GIS Wikipedia is alive

As ESRI user I am used to visit support center in search for software requirements, technical articles or description of workaround and known bugs. Now ESRI has created a new Wiki site  http://wiki.gis.com/

Even if it is initiated by ESRI Wiki.GIS is not about ESRI, it is about GIS and us, users being successful in what we do day to day.

Wiki.GIS.com is a community-generated, GIS-centric encyclopedia that serves as a repository for factual, unbiased GIS content. Wiki.GIS.com will seek to involve the GIS community in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration of conceptual GIS information. Wiki.GIS.com will use the passion and knowledge each one of you has, in order to offer another resource for users to help others. All content ownership will be shared by the GIS community

There is already reasonable amount of content there including list of all ESRI software, 32 free software packages and Google Earth section with 5 pages.

As described below it is up to us to make this work.

The success of wiki.GIS.com depends on the contributions of GIS professionals, students, and the GIS community-at-large. We invite all the people who have a common interest in sharing GIS knowledge and ideas to create a login account on wiki.GIS.com and then begin editing existing pages or adding their own GIS-related content to the wiki. We have a list of requested pages on the wiki for which we are seeking content, but please feel free to add more topics/content as you deem fit. All unbiased GIS-related content is welcome.

 

ESRI MapIt updates

In few last days ESRI has released several developers updates. Two of these updates are for MapIt product. The first one is release of version 1.1.

MapIt 1.1

Key new features are:

• Two new components for SharePoint
• Design time support in Expression Blend 3
• New Silverlight application templates
• Support for Microsoft Windows and SQL Azure

• The Spatial Data Assistant supports working with SQL Azure databases; using custom ArcGIS Server locators for address matching; and viewing a subset of table data when selecting match fields.
• The Spatial Data Service supports deployment into Windows Azure; use of GeoFields, which are fields that contain latitude and longitude values outside of the spatial geometry column type; and multiple spatial columns in a single table or view.  
• The ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight/WPF supports Silverlight 3, integrates with the Expression Blend 3 design experience, includes a set of pre-packaged Silverlight templates, and supports the use of the Expression Blend Behaviors API.  
• ESRI Parts for Microsoft SharePoint includes an enhanced configuration experience for the Map Web Part and two new components, a Geolist Web Part and Location Map data type.  The Geolist displays interactive attributes for SharePoint lists rendered in a Map Web Part.  The Location Map data type provides an interactive map to define locations in a list item.

More information is available on MapIt resource centre.

ESRI Parts for SharePoint 1.1

As part of MapIt 1.1 new web parts for SharePoint Services and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 are released. This is great news considering that SharePoint is becoming one of major technology pillars for Microsoft.

Main new features include:

example, you can map Microsoft Office forms and document libraries, use a custom ArcGIS Server base map or locator, and configure clustering symbology or render point data as heatmaps.

A new ESRI Geolist Web Part provides an interactive and multi-functional tabular view of SharePoint lists that have been added to an associated Map Web Part.

A new ESRI Location Map Field allows you to add a field to a SharePoint list that shows the location of each item in the list on an interactive map.  You can modify the address match properties, view the coordinates of match location, and interactively adjust the location.

Use the configuration utility included with the download to specify Bing Maps credentials and make it the default for entire site collections, web applications, or SharePoint farms; configure shared properties using administrative SharePoint lists created by the ESRI Parts; and upgrade from version 1.0 (ESRI Map Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint) to 1.1.

but this is not all. For complete list of features check this list. There is a new resource centre for SharePoint.

 

Another release related to these technologies is update for Silverlight/WPF. Current version is 1.1 and this several new updates with most important about required version of Silverlight. Now, version 3 is required.

Other features of API 1.1:

Product packaged as a setup executable

Design time support in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Silverlight application templates

New library ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.Behaviors.dll adds support for interactive behaviors and actions

New FeatureDataGrid and MapProgressBar controls in the Toolkit

Enabled Bing Maps components to work with a local edition of Bing Maps services.

Map images generated by ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer are returned as mime data. ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer uses the export operation to generate an image from a map service instead of exportImage, which returns a url and requires an additional request to retrieve the image.

ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer supports map image output in PNG8 and PNG32 format.

ArcGISImageServiceLayer supports map image output in PNG8 format.

Mouse wheel events supported in full screen mode.

Enabled the ability to change FlareClusterer properties programatically at runtime.

Added ability to delay hiding map tips on graphics layer. Use the attached property MapTipHideDelay on a GraphicsLayer or FeatureLayer to define a delay time span.

A Bing logo is now visible when Bing layers are displayed in a map.

Spatial reference used by Bing layers and components was changed to use WKID 102100. WKIDs 102113 and 3857 are considered equal to 102100.

Complete list is available here.

If you would like to see some samples here is a screenshot of georeferenced video.

For more interactive samples go here.

Windows 7 less known commands

I am using Windows 7 for about 3 or 4 months now and I finally got some time to go over Tips and Tricks sites and explore a bit. Majority of the tips I have found were not new, especially if you were using Vista.

Anyway here are some keyboard shortcuts I did find very useful.

• Start + Shift + Left Arrow and Start + Shift + Right Arrow toggle between monitors
• Start + Home - minimizes all inactive windows. Repeat to restore them.
• Start + 1, Start + 2... - Launch 1st icon on Taskbar. This works for first 5 icons
• Start + T to activate icons on your Taksbar

These are just some of the shortcuts. It is easy to find out other ones.

Windows 7 has some brand new tools. One of the really interesting tools is the PSR.EXE or Problem Steps Recorder. This is very valuable tool if you are involved in any kind of technical/IT/application support. How often do you ask a customer "What did you do exactly to get this error?" and get an answer like "Just clicked the OK button." And we know they did more than that. PSR records all actions including menu options. Upon finishing recording of actions a ZIP file is created and it can be easily e-mailed. The zip file contains a web page with screenshots . Here is an example page I recorded earlier. Note that it captures both screens.

 

Of course your clients have to run Windows 7 first because it does not runs on Vista (I have tried)...

There are other commands I have found and description what they do:

• forfiles.exe
• getmac.exe
• isoburn.exe
• tasklist.exe
• taskkill.exe
• typeperf.exe

 

FORFILES.EXE

FORFILES [/P pathname] [/M searchmask] [/S] [/C command] [/D [+ | -] {dd/MM/yyyy | dd}]

Selects a file (or set of files) and executes a command on that file. This is helpful for batch jobs. Full description is available on command prompt by using forfiles.exe /? and here is one of the examples

FORFILES /M *.txt /C "cmd /c if @isdir==FALSE notepad.exe @file"

The command above will search for *.txt files in current directory and open them in notepad. @file variable is available in forfiles utility. If you like writing batch files you will like this one.

 

GETMAC.EXE

Very simple command to display mac address of network adapters. It may be an alternative to using ipconfig command.

C:\Windows\System32>getmac
Physical Address    Transport Name
=================== ==========================================================
00-16-D4-9B-B2-31   \Device\Tcpip_{750873C4-D970-4336-BA43-5010390F969E}
00-14-A5-F4-B5-48   Media disconnected

 

ISOBURN.EXE

Finally Windows have a tool to burn an ISO image to a disk. It simply needs drive letter and path to ISO image file.

 

QUSER.EXE

Show information about users logged on the system. Example:

C:\>QUSER
USERNAME              SESSIONNAME        ID  STATE   IDLE TIME  LOGON TIME
>john                  console             1  Active      none   12/11/2009 7:33 p.m.

If you want to see processes and/or to kill a process on command prompt then TASKLIST and TASKKILL are the tools for you. Names should be explanatory - list current processes/tasks and second one to kill it.

 

TYPEPERF.EXE

I like this tool. Instead using Task Manager now you can show chosen performance counters on command prompt, file or SQL database. There are several options you can specify and here are some samples:

typeperf "\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time"
typeperf -cf counters.txt -si 5 -sc 50 -f TSV -o domain2.tsv
typeperf -qx PhysicalDisk -o counters.txt

 

That is all for now but if I find something else interesting I'll let you know.

NZ ESRI Conference dinner

Last night was the conference dinner and it was a great one. The dinner was at Michael Fowler Centre which was a change from the usual place – Duxton. Firstly, we had some finger food and few drinks while everybody was gathering.

 

Then the dinner started. I was very impressed with the organization. The first course was already set up and servings were on the smaller side but very good. When collecting empty plates or bringing new food a group of waiters (number equal to number of people at the table) stands and waits for a signal from a head waiter to deliver food. Very nicely coordinated and impressive.

Here are some of the large numbers of photos taken during the dinner…

There is more to come later on.

NZ ESRI Conference – day 2

The second day of NZ ESRI User Conference is over. It was a busy day with lots of activities from us (Eagle Technology) to make sure everything is set up and working.

As usual we have a stand with number of PC running demos of various technologies including ArcGIS 9.4 beta, ENVI, Dekho and Apos.

Another quite popular feature is “Doctor’s office” where uses come to quickly resolve technical issues. Here is how it looks at quiet times.

Below is the main doctor’s office, set up for different versions of Desktop and Server products.

Every year there is a “Benefits from GIS” poster exhibition and this year entrants are show below. These pictures may not showing complete poster or the fine details but just as an illustration of submissions.

 

 

Once the winning poster is chosen I’ll post better pictures and judges description of main points.

The highlight of the conference is an opportunity to meet people and catch up from last conference over a cup of coffee (and later in the evening a glass of beer or wine).

Next post is coming up tomorrow, hopefully with more photos.