FANTOM PLANET

Ported over to WordPress

2006-11-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

New URL is http://fantomplanet.wordpress.com. The feed is the same as it still should be http://feeds.feedburner.com/FantomPlanet.

Wondering If ESRI Should Be Making Server Products

2006-11-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

James' post tonight won't be the last comment about how ESRI users and developers see their server-based products. It just seems that over the past few weeks more and more people, especially developers friendly to ESRI, have seriously complained about ArcIMS, ArcSDE, and ArcGIS Server and how they're all "too little too late." In the case of ArcIMS, it's a matter of the services and the lack of OGC compliance of it. It's not advanced enough for the people who I talk to. Granted, they haven't looked at ArcGIS Server, but still, there are some OGC specs that would be nice to have now until later. Even though WMS and KML are available, there's something missing that goes with those outputs. For ArcSDE, a number of people have told me. If you can afford Oracle Spatial, buy it, skip SDE. If you can't afford Oracle Spatial, PostgreSQL with PostGIS. Just stay as far away from SDE if you transactional times that won't cause you to loose 80% of your day. Finally, there's ArcGIS Server. This product gets no love because it's the red-headed stepchild of the bunch. Not enough people are in need of it, thus a lack of understanding about it. If no one is implementing it, then there's not enough visibility, and again it could be something worthwhile, but no community equals no success or use. ArcGIS Explorer could save it, then again, you have to be building tasks, globes, and services with it. If no one is, then it's DOA. Sorry, Jeremey. I mean, I feel bad writing this. I like ESRI. Desktop is great—except for my export map problem on my laptop. Yet, this state of affairs for ESRI server apps are really sad. I just hope they can either 1) improve, or, 2) get out without betting the farm on server apps.

Bangalore To Change Name Tomorrow

2006-10-31T03:28:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow the city of Bangalore (ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು), India, will be changing its name to Bengaluru, the city's name in Kannada, the local language. Now I have go buy a new map. Shoot!

Thoughts on WMS-C

2006-10-28T04:24:00.002-07:00

Chris notes his thoughts today about the WMS-C tiling spec that's currently being worked on through OSGeo. He proposes a fairly cheap solution by using Amazon S3 to host the tiles with all it's capabilities. So, Chris—with Schyuler's notes—broke down the cost of caching the Landsat 7 dataset with S3.

"Sure its not free, but it sure as hell is cheap … Based on Schuylers calculation from the wiki article,
Taking 15m pan-sharpened Landsat-7 composites as an example, at a tile size of 512 x 512 pixels, each tile would be about 7,680 meters on a side, or about .0625 degrees across. Plugging in the other values, we get a maximum of 22,118,400 tiles in the layer.

"Assuming the optimum size of 64kb is reached per tile, we’re looking at 1415.577gb of physical storage. Lets take a wild guess of 50gb of transfer per month, with the actual tiles only be updated annually and we have the following,

$0.20 * 1415 = $283 to initially upload the cache

$0.15 * 1415 * 12 = $2547 for a years worth of storage

$0.20 * 50 * 12 = $120 of user transfers (eg. downloads)

Total: $2950"

Chris goes on to make a hint that Refractions perhaps get in on sponsoring this. I commented on Chris' blog that "why doesn't USGS or NASA just pay for it?" It's a drop in the bucket for them.

Outside.in

2006-10-26T03:52:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program sent me the link last night to Outside.in. Another pretty cool collaborative atlas that is intended to link and build communities through the web. So, what is Outside.in? Author and site founder, Steven Johnson, explains in his blog:

"So what is outside.in? In a phrase, it's an attempt to collectively build the geographic Web, neighborhood by neighborhood. I wrote up a mini-essay describing the original inspiration for the site, and explaining some of our core principles, which I've included below. But you can also just go visit the site and explore..."

Some of those principles are (which sound like they came from me):

The natives know best.
The post's location is more important than the blogger's location.
Neighborhoods are more important that maps.
Geo-tags are only the beginning.
Local news often has a long-shelf life.

I think the Outside.in Team has their principles spot on. Plus, they acknowledge the fact they can improve on how they live up to their site's principles and that there are even more principles. So, if you want to build your local community through the web, Outside.in is a tool to do so.

Firefox 2.0 and Maps

2006-10-25T03:18:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded Firefox 2.o like everyone said I should. So, I go to Google Maps. Looks good. Yahoo Local. Looks good. Local.Live.com. . . WTF? Actually, Local.Live works fine. The toolbars and drop downs seem a little off though. Note to Redmond, check it out. Getting at what I wanted to note about the new features of 2.0 that I though would be of use to 'slippy maps' and neogeographers. Shoot me dead, now. I used buzzwords! They were:

Client-side session and persistent storage: New support for storing structured data on the client side, to enable better handling of online transactions and improved performance when dealing with large amounts of data, such as documents and mailboxes. This is based on the WHATWG specification for client-side session and persistent storage.
JavaScript 1.7: JavaScript 1.7 is a language update introducing several new features such as generators, iterators, array comprehensions, let expressions, and destructuring assignments. It also includes all the features of JavaScript 1.6.
SVG text: Support for the svg:textpath specification enables SVG text to follow a curve or shape.

These three things really stood out to me. Storing data on the client to enhance the performance of some web mapping applications. . . ArcIMS, I'm talking to yoo. Improved JavaScript to do more in the browser. Finally, SVG text. Sure, I know I sound off my rocker, but it's something to get the geo community started with drawing and annotation tools for web maps. So, hopefully some smart people do some great things to advance mapping inside Firefox .

PageMapper by Metacarta Labs

2006-10-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

It's nice to know people who do cool stuff. I was talking to Chris Schmidt via Meebo today when he sent me the URL to a Metacarta Labs project he has been working on. It's called PageMapper, and it's something that's not up on the Lab's page yet. It's pretty cool. It's a bookmarklet that when you click on it—once you've dragged it to your Bookmark toolbar—it will locate the places in the webpage onto an OpenLayers map. Being privvy to the experiment, I decided to try it out on three unsuspecting websites that I thought would be great tests for PageMapper. 1) USCHO.com's team page for the University of North Dakota hockey team. There just has to be stuff in here that can be mapped?

2) The football team page for the University of California, Berkeley. Another team schedule that should be great for place names.

3) Finally, WikiTravel.org's main page. WikiTravel and geographic names, duh.

As you can see. . . it's still a lab project. Chris tells me there's something about websites with cookies that causes PageMapper not to read everything. Still, an f'in cool lab project. Check it out. It does have some seriously potential for those interested in geolocating news or geographically searching for events and how they relate to one another.

ESRI Rep Asked, "What Do You Want In 9.3?"

2006-10-24T03:37:00.000-07:00

I replied, "We need to complain about 9.2 before we give you input for 9.3."

Easy Way from IMS to MapServer (or Ka-Map?)

2006-10-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

Just another ignorant question fueled by the existence of Datum Shift:

"How do I migrate from ArcIMS to MapServer or to Ka-Map? Is there a utility to "easily" convert AXL to MapScript?"

Seriously, though, I had a bad day with ArcGIS. It may have been my three year haitus from GIS? It may have been gremlins? But whatever it was yesterday, it sucked. I tried to export a project to PDF, GeoPDF, and even AI for printing and all I got was a self-closing version of ArcGIS. (Steve had a similar issue yesterday too.) This all happened late yesterday and my ESRI rep was able to recommend something that required a ScanDisk and a defragment. So, I put the wheels in motion last night before I left the office. Hopefully, this morning what I did worked. Oh! The other thing that confused the hell out of me and some colleagues was: measuring the area of GRID rasters in ArcMap. I know that I need to use the Zonal Statistics tool, but I needed to convert the Grids to something else. Anyway, long story short, a friend hacked it out for me and got my area measurement. Note to ESRI for 9.3 & 10.0 devleopment: The above—Not as easy as it should be.

MAP2PDF for ArcGIS: Flash Tutorial

2006-10-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough that someone in the company this week sent me a copy of TerraGo's MAP2PDF for ArcGIS. Wow! Slap some software on my desk and tell me to make something happen? Sure why not. One problem: How the hell do I use this thing. . . properly? Well one solution is to open a link—this one—to TerraGo's multimedia tutorials of their software. I haven't gone completely through all 4 minutes and 4 seconds of it yet, but I plan to. Should be as easy as File -> Export Map...-> Choose "GeoPDF," right? God, I hope so.

South Korea Introducing New Geodetic System

2006-10-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

Found this in the Korean Times:

"The government yesterday designated Ullung Island as the starting point of a new geodetic system prior to changing to the World Geodetic System (WGS-84). To date the Tokyo Datum has been used for measuring distances after Japan occupied the peninsula in 1910."

This is great news for the location-bases app developers in South Korea. Finally they can can that dang Tokyo Datum for something that everyone actually uses—including the Japaneese.

Mars WMS

2006-10-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

http://openlayers.org/~crschmidt/mars.html Get a load of what Chris Schmidt has done with the Mars Observer data and OpenLayers. Pretty schweet. Of course, this is coming from a former NASA intern.

Age Old Debate: ESRI or Open Source?

2006-10-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

James' recent post seemed to have lit a spark of the obvious for me. Is ArcGIS Server really worth it? I guess it depends on what you want to do. Still, I felt the urge to crack open Tyler's book again.

More Metacarta Rectifier

2006-10-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well, let's see. I've been tooling around with the Metacarta Rectifier today and it's working pretty well. I've uploaded a parking lot map of the University of North Dakota already and exported the resultant geoTIFF to Google Earth. I must say, it does look nice. The only feedback that I have for this lab experiment are a few things: • PDF's. Can they add PDF upload functionality too? • It's a little slow processing, but that's to be expected for an experiment • People who I've shared this with have been having WMS errors • Metadata. The description needs to be available to edit as well as the GCPs. That's about it. I like it. I'm addicted.

Metacarta Lab's Map Rectifier

2006-10-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

Chris Schmidt announced the Metacarta Lab's new Map Rectifier tool that is online this week. I actually uploaded a map and warped it. I must say this thing is wicked awesome—another capability of online geoprocessing that I've talked about. The implications are pretty enormous when it comes to uploading images of maps (scanned or photographed) then have the ability to match up some control points to rectify your map. It's just plain cool. I know there will be skeptics out there, like there was with Microsoft's MapCruncher, when it comes to accuracy. I think it's going to be obvious that rectifying maps with this shouldn't be used for boundary disputes, rather incorporating information that was available and not in a good format into a WMS that can be read by most GIS and geo-browsers. Anyway, this thing is cool. I'll see what I can contribute in the future. Last time when MapCruncher came out, I spent two weeks of my free time rectifying maps. I swear, I was addicted.

Other GIS Software: Panorama

2006-10-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

Expanding our knowledge of non-english GIS platforms today, I'll be discussing PANORAMA GIS. Panorama is a Russian GIS application that looks to be pretty robust in its capabilities to work with geodata bases, 3D models, rasters, etc. I haven't installed it or downloaded it, but from the english page it looks cool. I'd like to make some comparisons between MapInfo, GeoMedia, ArcGIS, GRASS, Manifold and others. I'd also be interested to see how it works with other mainstream (english) GIS formats—if it does?

"Coalition Against Google Earth?"

2006-10-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

In the latest Government of India vs. Google Earth telenovella. . . The Hindustan Times reported this week that the Indian government has asked its Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and other scientific organizations to discuss the security risks of applications like Google Earth. The Indians feel that by discussing the potential use of commercial imagery and free applications—like Google Earth—by terrorist organizations they can gain support towards creating an international law related to commercial imagery. Brief notes about this potential law hope to restrict resolution and location of images. The law would also seek prior consent of a nation who was to be imaged. I'm not a diplomat, I'm all for getting useful information into the hands of the public. I believe the Indians do have a legitimate security concern, but I am also in the belief that more good than bad can come from the availiblity of imagery, maps, and applications to map our world. If you have more good people looking out for the community, wouldn't you think that could help thwart any threats? On a side note, I've noticed that GE has implemented an "Alternative Names" layer in v4. Is this to appease the sorts of international pressures that apply to toponyms?

Google Earth & Voter Registration

2006-10-07T05:27:00.000-07:00

I just fired up Google Earth this morning to work on something, then realized something different. . . A layer with placemarks for each state's voter registration information. This is pretty cool—I think—to get information out to people who don't know how to register to vote or where to register. Linking each state's electoral office websites is just good stuff. I'm glad the GE team is doing their civic duty—at least in the U.S. Good job guys.

Still Here; Just Busy

2006-10-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

This is a "I'm still alive post." Actually, I've been pretty busy. I have a few projects in the works and I've been trying to get back into re-learning spatial statistics. I'm trying to get out of the data entry biz for the moment and start some analytical projects. I've also been getting a handle on Arc2Earth and Map2PDF. The one thing that I'm trying to do with those extensions is to prototype some publishing platforms for work. It's fun, just busy work. Plus, there's not much going on other than talking PAC-10 football with James and some ESRI developers. Now the only big excitement I'm waiting for is the 9.2 release.

Re-installing Windows: The ArcGIS Cure-All

2006-09-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

I know it is a pain in the butt that I never want to do again. Re-install Windows. Yesterday, after weeks of frustration trying to get ArcGIS to install and run properly on a machine, I decided to do a "clean install." I thought it would be easy, but noooooo. Microsoft Update runs at least for 24 hours to download and install all the updates to bring the OS to the most current state. Well, I'm done with the XP re-install, which has cured a lot of my computer's issues. Now it's on to installing ArcGIS. . . . . .Someone wish me good luck.

List of Colleges With Geography Programs

2006-09-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

U.S. News & World Report magazine's has a list of U.S. colleges and universities who offer geography as a major. I came across it as I was looking for something and did a quick search on geography. Anyway, I thought you might find it interesting.

Installing ArcGIS: "Good Luck With That"

2006-09-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

"Good luck with that." It's a phrase I heard from six different ESRI employees—who are friends—when I told them that I was installing ArcGIS yesterday. Strange; What does this occurrence mean? I don't know. But I had one heck of a time trying to figure out how to get the software off of a DVD that didn't autorun properly. Then I got ArcGIS installed, which I'm having all sorts of woes with it on my home computer. ArcMap will open, but no toolbars will show. I try to open an MXD, I get a premature termination from a C++ runtime error. It may be the software, it may not be the software. It runs fine on other computers I have. It may just be that my home machine is junk. Still, if anyone has any thoughts or tips, let me know how to get ArcGIS running properly on the machine I want it to run on.

I Told You The End is Near: Intergraph Bought

2006-08-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

I told you earlier this month what's going to happen with Intergraph!

"BTW: The world must be ending soon, Brian Goldin's last day is Friday. The National Geographic Travelall is for sale, and now we find out about this scheduling snaffu. Plus, my prediction about a pending absorbsion of Intergraph into Sony that will happen in February 2007. . . It's shear madness."

Manifold Discussion: Re-Visiting the First Rule of Cartography

2006-08-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

After thinking about what Bull and James have been posting about Manifold, I came to this conclusion about accessing data that is accessible. Flashback to your first cartography course. . . First rule of cartography: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't trying." . . . Flashback to now. . . There. Just remember how maps used to be made: everyone copied from one another! The business world has hosed our global cartographic art while also making it better. i.e. USGS vs. Ordinance Survey. (Sorry, had to do it.) Then again which is more important: good maps? Or, more money?

Not Really a Blunder; Still Strange

2006-08-23T03:23:00.000-07:00

Red Ground commented in my previous post that the ESRI International User Conference is planned WAY in advance.

2007 June 18–22
2008 August 4–8
2009 July 13–17
2010 July 12–16

So mark your Google Calendar. Glenn from GISUser said something about renting a bus to head up to San Jose from the UC next year. I don't know if taking a bus on I-5 is a cool idea. I mean, Los Angeles is in the way, plus there's that smelly stockyard on the way. If you're going to try the San Diego to San Jose trek, I would recommend taking the train. Sure, a little longer maybe, but the scene would be better along the coast.

Guess Who I Saw on the Way Home?

2006-08-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sitting in LAX waiting for my plane yesterday. Guess who I see in front of me hoggin' down on McDonald's cheese burgers? Paris Hilton. Seriously, though, if you're a celebrity, why would you want to walk throught he airport with a blanket over your head with electric green sweatpants that obviously clash? Also, sitting next to me in the waiting area was the blonde girl from The Office. At first I didn't notice, but my wife did. Anyway, that's my Hollywood experience. I wonder if they knew who they were sitting next to?

Thought I'd Try Embedding My Flagr Tags

2006-08-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

GIS Social Coordinator: The Biggest Geo-Blunder Yet

2006-08-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

Looking ahead to potential shindigs for 2007 to attend and plan for, the GIS Social Coordinator has stumbled upon some serious overlapping events:

June 2007 18 to 22: ESRI International Users Conference, San Diego 19 & 20: Where 2.0, San Jose

Uh-oh! Someone has really screwed the pooch on this one. I mean, what gives Tim & Jack? Decide to tear apart the geospatial community into two parts during the same week in June in California? Ok, granted the common person at the UC wouldn't know what the Where group is doing, and the Where group doesn't want to be associated too much with the ESRI group, but c'mon! I talked about ships passing in the night and this is a blatanly an attempt in both camps to trump one another out. BTW: The world must be ending soon, Brian Goldin's last day is Friday. The National Geographic Travelall is for sale, and now we find out about this scheduling snaffu. Plus, my prediction about a pending absorbsion of Intergraph into Sony that will happen in February 2007. . . It's shear madness. Anyway, it looks like the GIS Social Coordinator is going to have to schedule a meetup for the first Monday after the Planary. Then I hope Rob and Company are willing to take the show up to San Jose the next night with me. I just may have to buy that Travelall afterall. [Sigh.] See, this is why you need a GIS Social Coordinator. I wonder if I need to defend my Pixie Hunt title? Wouldn't be cool to make it a two day event at two different events?

1967 Travelall w/ Nat'l Geographic Society Signage

2006-08-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles is a pretty amazing place. Just check out this 1967 International Travelall for sale. Big deal, it's a piece of junk. Right? Yes, but what caught my eye was the sticker on the side of this thing. "National Geographic Society." I'm not sure why or how it has that on the side, but I thought it would be interesting to photograph. Who knows, some old geographer reading this stuff may realize that this the vehicle that may have saved their butt in the Congo or something. Anyway, something to think about.

Don't Ask, Appologize Later

2006-08-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

I really need to professionalize my services and change my name to Julie. I'd like to thank everyone who has emailed or written to me to tell me that the GeoBlogger Meetup was a sweet deal. With those praises floating around on the Internet, I've received some emails asking if I could set up GeoBlogger meetups at other events like, the Kinky Friedman Inaugeration Party, the International Symposium of SPAM Production, and the 2007 AAG Conference in San Francisco. Do you know what I have to say to that? Do it yourself. GIS Social Coordination isn't a $900 class from ESRI's Virtual Campus or something that you're appointed the UN to do. It's knowing who to talk to and who may be there. So, for our new friend Catholicgauze who emailed me about setting one up in San Francisco: You have a good base, you know a lot of people, and tell James Fee. I can only do so much with Doug Richardson at AAG. I know you'll get a different set of geobloggers than you would at ESRI, but that doesn't matter. What matters is geography. I bet you'll also have a great time.

Comparing the GeoBlogging Community to the Crew of the Love Boat

2006-08-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

I was just chatting with Steve Scitron-Pousty, and he asked me, "how does it feel to be Julie on the Love Boat?" Well, Steve, it's good to be the GIS social coordinator. Now if they just had a skirt in a size 38. Further on during our chat, Steve called himself Gopher. . . Does that mean that James Fee is Captain Steuben and Brian Flood is the Doctor?

Finally. . . A Summary!

2006-08-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I think this is one of the better UC's that I've been to. Even though I've heard Jack's schpiel all year-long since the FedUC, I think there were a number of new things that I have learned and people who I got to meet. Plus, this was the first year that I got to present on a panel and my 8:30 session was packed. Feedback was in the four-and-a-half (out of five) region and people who attended said they reeeeaallly enjoyed the session. Hard to believe I was a part of that, but what the heck? My boss was in the crowd. Well, I ran into a number of people who work on geospatial analysis and data generation like myself. At times finding out that we have similar or overlapping projects and studies going on. So, the plan is when we get back is to pass notes back and forth and start collaborating via that GeoWeb Jack mentioned in the Planary. As for technology this year on the exhibit floor, I have one comment: "Where was the innovation this year?" Everyone who was on the floor was hocking the same stuff as last year with no big changes. It seemed like the only one who had something interesting to demo or show was ESRI with ArcGIS Server and ArcWeb Explorer and the 9.2 server-based programs. In many of my discussion with others, the number one topic that came up was about the findability of data. I work with other analysts and GIS professionals, and largely in a poorly constructed production system. . . Which is "anything goes." Anyway, now people are getting ticked off because they waste time finding data that others produce or have. Plus, the fact that so much of their resources are spent on trying to find information, would probably be my number one concern too. The only complaint I'm going to have about the UC is that a number of the presenters and session members never showed. What kind of crap is that? If any of you ditched your sessions, shame on you. Now for the important stuff. . . I'm going to write a thank you to Rob Painter and Noah Doyle of Google Earth a thank you letter, but I would like to say to them here, "Thank you, guys. You're awesome for sponsoring the GeoBlogger meetup. I think everyone who attended appreciated your generosity, your interest in us, and just your presence at the conference." Actually, while talking to Rob yesterday, he said that I need to look no further than him as a sponsor for next year too. So, once again, "Rob you're the man!" Also, a shout out to Rebbeca, Damien, and Erika at Mister Tiki's Mai Tai Lounge. Rebecca and Damien helped with the reservations and Erika did a great job of serving us. The one thing that really amazed me was the turn out for the GeoBlogger meetup. We had bloggers, but we had about four or five readers too. Totally awesome! I realized after the readers showed up and I was concerned with party crashers, that I need not worry. So, I appologize if I came across as tough when I asked, "Who the heck are you?" Otherwise, you guys are great! Thank you for coming, and I hope to see you at the next shindig. Best acronym of the conference. . . U.S. Army General Honre, who was in charge of the Katrina response last year, had the best quote of the UC. "TOPS: Take Other People's Shit." Because that's what he did to respond to Katrina, especially using GIS as a decision support tool to search and move people to safety. Good job, sir. Now it's time to end this trash. I hope you all get home safely and don't have any problems traveling.

Note to Self: Don't Work on Templates When Using WiFi

2006-08-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Notice any changes? While jackin' around OpenLayers.com and embedding the scripts into the Blogger template that I used to have, my WiFi connection died mid-reload. Sunnofa. . .

Rhetorical Question: What if ESRI Open Sourced ArcGIS?

2006-08-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

This question popped into my head today. I don't know why or what prompted it, but it may be something UC-goers start asking this week while they're drinking the Kool-Aid.

Can't Chat During the UC? Try Meebo

2006-08-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.meebo.com Since all the ports except for port 80 are closed down, disabling most IM chat clients. I recommend Meebo for those of you using GTalk, Yahoo, MSN, and AIM.

The Newest UC Drinking Game

2006-08-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

Lot's of us already know what Jack Dangermond is going to talk about this morning at the ESRI UC Planary session: "Services." Well, a number of us have talked about making the Planary session today a drinking game. Everytime Jack says "service" or "services," take a drink. I recommend 3/2 beer. Otherwise, you'll end up wasted in the first fifteen minutes. Why? Remember at Where 2.0? Jack had fifteen minutes and said "services" fifteen times. Is there an IRC channel for the UC?

GeoBlogger MeetUp Map

2006-07-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

After a "few" hours of trying to remember JavaScript and trying to figure out how to add this map to Blogger, I've finally done it!

ArcWeb Explorer Collaborative Atlases

2006-07-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

I was wondering. Has anyone developed a collaborative atlas using ArcWeb? I mean has someone, somewhere made a site like Platial, Flagr, or Community Walk?

Multimedia Geotagger: BlockRocker

2006-07-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

I was going through the Flickr geotagging group's discussions looking for another geotagger for my pics—since Geoblogger.com is now gone—I came across BlockRocker. This thing is pretty cool for the following things you can geotag:

Flickr Photos
YouTube Videos
Del.icio.us Bookmarks
Any website using a bookmarklet
Your blog posts using Technorati tags

It's something that's pretty handy if you think of it. The BlockRocker developers have understood that "something happens somewhere" and they've built a tool that helps to locate where something happens. BTW, I need to bring this thing into work. I have so much junk to locate, it's just crazy! Give BlockRocker at whirl and then decide for yourself if it's cool or not.

ESRI UC Geoblogger Meetup: Tiki! Tiki! Tiki!

2006-07-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

Tiki! Tiki! Tiki! Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

I found a place!

Place: Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge 801 5th Ave, San Diego, CA (619) 233-1183 Time: 8pm, 9 August

It should be a good time. Hopefully, James, Ed, and others will be there. I think we're looking at about 25 people showing up, so it should be a good time. I hope to meet all of you geobloggers again, let me know if you plan on attending. The Mr. Tiki tiki photo is geotagged.

An Interview with GISNuts.com

2006-07-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

A few months back I came across GISNuts.com and their T-shirts. You may have noticed one of their shirts that says, "I survived a NAD shift?" Well, I was intrigued as to who these budding GIS entrepreneurs were. So, I asked if they could answer five questions for FANTOM PLANET about their business so we could learn more about them. 1. What's your most popular selling tee?

The "NAD83 We're not in Kansas anymore", "Raster Master", and "Never Make Cartographers Mad. They'll tell you where to go and draw you a map" t-shirts are our best selling shirts.

2. How much product are people buying?

We're really just getting started. Business has been steadily picking up, and GIS enthusiasts have started to report sightings of our shirts.

3. What sparked the idea to create GIS themed t-shirts?

While on vacation at the beach, I was listening to some GIS training materials on my laptop, and I was forcing my husband (who is now a GIS convert) to listen with me. While we were listening, he said, "You know, I'd really like to have a t-shirt that says 'I survived a NAD Shift.' That would be pretty funny." I replied, "Well, why don't you get one?" That began a brain storming session for other funny GIS sayings to put on shirts. By the end of the week, we considered ourselves quite witty and were convinced that others would like our shirts as well.

4. Where can others submit their witty GIS slogans for your store? (Personally, I've always wanted to make a t-shirt that said, "Map Pimp.")

Several fans have submitted ideas to us by emailing the store. All of them have made us laugh, and we plan to use several of them in the future. We will soon add a submissions page to make it easier for visitors to submit suggestions.

5. Will you be expanding if business picks up into other areas such as embroidered hats and polos, coffee mugs, mouse pads, stress balls? You know the types of toys GIS professionals mess around when their data is processing.

Definitely. We are currently getting ready to offer coffee mugs and mouse pads.

There you have it, your five questions from Leslie and Robert at GISNuts.com. Now go by one of their t-shirts.

ESRI UC Blogger Meet Up: Where?

2006-07-26T03:08:00.000-07:00

Some of you have commented or emailed recommending that we meet after the .NET SIG Wednesday night. That's cool. Time: 9 August, 8pm (I'll be there earlier) Where: I don't know? Since I'm not too familiar with San Diego, my search skills for "San Diego Restaurants" sucks, and you've said "No Dick's Last Resort; I can't hear myself think." I would like to toss it back at you who know more about San Diego than I do. Just pick a place close to the Convention Center so we can walk, then go bar hoppin' afterwards. I'm looking out for you guys. I'll be on my way back to the hotel to get my beauty sleep for my Thursday panel. Anyway, pick something that's cool, seats 50, and make it somewhere where we can have a conversation. I'll see if I can get Google or someone to sponsor it. Yo, Rob, buddy!

My Secret Alternative GIS Lifestyle: Curious World Maps

2006-07-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I wouldn't call Curious World Maps a GIS, but I would call it a cartographic alternative that many of you probably have never had the chance to use to make maps. I wanted to quickly bring it up, because while chatting with James, I actually used something he never heard of. What was the quote, James? "The more I learn the more I learn how much I don't know." Ditto. My office has only the base model of a Curious license, which is pretty hefty in price. We do use it everyday to support news in our intranet portal, but most users are only creating simple country-level political maps. Lately though, I've been trying to expand my knowledge of it to create some interesting and detailed maps. Granted, the base license doesn't bring the drawing and paint module with it. It's pretty easy to use and comes with it's own gazetteer, which is the reason for the high price I gather. If you have used a GIS and have worked with any Adobe graphic design suite, Curious should be a snap. It's trying to master the overlays, shadows, animation, and 3D advanced features that's interesting. I'll admit, I haven't tried the 3D suite yet, but I think that's next on my list this week to work with. So far, to get some "drawing" functionality into my maps I've exported Google Earth's terrain and imagery to Photoshop; added my graphics and exported it to Curious for layering aspects of our style sheet that we use in my office. I have made some nice maps using that technique, but is it really efficient? That's why I hope the natural 3D component to Curious works out to my benefit. I can't wait to make fly-throughs too—it should be fun. I don't know about all y'all, but how many of you would say that using a GIS for cartography is "fun?" Another side note: I haven't used the full Google Earth suite either, but am interested in comparing the two applications. I wonder if SketchUp can export to Curious? Guess I'll just have to experiment—I'll let you know how it goes. [Photo courtesy of Curious]

ESRI UC Blogger Meet Up Thoughts

2006-07-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, we're about two weeks out from the UC and it's time to think of when we want to meet up. Initially, I thought that Wednesday or Thursday evening would work well. Last year I think we met on Wednesday at Dick's Last Resort and had a pretty good turn out. Let me know when and where you'd want to meet. I'm partial to Thursday only because I'm presenting Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Let's face it, I need my beauty sleep.

Geotagging an Oldie, but a Goodie

2006-07-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

Just visiting Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

I was cleaning out my office at home yesterday and found this picture of me at the Equator and the International Dateline (off to the left.) I added it to Flickr and geotagged it—because I'm a geek like that. I'm wondering if I should add it to the Degree Confluence Project? Honest to God, the line and the labels really are there!

CNN & Geography: F-

2006-07-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

It's a lazy Saturday morning here in DC, some veggin' on the coutch, and catchin' up on my current events. Unfortunately—as some of you have noted—I can't leave the job at the office. I have to say the "news art" team for CNN really jacked up their maps this morning. Reporting on Israeli strikes near/in Tripoli, Lebanon, CNN displayed a map showing the location the strikes. It was Tripoli, Libya. I just wanted to remind us all that toponyms are important. Because if Stephen Abrose's quote that "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" is true: God and CNN just made us lose a bunch of IQ points.

Lost for Weeks in the Northwoods

2006-07-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

IMGP2245
Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

I just wanted to let all my fans know that I was off lost in the north woods of Minnesota pimping MetaCarta and some maps while on vaction.

Call for Swag

2006-06-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Ok. After talking with Glenn and Frank at Where 2.0, I need to get something out of this blogging gig. So, as a kind service as a geographer with lots of free time—and ~~money~~ energy—at work, I'm going to offer my services to review products from location-based tech firms. So, send me your GPS camera phones, bluetooth devices that trainagulate where I am in relation to Lance, and HD televisions that stream crystal clear maps to my living room. You have something cool, I'll try to break it or try to make fun of it and give it "social currency." Marketing departments—call me.

What Next?

2006-06-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

Jeff Thurston over at Vector One, and David Maguire at Geography Matters are discussing—what I think we've all been asking—after a year of slippy maps, collaborative atlases, buzz words and acronyms is: "What's next?" Coming out of Where 2.o I got to see a lot of great things; people doing brilliant things; multiple groups converging and ideas being sparked. But to what extent? I saw a lot of ships passing in the night. Jeff is right, what is going to fill the gap between open source, slippy maps, traditional GIS business models, and data provisioning? Now, let's think about this carefully: Someone's going to break out in five to seven months, and they're going to make it big. It's not going to be your traditional GIS desktop builder, nor the the team with the pincushions. I think it's going to be someone who takes the opportunity to technically simplify how geodata is transferred, standardized, communicated, and displayed. They're actually going to redefine what geodata is and eliminate uncertainty. They're going to share data, sell apps, crowdsource, and make money. The goal is place, not space. Just watch. Someone who wasn't so busy talking about themselves at Where is going to take the shot to build that bridge that Jeff and David are talking about. And then who's going to be counting dollars—not L$'s—rather than "services?"

FANTOM PLANET Anniversary

2006-06-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

Good grief! I've been doing this for a frickin' year now?!? Who'd a thunk? My therapist said I only had to do this until the voices went away in my head. Anyway, I'd like to thank the geobloggers out there who I'm friends with, compliment, and compete against in kickball to keep this thing going. It's fun, it's a great way to meet up with people at conferences, and we all make each other better. Thanks. Now, if you don't mind. I'm going to geolocate the cookies I'm about to toss after that Nancy-boy gush of emotions.

Where Finale: GPS, Jack, Hacks, Games, Floods, and Gumdrops

2006-06-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

I was taking studious notes for most of the conference until the last sessions of each day. Those were typically reserved for the lightning rounds where I stopped taking good notes and enjoyed the presentations. . . And chatted in the #where2.0 room in IRC. Here is my take on what I enjoyed from the presentations at Where 2.0 2006: Don Cooke, Founder GDT/Tele Atlas: Don is the probably the most passoinate guy I've seen who collects data with a GPS. This extremely entertaining presentation was, how do you say, "Awesome!" Don totes a GPS pretty much where ever he goes: on a plane, on a rolled over bus in Thailand, and when he's mowing Google Earth ads saying "Fun with GPS" into his lawn. He's even so passionate that he's proliferating GPS to other species, like his cat. Don, from what I can tell, is geographer/surveyor who's been there, done that and put together something successful that he enjoys. Now, how can I do that? Chris Spurgeon: Chris cranked out a presentation with about the five most important geohacks in human time. Eratosthanes' discovery of how big the world really was, the discovery of how to use the moons of Jupiter to roughly figure out longitude, Harry Beck's map of the London Underground, the creation of the VOR aero navigation system, and Polynesian navigation of the central Pacific Ocean. I really enjoyed this one too. It was a good break from slippy maps and Google Earth stuff. Plus, Chris was on my Pixie Hunt team and he rocks. MetaCarta Labs: I liked this. As did everyone else blogging. Map Spam 2008: Michael Bauer's presentation ranks up there in humor along with Don Cooke's. I wish there was video of this that I could show you. It's a gut buster. Gumspots Mobile Navigation Service: When Jason Kaufman started speaking in this lightning round, most people were asking themselves, "Is this guy for real?" Yes he was. Jason's presentation transcended the paradigm of presentations over the conference, in part from Jason coming from NYU's ITP group. Plus, who would create a mobile app to map your location based upon the pattern of gumspots on the ground? Jason did. Brain from Spatially Enabled and I tried it out at the GeoBlogger meetup and to our biased surprise as GIS professionals. . . It worked! Privacy by Lauren Gelman: This presentation blew me away about how the lawyers are exploring writing about online privacy, especially at Stanford Law School. It's all about expectations of how the content is presented. . . and mined. The feeling I got from this presentation was that the lawyers are more concerned about government data mining than data mining by spammers. But, that's just my take on it. Mobile Social (and Big) Games: David Trefry's presentation about big games was cool. I probably think so because my team won Pixie Hunt. Nonetheless, I had the opportunity to talk to David at the Yahoo! Social after day two to talk about big games an who has the mentality to "go hardcore" into big games. I noted that my friends who are in the Army and Marine Corps would enjoy this more than playing in their big game in Baghdad. We both aggreed that the hardcore players, are the ones, if on a team, engage and lead those who wouldn't typically be as aggressive in the game if the "just wanted to see what it was all about." (Or, if there was a really cool prize?) Anyway, David and I were talking about game development to for a short bit. Somehow I got on the subject of "WiFi traps" where you could set a trap to trap your opponent's phone in a certain place and if you deviated out of the trap, you would lose points or get disqualified. Neat stuff to run with. I just wish I had more time to do this stuff. The Jack Dangermond "Service" Counter: Ok, if you happened to be in the #where2.0 IRC chat room for this session and at the conference, you will understand the humor behind this. I like the prez of ESRI and I mean no ill will, but this was like the fifth time I saw Jack talk about this stuff so I knew he was going to say "service" or "services" quite a few times. So, in the IRC room I made the prediction of how many times he was going to say "service." I picked 15. So, as Jack started to talk, I started counting. I could hear the laughs in the room as we were doing this. Amazingly, when Jack stopped talking, we were at 15! Brady Forrest, the co-chair of Where, put a time limit on Jack of about fifteen minutes, which I know helped to get me at the number I picked. Thanks Brady. Now if we could have turned this in to a drinking game like what some have done with the song Roxanne by the Police. Finally, the trend at Where 2.0 conferences is to save the best for last. Cartography Commando Style: This was by far the crowd fav. It had location, the crowd had a sense of interest due to the impact on the American perception of how its government handles disasters, and it was a bridge to show the non-geographer developers in the room what applied geography/GIS is when it counts. I think all were amazed at the resourcefulness tha Ron Langhelm at FEMA was and how they were helping first responders and Ron's own experience working in disaster areas. The point that got across was that when stuff hits the fan like this, it's no place for a pushpin map. Perhaps a collaborative atlas that is gridded up? Some lightweight spatial analysis on the web to identify areas most likely to need assistance first? And the need for serious GIS professionals to assist in these situations. Hopefully it sparked some thoughts in the crowd about what to do next. Like in terms of Where 2.x where citizens participate and the monetization of the service isn't measured in terms of coin, rather in the preservation of human lives.

Where Swag: Me and TSA On 'Another' Collision Course?

2006-06-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

Conference swag usually consists of the obligatory man purse loaded with junk. Well, at Where this year they've include a number of interesting items:

A copy of Google Map Hacks (Which I should get Jo, Rich, and Schyuler to sign before I leave)
A CD from Google with every desktop app they have.
Conference Program
A "Who's Who" at Where 2.0: A contact sheet for who those who said they wanted to share their contact information to network (My fav. As Jeremey noted last night, "I'm a social whore.")
A cardboard mouse pad from Cruiser.gr
And, finally, the fine peeps at Map24.com are setting attendees on a collision course with TSA by giving us multi-purpose tools that have a substantial knife.

Fire the marketing department on this one for making me go to the post office this morning to weigh my option to be frisked by the A/V squad again. Other key swag snags:

Loki's WiFi Finder keychain
A Loki t-shirt for my wife (they ran out of XLs)
Two! ((Clapping Thunder)) Ha! Ha! Two MetaCarta t-shirts!

There's still today to bag some swag, I'll keep you posted.

Where Overkill

2006-06-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

Lots of great stuff coming out of the Where 2.0 conference today and it seems it's getting covered pretty well. You have Glenn, Very Spatial, Import Cartography, All Points Blog, Ogle Earth, Geography 2.0, Ed Parsons, the GeoRSS bloggers, OpenGeoData, High Earth Orbit, and the O'Reilly Radar bloggers covering the event, and probably others who don't consider themselves apart of the geoblogger community. Overall, nothing really sticks out as an "eye popping" experience. The new version of Google Earth is neat, but it's not mind blowing like it was last year to the industry. The location-based mobile apps are growing, but are in an initial state of growth and development. The collaborative atlas people (Flagr, Platial, Zopto, and 43Places) have different thoughts on what they're providing to the industry and different business goals. The Flagr guys, who were on my Pixie Hunt team, seem to have targeted their little sisters and their friends who text and use MySpace. 43Places is geared towards the hopes that people share their experiences for the sake of self publication. Zopto is geared towards just capturing a share of the market in New Zealand and Australia. Then Platial is praying to make revenue off of ads based on Google's map platform, which kind of is the goal of the rest of the collaborative atlases other than what's stated. So, the discussion with the collaborative atlas people begs the question, "What happens when Google decides to pull the plug on your map API to persue its own ventures in collaborative atlases that ends up combining Notebook, Spreadsheet, Dodgeball, Picasa, video, KML, and Writely?" Anyway, I didn't get the chance to ask the question about the next stage of Internet and 2.0 apps? I asked Di-Ann Elsinor from Platial about what I talked about this moring in the previous post about lightweight spatial analysis. Not just lame-o buffers or viewsheds, but rather statistical probablity, or incompatablity, of like persons in the same area to share information that one would want to share with like, or dislike, persons. She didn't seem too interested in that future of geodata trends, and dismissed the idea. Oh well. (Note 6/15: I appologize if I mentioned that Di-Ann "dismissed the idea," what I meant was, "we're a conference, she's a speaker, and everyone has something to say to her, so she probably got 'hit' with a bunch of stuff already and just took it in for processing later.") Then talk about metadata came up with Mike Leibold's keynote and the discussion with the collaborative atlas folks. The GIS peeps in the crowd seemed concern that "mashers" noted that geodata metadata stinks, but in practice don't collect or even try to address metadata. So, in collaborative atlases or other geodata sharing platforms, geodata is a total FOAF issue. You can only trust who you think you know. Oh! The concept of "pushpin maps" is driving some GIS'ers crazy. It's "pushpin, pushpin, pushpin!" Someone asked whether yarn came with Windows Live Local. That's about it for proceedings. As for the social scene. . . It's a different crowd than previous GIS conferences that I've been to. I think it's the hard core mashers? There's a definite division between mashers and GIS'ers. There are some bridgers like Schyuler and Mikel, but there needs to be people who can be bridge technologies. My Pixie Hunter partner, Miten from Freeva, is working to develop an Locative Technology program at a local state university that I am close to and asked if I could help. It looks promising, but I need to check with work to see if I can get some resources to help Miten. I would love to start something like this. Miten brings the technical masher aspect to the program where I could bring the art of geography. We'll see? I hope that I can do something. As for the GeoBlogger meetup: Glenn found us. It was me, Jeremey from Mapdex, Brian G. and Erik H. from ESRI. I was hoping that Ed Parsons, Stefan, Sue and Jesse, and some others would show up. Alas, I screwed up this even with poor planning. Still, Where is two days long and so packed with content that its tough to do things you want to do.

Blogger Meetup at Where

2006-06-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Uffda. Did I plan this right? There's the WhereFair and the GeoRSS Microformats session tonight and I'm thinking this GeoBlogger meet over again. Any suggestions from the GeoBloggers at Where? (This is my 200th post)

Who I'll Be Talking To Today

2006-06-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

Today's Dilbert calls too close to home today. I just had to post it.

'Where' is Intergraph This Week?

2006-06-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

I'm at Where 2.0 this week, but what's going on in the GIS/CAD world at Intergraph 2006? I guess Gen. Colin Powell (ret.) isn't speaking until later today 10:30am EDT (7:30a PDT). I bet he slips and says, "Well, it's great to be here at ESRI this year. . " Actually, what gives? We've heard some ramp up to Where, but no Intergraph? Seems strange. Well, talking to Steve yesterday about Where and brower-based mapping, we think GIS is kaput. The world isn't ready for web-enabled spatial analysis. Really though, I think they are. They just don't know it yet. That's why I think a large number of GIS folks are here at Where, to begin to talk to the location-app guys to start talking about online geospatial processing via browsers. Albeit, lightweight stuff. So, here's a recap of what's happening: First there's the emergence of free and open geodata. Then comes the collaborative atlases, (which is still growing.) And once folks are adding and mashing data to their atlases, the next logical step in this evolutionary process is to create lightweight web-based spatial analysis and online geoprocessing. It's coming. Just wait.

Happily Ever After: We Won Pixie Hunt

2006-06-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

Happily Ever After Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

End of story. Actually, it was a pretty good time. I met a bunch of enthusiastic guys out on a mission and we came home victorious! Thanks to all the other teams we played against, they had some real nice pictures too. Although, our team hoofed it most of the time, running (seriously) around downtown San Jose to complete all but four of our 28 tasks. The booty? Some Pharos/Microsoft Bluetooth GPS pucks. Again, good job guys.

Strange Things on Way to Where

2006-06-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

This morning, whew, lemme tell you something about TSA. . . So, I find a knife on the floor of the airport while waiting in the security line. After several attempts to get the attention of contractors who check your tickets and TSA agents, I finally kicked the knife across the floor over to a TSA agent who wasn't paying attention. Wrong move. Suddenly, the A/V spaztastic team whips up into a frenzy and points me out at the culprit who "tossed" the knife at an agent. Uh-oh. So, they ask me if the knife was mine, where did I get the knife, who gave me the knife, why did I throw the knife? All in about ten seconds. So, I told them the truth. "I've been waiting in line for fifteen minutes to have you come over to me to get the knife. I was shouting," seriously I was, "Hey, TSA. There's a KNIFE on the floor!" So, they stick me in the holding pen, I get the full search. And I still get questioned! Go figure? Ah, travel.

Five Tips for Pixie Hunters

2006-06-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be playing in this Monday's Pixie Hunt game before Where 2.0, here are five tips about scavenger hunts that I have learned over the years:

1) Aiding & Abetting. Don't open up the back door of a police car to let your team members out. You'll end up in there with them. 2) Booze is Currency. People will give, lend, or come along for the rest of the night if the the booze you're offering is cheap as free. 3) Dress Approprieately. Streaking down Market Street in San Jose might not be a task, but it just might happen if you don't dress appropriately. I recommend extra pairs of skivvies. 4) Bring as Many Quarters as You Can Find. You never know when you may have entered a foreign country. You can call home and pay off the federales. 5) Antispoofing. Watch out for spoofed messages. This is a technology conference for geographer-types. So, remember the first rule of cartography: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'." If you get a note to find Jack Dangermond, you know it's from wasted Intergraph 2006 attendees like Colin Powell.

Leading Team 7 in Pixie Hunt

2006-06-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok I volunteered for somethings at Where 2.0. 1) To be the captain of Team 7 of the Pixie Hunt; 2) I put in motion the geoblogger meetup. Boy, am I gonna be on the hoook to deliver. Now, I'm looking for some fun folks who like to get lost in strange towns for Team ("lucky number") 7. I have a habit of finding the local dives when I visit new towns and then getting lost on the way back to the hotel. I once got lost in Omaha and found out that I was in Lincoln. Then I ended up returning from Scotland with only one shoe, which my wife hates me bringing up. Anyway, you get the idea. So far, only Chris Spurgeon was signed up on Team 7, so you get to hang with a presenter. Now if I can only get Jeremey from Mapdex to sign-up and some others who I know are attending. BTW, I don't know if the team needs a name. Any suggestions? Then how's meeting up at Gordon Bierch at 7:30 on Tuesday 13 June? If WhereFair gets boring, bail on over to the geoblogger meetup and chat with us. (See map.) I thought to have it at The Lobby Lounge of the Fairmont, but I had already dumped the comment into Community Walk for Gordon Bierch, so I guess it could be there? Perhaps my mis-step could be a user requirement for CommunityWalk? We're going to have a good time. I look forward to meeting you. Update (11:02p 6/9): Crap! The Microformats BOF is also Tuesday night at 7:30. Maybe we should do the geoblogger meet up at The Lobby Lounge?

Where 2.0 BOF for GeoBloggers?

2006-06-09T02:39:00.000-07:00

I just read Ed Parsons' post about Where 2.0. Ed discusses his hopes for a very good conference and the cultural clash between the traditional GI industry and those coming from the fringe to create mashups. Specifically, Ed noted the recent posts about GeoRSS and the debate whether OGC would "highjack" the standard. Well, Alan Doyle, who wrote the orginial post about his concerns about GeoRSS and OGC, commented on Ed's post that there should be a BOF session for the geobloggers in attendance. I think that would be a good idea. So, I created one on the conference wiki. Last year at ESRI we had one and it was a pretty good time and I think a number of us have kept in touch sharing comments and ideas. So, for the geobloggers out there who will be attending Where 2.0 next week, what night do you want to meet up?

Where 2.0: Pixie Hunt

2006-06-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Next Monday, 12 June, the evening before the Where 2.0 conference, there's a little game going on for attendees. It's called Pixie Hunt. I just received the email with all the info for the game and to start finding a team of five others. This is my shout out to the Pixie Hunt gamers who haven't found a home yet. I would like to ask them, "can I join your team?" I swear, the GeoMullah is a ringer. I used to be "man about Waikiki" a few years ago, and I'm sure the San Jose area is easy to make my way through. So, if there are any geobloggers who are playing let me know. We'll meet up and not only win. But win big, big, big! Plus, I need a team so I can start talking smack to the other teams. It only makes it more fun that way.

Targeted by Marketing Departments: Part Two

2006-06-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

I see that the Canadian Cartographic Association's blog bit on same email from the Idelix marketing department that I and others received earlier in the week. Am I bitter? (Because perhaps I sounded bitter before.) No. Actually, as always with all pliable lens technologies: I'm impressed. Especially with it's application to the G/M/Y maps. And I know some of the Idelix peeps. Although, what is Idelix trying to do here with a PLT for slippy maps, make money? Because, yes, we're wowed that you took all three slippy maps, mashed them together, and scripted a PLT for them. Anyway, just look at Mapstraction and FlashEarth. They're working on similar mashups as Idelix. Now what are we supposed to do with the Idelix mashup now that we've marketed their mashup for them? Are companies interested in buying your services? Is someone supposed to hack your PLT hack and make their own type of PLT hack for their own collaborative atlas? Which brings me to another question: Are javascript hacks really able to pattented? Idelix says that their PLT technology is pattented. Is it for the mashup? I don't know. Perhaps that includes a follow-on email? Could someone build the same thing out of the ether if they really knew what they were doing with javascript? Then not get sued? Again, as always, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer.

Targeted by Marketing Departments

2006-06-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know about the other geobloggers out there, but yesterday I received an email from the marketing department of a geospatial technology company to try out and blog about their product. Does anyone else get these? Something initially felt wrong about it—being targeted and all to pimp someone's wares. Then I thought, "hey, this isn't so bad. Do I actually have street cred that a pretty successful technology company would want me to review their stuff?" It's kind of nice to have that reputation, I guess? Still, I would rather write about interesting things I discover or have an interest in. Perhaps it's that "push–pull" concept that I'm wrangling with? I don't mind the nudges from time to time, but it worries me that I'm going to be a target for everyone and their mother to spam me with emails asking me to sell their kitchen sink. Anyway, I don't know? It's been a long week.

Something Better Than MapCruncher?

2006-06-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

As much fun as I've been having with MapCruncher, I think I saw something similar. . . But way better today. The serivices are from a company called Geosemble, and they're into get this:

Vector to Image conflation
Map to Image conflation
Image to Image conflation
Vector to Vector conflation

and,

Integration of online data

And did I mention that it's automatic? Some pretty wicked awesome math to do this. But it looks great, and looks useful. Looks like it could cut a lot of costs for some companies who spend lots of time manually aligning parcel data to imagery. Again, it's a service, not a tool. . . yet. I'm looking forward to talking with the Geosemble team a little more about what they plan on doing and how they can help map the FANTOM PLANET. On a side note, Geosemble is made up of researchers from the University of Southern California's Information Science Institute. ~~The same place a few MapCruncher team members came from.~~ Actually, I thought one of the MapCruncher developers was from there, but after checking, no. I need to stop reading so many stinkin' webpages, they're getting mangled together in my head.

WaPo Outlook: 'Borderline'

2006-05-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Reading the Washington Post this morning I came across an interesting article in the Outlook section of the paper by Moisés Naím, who is the editor of Foreign Policy magazine and author of "Illicit: How Smugglers, Trafficers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy." The article discusses what national boundaries are, how they are percieved, how they are dynamic, and how they have changed in the past decade with the explosion of globalization. The point the author is trying to make in the article is, "it's more than just about maps," which is something I agree with. Plus, it also gives me some cred with my colleagues who I talk to about the study of geography and how the discipline is about more than maps. It's a good, quick read if you're into borders. Page B01 in the Outlook section of the Washington Post.

More MapCruncher

2006-05-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is with me this week and MapCrucher? I can't stop screwing around with it and dropping points and adding maps. I guess I'm hooked? Then again, if I was hooked I'd make a page with my mash up. I guess not. But it is fun! On a happier note than being hooked on a Microsoft product, I'm going to the ESRI UC! See you there. On a bonehead move this morning, half awake and craving a cup of coffee, I jacked up my coffee maker. How? I was dumb enough to grind my beans, then dump them into where the water goes. Doh!

Crunchin' Map Bones

2006-05-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

Ok. So, we've all heard and saw the news about Microsoft Research's MapCruncher. Well, on the PLANET we've decided to take it for a whirl. As always, we advocate safety on the job, so we'rekeeping all our fingers out of the Cruncher. Here's our screen shot of the interface. It's pretty easy to understand for a GIS professional. Here we uploaded a PDF map of the US & Canada. We had to register 17 control points to get the map to fit nicely over the Virtual Earth base data. We used state boundary intersections as control points for ease of use. An interesting thing once you lay down your control points is that you can lock them. Then save your mashup as a native .yum file. Once you've done that, it's time to render the mashup, or "Crunchup." When you render the crunchup, you can set the max zoom level. This determines the size of your crunchup file. If you go into the max VE zoom level of 10, in our case, we would have ended up with a 2500MB file! Remember, MapCruncher renders tiles just like the imagery for VE. So your mashup is only big as what you set your max zoom level at. In this case we set it at 6 and we ended up with a 14MB file. Above you can see our final mashup. It's ok. I would be better if there was a transparency setting. Anyway, it's not bad. I'm not a VE API guru, but if I was, this would be good if I had a website and wanted to try a few things.

I Got My 8 x 10 Glossy!

2006-05-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Ever since my friend went to be the head of Federal Sales at Google Earth I joked with him that he needed to get me an 8 x 10 Glossy of Vint Cerf. Well, today's mail brought the fruition of our little joke. I received the 8 x 10 glossy of Vint, and nonetheless signed. Ahh, I need to take a picture of the faces of my collegues at work when I post the picture up in my cube. I'll be the coolest GIS geek on the Planet. So, who should the next glossy be of?

Metaverse! Metaverse! Metaverse!

2006-05-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

Damn, people! The Metaverse is catching on like wildfire. I guess we can chalk it up as another thing a geographer created.

Mini-GeoBlogger Meet Up

2006-05-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

I just got back from dinner with Jeremey from Mapdex and Matt from "Let's Push Things Forward." What a great bunch of guys who are a part of an even better group of people: geobloggers. I usually like to talk to a number of you out there. If I haven't, I'm sorry. But I highly recommend that you get together at conferences and on trips when you're out and about. It makes being a part of the geoblogging community something special.

No Blogging Tonight. . .

2006-05-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

. . . Commando is airing on Spike. So much for the 'World Brain.'

Mapping the 'World Brain'

2006-05-03T03:15:00.000-07:00

Believe it, or not, I actually referred to the Internet as the "World Brain" in a meeting this week. God! I've geeked out. Actually, I was talking to some researchers this week about quantatative analysis of the bloggospere and I brough up the reference, because as I keep going along this path of learning about social networks, societies, and semantics I see a pattern similar to the self organization of cells and biological entities. Especially, between images and research of the human brain itself and the Internet. Hence, "World Brain." Anyway, some of the researchers I spoke with said the "World Brain" isn't mature enough to quantify yet. I noted that it may never be. If the Internet and the bloggosphere are really like a brain, you can map the connections, but each experience in the brain is dynamically stored. There is no linear way to easily measure what someone is thinking otherwise, the CIA would have figured it out years ago and tin foil hats would all be the fashion today. This conversation brings me back to my noon-time geek-out sessions at NASA about processes of the brain. One of the researchers there, who is actually a real rocket scientist, noted that he read something about the brain working the quantile level. Or, I think, something about all the chemical and electric make up of how our brains works is based on quantum physics. I can't remember, but it has stuck with me for about three years now. So, I'm thinking of how biology scales into the small scale of the Internet and how to map it. I just wish I could get a PhD out of this hobby?

Where The 'FUGAWI?'

2006-04-26T03:26:00.000-07:00

This is awesome. I love this name, especially for a navigation & mapping software company, FUGAWI. Who ever came up with it must of heard the innappropriate joke I once heard about being lost in the woods. [I'm stopping there.]

Minnesota GeoCaching Event

2006-04-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

Perusing the front page of the Minneapolis StarTribune website, I came across a front page article on a geocaching event. I think this is one of the first times I've seen geocaching on the home page of a major metropolitan newspaper? Otherwise, I'm chalking this up as something out of MapServer's backyard that's pretty normal in Minnesota.

URL: http://www.startribune.com/332/story/387916.html
Adding GPS to needle- haystack dynamic
Geocaching -- using global positioning system technology to find items hidden in parks -- will be on display around the south-metro area Saturday during the South of the River Recreators' first "Amazing GPS Family Race."

Brady, Email Me

2006-04-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

Brady, I've been trying to track down your email address. I wanted to see if you wanted to hang at Where 2.0. There's a lot we can discuss.

More Sony, Intergraph Thoughts

2006-04-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

The kind folks at Very Spatial took note of my thoughts about the Sony-Intergraph patent MOA today. And I think we're partially right, this could be about the PSP and the PS3. Thinking this over today I realized something: Could the PS3 be mobile and immersive? Take your next-gen PSP controler-like ubiquitous computing device with you to locate, search, communicate, visualize, and play. Then go back to your main console and bridge your real world with your "WoW'd SecondLife" world. Microsoft has thought about it, but is Sony actually going to do it?

Sony, Intergraph. . . In Cahoots!?!

2006-04-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Hmm? I wonder what Intergraph is up to these days? h-t-t-p-:-/-/-w-w-w-.-i-n-t-e-r-g-r-a-p-h-.-c-o-m Let's see. . . Ooh! Colin Powell will be speaking at Intergraph 2006. Too bad we'll all be at Where 2.o. . . . . . Nuclear power . . . New York MTA . . .Intergraph Reaches Patent Agreement with Sony. . . WTF!?! Here's some news for you PS3 conspiracy theorists out there: Sony & Intergraph have settled some patent sharing arrangement, where Intergraph gets $15 million from Sony. I wonder if this means Sony has something up its sleeve for LBS? Or, PS3?

GML To Work With ifcXML-IFC Soon

2006-04-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

As geospatial peeps we know who OGC is. Or, at least we should. Well, in a press release earlier this week OGC signed a MOA with the International Alliance for interoperability (IAI). This MOA between the two organizations is to work to strengthen interoperability "between systems used by the building infrastructure community and the broader geospatial, architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) and information technology (IT) communities." That's a pretty good aim. "We map it, you build it, it all gets modeled together in GE/WW/AGX/Skyline/MapGrinder." I also wonder how this will play in with the Open Source Geospatial Consortium. Are we going to see the combination of GIS, LIS, and FM systems on one big globe soon?

The Where 2.0 Agenda. . . Where Is It?

2006-04-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

I took the liberty of organizing the Where 2.0 agenda into something I could print out or send to other geographers in my office to spark their interest in going. I can't believe O'Reilly wouldn't put up an aggrigated schedule. I really want to know what talks I should skip if I have to. Anyway, below—in lengthy detail—is the order of the speakers. BTW, I don't really plan on skipping any of these.

Tuesday Welcome Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 9:00am - 9:15am Location: Imperial Ballrom The Geospatial Web: A Call to Action Mike Liebhold, Institute for the Future Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 9:15am - 9:45am Location: Imperial Ballrom OpenStreetMap Steve Coast, OpenStreetMap Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 9:45am - 10:00am Location: Imperial Ballroom GeoHacking That Scales: OGC Standards Connect "Big" Science and "Little" Hacks Raj Singh, Open Geospatial Consortium Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 11:00am - 11:15am Location: Imperial Ballrom GeoRSS Mikel Maron, worldKit Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 11:15am - 11:30am Location: Imperial Ballrom From the Labs: Metacarta John R. Frank, MetaCarta, Schuyler Erle, locative.net Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 2:45pm - 3:00pm Location: Imperial Ballrom Liberation from Geopolitcal Boundaries Di-Ann Eisnor, Platial Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 4:15pm - 4:30pm Location: Imperial Ballrom Map Spam 2008: A Sanity Check Perry Evans, Local Matters, Inc. Date: Tuesday, June 13 Time: 5:00pm - 5:15pm Location: Imperial Ballrom Wednesday Welcome Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Date: Wednesday, June 14 Time: 9:00am - 9:15am Location: Imperial Ballrom The Disappearing Data Problem Steve Morris, NCSU Libraries Date: Wednesday, June 14 Time: 9:45am - 10:00am Location: Imperial Ballrom The Best Geo Hacks of the Last 3,000 Years Chris Spurgeon, American Public Media Date: Wednesday, June 14 Time: 10:00am - 10:15am Location: Imperial Ballrom Plazes Felix Petersen, Plazes Date: Wednesday, June 14 Time: 2:15pm - 2:30pm Location: Imperial Ballrom Loki - A Case Study in Developing a 'Mass Consumer' LBS Application Jed Rice, Skyhook Wireless Date: Wednesday, June 14 Time: 3:45pm - 4:00pm Location: Imperial Ballrom

Minnesota Counties Seek To End Contract For Land Records Portal

2006-04-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of news I picked up from my hometown newspaper, the Wright County Journal-Press, about how a number of Minnesota counties are seeking to end a contract with Nazca Solutions Inc. for a land records portal. It was reported by the Minneapolis StarTribune that the counties seek a refund of over $240,000 from Nazca due to the delays of developing the system. I gotta say, this sucks for all parties. Nazca's technology looks pretty schweet, but the company's project management sounds like it could use a dose of the PMBOK.

OpenLS & 'Direction' Microformats

2006-04-09T05:58:00.000-07:00

Programming Note: The weather was terrible this weekend and when I wasn't doing chores, playing with my kid, and spending time with my wife, I was reading OGC implementation specifications. Boy, what an exciting life I lead, eh? So, there I was, reading the OGC OpenLS specification. Yawn. Then I thought, "this sounds a lot like the some of the directions microformat stuff that came up last week from Mix06." In my attempt to uncloud my ignorance, is this stuff simialar? Or, are they so far unrelated to one another that I should stick to my day job?

Climatology, Science, and Government

2006-04-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

Patrolling the Federal Pages of the WashingtonPost.com, I came across an article about how U.S. Government policymakers are affecting the information that its scientists release to the public. In this article, it highlights the sensitivity of climate change as it relates to bureaucracy of government and the restrictions government scientists are beginning to face when it comes to publishing their findings. I just wanted to note that if the government is funding scientific research, and policymakers don't agree with the findings, tough. It's science. Although, both the policymakers, administrators, and scientists could do a better job of placing their findings in context. As with climate change, I like Harm de Blij's method of placing global warming in context. He basically gives us a history lesson. . . From the beginning: 4 billion years ago. (No, I don't think he was there to experience it all.) He explains the cycle of climate the earth has faced over millennia, and highlights the cold spells are SO much longer than the warm periods. He does this with a good laugh too, citing moments in recent history of cold snaps, such as when in the 1400's climate change affected human geography and probably prevented the world from speaking Chinese, and more recently what some call The Little Ice Age. Otherwise, this headbutting over terms deemed "sensitive" or "controversial" to restrict them to prevent an agency from headaches is just plain stupid. You have an obligation.

Light Reading

2006-04-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

I would like to give a shout out to Ron Lake and company who wrote the GML 3.1.1 specification. I downloaded the PDF from the OGC website tonight to study up on some standards for work. Boy, was I surprised. I didn't realize how in depth and involved creating a standard specification is. The time and knowledge to manage the semantics of a standard must be immense. Well, I'm going to take a crack at it this weekend. It's late and I'm dozing off. I just wanted to thank Ron and those who write this stuff. You would too, the document is 601 pages long! No wonder why most of these standards are created by Canadians. What else are you going to do during the winter, eh?

Google Earth To Get Video

2006-04-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reported on its website that Google Earth is teaming up with the Discovery Channel to offer video via the premium and professional versions. BTW: Look closely at the image. It looks like there's a different skin to GE. Either this is the professional verion, or the skin to a new version.

A Dream, Or, A Nightmare?

2006-04-07T03:12:00.000-07:00

It's 3am and I just woke up from a really strange dream. . . I dreamt that I stopped by my local Microsoft office building to say hello to a friend. While talking to him, and to my amazement, he had a full team working on the project that I previously described in an earlier post. This is where it gets strange. Somehow, I got involved with this team to architect Microsoft's GIS app. I had a bunch of people working for me in a way-cool modern office environment. (Other than the cubicle farm I work in.) Even though I was working with Microsoft in this dream, I always had an uneasy feeling that I didn't belong and that I was also hiding my blogging hobby. One thing was clear that I tried to instill in my "dream team": Your app is junk if it doesn't have data. Anyway, I just thought I would share that with you. My God, it scared the crap out of me.

The Battle Over KML Icons On My Computer

2006-04-06T04:19:00.000-07:00

I'm a geogeek. I've installed Google Earth, WorldWind, and ArcGIS Explorer on my computer. Although, I am a stickler for design and this week's rant is about the icon for KML on my computer. I like the smart design of the Google Earth KML icon, as opposed to the ESRI version of the icon. I'm sorry ESRI, but the AGX KML icon looks like a booger on a sheet of paper. It's just not flattering. And just like a booger, the ArcGIS Explorer icon "sticks" to my system, overriding the Google Earth icon. That'snot cool.

Has AdSense Gone Wrong? Or. . .

2006-04-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

. . . Is it trying to tell me something? I just noticed that the AdSense ad on this blog came up with a link for Living Trusts. Something is awry in the spatial world. I can sense it. . . My kriging senses are tingling.

Oh, What True Love Finds. . .

2006-04-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

My wife is awesome! She found an article about directions and location-based services in the Tech & Gadget (Mobile) section of MSN. It must be her interest in traveling and attending geospatial conferences with me? You should have seen her disappointment though when I came home yesterday and told her that the office isn't sending me the ESRI UC. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a dark day on the FANTOM PLANET. Must be the eclipse? Stop. Do you hear that? That's the sound of disappointment in Redlands from the recent news of my non-attendance of the ESRI UC. Jack must be crushed. Calling Ron Lake: How do I get a free pass to GeoWeb 2006? By the way, nice picture, Ron. E]

GIS T-Shirts

2006-04-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

Check out http://www.gisnuts.com. They're selling wicked awesome GIS geek t-shirts.

Indonesian GeoBlog. . . I Think?

2006-04-01T06:39:00.000-08:00

The Google extension for FireFox that allows you to read blogger comments is pretty interesting. It helped me to find, what looks to be, an Indonesian geoblog. Now, I'm a pretty sad geographer because I only speak stupid and GIS—"The Language of Geography"—and can't read Indonesian. Or, what looks to be in Indonesian. URL: http://echodry.wordpress.com/

Shh. . . Microsoft Mapping Rumors

2006-04-01T06:15:00.000-08:00

I ran into a buddy the other day, and he says Microsoft is working on a mapping capability that sounds like you could rubber sheet maps in Word or PDF format to Virtual Earth. Also, rumors have it that Microsoft doesn't know what rubber sheeting is. I could be wrong.

Population Science Workshops

2006-04-01T05:59:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I don't know how I come across this stuff. . . The University of California–Santa Barbara's Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science and Penn State's Population Research Institue are hosting workshops this summer. The aim of these workshops is to expose spatial information and methodology to population scientists. Actually, this looks like a good education experience for some of us GIS persons who have gone down the dark path of technology. "He's more machine now than [Geographer]. Twisted, and, evil. –Obi Wan"

The Population Research Institute University Park, PA June 4-June 16, 2006

The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science Santa Barbara, CA July 10-July 22, 2006

Not Much Going On Other Than This. . .

2006-03-30T19:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a week or two since I last posted. There hasn't been anything new on my news front. The only few things of interest have been:

I talked to John Frank, CTO of MetaCarta, about map servers. That led to a quick note to Schuyler Erle about conferences to go to.
Had a standards meeting discussing ISO 19119 and a lack of implementations in my company. A good way to come up with reference implementations was to describe what a particular office's need for services and data are.
GeoRSS came up a lot. I'm trying to bridge the text-geospatial worlds, because there's a whole lot of space in text. (Yeah, I know. . . They're called picas.) So, I've been having discussions about Raj and company's work with colleagues around the world.
I've helped some friends out with some Google Earth projects using Arc2Earth.
Ron Lake invited me to GeoWeb 2006. I recommend you go. I'm not sure yet, the company hasn't thought it through yet.
Tomorrow, I think I get to hang out with Jack at ESRI in DC. Otherwise, I get to spend quality time with John Calkins talking shop.
Then there's other stuff that's going on. . . Like most of my colleagues being basically on paid vacation at work talking about their alma mater, George Mason, making the Final Four.
Unfortunately, I am not playing kickball this spring.
Plus, who needs to blog when everyone else is doing such a great job at it.

Look For Me On The Conference Circuit

2006-03-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

I attend quite a few conferences. Keep an eye out for me.

Giving Advice To The Denver Post

2006-03-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

Ooh, I've become popular like SPAM in Guam. I must say, it's great to get emails from reporters from the Denver Post asking what topics they should be covering in the business of GIS. This gives me carte blanc to trowl out the most deep dark secrets about our dark arts. So, what did I say, you ask? I told them I secretly pretend I'm Jack Dangermond when I landscape, and I pretend that I'm Bill Gates while I play XBox. But I don't pretend that I'm Surgey or Brin. The went to Standfurd. That's for my boy, Hoel. Actually, I told them to read Planet Geospatial like all of the smart kids.

Yoo-hoo! AAG GeoBloggers. . .

2006-03-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

. . .Where are you? You're not here are you? Actually, what's going on? I haven't heard a peep out of you guys. I was hoping the VerySpatial peeps would be dishing it out, or at least the GeoNews feeds. Even they're dry. Must be all the elbow rubbing going on? Ah-ha! So, that's why they all wear elbow patches at AAG.

Obits: Luna B. Leopold, 90; USGS Hydrologist

2006-03-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

Here at the Planet we believe that honoring those who contributed to the science of GIS, geography, and geoscience is important. So, this morning while reading the Washington Post, I came across the obituary for Luna Leopold, a former USGS hydrologist, who advanced the science of hydrography through his studies of watershed analysis and other associated statistical methodology. Luna Leopold's obiturary can be read on the Washington Post website.

Did Anyone Else Notice This About SideStreet

2006-03-02T02:15:00.000-08:00

In the car skins, on the passenger side, even in the race car, there is an XBox360 controller. I don't want to read into this, but did you ever think that the MSFT team might be looking to create virtual marketplaces or real environments for Xbox games? The combination of VE with FlightSim, SideStreet, MapPoint, and other ongoing projects look as if they're moving towards an end goal that does create a real "virtual earth." The market isn't with us geogeeks, it's with the XBox crowd. And something that models real places lends to virtual street races, virtual gang fights, and other MMOG's. Plus, talking to my higher-up buddies at MSFT, they've said things like this previously.

March Madness Mashup

2006-02-24T19:35:00.000-08:00

URL: http://www.midmajority.com/ Check out the Google Map Hack at this website dedicated to covering mid-major college basketball.