GIS Playground

OK, this time I mean it. This weekend I will start to podcast about GIS. It’s something I have been wanting to do for almost two years and it’s about time i got started.

I can’t tell you what the format or subject will be exactly. i hope to make it about the GIS community, but to start with it will be about my tinkering with some of the new GIS web tools and trying to build useful applications. Ha… like I have ever done that before.

So here we go again, I am throwing the gauntlet down…

Let’s hope it doesn’t bounce back in my face again.

Share This

While this may be getting tedious, sadly this is the stuff that motivates me to come over here and blog.

An open letter to ESRI:

Dear ESRI,

My name is Guido. I am a GIS analyst and a consumer of your web content. I was pleased to see that you have embraced the ideas of both rss feeds and podcasts. I like to use these for keeping up with the wide array of stuff that happens with your company and GIS at large.

But I am having some serious problems with the way you chose to implement these technologies. These feeds can prove to be a good way to build a conversation and to inform your clients what you are up to. But you really aren’t providing either of these things based on what I am seeing.

First, the podcasts. While it’s nice to have a place where you can tell your listeners what you are up to, would it be too much trouble to have a place where your listeners can add there own comments? Even if you don’t have comments, how about some show notes where I can find links to things you guys were talking about in the podcats or even a transcript (you guys are big enough to afford that right?) Both show notes and transcripts also make it possible to Google these podcasts making them more assessable to all of the audience who would be interested in the topics you talk about. Finally, just because you put out a podcast doesn’t mean you should only link to your mp3, try creating a show notes page which has  the mp3 enclosed and then my feed reader, itunes, and web browsers can get there.

Secondly, your news feed. Today I read this from your feed

The March regional issues of the Wealth Management Business Magazines from France Publications reveal the 25 Wealthiest ZIP Codes in the state of California, New Jersey, and Virginia in an easy-to-read graphic format. ZIP Codes ranked by ESRI’s wealth…

The March regional issues of the Wealth Management Business Magazines from France Publications reveal the 25 Wealthiest ZIP Codes in the state of California, New Jersey, and Virginia in an easy-to-read graphic format. ZIP Codes ranked by ESRI’s wealth indicators such as income, home value, net worth, and Community Tapestry prove there is more to wealth than just your paycheck.

And I though to myself, cool I would like to know more, so I tried to click on the link to the original page. This brought me back to a page about feeds fro your site and had no more contextual information or links to the article you describe. And that is what set me off into writing this letter.

Is it too much to ask for a link to the original story or a link to the original feed? arghh…

These issue worry me. I hear that you guys are going to be working on resource centers and are really trying to get WEB 2.0 stuff down. But these simple feeds show a real lack of understanding on how and why feeds work in a WEB 2.0 world.

I hope that you are trying to fix these issues. I have met many web 2.0 and podcast consultants with which whom i can connect you with if you would like.

Please let me know if I can be of any help,

Guido

p.s. if you happen to come across this site and this letter I know it’s low on content at the moment, I really am trying to get back to that, but content is not something I am getting paid for at the moment so this pet project needs to wait until I have a little more time to blossom.

Share This

OK… the podcast launch is going slow. But, as always I am learning new things about GIS.

So what have I learned recently.

ESRI ModelBuilder models and Python Geoprocessing scripts don’t work for me. Somehow, in the process of creating a model I ran into a bug at every turn.

While building a model I learned that Field Mapping does not work well when you batch Append and many of the temporary variables I used needed real file locations and were not completely based on input values. This makes it difficult to use the model on multiple computers with input variables. Ugh…

So then I learn to write a Python script. This handles the field mapping and the variable issues. Great!! I am back on board with how this is an awesome tool. But, for what ever reason the topology tools are not working properly from python. So I need to make a python call to a modelmaker model to complete the topology issue.

OK, this is where I get off. I had issues getting the toolbox-model and the script to find each other.

It makes me sad that I ran into so many walls. I was really excited about using the tools to automate some of my work.

Oh well… you win some you lose some and sometimes you just have to keep hacking until you find a workaround.

Share This

I will put up a show this weekend… that’s that.

Someone in my office sent me a link to this movie and I have not stopped laughing, an hour later. This is the funniest GIS movie I have seen yet !

Share This

This weekend I will put together my first podcast for this site. I am going to talk about projects that I am playing around with and the presentation I am putting together for NEARC, Integrating ESRI Technology with Google Earth.

As I prepare for the upcoming conference I can’t help but wonder if there is any chance that there will be a generalized GIS unconference on theEast coast. It sees to me most conferences are either too topic or vendor specific and there should be a baskin robbins 42 flavors conference that touches on all of it. Perhaps I am not looking hard enough for it. Seeing as there are now so many player/vendors it would be neat to see how people played there different architextures and cost models against each other. Perhaps that is something I will get into with the podcast.

ohh… GIS death match… only one technology can survive… In my first episode KML vs. GML. ( I think we all know who is going to win that one)

Share This

I was listening to Buzz Out Loud and heard about a need for a cell phone carrier strength/complaint map. I think this could be a great project to try out using GeoRSS and google mapping.

I always wanted to setup a way to drive around with a computer, cellphone, and gps unit to map the signal strength, but this could also be an interesting community map.

I am so going to start this project in late October.

Share This

I have been working on some projects that require fitting existing data into data-model templates. So I have been using FME with SDE tables. The tables exis, currently empty, and I am trying to insert records.

Well, it seems that this is not somethign that FME can do right now..(I have some support people checking it out. Ugh… I am sure that there is some arcObject reason that this is not happening, but I felt like this would be such a breeze…. I mean workbench is pretty cool, so why should it give me trouble?

Has anyone else used FME with SDE and found problem inserting new records into their tables?

Share This

I fee like a lot of people like to talk about GeoRSS, but I have yet to find many people using GeoRSS in the work place.

For those of you who are new, GeoRSS is a way to tag your RSS feed with some good old fashion geography. Giving it a place in the world. I have seen a GeoRSS plugin for Wordpress (the backend of this blog) But have not really used it much. I found it a bit limiting because it only allowed for one point per blog entry.

The only way to fix that issue I suppose is by learning enough PHP to add  to the current project.

Anyhow, is it only me who sees a really cool potential for large companies and cities alike to take advantage of this technology?  Hasn’t anyone found a good use for it in there business life?

Oh well… and the beat goes on…

Share This

Hey all… I am getting into podcasting about GIS. This site will be filled with my constant battle and exploration of GIS. I will be putting up five to fifteen minute podcasts sharing my progress in my pursuit.

That’s all for now.

Share This