolving pilot project is funded by the Department of Labor, through a $700,000 grant to "Define and Communicate Geospatial Industry Workforce Need." The site has been designed by the Geospatial Information & Technology Association and the Association of American Geographers to be a model site for other cities." Check it out at http://www.giwis.org/.

MAPS.com

2006-09-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

Good evening! It has been a while since I posted last, but I've been having all sorts of adventures. We had an East Texas GIS & GPS User Group meeting last Thursday which consumed most of my day. We had an excellent turnout with close to 50 which may be our highest attendance ever. On Friday I took a little vacation to Austin to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival. It was awesome!! We saw Gnarls Barkley, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, deadboy and the Elephantmen and Van Morrison........and that was just on Friday. Not to mention the girlfriend spotted and talked to Matthew McConaughey. Too cool! The night would have ended a little better if I hadn't decided to have a little bike crash on the way home. Dudes back got a little baged up, but I'm Ok. On Saturday we heard Los Lobos, String Cheese Incident, Guy Clark and Willie Nelson. Afterwards, we went to the Broken Spoke (a south Austin landmark) and heard the great Dale Watson play. Sunday included Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, Matisyahu, Ben Harper, The Flaming Lips and Tom Petty. Wow! It would have been an incredible weekend if I didn't have the biggest migraine I've ever had yesterday afternoon. The girlfriend had to leave school early to get to seclusion at home. I'm still feeling the effects today and hopefully will be 100% tomorrow........because I really need to answer all of these emails.

Do any of you cartographers think you have what it takes to sell your products? "Maps.com, Founded in 1991 as Magellan Geographix, is a leading provider of mapping products and solutions to business, education and consumer markets. MapMarketplace generates new income for cartographers by selling their content through Maps.com's online map store, visited 500,000 times each month. Maps.com's MapMarketPlace uses a process called Publish on Demand (POD) to connect cartographers with customers, requiring no pre-printed inventory from you- only digital files of your content. With POD, your product requires no costly print runs allowing you to become a map publisher with absolutely zero cost and zero risk. Maps.com handles all order and product fulfillment, from credit card processing to printing and laminating, and shipping to the customer. Here's how MapMarketPlace works:1) Register and submit your products online with MapMarketplace.2) Maps.com reviews your products and contacts you regarding acceptance.3) Accepted products are turned into live, sellable items within the Maps.com website. All product information is optimized for search engine visibility and marketed through newsletters, Maps.com affiliate sites and on-site promotions.4) When a sale occurs, we print, laminate and fulfill orders for your products and provide all customer service. When digital files are purchased, they too are transmitted to the consumer directly from Maps.com.5) You can view your earnings on MapMarketplace's real-time online sales reports.6) Payments are made 45 days after the close of a month and are issued directly from Maps.com. Maps.com handles everything from product page development to search engine optimization to order fulfillment and customer service. Every month your products sell, you will receive a check for 30% of the gross sales amount." Not a bad deal!!! Check it out at http://www.maps.com/mdcmp-learn.aspx?nav=MP.

MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program

2006-09-13T18:40:00.000-05:00

Good evening again! The days are growing.....it's 6:30 and I'm still at work. That's OK because I actually feel like I'm catching up. We officially hired our new GIS Specialist today. I also got prepared for the East Texas GIS & GPS User Group meeting tomorrow. It should be a good one. We are officially announcing the East Texas Geospatial Conference. More on that in the near future. I'm off to have Vietnamese with my lovely girlfriend. Hasta manana!

The MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program is a great program put out by the Remote Sensing Applications Center of the USDA Forest Service. The first map you come to is current large fire events. You can click on the event and see the actual Incident Management System Report. You also have access to regional maps, ArcIMS maps, imagery, GIS data, fire detections and some other neat products. Check it out at http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/.

Breathing Earth

2006-09-12T22:18:00.000-05:00

Good evening! Late post tonight, but I'm getting one in. It was busy, but worth it. I got an evaluation completed that is only four months overdue and am close to hiring a new GIS Specialist. Not a bad days work!!

"Breathing Earth presents the carbon dioxide emission levels of every country in the World, as well as their birth and death rates - all in real time." Basically, it highlights countries in red when they emit 1000 tons of CO2. That's every 5.4 seconds for us over consuming Amercians and every 60.8 hours for the lovely Samoans. It also has a nifty counter that shows you how many folks have been born and died while watching the map. Check it out at http://www.breathingearth.net/.

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection

2006-09-11T08:11:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! I had a most relaxing and enjoyable weekend. I even had an oppurtunity to do my best karoake song, Elvira, on Saturday. I am a dork! Anyway, I figured I would dedicate today's post to the University of Texas Longhorns that didn't fair too well Saturday. Also, a new GIS Nation video is available.

"The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas is a general collection of more than 250,000 maps covering all areas of the world. The Map Collection has major holdings of political, topographic and thematic maps of the world, continents, regions, countries, states and provinces. Major map categories include: USGS maps; Pre-1945 Topographic Maps;
Topographical maps from late 19th century to 1945; Topographic Quadrangles of the United States, 1882 - 1940 (GA 405 M64 1985 MAP); International Maps; Aeronautical Charts; Nautical Charts; Census Maps; City Maps; Flood maps; Park and Recreation Maps; Maps of national parks, monuments, forests and Texas State Parks; Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. Many of the maps are included in the online catalog, UTNetCAT. More than 5,000 map images from the collection are also available online.

Google Maps Vs. Yahoo! Maps

2006-09-08T13:48:00.000-05:00

As you can see, the blog is a changin! It is going to take me some time to get all of my fun little toys back on the right side, but it is much easier with Blogger beta. I just finished my first interview for the GIS Specialist position I have open. I have another this afternoon and then it's time for the weekend. Tonight, I am going for a nice bike ride and then imbibe with a few cold beverages. Tomorrow we have a friend coming to town for a visit. This is actually the friend that introduced the girlfriend and I. It should be a good one!

Have you ever wondered who would win if you put Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps next to each other? Well, Sergey Chernyshev makes that possible with his Google Maps Vs. Yahoo! Maps site. From the picture I posted Yahoo! looks much better, but the data is not very up to date. Enjoy looking at your hometown. Check it out at http://www.sergeychernyshev.com/maps.html.

Mapping Globalization Project

2006-09-07T08:49:00.000-05:00

I missed another post yesterday. I hope this doesn't become a habit with the increased workload that exists right now. Today, I'm preparing for interviews for the GIS Specialist position I have open. My interview process consists of a written and hands on test, as well as the traditional question/answer session. I also need to a get a handle on my budget with the end of the budget year fast approaching.

"With all the talk of globalization it is easy to forget that at the very core of the concept is a notion of geographical location. Globalization involves connections between at least two places and the first step in our understanding must be an appreciation of what this means in a concrete sense of space. Globalization involves movement—of people, goods, cultures, etc. One of the challenges of analyzing and displaying this phenomenon is that static images and text fail to convey the historical complexities and geographical patterns. The notion of a network may be the best means through which to appreciate the particular qualities of globalization, Most literally, networks are arrangements of connections into nets, or openwork systems linking groups of points and intersecting lines." Check out the Mapping Globalization Project at http://www.princeton.edu/~mapglobe/HTML/home.html.

MapPros!

2006-09-05T07:26:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a good Holiday weekend. Caddo Lake is great! We saw some awesome birds, rode the swamp boat, ate some good food and I dominated at Monopoly. All in all it was an excellent long weekend. I will try to post some pics soon.

MapPros "is for students and others interested in learning about careers in geospatial technologies. It features career information and profiles of people who use geospatial technologies. People with skills in geospatial technologies are needed in a wide variety of fields, so the site was developed to encourage and assist those interested in exploring career options." Check it out at http://www.geospatialcareers.net/index.html.

Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center

2006-09-01T07:20:00.000-05:00

It's Friday!! I'm outta here at noon today to start my long weekend, but I have to work for it first. From 8-12, I have four meetings. Whew! I've got a staff meeting, an addressing ordinance discussion with the City Manager, an Emergency GIS Team meeting and a GIS Day planning committee meeting. If I survive all of that I'm off to play golf with my brother this afternoon and then we are headed to Caddo Lake for the weekend. Caddo Lake is one of the beautiful sites in Texas that I haven't seen yet. "Caddo Lake has been called the most beautiful lake in America by most who have seen it. It is also a lake of mystery and lots of history. Caddo Lake is the largest natural lake of fresh water in the south, covering about26,800 acres. " It should be a fun time if we don't run across any alligators.

"The Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center (CRGSC), established in 2005 by Congress, is the national model for a growing network of regional centers, delivering the most up-to-date geospatial information and tools for regional support with emergency planning and response, economic development and natural resource management. CRGSC provides backup services, data storage and redundancy to other regional centers, and serves as a conduit between local, state and federal entities." Check it out at http://www.crgsc.org/.

Windows Live Hotspot Locator

2006-08-31T10:08:00.000-05:00

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday. It was a busy one. We were trying to get things wrapped up since my GIS Specialist is leaving the City. You can't blame the guy for the pay increase that he will be receiving. So, if you know any good GIS Specialists that are skilled in ArcSDE and ArcIMS that don't like money, send them my way.

"With 106,978 free and paid WiFi hotspots in 99 countries, Microsoft's Hotspot Locator makes it easy to locate wireless Internet access around the globe. Use the View on Map feature to see your search results on a map powered by Virtual Earth." Other services similar to this one have existed for some time, but I like the speed and ease of use of this one. Being able to see the aerial imagery of Virtual Earth is also a nice feature. Check it out at http://hotspot.live.com/web/SearchView.aspx

Manifold System

2006-08-29T07:58:00.000-05:00

Good morning! Our consultant is coming by today to install our raster catalog for our geodatabase. This is the first set of data that we will be loading into SDE. Quite exciting!! I know, you are probably thinking we are behind. This is true. Although, we should have a full functioning enterprise GIS in less than a year. Then we can play catchup with custom applications and even more integration enterprise wide. Wish us luck!

The new buzz is about Manifold System. Here is what their news page says: "The next generation of Manifold System products has been issued as Release 7x. This new generation product provides a relatively limited number of new items in the release notes (about 100) but introduces a systematically re-engineered product that now optionally delivers full 64-bit, native mode functionality when run on x64 Windows systems running AMD or Intel x64 processors, including multi-core x64 processors. Manifold System is the first true 100% 64-bit Windows GIS!" I'm not the most knowledgable on computer architecture so I did a little research on 32-bit versus 64-bit processors. According to Wikipedia 64-bit architectures can indisputably make working with huge data sets easier. "The main disadvantage of 64-bit architectures is that relative to 32-bit architectures the same data occupies slightly more space in memory (due to swollen pointers and possibly other types and alignment padding). This increases the memory requirements of a given process and can have implications for efficient processor cache utilization." So, you can handle larger data sets, but you probably need more memory. Check it out at http://www.manifold.net/index.html.

Hurricane Katrina & Rita Clearinghouse Cooperative

2006-08-28T08:06:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! We had a great SCAUG meeting on Friday. We are really making some progress in some areas that we wanted to focus on this year. The girlfriend also had an old friend in for the weekend. We entertained and had a night out on the town Saturday night. Not a bad weekend!

Since the anniversary date just passed, I thought I would talk a little about Hurrican Katrina data. The Hurricane Katrina & Rita Clearinghouse Cooperative "has been established at the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge to facilitate the collection, dissemination, and archiving of data related to Hurricane Katrina and Rita. It was established in the aftermath of Katrina as a central repository of geospatial data related to the disaster for affected areas of Louisiana. It was also expanded to maintain perishable data from Rita and Wilma. Initiated through FEMA and LSU collaboration, the Clearinghouse facilitates many of the data access and distribution needs of FEMA, state, and local efforts. In addition to the downloadable data available through the website, the Clearinghouse stores information that is not for public release and provides secure access for appropriate agencies. Managing the data and the data requests are faculty, research associates, and graduate students at LSU. These personnel comprise a vast range of research, technical, and managerial skills necessary for effective geospatial decision support." Check it out at http://katrina.lsu.edu/default.asp.

The ArcPad Team Blog

2006-08-24T15:22:00.000-05:00

I'm rushing around to get things wrapped up before I hit the road to Dallas this evening. I have a South Central Arc User Group board meeting in the morning and I'm taking the oppurtunity to go up a night early to see some old friends. It should be a blast since I know it will consist of cold beverages and old stories. To kill the wasted time on the road, I'm currently downloading some ESRI podcasts and a few episodes of the Very Spatial podcast. I'm a nerd, but it is better than hearing songs I've already heard 100 times. I'll do my best to post tomorrow, but these meetings are usually hectic. If not, have a great weekend!

"The ArcPad team has created a blog as an informal focal point where they can share knowledge, tips & tricks, tools, news and just about anything else they think might be interesting related to ArcPad." You can find some great posts such as: Performance Tips # 1 : Shapefile drawing speed tuning with greeking; Raster Tips # 1 - Choosing a raster format; Debugging Tips # 1 - Using the ArcPad 7 Console Window; Where in the ArcPad World are you?; UC2006 Over : A Successful Conference for ArcPad Users and the Team; GeoCollector Field Data Collection Solution Now Available; ActiveSync 4.2; ArcPad Today Powertoy; ArcPad and the 2010 U.S. Census; ArcPad at the 2006 ESRI International User Conference. Check it out at http://arcpadteam.blogspot.com/.

Planetizen Radar

2006-08-23T14:33:00.000-05:00

I just got back from our employee health fair. This is an annual event here at the City to increase health awareness among our employees. We enjoyed a lunch of hot dogs and baked potatoes (healthy?). It also had many booths and games to participate in. My favorite was the one that allowed you to shoot at pictures of directors with paint ball guns. I've got another meeting this afternoon to discuss some GIS analysis that was performed to find vacant land with unpaid taxes.

"Planetizen is a public-interest information exchange provided by Urban Insight for the urban planning, design, and development community. It is a one-stop source for urban planning news, commentary, interviews, event coverage, book reviews, announcements, jobs, consultant listings, training, and more. Planetizen is read by a diverse array of people interested in the built and natural environments, and their interaction. Planetizen's audience includes professional urban planners, developers, architects, policy makers, educators, economists, civic enthusiasts and others from across the United States and around the world. Planetizen prides itself on covering a wide number of planning, design, and development issues, from transportation to global warming, architecture to infrastructure, housing and community development to historic preservation. We provide a forum for people across the political and ideological spectrum, ensuring a healthy debate on these and other important issues." Check it out at http://www.planetizen.com/.

American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing

2006-08-22T07:31:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I had a nice game of tennis last night. My co-worker and I beat the ladies 6-1. Of course, we played a short set and the ladies won 3-1. We felt sorry for them! Ha! Speaking of my co-worker, he is moving on to another city for better opportunities. Do you know any good GIS Specialists out there that don't really like money, but want to learn a lot and help create a progressive enterprise GIS? If so, send them my way. Have a great day!

I can't beleive I've been blogging for almost a year and I haven't talked about the American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ASPRS). "The mission of the ASPRS is to advance knowledge and improve understanding of mapping sciences and to promote the responsible applications of photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and supporting technologies. Founded in 1934, the ASPRS is a scientific association serving over 7,000 professional members around the world. Our mission is to advance knowledge and improve understanding of mapping sciences to promote the responsible applications of photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and supporting technologies. The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) has officially incorporated the tag line "The Imaging and Geospatial Information Society," as part of the ASPRS identity. This tagline is representative of the Society's "New Vision," as it makes the changes necessary to better position its focus for the future." Check it out at http://www.asprs.org/.

GISnation

2006-08-21T19:14:00.000-05:00

Well, most of my day was spent on addressing. This seems to be a recurring theme lately. I will be glad when we get it all squared away so we can move on to other more important projects. I've got another meeting tomorrow to discuss our proposed addressing ordinance with our legal division. What fun!

GISnation is a new blog with a video cast. You can watch their inaugural video cast from San Diego. They definitely hit the high points of the ESRI UC. They speak about the plenary, their favorite vendor gimmicks, their favorite map in the map gallery and their favorite parties. Oh yeah, they went to a few technical sessions as well. You must check this out to see the crazy cello guy and how great Geographers dance. I loved it and I can't wait for the next episode. Check it out at http://gisnation.blogspot.com/index.html.

Global Forest Watch

2006-08-18T07:48:00.000-05:00

It's Friday!! What a week. It's always rough coming back from a conference. Although, I must say I have been very productive this week. We have a GIS Day planning meeting today. This year we are breaking the event into sections: What is GIS?; GIS in Infrastructure Management; GIS in Emergency Response; GIS in Development; GIS in Education. This morning we will be brainstorming for the GIS in Emergency Response section. I'm going to try and sneak out early to get a jump on our trip to Austin. I'm meeting up with a buddy that I haven't seen since high school tonight. We have much to catch up on! Saturday, the family is going to make a trip out to Wahlberg to enjoy the best German food and bier garden in Central Texas. Have a good one, I know I will!

The Global Forest Watch is an organization dedicated to collecting and distributing comprehensive forest information to insure they are sustainably managed. They provide several interactive maps and much data at no cost from their web site. In fact, Susan Minnemeyer, their GIS Lab Manager was named a GIS Hero by ESRI. You can find the story in the latest copy of ArcNews. Check out their site at http://www.globalforestwatch.org/english/index.htm.

BlockRocker

2006-08-17T09:23:00.000-05:00

It's going to be another busy one! We have a GIS User Committee meeting this morning. I'm going to present some of the new enhancements that are coming in ArcGIS 9.2 and give an overview of the ESRI UC. After lunch I'm going over to our COG to discuss 911 addressing for our county. That should be interesting. On the home front we are preparing to go to Austin this weekend to see friends and family. We have big plans for German food on Saturday night. Yummm!

BlockRocker is online classifieds with a map. "Creating Ads on BlockRocker is Fast, Easy, and Free. Anyone can sell anything, anywhere, completely for free. Reach your street, neighborhood, city, state, and the whole world. No site registration required. Totally free. Simpler than eBay, and no listing fees. Communication options make it easy to sell: privacy-protected email, phone, Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, and more. Printable versions of your ad are perfect for coffee rooms, residence bulletin boards, or wherever. Create a classified or wanted ad, or post any message or announcement that you'd like people to see. And, its all easy and fast to do! Creating you ad takes only three simple steps: Show us where the item is by choosing your location; Fill in your contact and pricing information, and describe the item; Preview and confirm your ad, and its instantly online!" Check it out at http://www.blockrocker.com/.

Society of Women in GIS

2006-08-16T09:02:00.000-05:00

Hola! Believe it or not I don't have any meetings today. It's a good thing because I have alot to catch up on. I spent a few hours last night working on the mini-conference we will be having here in East Texas. It should be a great event and you will be hearing more as the preparations come together. On a personal note, the girlfriend has me eating healthy and working out. I had tofu for dinner the other night and I actually enjoyed it! Also, my arms and stomach are so sore from pushups and crunches which I don't really enjoy. Wish me luck! Also, for the other bloggers out there, has anyone had trouble uploading pictures to blogger? Frustrating!

"The Society of Women in GIS (SWIGIS) was founded in 1999 in response to the need for an organization for women employed or studying geographic information systems (GIS). Historically underrepresented in the field, women now are making strides in geography and GIS. SWIGIS members come from all fields and are employed in many areas: government, academia and the private sector. SWIGIS will serve as an organization of mutual support to all women employed in GIS. It will strive to improve the recruitment, retention, and education of women in the field of GIS. Objectives include: A. Promote opportunities for women so that the field of GIS may adequately reflect the diversity of the GIS workforce. B. Promote the retention of women in GIS by providing a support network where female members of the GIS community can find out about current happenings in the field, educational opportunities and discuss GIS technologies. C. Build coalitions with like-minded organizations in order to promote common objectives." Check it out at http://www.swigis.org/4436.html.

Alertdude Groups

2006-08-15T08:31:00.000-05:00

Well I have read through my 150 emails at least once from being out last week. It almost doesn't pay to leave town. Anyway, I've got several meetings today. First, we are setting up our WebEOC product all day. Unfortunately, I have to miss part for a meeting about City owned property and the Supervisor's Network. This month's topic is Media Relations. I'm also going to do my best to spend some time on the planning of our little mini-conference here in East Texas tonight. Have a good one!

Groups is a site that let's "people map easily, and organize their interests into groups. The purpose of a group is to organize common interests. Some examples include 'Jobs', 'Houses', etc. A group can be anything you like, and can map anything you like. You can list in any group as many times as you like. You create listings within groups. A listing can include a title, a description, and one picture. It can be about anything you want, but should be related to the group it's in." I added myself to the GISUser Group that is tracking GIS professionals. Check it out at http://www.alertdude.com/groups/index.php.

Fantom Planet

2006-08-14T07:15:00.000-05:00

I survived the ESRI UC! It was an incredible, but busy week. As you can tell I only got two posts out. Next year I will do better. Although, I met all my other goals of the conference. I learned more about ArcWeb Services and found an easy way to replicate/transfer data between us and the appraisal district using ArcGIS Server. If you haven't heard the mid range version of this will be delivered free of charge to those that already own ArcIMS and ArcSDE. Of course my other goal was to meet up with friends and make some new ones. I was fortunate enough to do both. What a week!! Look for pictures and more info in the coming days.

Occasionally, I like to point out other blogs out there. "Fantom Planet is "some random geographer's" opinionated output about all things geospatial, geotechnical, and whatever else on location based information and services." Fantom Planet put together the Geoblogger meetup at the ESRI UC which I regrettfully missed. Maybe I'll catch it next year! Anyway, Fantom Planet talks shop with alot more humor than I can ever come up with. Check it out at http://fantom-planet.blogspot.com/.

26th Annual ESRI User Conference - Day 3

2006-08-09T17:17:00.000-05:00

As you can tell, I missed day 2. Too much is going on here. We had our South Central Arc User Group social last night and the turnout was incredible. We had good food, good drinks and good fun. Today has been a series of technical sessions and the one I just left for ArcWeb Services was GREAT! I had no clue that you could also easily create a mashup using ESRI software. What will call these? I guess it will have to be the ESRI mashup!! Gott run to another session. I'll try again tomorrow.

26th Annual ESRI User Conference - Day 1

2006-08-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

Day 1 has been full of surprises!!! The morning started with Jack's normal enthusiasm about GIS. He discussed themes such as the GeoWeb and being able to serve GIS data. He addressed Google Earth in a surprising light. He said it was good because it helped open the World's eyes to geographic information. Although he was clear to point out that it is not GIS and that Explorer will have that ability. Their was much more that I will cover in the coming weeks. The afternoon provided an insight into the work that 4-H is doing with GIS. Former senator Bob Kerrey gave an excellent speech about how we need to continue doing the work we are doing and that we must think on a global level. Again, their was much more, but I must run to the map gallery social. Pictures will have to wait until I return. I'll try to post more tomorrow.

WinTopo

2006-08-04T07:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! As the week winds down I still find myself trying to get those loose ends tied up that I have been mentioning all week. Hopefully, I can get that accomplished before five today. If not, I'll be working late on a Friday. Yuck!! In addition we are installing the GIS portion of our WebEOC application today. The great part is that I have not seen the documentation and I'm not even sure what it does. That's what happens when another government agency buys things for you. Anyway, for those that are going to the ESRI User Conference, maybe I'll see you out there. For those that aren't going, I'll be thinking about you while I'm basking in the 70 degree weather. I'll do my best to post some pics and give a recap everyday. Have a great week!

"WinTopo is a high quality software application for converting TIF, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP files and scanned images into useful vector files suitable for CAD, GIS and CNC applications. WinTopo comes in two flavours: Freeware and Pro. The freeware version is completely free for everyone to use. This is a highly capable piece of software which produces better results than most expensive commercial alternatives. Over a million users worldwide have already taken advantage of this powerful converter. For most people there is no need to look any further (or to spend any money). Download it right now and start converting your images with the One-Touch Vectorisation button." They also have a video online that shows you just how easy this is. I'm downloading my copy right now. Too cool! Check it out at http://www.wintopo.com/.

GeoDa

2006-08-03T07:37:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I hope day two of Intro to ArcGIS is more exciting than day one. I only have five folks in the class and they are not giving much feedback. I'll see if I can spice it up a bit today. I'm also trying hard to get some loose ends tied up before the big ESRI UC next week. If you are attending and want to meet some of the authors of your most popular GIS blogs and possibly yours truly, try to make it to the Geoblogger meetup. Fantom Planet put this together at the Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge at 801 5th Ave at 8 PM. On the home front, we had an awesome game of tennis last night. It went 7-7 and then the tie breaker ended in 6-4. What fun!

"GeoDa is the latest incarnation in a long line of software tools developed by Dr. Luc Anselin's Spatial Analysis Laboratory (SAL) in the Department of Geography at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is designed to implement techniques for exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) on lattice data (points and polygons). The free program provides a user friendly and graphical interface to methods of descriptive spatial data analysis, such as spatial autocorrelation statistics, as well as basic spatial regression functionality. The latest version contains several new features such as a cartogram, a refined map movie, parallel coordinate plot, 3D visualization, conditional plots (and maps) and spatial regression." Check it out at https://geoda.uiuc.edu/default.php.

Christine

2006-08-02T13:36:00.000-05:00

I've been teaching Intro to ArcGIS all day and I just got a chance to make a post. It's going to be an action packed end of the week as I prepare for the ESRI International User Conference. I want to get as much out the way prior because I know it will be a beast when I return. Although, I'm getting very excited about the conference. Do you know of any 'can't miss' events this year? By the way, I will be doing my best this year to blog from the conference by posting pictures and a recap of the day. Stay tuned!

"Christine is a useful, easy-to-use tool that brings geographic information to your desktop. Christine gives you the power to visualize, explore, query and analyze data spatially. A key feature of Christine is that it's easy to load tabular data, such as dBASE® files and data from database servers. Using Christine you can display, query, summarize, and organize this data geographically." Did I mention it is free!!!! Check it out at http://www.christine-gis.com/.

GeoRSS

2006-08-01T06:38:00.000-05:00

I'm up early today! I've got some reports due by noon and a meeting this morning so I've got to get started. We are meeting with our local University to discuss addressing their buildings. It seems they have never had addresses for each individual building, but one address for the entire campus. That's a little dangerous in an emergency situation. I also have a meeting this afternoon to discuss collaboration between multiple counties in the area. This is our first meeting on the subject so I'm interested to see how it turns out. Also, for those attending the ESRI User Conference in the South Central region be sure to stop by the SCAUG social on Tuesday afternoon. It should be a good time!! On a final note, the geoblog just had it's best month ever with a 1,000 unique visitors. It sure is nice to know someone out there is reading!

"GeoRSS describes a number of ways to encode location in RSS feeds. As RSS becomes more and more prevalent as a way to publish and share information, it becomes increasingly important that location is described in an interoperable manner so that applications can request, aggregate, share and map geographically tagged feeds. To avoid the fragmentation of language that has occured in RSS and other Web information encoding efforts, this site has been created to promote a relatively small number of encodings that meet the needs of a wide range of communities. By building these encodings on a common information model, we hope to promote interoperability and "upwards-compatibility" across encodings.
At this point we have completed work on two encodings which we are calling GeoRSS GML and GeoRSS Simple. GeoRSS GML is a formal GML Application Profile, and supports a greater range of features than Simple, notably coordinate reference systems other than WGS84 latitude/longitude. It is designed for use with Atom 1.0, RSS 2.0 and RSS 1.0, although it can be used just as easily in non-RSS XML encodings. GeoRSS Simple has greater brevity, but also has limited extensibility. It can be used in all the same ways and places as GeoRSS GML." Check it out at http://www.georss.org/.

HostGIS Linux

2006-07-31T07:38:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I need a weekend from my weekend. We were in Dallas this weekend visiting the girlfriends sister. We stayed up a bit too late both Friday and Saturday night. We also had basically every Asian food possible. Dim-Sum (Chinese if you didn't know), Phillipino, Korean and Japanese. Yummm! This afternoon at work we will proceed with our GIS Day plans and have a meeting to discuss were we are. Have a good day!

"HostGIS Linux is a Linux/GNU distribution specifically made for handling GIS information. HostGIS Linux saves hours or days of installing MapServer and its components, and will have you serving GIS maps in minutes. It includes: All the usual amenities of a Linux distribution (compilers, Perl, etc.); Apache webserver, with PHP; MapServer, and MapScript for PHP, Perl, and Python; PDFlib, with support built in to PHP, Perl, Python, and MapServer; PostGIS-enabled Postgres database server; MapServer Web Client (MWC) to display great interactive maps without designing any HTML or JavaScript; Example maps already installed: shapefiles, ECW raster, PostGIS, MyGIS, WMS server and client, and Flash output; Webmin, phpMyAdmin, and phpPgAdmin for easy system administration." I'm not a Linux user, but it sounds like a good deal to me. Check it out at http://www.hostgis.com/linux/.

STARS

2006-07-28T07:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! I had an excellent meeting yesterday to plan a two day conference here in East Texas. It should be an great event, so stayed tuned for more details. Today, I've got to get over to our library to make sure the computers are ready for my Intro to ArcGIS class next week. This weekend the girlfriend and I are off to the Dallas area to visit family. We will most definitely take in some sushi and some cold beverages. Have a great weekend!

"Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems (STARS) is an open source package designed for the analysis of areal data measured over time. STARS brings together a number of recently developed methods of space-time analysis into a user-friendly graphical environment offering an array of dynamically linked graphical views. It is intended to be used as an exploratory data analysis tool. STARS can also be used from the command line to support more flexible and specialized types of analyses by advanced users. As such STARS should appeal to a wide array of users. Written entirely in Python, STARS is crossplatform and easy to install (and expand). " Check it out at http://regal.sdsu.edu/index.php/Main/STARS.

GMapEZ

2006-07-27T07:49:00.000-05:00

Good day! I've got to go to Stephen F. Austin State University this morning for a meeting to discuss having a one day GIS conference for the East Texas GIS & GPS User Group. We are looking at some time in early November. It should be a good event. Also, if you haven't planned your agenda for the ESRI UC your time is running out. You can plan everything out and save it on the ESRI site. Don't forget to attend your user group meeting on Tuesday evening. I know SCAUG has some big things planned.

GMapEZ helps you put a Google map on your web page? "With GMapEZ there's no JavaScript to write and nothing to download". It's pretty cool because it walks you through each piece of the Google API. Everything from the intial map to adding markers to info windows. Check it out at http://bluweb.com/us/chouser/gmapez/.

DIVA-GIS

2006-07-26T07:25:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I'm at the office early getting ready for a couple of meetings this morning. We have a budget review meeting where our City Manager practices his presentation to our City Council. We usually find out about raises at this one. Keep your fingers crossed for us poor City employees. Afterwards, I have a meeting with our economic development corporation to discuss a joint ArcIMS site. My hopes are not too high on this one. They seem to be leaning towards doing their own thing, which may be a bad idea, since no one there has any GIS experience. On the home front, I will be dominating folks on the tennis court again tonight. Bring it suckerz!

"DIVA-GIS is a free mapping program that can be used for many different purposes. It is particularly useful for mapping and analyzing biodiversity data, such as the distribution of species, or other 'point-distributions'. With DIVA-GIS you can: Make maps of the world or of a very small place, integrating, for example, state boundaries, rivers, a satellite image, and the locations of sites where an animal species was observed; Make grid maps of the distribution of biological diversity, to identify “hotspots” and areas that have complementary levels of diversity; Map and query climate data; Predict species distributions using the BIOCLIM or DOMAIN models; Create ESRI shapefiles; import and export grid data; and much more!
You can also download AVID-GIS (version 0.3), the command line version of DIVA-GIS or have a look at a simple implementation of Google Maps; expect more on-line DIVA soon..." Check it out at http://www.diva-gis.org/.

((Echo)) MyPlace

2006-07-25T21:31:00.000-05:00

Good evening! I've been trying to get a post out all day! Meetings, meetings and more meetings is the story right now. We have been trying to get the 911 addressing squared away since we took it over a few weeks ago. What fun! Have a good night!

"((Echo))MyPlace™ lets you share and find location-based information about your neighborhood and connect directly with friends and neighbors. You can create your own digital real estate and travel guides, ads, lost and found notes, event flyers, surveying tools and more. You can also add your pictures and link them to your places – and then instantly share them with CarbonCloud. Also, form your own CarbonCloud neighborhood to spread your message. Once your neighborhood is online it connects people who want to get connected, and grows as notes and pictures are shared from one person to another - the more people share, the more your message spreads. Build your network - CarbonCloud neighborhoods complement city WiFi projects – you can even create your own CarbonCloud neighborhoods and establish a local digital community in a meeting room, office site, household or the next door neighbors.
Grow your business - Businesses can communicate directly with customers and provide them with the information they need about the latest events, products and services." Check it out at http://www.echomyplace.com/.

Conservation Geoportal

2006-07-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! I had a great weekend. After my marathon trip to San Antonio for the SCAUG board meeting (which was very productive), we went to Shreveport on Saturday afternoon. We spent the day losing money in the casino, shopping and enjoying drinks with friends. I hope yours was as enjoyable.

"The Conservation Geoportal is a collaborative effort by and for the conservation community to facilitate the discovery and publishing of geographic information systems (GIS) data and maps, to support conservation decisionmaking and education. It is primarily a data catalog, intended to provide a comprehensive listing of GIS data sets and map services relevant to biodiversity conservation. The Conservation Geoportal does not actually store maps and data, but rather the descriptions and links to those resources, known as "metadata." It includes the following capabilities: Search for data and maps by keyword, category, geography, or time period; Save your search queries for future use; Use the built-in Map Viewer to display, manipulate, and combine live map services; Create, save, and email custom maps using data from various map services; Publish metadata for your maps and data so others can find them. The Conservation Geoportal is designed to make it quick and easy for conservation practitioners to find, and if possible, preview and download GIS data and maps. Similarly, it is easy for conservation data publishers to post metadata describing the data and maps they want to share, how to access them, and under what terms. This is a free tool for all conservation practitioners and supporters to use and contribute content. We hope that it will minimize the proliferation of geospatial data catalogs and reduce duplication of effort in building and maintaining metadata catalogs and map viewers." Check it out at http://www.conservationmaps.org/Portal/ptk.

National Geographic World Music

2006-07-20T11:32:00.000-05:00

Good day! I'm working feverishly to get some things out of the way before I leave for Austin this afternoon. I'm going to see the family tonight and then it's off to San Antonio in the morning for a South Central Arc User Group board meeting. We have a full agenda so it will be a long day, especially since I'm driving back to Longview tomorrow night. I'm not sure if I will have internet access so you may not see a post tomorrow. Have a good day and a good weekend!

"World music is Israeli reggae and Japanese klezmer. It's rock and roll from the Sahara and flamenco with a hip-hop breakbeat; it's digital bossa nova and Irish sean nos with an African pulse. It's downhome country music from someone else's country and smooth, urban R&B from the mega-cities of the Southern Hemisphere. It's cowboy music from Venezuela and Persian classical music from L.A. It's music that transcends borders. In our interconnected world a great song can come out of anywhere: crossing oceans and continents, and leveling barriers of race, religion, nationality, class and even language. Worldwide hits can emerge as easily from Lagos or New Delhi as London or New York. This is the essence of what's become known as world music: it's the soundtrack of globalization, and the sound of the world we live in today. Music transcends categories, too, and there's no fixed definition for world music. It's a slippery term - as changeable and varied as the music it attempts to describe. To some, world music is field recordings and ethnographic music, for others it's simply pop music from somewhere else. Many consider world music a marketing concept and a catchall for the various international sounds that aren't easily categorized; while many more consider it an alternative to the mainstream. All of these definitions are correct: World music contains multitudes. World music is the sound of human genius and creativity, constantly renewing and reinventing itself as old sounds mutate into new and young talent preserves and reinvigorates tradition. World music is the sound of humanity singing to itself. It's the natural sound our planet makes when you tune in to the right frequency. And it's quite possibly the sound of your next favorite song." Check it out at http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/
page.basic/home.

SERVIR

2006-07-19T07:40:00.000-05:00

Hola! Hump day begins ...... no meetings this morning, but I have three this afternoon. They range from discussing sex offenders, installing software and looking at work order management software. Hopefully, I can get caught up on some work this morning. Have a great day!

"SERVIR is a regional visualization and monitoring system for Mesoamerica that integrates satellite and other geospatial data for improved scientific knowledge and decision making by managers, researchers, students, and the general public. SERVIR addresses the nine societal benefit areas of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS): disasters, ecosystems, biodiversity, weather, water, climate, oceans, health, agriculture, and energy. For example, SERVIR can be used to monitor and forecast ecological changes and severe events such as forest fires, red tides, and tropical storms. SERVIR headquarters are located at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) in the Republic of Panama. A test bed and rapid prototyping SERVIR facility is managed by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center at the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama." Check it out at http://servir.nsstc.nasa.gov/index.html.

GeoServer

2006-07-18T19:04:00.000-05:00

Howdy! As you can see I didn't post at a reasonable time again. We had a user committee meeting this morning that went well. We had a great presentation exposing our users to different types of analysis. Then it was off to the supervisors network where we discussed performance reviews. Yawn! In the afternoon I met with several water utility managers to discuss ways that GIS can help them in their jobs. All in all it was productive and tiring. I'll sleep well tonight.

"GeoServer is an Open Source server that connects your information to the Geospatial Web. With GeoServer you can publish and edit data using open standards. Your information is made available in a large variety of formats as maps/images or actual geospatial data. GeoServer's transactional capabilities offer robust support for shared editing. GeoServer's focus is ease of use and support for standards, in order to serve as 'glue' for the geospatial web, connecting from legacy databases to many diverse clients. GeoServer supports WFS-T and WMS open protocols from the OGC to produce JPEG, PNG, SVG, KML/KMZ, GML, PDF, Shapefiles and more. Geoserver is built on Geotools, the same Java toolkit that udig uses. GeoServer is a truly open community, with a well documented and modular codebase, so don't hesitate to get involved." Check it out at http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home.

Active Volcanoes

2006-07-17T19:08:00.000-05:00

Good evening! I just don't have enough time lately. I only had three meetings, but I felt like I wasn't in my office at all and I didn't even take a lunch. My meeting this morning was with our appraisal district and it looks like we will be sharing a single geodatabase for all of our data and creating a ArcIMS site for both entities. That's exciting news!! This afternoon we met with our Planning department and we are officially taking over 911 addressing as of this afternoon. More exciting news (and a little scary)! On the personal side of life we had an excellent weekend. We visited the balloon race on Friday night and it was an amazing experience. Look for a couple pics on Frappr soon. We also had time to catch a movie, go for a swim, and had a very hot bike ride. Peace!

Active Volcanoes (spelled wrong on the site) is a Google mashup that shows "volcano activity Reports available from the Smithsonian Institute (USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report)and the VOLCANO mailing list. Database and additional information from:Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program." Check it out at http://www.geocodezip.com/v2_activeVolcanos.asp.

SAGA GIS

2006-07-14T18:05:00.000-05:00

No meetings today, but I couldn't even find time to update the blog!! We have many projects going on and it's been a long day. Anyway, enough crying. The girlfriend and I are off to the Great Texas Balloon Race here in Longview. That is the largest hot air balloon event in Texas and it should be a good time. When it gets dark tonight they do what they call the balloon glow which is supposed to be beautiful. Have a great weekend!!!

"SAGA – System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses- is a hybrid GIS software. The first objective of SAGA is to give (geo-)scientists an effective but easy learnable platform for the implementation of geoscientific methods, which is achieved by SAGA's unique Application Programming Interface (API). The second is to make these methods accessible in a user friendly way. This is mainly done by the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Together this results in SAGA's true strength: a fast growing set of geoscientifc methods, bundled in exchangeable Module Libraries.The figure shows SAGA's system architecture. SAGA is written in the widespread and powerful C++ programming language and follows an object oriented approach. Moreover it relies on the GNU Public License, which means it is an open source project. All this designates SAGA to be a first choice tool for everybody who works in the field of geosciences, in particular for those who want transparent state of the art methods." Check it out at http://www.saga-gis.uni-goettingen.de/html/index.php.

The Tour de France in 3D

2006-07-13T08:36:00.000-05:00

Good morning! Not much news again today. We continue to press forward on our field verification of addresses and addressing standards. I'm also working on scheduling another Introduction to ArcGIS I course. Other than that it is business as usual. Have a great day!

I'm excited about todays post because if you have taken a look at my profile I enjoy riding the bike on occasion. Although, the Tour is not too exciting now that Lance is not destroying the other rider. "Tour de France and Google team up to offer you the full 3D route of the Tour de France in Google Earth. You will no longer miss anything: reliefs, stage cities, results, departures or arrival lines… Rediscover the Tour with Google Earth. Never miss a stageSave the Tour de France Route in your “favorites” and enjoy an automatic update of course information." Check it out at http://www.letour.com/2006/TDF/LIVE/us/400/
r2_google_earth.html.

geotagthings

2006-07-12T07:48:00.000-05:00

Howdy! Another day in paradise begins. I've got a lunch meeting that is sponsored by our economic development corporation that focuses on economic development in the community. It's called the community roundtable and we go around the room and discuss items that we are working on that effect economic development. Anyway, I can't beleive I only have one meeting. Sweeet!!!

"Geotagthings is a simple way to assign any web resource — anything with a URL - a location in the normal, human physical world. Why would anyone want to assign a geographic location to a web page? The simple reason is that people are already doing various projects that fell within the scope of making web data also geographic data and we felt that there was a need for a low-impact, easy to use tool to help in our own little way. The more involved reason is that the Internet and other networks are very rapidly spilling out into the physical world. Whether you call it pervasive networks, ubiquitous computing or the geospatial web, one can easily anticipate that the networks need geographic semantics. In the physical world, location means more than a uniform resource locators (URLs). In the physical world, the data that is sluicing around also needs to know where it is according to an additional set of geographic information, such as latitude/longitude, or relative location to canonical landmarks, or simply the town or city in which that previously non- geotagged data has relevance. We feel that Geotagthings is an important component of the larger toolkit of collaborative mapping projects. It provides a bottom-up resource for networked public contributions to mapping the web and making web resources "findable" and relevant to activities in the physical world. We also felt the need for an additional, lightweight, open tagging mechanic for adding geographic semantics to things to go along with all of the other wonderful geo and location-based networking services already out there. Geotagthings is just one more arrow in the quiver." Unfortunately, you can only use geotagthings if you use Mac (OS X) - Camino, all versions or Firefox, all versions; On the PC - Firefox, all versions (not extensively tested, though). This knocks me out of the game so I couldn't really get a feel for it. Check it out at http://geotagthings.com/beta/.

BoatingSF

2006-07-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

Good day! Not much new for today. No meetings, which is a minor miracle. We are still fighting the Chechem at home. We also got our fill on some decent sushi last night. The girlfriend hasn't had any sushi in three months and needed some bad. It's nice not having many meetings and no plans for the week. I should try this more often.

BoatingSF has a cool mashup that shows the recent positions of boats in the San Francisco Bay area. "The ship tracks shown on our San Francisco Bay ship tracking page come from a system called AIS (Automatic Identification System). Starting in 2002, all new commercial ships over 300 gross tons, and all new passenger vessels, are required to include AIS transponders. The AIS system transmits information encoded on two VHF channels, at 161.975 MHz 162.025 MHz. Transmissions use 9600 bit per second GMSK FM modulation and HDLC packet protocols. Each ship transmits during one of 2,250 time slots, so all ships can share the two channels. The two channels provide redundancy and some level of protection from interference. Transmission range is basically line-of-sight, like VHF voice traffic. Typical range is 20 nautical miles. The AIS transponder receives information from the ship's other navigational instruments. Position, course, and speed over ground information is typically provided by a GPS receiver. The ship's officers must enter information such as ship name, ship type, ship dimensions, and estimated time of arrival. This information is not always entered correctly and is sometimes out of date, which accounts for the peculiar information occasionally seen in the ship information panel on our ship tracking page. Ships that are moored or at anchor are required to transmit their position information at least every 3 minutes. Ships moving at up to 14 kts must transmit their position every seconds; at up to 23 kts, every 6 seconds; and at faster speeds, every 2 seconds. In addition, static information (such as the ship's name, destination, and estimated time of arrival) is transmitted separately every 6 minutes.
BoatingSF.com's San Francisco Bay ship tracking page displays information received from a SR161 receiver, supplied by Milltech Marine. The receiver is located in the Berkeley Hills. It connects to a serial device server, which converts the RS-232 signal to Ethernet and acts as a TCP/IP server. Our Web server maintains a TCP/IP socket connection to the serial device server and processes the data stream. Custom PHP software on our Web server decodes the messages and stores the AIS reports in a MySQL database. Every five minutes, software running on the Web server analyzes the last hour of AIS reports and creates an XML file that summarizes these reports. When you load our San Francisco Bay ship tracking page, a Flash program reads this XML file from the server and displays the animated ship positions. To reduce the amount of data that must be sent, the server provides position reports on a one-minute interval, and the Flash program interpolates from these positions." Too cool!!!!!! They make it sound so simple. Check it out at http://www.boatingsf.com/ais_map.php.

Globe4D

2006-07-10T07:38:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! I had an excellent weekend with the girlfriend back home. Unfortunately, she is back to teaching summer school labs today. Not much rest! Also, if you ever go trouncing through the jungle in the Yucatan beware of the Chechem tree (aka Mayan Jungle Rot). It's like Poison Ivy on steroids and it hurts. We have tried numerous cures for the girlfriend throughout the weekend from Calamine lotion, antibitoic cream, swimming pool chlorine and salt paste. We are thinking the salt paste and chlorine is helping. Wish us luck with that!! On a work related note, I have a meeting this morning with the Citizens on Patrol (aka COPs). We want them to help with our field verification of addresses. The idea is to field verify every address in the City. Have any of you taken on such an endeavor? If so, what are the do's and don'ts? Have a good one!!

"Globe4D is a four dimensional direct manipulation device for globe viewing. ConceptGlobe4D is an interactive installation that consists of a physical sphere whereupon three dimensional images are projected. The projection can be controlled by the user. Unlike conventional globes, Globe4D shows dynamic images which can be viewed from all angles. This is a new way of displaying and interacting with geographical data over time. The user can interact with the globe in two ways. First: rotation of the sphere itself. Second: turning a ring around the sphere. By rotating the sphere the projected image rotates along with the input movement. Turning the ring controls time as the 4th dimension of the globe. In our installation the user experiences a time-shift of more than 750.000.000 years. You can perfectly see the continental drift during this time-travel! Of course Globe4D limitation boundaries are not fixed to the earth alone. Live weather images and daylight changes can be projected on the globe as well as climate changes, earthquakes and hurricanes. You can even think of going to the middle of the earth by zooming in on its crust peeling of the earth as if it is an onion. Of course Globe4D is not limited to the earth alone. The moon, the sun, mars and any other spherical object can be projected as well. The Globe4D concept consists of three parts: the Hardware, the Software and the Data Model. Check it out more at http://www.globe4d.com/index.php/.

MapGameDay

2006-07-07T12:23:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! Today is the big day when my girlfriend returns from three months in Mexico. I'm leaving early from work at three to go to Dallas and bring her home. We have a big weekend planned of doing absolutely nothing. It will be good for both of us. On a GIS related note I caught this story from MySpace (beleive it or not). It looks like ESRI has some legal issues going on and has been subpoenaed in a probe of a lobbying firm. Read more at http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3992253. Have a great weekend!!!

"MapGameDay is the place for football fans to create online sharable maps of their favorite college football stadium. Create Maps to your secret tailgate locations, your seats, or the aftergame party." As the creators put it, "MapGameDay has been the combination of several things that we really like- namely not getting lost at College Football Games. A game from last year is a perfect example. The game was in the afternoon, and I was meeting friends from out of town. The equation: Campus they were not familiar with +Poor cell phone reception +Tons of people wearing the same color shirt=2 extra miles of walking on a muggy September day
Determined not to let this happen to anyone again, we started our mission of not letting football fans down, especially when you travel to opponents stadiums. After quickly determining that our spare change would not be enough to build out decent cell towers across the country, and that nasty little incident with Kip's "time travel" machine, we decided why not a map. We hope you enjoy our little creation, and will tell lots of people." Check it out at http://www.mapgameday.com/index.php. Today is the Day!

Stick It To Em'

2006-07-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

Hola! It's already been a busy one. I've already been out to an elevated water storage tank to help point an antenna at another tank using GPS. Now, I only have three more meetings today. Whew!! Holiday weeks are horrible because everyone tries to cram a week of work into three days. Tomorrow is the big day when my girlfriend returns! Have a great one!

Here is a cool article from Popular Science. "The StarChase system, which the Los Angeles Police Department will test this fall, consists of a laser-guided launcher and a miniaturized GPS tag complete with a radio transmitter and a blob of gummy adhesive. Once stuck to its target, the tag begins transmitting coordinates to a server through an encrypted cellular network. Computers superimpose the GPS data over a map that allows dispatchers to track the vehicle’s every move." What a great idea! No more car chases. Let the guy think he has gotten away and bust him while he is in line at the Taco Bell. Beautiful! Check it out at http://www.popsci.com/popsci/whatsnew/
73415ef7dfa1c010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html. 0 Days!!

Military Deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan

2006-07-05T07:27:00.000-05:00

Well, we are back at it after the Holiday! I hope everyone enjoyed their time off. I've got a meeting today about the creation of our external ArcIMS site. We are trying to decide if it will be better to have our consultant host it or to host it ourselves. Any thoughts? Have a good one!

Here is an interesting one that the GISuser mentioned. This mashup developed by a staff writer at the Palm Beach Post maps deaths of military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Individual records and information are provided including the name of the soldier and military operation that the casualty resulted from. "These maps are based on casualty information from the U.S. Department of Defense. The map is a static snapshot of military deaths as of Sunday, June 25. It includes information on 2,797 service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Information on 18 additional service members from other countries and U.S. territories are not reflected in the maps." This really puts things in perspective. Hopefully, some of these names are not from your hometown. Check it out at http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/palmbeachpost/news/soldier0704/
index.html. 1 Day!!

quickmaps

2006-07-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

Happy 4th of July for those of you from the U.S.! I enjoyed some fireworks at a local lake last night with some friends. It's awesome to watch fireworks over the water because of the reflection they create. I'm going to a cookout this afternoon at a co-workers house. Then it is back to the grind tomorrow. Have a good one!

I've got a treat today!! Quickmaps lets you "draw pictures and label things on a google map using simple clicks and drags. Easily move the map to anywhere in the world. Quikmaps is perfect for: drawing a map to your house, sketching out a cycling or hiking route, or telling everyone where you saw the grizzly bear. When you're done...Blog it!; Email it!; Change it! Quikmaps hosts your maps, so you can come back and edit them whenever you want. After you save your changes, your maps will update themselves. You can even Google Earth it!" Check it out at http://quikmaps.com/. 2 Days!!

If the Earth Were a Sandwich

2006-07-03T07:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! The week has finally arrived that my girlfriend returns to the country and civilization. She arrives Friday evening and we have a fun filled weekend planned of doing absolutely nothing. With the Holiday this week it should move along relatively quickly. I'm going to enjoy some fireworks tonight and possibly a cookout tomorrow. I will do my best to post tomorrow (even on the holiday, what dedication!).

Here's a fun one! If the Earth Were a Sandwich challenges you to make the Earth into a sandwich. It states, "Never before have two slices of bread been simultaneously placed on the ground directly opposite each other on the globe, this making an EARTH SANDWICH. The fact that the Earth has never been a sandwich is probably why things are so screwed up. The first team to successfully document and prove that they have made an Earth sandwich will get a Leauge of Awesomeness certificate and.........something else." So, what does any of this have to do with mapping or GIS? They have a nice Google mashup that shows the location of folks bread around the World. They also have a tool that shows you the exact opposite spot from your location on the Earth. Check out one of my pics on my slideshow at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, my half of the sandwich falls in the middle of the Indian ocean and my pooch Bailey consumed it. Check it out at http://www.zefrank.com/sandwich/. 3 Days!!

Gmaps 101 - An Introduction to Google Maps & The Google Maps API (Part 3)

2006-06-30T18:43:00.000-05:00

What a day! I finished my Intro to ArcGIS class. It always amazes me that I get so tired from teaching. All the questions and talking. I don't know how teachers do that everyday. Anyway, the weekend is here! I don't have any real plans other than cleaning the apartment since my girlfriend will be back in town next Friday! Have a great weekend!

Today, I'm passing on the third and final installment of Gmaps 101 - An Introduction to Google Maps & The Google Maps API from the GISUser. The third part takes you into AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) and how it is revolutionizing the user experience of web mapping applications. In addition, they also cover various ways to geocode your data for Google Mapping applications. Check it out at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/9207/28/. 6 Days!!!

Wayfinder Earth

2006-06-29T07:32:00.000-05:00

Howdy! I'm rushing around this morning trying to prepare for my class. It's always interesting how each class has a different feel to it. We will see what I get today. Gotta run!

"Wayfinder Earth puts the whole World at your fingertips. Get a view of the entire planet as a 3D globe on your mobile phone. Then simply choose a location and zoom in to city street level. Check out the best bars, restaurants, museums or hotels and get there without a hitch." Although the app is not available on all phones yet, including mine. It sounds cool, but they need some screen shots on their webpage. Check it out at http://www.wayfinderearth.com/index.us.php. 7 Days!!

geo visitors

2006-06-28T20:30:00.000-05:00

What a day!! We had Gary in from Western Data Systems to give a little training on our new Trimble GeoXH. It's a pretty cool machine and it has 1' accuracy. Rock! Anyway, I've been going at it since 7:15. My meeting with the City Manager yesterday went well. He asked two questions and told us that we were doing a great job. So, the budget is looking good! Tomorrow I teach another Intro to ArcGIS I class. I've got a pretty full class so it should be interesting. It also includes many managers and directors. Well, I've got to go review my material. Notice my countdown to the ESRI UC on the right. Out!

Check out this tool from Digital Point Solutions. "It will automatically detect where in the world visitors are coming from when they visit your site. To use, copy/paste the HTML code on the right to your website." That's it! You can put it on your MySpace page or your blog. Check it out at http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/geovisitors/. 8 Days!

ASCII Maps

2006-06-27T07:40:00.000-05:00

Hola! I've got my big budget meeting today where the City Manager asks me questions concerning my requests for the upcoming year. Last year he took it easy on me so hopefully this year will be the same. Keep your fingers crossed. This morning I'm running over to the Library to install data for my Intro to ArcGIS course this Thursday and Friday. This afternoon after the budget meeting I've got to install some GPS software for training tomorrow. What fun! Have a good one!

The creators of ASCII Maps couldn't have said it better. "Google Maps in ASCII characters. Pure silliness for your enjoymentby the good people at Poly9 and the invaluable Markus Gebhard" Pure silliness is right, but I think it's a pretty interesting idea. The text actually keeps the shape of the features on the map. Zoom in to see what your hometown looks like in ASCII text. Check it out at http://www.asciimaps.com/. 9 Days!!!

The Genographic Project

2006-06-26T07:06:00.000-05:00

Welcome to another week! I had a pretty great weekend. Hangin with the guys on Friday was quite fun! On Saturday night I went to a party. Afterward we made a midnight trip to Shreveport for a little casino action. Good thing we did because I hit $380 on a slot machine! All in all a pretty good weekend. FYI the agenda/planner for the ESRI User Conference is on their website. Also, they have a new blog for the UC at http://blogs.esri.com/roller/page/ucblog.

"The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages. The fossil record fixes human origins in Africa, but little is known about the great journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did we, each of us, end up where we are? Why do we appear in such a wide array of different colors and features? Such questions are even more amazing in light of genetic evidence that we are all related—descended from a common African ancestor who lived only 60,000 years ago." What's cool is that you can actually help using your own DNA. To learn more and find out how you can participate check out https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html. 10 Days!!!

GIS Job Finder

2006-06-23T07:45:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! I've got four meetings today!! First up is my general staff meeting with the IT department. Then it's the Emergency GIS Team where we will discuss our results from our site address field verification pilot project. Then we have our monthly GIS User Committee meeting which always proves to be interesting. That's all before lunch!! After lunch I'm meeting the EOC corrdinator at the EOC to discuss the setup of the Emergency GIS Team among other things. Have a great weekend!! Me and the guys are going out for some trouble tonight and then I have a party to attend Saturday. It should be a fun one!

"Whether you are looking for a job or an employee, GIS Job Finder will locate what you have in mind. The fastest and best way to change your career or help to change someone else's future." If you are in pursuit of a change, check it out at http://www.gis-job-finder.com/. 14 Days!!

Global MapAid

2006-06-22T08:05:00.000-05:00

Good day! Well, I am officially starting to feel older. Today is my birthday and I am 29. Too many that doesn't sound old, but next year I will be 30 and that doesn't sound too good to me. Oh well, it's just another day right? My meetings yesterday went well! I've got another one for the entire second half of the day. We are developing strategies to help imrove our City in many areas including: Remaining responsive, open and flexible to our citizens; Promoting respect and dignity in all interactions; Sustaining and developing a competent workforce; Maintaining a safe and welcoming community; Exercising corporate responsibility for City resources and results; Seeking collaborative relationships. It should be interesting what we come up with.

"Global MapAid, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, was formed with the aim of supplying specialist maps to humanitarian decision makers at all levels, predominantly in slow onset disasters such as famine, but also when necessary in rapid onset disasters such as a flood. GMA is intent upon supporting aid efforts by assisting in the provision of mapping and corresponding communication systems for humanitarian organizations. Maps are detailed of nature and will include population, food security, AIDS, refugee and famine data." Feel free to donate! Check it out at http://www.globalmapaid.rdvp.org/index.htm. 15 Days!!!!

OpenLayers

2006-06-21T07:50:00.000-05:00

It's hump day! I've got a busy one. Our consultant will be in this morning. First we are going to discuss the requirements our ArcIMS site. I'm curious to see how this goes because we are asking for alot. This afternoon we are going to meet with our Public Works department and a consultant of theirs to discuss some overlap in work between the two consultants. That could turn out to be very interesting. On a different note, I had Peter Konnecke contact me from Australia. Peter runs the Konnecke blog where he gives news, views, rants, raves, opinions and images from an Australian perspective usually focusing on Technology. Check it out at http://www.konnecke.com/. Oh yeah, check out my 43 places map and list on the right. I'm hooked!

"OpenLayers makes it easy to put a dynamic map in any web page. It can display map tiles and markers loaded from any source. MetaCarta developed the initial version of OpenLayers and gave it to the public to further the use of geographic information of all kinds. OpenLayers is completely free, Open Source JavaScript, released under the BSD License. OpenLayers is a pure JavaScript library for displaying map data in most modern web browsers, with no server-side dependencies. OpenLayers implements a (still-developing) JavaScript API for building rich web-based geographic applications, similar to the Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth APIs, with one important difference -- OpenLayers is Free Software, developed for and by the Open Source software community." Check it out at http://www.openlayers.org/. 16 Days!!

43 Places

2006-06-20T07:46:00.000-05:00

Hola! Well my busy week starts today. I've got the Supervisor's Network at lunch today where we will be discussing budgeting. I mention it every month, but this is a group setup by the City of existing supervisors and potential supervisors to help them learn about some of the duties of being a supervisor. After that I'm off to the EOC to setup the area that the Emergency GIS Team will be stationed. The Emergency GIS Team was formed to improve the use of GIS and supporting information services in the EOC as well as work on projects to make the City better prepared for emergency events. Its’ official mission is to integrate all information necessary to develop a common operational picture for senior leadership and other emergency responders. More specifically the Team will collect, analyze, and disseminate information across all Emergency Support Functions. The focus of the team will be to develop an integrated common operational picture of an emergency event. It will review information coming from the field, departmental control centers and EOC personnel to quality control the data, identify gaps and develop intelligence products for City staff. One last note, Antonio Fraga Fernandez, sent me a note the other day telling me about his Spanish version of the GeoBlog! The blog is in Spanish (I'm sure you could translate it), but I'm going to start reading to improve my limited Spanish skills. Check it out at http://antoniofraga.blogspot.com/.

43 Places lets you “Share stories about places in your city and around the world. Travel changes people. Whether it is finding a great new coffee shop in your city or a life altering trip around the world, finding great places can make us happier people. 43 Places helps you make a list of the great places you want to visit and share stories and photos of the places you’ve been." So why is it called 43 Places? "Everything needs a name. We think 43 is the right number of places for a busy person to try and visit. Why not more? It’s too much. Why not less? You can do less, but it is still called 43 Places. Also, we had this site called 43 Things and we thought the name was fitting." You can even view the places people have posted on a Google Map. Check it out at http://www.43places.com/. 17 Days!!!

gps tracklog

2006-06-19T07:52:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! I had a good weekend, but I am a bit tired from the driving. I had some excellent Indian food yesterday afternoon and the Rangers won their game. On Saturday, I got hooked on MySpace. If you haven't gotten into this yet, DON'T. You will never sleep! If you are interested in my MySpace page you can find a link to the right. This week is looking pretty busy, but I don't have any meetings today.

GPS tracklog is a blog about anything and everything GPS. The author states, "I'm an outdoor recreation enthusiast and I love getting "way back" where humans rarely tread. Having a life-long love of maps, when I finally purchased my first GPS, I got into it fairly heavily. My quest to create the most complete map of my favorite natural areas resulted in me trying many different mapping programs. I also love to share and write, so when I realized there was no book on this subject, I set out to write one. The result was 'GPS Mapping - Make Your Own Maps'. When I'm not outside exploring or inside blogging, I have a day job too, as Executive Director of Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens." You can find information here about Accessories, Garmin, Geocaching, GIS, GPS News, GPS Reviews, GPS Tracking, Hardware, Internet applications, Location based services, Lowrance, Magellan, Maps, Software, Software Reviews, The business of GPS and Waypoints. Check it out at http://gpstracklog.typepad.com/gps_tracklog/. 18 days till my girlfriend comes home!

ESRI Blogs

2006-06-16T07:42:00.000-05:00

It's Friday and I don't have any meetings!! I'm running over to Dallas this weekend to check on my rental house. My tenants moved out and I want to see what the condition of the place is. I'm also going to take in my first Texas Rangers game of the season. It figures that the first season that they are doing well I don't go to any games. If they start losing after this weekend don't blame me. Have a great weekend!

ESRI has entered the World of blogs! They only have one out so far, called Geography Matters. It has hit on topics such as A Degree in Geography Just May be the Next "Engineering", My Wonderful World, and Geography Matters to Everyone. Hopefully they will add more blogs in the near future. Check it out at http://blogs.esri.com/roller/blogs.do.

The Geography of Seinfeld

2006-06-15T07:27:00.000-05:00

Good morning! This afternoon I will be working on my portion of the pilot phase of site address field verification. We desparately need an accurate point site address layer in our City. Currently when we geocode to our parcel layer we have about a 60% - 70% match. I'm hoping that this layer will help with that as well as create a master address file for us. Cross your fingers for us. On an unrelated note the GISUser had an interesting article about how the New Orleans is using GPS to catch wild dogs and cats. It seems they have an growing population since the hurricane. Read it at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/9057/.

Check this one out! "Join the gang in this Seinfeld Google Maps Mashup. Address and locations are from the actual Seinfeld scripts, observations, your input, and website descriptions. Since some address are from the scripts, they may not make perfect sense in a real life. Join Elaine, Kramer, and George to build your own Jerry Seinfeld virtual tour!" Check it out at http://www.stolasgeospatial.com/seinfeld.htm.

TopoFusion

2006-06-14T07:48:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I think I am ready for my Executive Committee meeting today. I only worked on it until nine last night! I also hope to finish reviewing our addressing standards today. This is a project we have been working on for too long! If you have ever done this you will understand why. Have a great day!

"TopoFusion is GPS Mapping software for Windows. It downloads maps (Topo, Aerial Photo and Satellite) automatically from Microsoft's TerraServer and NASA's OnEarth server, storing them on the hard drive for offline use. Please download and use the free version. It is fully functional except that 1/3rd of the map tiles are obscured with the word DEMO. It is not time limited, so you are free to keep and use it. The aim is to continually nudge the state of the art in mapping software forward. A few examples include: Efficient, versatile map display engine. TopoFusion runs the way a modern mapping application should--fast and smooth.; Combo Topo/Aerial Maps: Topo and photo maps are combined using alpha blending to visualize both at the same time.; Image Processing: Adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness and blurring on aerial, topo and combo maps.; PhotoFusion: Geo-reference digital photos using EXIF timestamps. Places photos along GPS tracks and produces HTML pages with clickable image maps.; Multi-track playback: Visualize multiple trips recorded by GPS simultaneously.; Networks: Create and manage networks of GPS data. Combine multiple GPS tracklogs into a network, with duplicate portions of track logs averaged.; Splining/Simplifying GPS data: Increase or decrease the number of points in a track log. Check it out at http://topofusion.com/.

IBISEYE

2006-06-13T11:28:00.000-05:00

Howdy! Another day in paradise. I've been working on getting my budget finally finished. Paperwork sucks!! I also have an Executive Committee meeting tomorrow so I have to prepare for that too. I've mentioned it before, but the Executive Committee is an invaluable group that we have here at the City. Not only does it allow City departments to give feedback at the manager level. It also allows me to get buy-in on projects that I want to implement. On a personal note I'm going to pick up my Expedition from the shop at lunch. I swear I have replaced all eight of the coils on this piece. If anyone out there owns a Ford and they have had the same problem let me know. I think it is time for a class action law suit. Ha!

Here is a cool one for all you weather bugs! I'm especially interested since my girlfriend is living in the path of most hurricanes. IBISEYE is a hurricane tracking mashup using Google. It is created by "the Herald Tribune Media Group which is based in Sarasota, Fl. and is owned by the New York Times Co. The Weather Underground is feeding all the weather alerts and tropical storm updates. The historic tropical storm data came from the National Weather Service. The underlying maps are served by Google Maps. The property records data came from the Florida Department of Revenue and numerous county property appraisers and GIS departments across the state." It is pretty cool because it has a risk estimator and you can view past paths. Check it out at http://www.ibiseye.com/.

Geo WhitePages

2006-06-12T12:48:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! Another week has began. I've spent most of my morning getting a handle on the numerous projects we have in the works. This afternoon I'm meeting with our Parks department to get an update on our Tree Inventory and update some GPS files for them. My girlfriend told me last night that she is shooting for the end of the month to return home. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

"GeoWhitePages.com provides a free people search service that displays its search results on a map. Instantly find friends and family by performing a Name or Phone search. You can also click on the green census cylinders to give you the 2000 U.S. Census data of the areas your friends or family live." This mashup is too cool! It's great to search for old friends and even see where they are living. Now we can all be Big Brother! Check it out at http://www.geowhitepages.com/.

Drinktown

2006-06-09T07:25:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! What a week! It's bad enough to come back from vacation to hundreds of emails and requests, but to come back to multiple events and a crisis. Arrr! BTW the girlfriend is much better now. I've procrastinated entering my budget long enough. Today it must be completed. Hopefully it doesn't take too long or else it will be a late night on a FRIDAY. Oh well, have a great weekend. I thought today's post was appropriate for my mood.

Unfortunately, this awesome mashup is only available in Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore and Milwaukee. "With hundreds of bars and thousands of specials Drinktown helps you start the night right by mapping the night out. Got a taste for Half-Price Wine? Use our maps and filters to find the nearest wine special and you've got it." It also has this cool tool that lets you create your own pub crawl. You just click a path and shows the bars that match your filter. Too cool! Check it out at http://www.drinktown.com/.

Wikimapia

2006-06-08T07:02:00.000-05:00

Morning! Sorry I didn't post yesterday, but I had a bit of crisis. My girlfriend had to go to the hospital in MEXICO! That statement is just scary. Anyway, she is out and fine. It appears she had a severe kidney infection. Anyway, I'm off to an East Texas GIS & GPS User Group meeting. It should be a good one. The speakers are going to discuss hurricane preparedness and we will have the World's most accurate four foot globe on display. Too cool!

"WikiMapia is a project to describe the whole planet Earth. Just move the map to find interesting places and click on the rectangles. To add an interesting place or object use Add New link. The only rule is to only add places interesting to everyone. Check it out at http://www.wikimapia.org/.

MotionBased

2006-06-06T15:32:00.000-05:00

I'm back!!! Wow.....what a week.....but I am tired! I got in about eleven last night from driving back from Houston. The stay in Galveston was OK. Too many partying Memorial Day vacationers and I wasn't in the mood to party. My mind was on getting to Mexico. Although, I did catch a nice flounder while fishing and ate a ton of shrimp. I made it to the rancho in Mexico about five hours later than I was suposed to on Monday. Rain storms in Houston made everything delayed, but I finally got to see my girlfriend. She is getting so skinny from walking through the jungles everyday. I kept telling her that she needed a sandwhich! The next day we caught and banded one of her woodpeckers. That was quite an experience. That afternoon we were off to Chichen Itza. We missed the light show that they do on El Castillo every night due to another rain storm, but we didn't mind because we sat in the open air bar, drank beers and enjoyed the cool weather the rain brought. On Wednesday we explored Chichen Itza which is massive. What a fasinating culture (the Mayans)! That afternoon we ventured on to Merida, which is the capital of the Yucatan State, where we stayed in a hotel that was built in 1901. We shopped, ate, drank and enjoyed this great city. After shopping some more we headed back to the rancho where we entertained the Mayan workers with cold beers and chocolate. Friday we headed to Isla Mujeres. This is a beautiful island northeast of Cancun that is a tourist spot, but not to the extent of Cancun (many Mexican families vacation here). The beaches were white and the water was crystal clear. We spent two days eating fresh seafood, drinking and being lazy on the beach. It was great! When we returned on Sunday my girlfriend got to watch the episodes of Survivor that she missed while in Mexico. That afternoon I returned to Houston where I boarded another plane to New Orleans. It was interesting to see the condition of the City since I have been there several times before. It is by no means back to where it used to be, but they are making good progress. The Quarter of course is functioning and the Royal Sonesta hotel where the 2007 SCAUG conference will be held is incredible. We toured and discussed the hotel on Monday and I flew back to Houston last night. I'm beat!! No more major trips are scheduled until the ESRI conference in August. I'm glad!

"Using data collected from GPS devices, MotionBased empowers its customers with online data and mapping analysis, unattainable with the current set of products available to endurance athletes. While GPS technology has been available for many years to outdoor enthusiasts, few applications exist on the market where GPS data is effectively harnessed and analyzed for fitness and training. Performance analysis, online mapping, and route sharing provided by MotionBased will not only make GPS devices more valuable but will change the way athletes train." Check it out at http://www.motionbased.com/.

Satellite Tracking Mashup

2006-05-26T10:24:00.000-05:00

Howdy! I'm rushing around trying to get some projects in line before my departure at noon. I've got an action packed week and a half. I leave for the Galveston area at lunch to spend the Memorial Day weekend with my family. We have plans for plenty of fishing, food and barley intake. Monday morning I'm off to Mexico to see my girlfriend! We have plans to visit the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, the capital of the Yucatan state, Merida, and lay on the beach at Isla Mujeres. It should be a great trip! When I return on Sunday night I hop on another flight to New Orleans. We are visiting a hotel to determine if they are the winner for the SCAUG conference next year. I'm curious to see how this great City is progressing. So, long story short, I won't be updating the blog for over a week. Shortly, after I return I hope to get some pictures added to the slideshow on the bottom of the page. Have a great week!!

The Satellite Tracking Google mashup is awesome. You can see and track the current location of every satellite that are zooming around the Globe. This is too cool!! You can switch between the International Space Station, weather satellites and GPS satellites. Their is not alot of information about the creators of this site, but it has a ton of info on the satellites. If you use some of the help provided in the FAQ's you can even see some of these satellites as they pass overhead (at night of course). Check it out at http://www.n2yo.com/. Viva Mexico!!!

SpatialEcology

2006-05-25T07:24:00.000-05:00

Hola! Another day and half to go before vacation begins. Before I can go, I've three meetings today and one tomorrow morning. Bummer! In our Emergency GIS Team meeting this afternoon we will officially kick off our pilot project for site address field verification. I am a little nervous on how this will go. Hopefully it will go faster than I anticipate. If you have ever attempted such a huge task please let me know about it.

"Spatial ecology is the study of the interrelationship between organisms and their environment, with particular emphasis on the spatial nature of these interactions. Spatial analysis commonly requires the use of large, complex databases using software that is not specifically designed for ecological applications. The purpose of this site is to help bridge the gap between software, data, and the sophisticated spatial analyses that are needed in modern ecological research." One really cool thing about this site is Hawth's Analysis Tools. "Hawth's Analysis Tools is an extension for ESRI's ArcGIS (specifically ArcMap). It is designed to perform spatial analysis and functions that cannot be conveniently accomplished with out-of-the-box ArcGIS. Most of these analysis tools have been written within the context of the ecological applications I am involved in (movement analysis, resource selection, predator prey interactions and trophic cascades). However, they have been created in such a way as to be as broadly applicable as possible such that I hope people from many disciplines will find use in this set of tools. There are three types of tools in this kit. First, there are simple tools that automate mundane tasks (e.g. deleting many fields at once from a table). These will likely be useful to anyone. Second, there are tools that are designed to be part of an analysis workflow. For instance, random point (or stratified random point) generation, minimum convex polygon delineation, summarizing raster layers in various ways, etc. These too are likely to be useful to many people. Finally, there are tools that target specific, ecology related analyses (for instance, various movement model applications). These will likely only be of interest to ecologists. Hawth's Tools is FREE. You are free to distribute it and install it anywhere you choose." How cool is that? Valuable tools that are FREE! Check it out at http://www.spatialecology.com/index.php. 3 Days!!!

Geospatial Industry Workforce Information System

2006-05-24T07:44:00.000-05:00

Good Morning! It's good to be back in the office for the day and only have one meeting to discuss our grant funded tree inventory. I hope to get caught up on some other things before I leave town on Friday. Have a great day!

"A Pilot, Experimental and Demonstration Program for the High-Growth Geospatial Technologies Industry: "Defining and Communicating Industry Workforce Demand" is the result of a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor’s High Growth Job Training Initiative, a collaborative effort to help team people with the jobs that are needed. The initiative is a strategic effort to prepare workers to take advantage of new and increasing job opportunities in high-growth, high-demand, and economically vital sectors of the American economy. The High Growth Job Training Initiative has identified the geospatial sector as one of 12 that is projected to have far-reaching impact on the U.S. economy. GITA/AAG will partner with universities, geospatial vendor and user organizations, and other nonprofit, trade, and educational associations to build the needed education, employment, and economic development capacity to meet the geospatial industry workforce needs." This is great news for those of that already work in the geospatial industry. The draft Phase I report is available online and has some interesting information about titles used in the geospatial industry. Check it out at http://www.aag.org/giwis/. 4 Days!!

Virtual Earth MapCruncher

2006-05-23T10:39:00.000-05:00

The second day of training is going well so far. I am thinking I should be outta here by three. The benefits of a small class. After today I've only got 2.5 days of work before I am off to the Texas Gulf Coast for Memorial Day with my family. Then it's off to Mexico to visit my girlfriend. I cannot wait to see her! There we plan on visting Chichen Itza and Isla Mujeres. When I return I immediately get on another flight to New Orleans for a site visit for next years SCAUG conference. It should be an action packed week and a half.

"Have you ever looked at satellite photos of a building in Virtual Earth -- and wished you could zoom right in and see its floorplan? Have you ever used VE to plan a trip across town -- and wanted to seamlessly switch from its road maps to maps of bicycle trails, bus routes, or carpool lanes? Have you ever wanted to create and publish your own map mashups -- and wished you had a tool to make it easy to integrate a map you care about into Virtual Earth? Microsoft Research has made this a reality! The Virtual Earth API allows web developers to supplement Virtual Earth's maps with pushpins and lines. MapCruncher brings mashups to a whole new level by allowing developers to import entire maps to supplement the existing road and aerial imagery with detailed, application-specific information. The possibilities are endless: bicycle maps, transit maps, national park maps, university maps, antique city maps, or whatever scale maps you personally find interesting." Check it out at http://research.microsoft.com/mapcruncher/. 5 Days!!!

Imagery for the Nation

2006-05-22T16:45:00.000-05:00

Good afternoon! I've been negelcting the blog lately. Sorry to those that read daily. Today, I've been teaching an Intro to ArcGIS class. It has gone rather quickly because the group is so small. Day two is tomorrow and should go just as fast.

"The National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) is working with the National Digital Orthophoto Program Committee (NDOP) and the Federal Geographic Data Committee
(FGDC) to create a new nationwide aerial imagery program that will collect and disseminate standardized multi-resolution products on “set” schedules. Local, state, regional, tribal, and federal partners will be able to exercise “buyup” options for enhancements that are required by their organizations. The imagery acquired through this program will remain in the public domain and archived to secure its availability for posterity." If this program makes it, it will be a big help for smaller communities that can't really afford quality imagery. I know we are working with three year old black and white aerials. It would be really nice to have 6" color photos on a four year rotation with an option to buyup if funds are available. Keep your fingers croassed. Learn more at http://www.nsgic.org/committees1/documents/Jan%2016%202006%20Imagery_for_the_Nation_Flyer_NSGIC_V14.pdf. 6 Days!!

Schmap

2006-05-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Howdy! I've got to install ArcGIS on ten computers in the Library this afternoon for a training class next week. Somehow when we held an ESRI live webinar we killed all of the computers in the Library. It had something to do with the player that the live webinar uses. Anyway, our Library IT lady was not too pleased. So, long story short, we have to reinstall all of the software and data. What fun!

I've got a treat today!! Schmap! What's a Schmap? Well, "three years ago..."Wouldn't it be great if travel guides had searchable, customizable, updatable content? What if we could bookmark and custom print only those places of interest to us? What if a guide had maps that could interact dynamically with reviews and pictures for sites and attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, theatres, galleries, museums... and came with links to even more content and travel resources on the Internet? How about adding virtual tours for a city or even an island destination - tours that could be played, paused and fast-forwarded, just as easily as using a media player? You're a software engineer – you could make something like that..." "Umm, good idea - can't imagine why anybody hasn't done it before! Should be able to knock something up quite easily in a couple of weeks." Three years later...The Schmap Player is now a work in progress beta, while our series of Schmap Guides sees new destinations added every week - all thanks to the support of great content partners, your superb photos and valuable feedback, plus inspiration and perspiration from Schmap team members. Every Schmap Guide comes with dynamic maps, useful links, playable tours, top picks, plus photos and reviews for 100s of sights and attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, theaters, galleries, museums..." Too cool! I installed the Austin Schamp and I love it! Check it out at http://www.schmap.com/. 11 Days!!

My Wonderful World

2006-05-16T07:41:00.000-05:00

Good day! Not alot of news on my end. I've got my Supervisors Network meeting today where we are discussing hiring practices. That should be a fun one. You may also notice my new "Kinky" banner at the top of the page. This is for Kinky Friedman that has made the ballot here in Texas for govenor by getting almost 170,000 petition signatures. Kinky is a singer/songwriter as well as a mystery novelist. He is also the first Jew to ever make the Grand Ole Opry. Since Kinky has no party affiliation his motto is, "My only special interest is the people of Texas".

"Geography is more than places on a map. It's global connections and incredible creatures. It's people and cultures, economics and politics. And it's essential to understanding our interconnected world. But sadly, our kids aren't getting enough of it. A new National Geographic-Roper survey shows half of young Americans can't locate world powers like Japan and India. Twenty percent can't even find the Pacific Ocean. (More about the survey.) Without geography, our children aren't ready for the world. That's why we started My Wonderful World. It's a National Geographic-led campaign—backed by a coalition of major national partners—to expand geographic learning in school, at home, and in the community. We want to give our kids the power of global knowledge." Check it out at http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/index.html. 12 Days!!

Anything Geospatial

2006-05-15T07:22:00.000-05:00

Good morning! Another week begins....it's going to be another busy one. I spent most of my weekend working (and sleeping, cleaning, riding my bike and consuming adult beverages). I'm tired of the budget!! Anyway, I spoke with my girlfriend and the fires continue to burn in the Yucatan. She is fine, but she can't do any field research because of the smoke (it makes her sick). I sure hope this will clear up so she can get the data she needs adn come home. I would hate for her to have to work on another thesis.

Anything Geospatial is the blog of Glenn Letham from the great GISuser.com. "Glenn is the founder & Managing Editor, of GISuser.com, LBSzone.com & SymbianOne. Having more than 15 years of experience with Geospatial technologies & GIS, Glenn is well known as the founder and publisher of the first popular daily GIS/geospatial news publication. Glenn is Internationally recognized as a leading media analyst for geospatial & mobile technologies and is well connected throughout the industry. He has worked as a GIS consultant on numerous projects, authored many articles and publications which can be found in numerous popular GIS and related industry online and print publications." If you haven't taken a look at his blog please do so. His blog and GISuser.com are both resources I use to find content for my blog. You can also get a daily email from Anything Geospatial (similar to the one found on the bottom right of my page). You can also get the daily newsletter from GISuser.com. Check it out at www.anygeo.com. 13 Days!

HomePriceMaps.com

2006-05-12T07:46:00.000-05:00

Good Morning! It looks like the fires in the Yucatan have died down a bit. Whew! Finally. I've got a meeting this morning with a division to explain why they need GIS and more importantly why they need to pay into my budget. Ahhh budget time, the fun never stops!!

"HomePriceMaps.com tells you how much homes have sold for in your area by integrating Home Price Sales with Google Maps, thus the term Home Price Maps. They don't do estimates nor "market assessed values". They tell you how much homes have sold for in your area by integrating data found in municipal databases with Google Maps. It all got started sometime during 2005 HomePriceMaps.com founders Abe and Jess noticed that the Google Maps technology was getting real hot and that people were bringing data to the masses using the Google Maps technology. The two sites that really got them thinking were www.ChicagoCrime.org which integrates crime data with Google Maps, and www.HousingMaps.com which integrates rental listings and sales with the Google Maps API.
After watching numerous family members buy and sell homes, and try and figure out what those homes were worth, the idea struck us: Why not help people by giving them access to Home Price sales so that they know how much homes in that same zipcode or even block sold for. Better yet, why not give the consumer the power of knowing how much homes sold for when thinking about making a purchase themselves? Finally, now that we see that the former founders of Expedia have entered the market and started up www.Zillow.com they know they are onto something good AND as Lou Holtz once said "How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser"." Check it out at http://homepricemaps.com. 16 Days!!

GeoFusion

2006-05-11T08:40:00.000-05:00

Hola! I just got off the phone with my girlfriend and they are all well. Although, the fires are still all around them. She thinks she took in a little too much smoke yesterday and is going to take it easy today. We are still not sure what this does to her research. We are going to wait a few days to see if all the birds left the area. If they did, she will probably be coming home soon. That's good news/bad news. Good she get's to come home and be with me, but bad that she will have to start her research over for the THIRD time. Oh well, we will figure it out!

Here is another pre-Google Earth company. They have a similar product, but no one new about it. I guess it is not what you know, but who knows you. "GeoFusion, Inc. was founded in 2001 and is a self-funded 3D visualization technology company dedicated to putting the earth on everybody’s desktop. This vision is being implemented through licensing of its GeoMatrix® Toolkit, strategic partner product developments, and custom application and rendering services. Primary markets for GeoFusion are GIS, navigation, government, defense, gaming, entertainment, and consumer. Check it out at http://www.geofusion.com/index.html. 17 Days!!

Gmaps 101 - An Introduction to Google Maps & The Google Maps API (Part 2)

2006-05-10T21:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I've been ignoring the blog. As I've mentioned in previous posts, my girlfriend is on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico working on her thesis research for her Masters (that's what the countdown is for). Anyway, they are having major forest fires there right now and half of the rancho where she is burned yesterday. All of the structures and people are OK, but the forest is not. So, needless to say, I've been a little pre-occupied trying to keep up with that. I found an interested ArcIMS site that uses remote sensing to spot the fire locations. Using the Lat/Long I got for the rancho on Google Earth, I've been able to track the fires in the area. Unfortunately, they don't have access to information like this at the ranch because they don't have interent access. Keep your fingers crossed for all that live in that area.

Today, I'm passing on the second installment of Gmaps 101 - An Introduction to Google Maps & The Google Maps API from the GISUser. The second part takes you into the different tools and features of the Google Maps API. You will learn about the most commonly used classes such as GMap2, GMarker, GLatLng and many others. You will also explore the various map controls that can be placed on a Google Map including panning, zooming, and overview controls. Check it out at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/8786/28/. 18 Days!!

GeoTango

2006-05-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

Good evening! Today was busy as normal. I had a 3.5 hour demo on the transit routing software we are going to buy. That's a tough way to start a Monday morning. The afternoon didn't slow down much from there, phone calls, email, etc. I only hope for some time tomorrow to work!

"GeoTango GlobeView™ delivers a 3D digital earth allowing you to interactively explore the world. Smoothly maneuver from the global to local level while GeoTango GlobeView™ instantly presents you with high quality image and location-based information streamed from anywhere on the internet. Unlike other systems GeoTango GlobeView™ offers a truly open and web services-oriented solution." Check it out at http://www.geotango.com/. 20 Days!!

globalpetfinder

2006-05-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

Good Evening! What a day. I left home at about 5:15 to go to Dallas for a SCAUG meeting and just returned about an hour ago. Although the meeting was great. We have started to finalize our plans for our big conference in New Orleans. It is going to be a great event. Now, I'm going to bed.

"GlobalPetFinder introduces the latest in proven gps and 2-way wireless technology to help you keep track of your beloved pet. Members can build a virtual fence of ANY size within which your pet can freely roam simply by logging into the command center and following the instructions for ‘create a fence’. The command center will prompt you to enter a name , address and size for your fence. That’s it! Your fence is automatically downloaded to the memory of your globalpetfinder. Up to 5 fence locations can be stored at once. If your pet wanders outside the boundary you have determined, you will be alerted immediately and sent the continuously updated location of your pet, to the 2-way wireless device of your choice; cell phone, pda, computer ,etc. In ‘walk mode’ owners can walk and travel with their pet outside of fenced areas undisturbed. Should you and your pet become separated, tracking may be initialized remotely simply by dialing F-O-U-N-D from your cell phone or PDA." Check it out at www.globalpetfinder.com. 23 Days!

Skyline TerraExplorer

2006-05-04T08:19:00.000-05:00

Good morning! The meeting yesterday concerning all the software used at the City was exhausting. I only took five pages of notes! Although, it should prove extremely beneficial as we get to the integration phase of our enterprise GIS implementation. Today we have another GIS Day planning committee meeting. We are going to tour the facility where the event will take place. I failed to mention that yesterday some of the guys and myself took off to Shreveport after work to loose some hard earned money in the casino. It was a good time, but costly :)

Another Google Earth like product is available. Although I'm not sure which was first. "TerraExplorer opens the door to the digital planet. With Skyline's TerraExplorer, users can freely navigate over high resolution 3D world environments created with Skyline's Terra products. TerraExplorer is able to display highly realistic detailed scenes, from any angle or point of view, and allows extremely close views of an area with excellent clarity. In addition, all the terrain overlay information. The user can also activate "Hot Links" placed on the terrain to automatically access specific Web Sites, search a database or invoke an external PC application. TerraExplorer's Internet capability allows users access to 3D terrain visualizations from around the globe, thus creating business opportunities for a variety of commercial and professional uses. The ease-of-use and flexibility of TerraExplorer make it suitable for applications such as live sporting events, real estate, travel and tourism, education, entertainment, commercial planning and tracking, as well as military, aviation and simulation." Check it out at http://www.skylinesoft.com. 24 Days!

Tagzania

2006-05-03T07:53:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I've got training this morning on some new Emergency Operations Center software that our regional council of government purchased. The EOC is one place in our City that GIS has been fully recognized as being beneficial. They love us there! I also have a meeting this afternoon to discuss all the different software that is used in the City and how it can be useful to others. It should be interesting!

"Tagzania is about tags and places. If you register and log in, you can add places, points, to create and document your maps. When you add a point, you may tag it with keywords. That way, Tagzania is not only a place to build and keep your own maps, shared territories are created as well." Check it out at http://www.tagzania.com/. 25 Days!

Google Sketchup

2006-05-02T20:06:00.000-05:00

Another day down! Although I had some success today! We have been working on a way for another entity in our area to be able to edit data in our geodatabase so that we can share one for the entire county. It looks like Terminal Services is going to work for us. For those that don't know, basically you VPN in to a server and use ArcMap on that server. That way all that is sent across the pipe is screenshots. This was a succerss, but now we have to figure out things like printing and replicating the data onto their server for backup. If anyone has experience I would love to hear about it. We also had a conference call with the company that provides our permitting software. They want $6K to write a script that uploads data into an existing Access table!!! Wow! Looks like the GIS Division will be writing that script.

Sketchup is FREE! Sketchup wasn't very expensive before Google announced this, but this is great. Although, a professional version is available for the hefty users. "Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program whose few simple tools enable you to create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects – even space ships. You can add details, textures and glass to your models, design with dimensional accuracy, and place your finished models in Google Earth, share them with others by posting them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. Google SketchUp (free) is a great way to discover if 3D modeling is right for you." Check it out at http://sketchup.google.com/product_suf.html. 26 Days!

SINTEF Virtual Globe

2006-05-01T18:48:00.000-05:00

Good evening! The budget is almost complete. I think I asked for everything I could and still got it $100, 000 less than last year. That's what happens when you are working on a major project and it is the last funding year. Now I just need to start working on all the other paperwork that goes with the budget. What fun!

The SINTEF 3D globe viewer with elevations and satellite images is another Geographic Exploration System. "You can even configure the Virtual Globe to use your own data. Try the Viewpoints page to start the Globe and jump directly to exciting viewpoints! The program is developed by Rune Aasgaard at SINTEF Applied Mathematics. In short this is a client-server application for displaying very large (=global scale) terrain models. The terrain database is stored on a server, and the client program only fetches the data required for generating an image on your screen with the wanted resolution. As you moves around the program loads and throws out data as needed. The program requires a Java v1.4 or v1.5 (5.0) runtime environment (select a JRE for your system)." Check it out at http://globe.sintef.no/. 27 Days!

TrackStick

2006-04-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

Wow what a week! Let's see, what didn't happen today? We had a kick-off meeting to start discussing GIS Day. I know it's early, but we are planning on a big event this year. The meeting was LONG! I also got a call at 3:30 that our computer lab in our Library died! This usually wouldn't be a big deal, but I had an Intro to ArcGIS class scheduled there Monday. So I got to contact everyone that was registered to tell them we would have to try another day. Oh yeah, I also got to read a letter from my stalker. Without going into much detail, a former disgruntled employee from a past employer decided to send a letter to my current employer to express his anger. It was three and a half years ago!! Let it go!

"The Track Stick records its own location, time, date, speed, heading and altitude at preset intervals. With over 1Mb of memory, it can store months of travel information. All recorded history can be outputted to the following formats: RTF (Detailed text file with .html map links); XLS (Microsoft Excel spread sheets); HTML (Webpage with graphics and maps); KML (Proprietary Google Earth file). The Track Stick receives signals from twenty four satellites orbiting the earth. With this information, the Track Stick can precisely calculate its own position anywhere on the planet to within fifteen meters. The Track Stick will work anywhere on the planet Earth. Using the latest in GPS mapping technologies, your exact location can be shown on graphical maps and 3D satellite images. The Track Stick's micro computer contains special mathematical algorithms, that can calculate how long you have been indoors. While visiting family, friends or even shopping, the Track Stick can accurately time and map each and every place you have been." This one makes me think big brother! Just think of the possibilities. Check it out at www.trackstick.com. 30 Days!

Global-i

2006-04-27T22:00:00.000-05:00

Ga Day! I just wanted to say that. It reminds me of one of the presenters on ESRI's live training seminar, Editing Tips and Tricks today. We held it in our Library so that all of our GIS Users could attend. It had some helpful pointers and hints, but man it was boring. I'm just glad I had the internet available to keep me awake. Don't get me wrong, I love that ESRI offers these free seminars, but they are not all as good as the others. Maybe it was the subject?

"Global-i is a 3-dimensional interactive globe that displays information about the world in your browser. The Earth can be rotated and inspected and displays can be changed to see information in the most appropriate form. Global-i has been described as "A Global Marketer's Dream" but it is not just for marketers or ecomomists. It is for anyone who wants to learn about the world and what makes it go round. By viewing this information in context, the world makes more sense. At present the emphasis is on economic data and there is plenty of other information too - health, infrastructure, energy, military...........and more - from present day back to 1960 and we are adding to this list all the time." This is Google Earth before Google Earth was born. Check it out at http://infoview.infomagnet.com/. 31 Days!

Earth Day Network

2006-04-26T21:54:00.000-05:00

Hola! We had another Emergency GIS Team meeting today which went well. We talked about hardware needs and our site address field verification project. If anyone has done a field verification of addresses for an entire City I would love to hear about (good and spcifically bad). An emergency GIS team is not a new idea. Just do a Google search on emergency GIS and see what you come up with. New York City has a whole team devoted to this with a bus (or as they call it the Mobile Data Center). It is pretty cool. Check it out here.

First of all, I suck!! It was Earth Day and I didn't even recognize it on the blog. Although I did celebrate (fellas you know what I mean). "Founded by the organizers of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network (EDN) promotes environmental citizenship and year round progressive action worldwide. Earth Day Network is a driving force steering environmental awareness around the world. Through Earth Day Network, activists connect, interact, and impact their communities, and create positive change in local, national, and global policies. EDN's international network reaches over 12,000 organizations in 174 countries, while the domestic program keeps over 3,000 groups and over 100,000 educators coordinating millions of community development and environmental protection activities throughout the year. As a result, Earth Day is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half billion people participate in our campaigns every year." For those that didn't know Earth Day was April 22nd. Check it out at http://www.earthday.net/default.aspx. 32 Days!

Maps On Us

2006-04-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

Good evening! It's budget time at the City and I am swamped. Let's count the ways: 911 addressing, emergency GIS team, GIS Day, employee reclasifications, inter-agency cooperation and data sharing, data conversion, etc. etc. etc. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to do the budget. That's probably why I have been working every night. I guess if my girlfriend had to leave the country this is the best time for it. 33 days!

Maps On Us is a mapping website run by Switchboard. "They are a leading provider of local online advertising solutions and Internet-based yellow pages, interconnecting consumers, merchants and national advertisers. Switchboard helps consumers quickly and easily find and compare local businesses offering specific products and services, while creating revenue opportunities for merchants." The maps are provided by Microsoft MapPoint. You can get driving directions, nearby businesses, etc. Check it out at www.mapsonus.com.

Geosense

2006-04-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

Another Monday down. The weekend was pretty good. I went shopping, got a haircut, cleaned the apartment, went for a bike ride and hung out with the guys. We had too much fun Saturday night;) I got to pay for that on Sunday. Anyway, I got to talk to my girlfriend tonight. She is a little homesick, but doing well. For those that haven't been keeping up, she is in Mexico for three months working on her Masters thesis. I booked my flight tonight and it's still going to be 34 days before I get to see her again.

Geosense is a cool website that lets you test your knowledge of world geography alone or against another online player. You also get to pick between a World Map, Advanced World Map, Europe Map, US Map or a Scramble. The object is that a place name is given and you have to click on the closest location to it on the map. The closer you get the more points that are scored. I'm not sure if it is mostly kids on this site, but I have been killing on the US Map. Bring it!!! Check it out at www.geosense.net.

Gmaps 101 - An Introduction to Google Maps & The Google Maps API (Part 1)

2006-04-21T07:30:00.000-05:00

Good Morning!! It's going to be a busy one. I've got a staff meeting, our monthly GIS User Committee, and a meeting about a partnership with another agency. The last one concerns us trying to use one central geodatabase for both us and another local entity. It sure would make our life easier if we could both share and edit the same data. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

I've got a special one today! GISUser.com had an article that I thought was too good not to share. It is titled Gmaps 101 - An Introduction to Google Maps & The Google Maps API (Part 1). It is written by Eric Pimpler the owner of Geospatial Training & Consulting, LLC, a provider of virtual and instructor led GIS training opportunities and the author of its popular virtual training course “Google Maps For Your Apps!” and the new PDF book “Google Maps API: The New World of Web Mapping”. Eric is also a Texan and has done some work for SCAUG! "In this first article of a three part series on the Google Maps API you will discover the fundamental programming constructs for developing web mapping applications with the hottest web mapping application development tool. Once we walk you through this tutorial you will feel comfortable with Google maps, you'll know how to get your own maps key, and be up and running with your own Google map with basic controls." Check it out at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/8657/28/. Enjoy!!

Traffic.com

2006-04-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

Good evening! The budget season has started here at the City. I had training today and now the fun begins. For those that have never completed a budget it is not as easy as one might think. You have to insure all bases are covered. You want to isntitute new programs while not wanting to ask for too much. The fortunate part is that we are in pretty good economic times here so you don't have to worry too much about having part of your existing programs being cut.

"Traffic.com is one of the largest independent providers of traffic information and services in the U.S. They deliver traffic content to clients and consumers on terrestrial and satellite radio, on broadcast and cable TV, through wireless applications and services, and via the Internet. The Traffic.com site and the companion my traffic.com site at my.traffic.com are the primary "direct to the consumer" online services. They get their information from three types of sources: digital traffic sensors, commercial and government partners, and our traffic operations center staff members. The Traffic.com Jam Factor is like a "Richter Scale" for traffic. It's an overall measure of the traffic intensity on a roadway, or on a section of a roadway. Because the Jam Factor calculation uses real-time speed and travel time measurements from our digital sensors and those of our partners, as well as our detailed accident, construction and congestion information, it's a comprehensive measuring tool that is unique to Traffic.com." The map that they provide is great because it instantly shows where problem areas are and the intensity. Unfortunately, it is not available for all cities. Some day maybe... Check it out at www.traffic.com.

Favorite Run

2006-04-19T21:30:00.000-05:00

Howdy! Well we narrowed down the search for the dispatching/routing software for our transit system. It's between Init and RouteMatch. If anyone has experience with either (good or bad). Please post a comment. Tomorrow, the budget process begins! Not exactly my favorite time of year. Oh well, we will get through it! Have a good night!

Favorite Run is a cool mashup that let's you map your running routes. "You can also View Pictures of Routes , Search over 21,000 Running Routes in Your Area, Calculate Running Distances Before You Leave Your House, Share your Favorite Runs With Others, Keep a Running Log and Track Your Statistics, Export Routes into Google Earth or GPX format, Sync Your Garmin Forerunner 201, Find a Running Partner (over 8000 registered runners), Promote a Race, Event, or Group Run, Publish a Calendar of Your Events, Provide Running Maps for Your Race or Blog, Shop Online for Running Products and Read Running Tips and Articles." Check it out at www.favoriterun.com.