The NetGIS group will be doing a free one day intro to ArcGIS server event up in Kingsport TN on June 11th 2010.
ESRI is shipping in technical people to walk you – the oh so average user with setup, support, and a rubber mallet to beat the server with. Just kidding…..you’ll need to bring your own mallet.
Email David Light, President of NetGIS, to reserve a spot.
For anyone who hasn’t been to the Northeast Tennessee GIS Users Group Meeting – you are missing out. I would hazard a guess they are the most active GIS users group in the state (if they aren’t email me). Their next meeting is April 30th – I point you to their website for details. They (we – I try to make it up when I can) are always looking for speakers – if you want to get involved email David Light.
Sometime back I was complaining about a decent data viewer. I didn’t have one. In some respects I still don’t, but I’m closer.
This was all brought about by my clientele. In general most have some sort of Arc product. In some cases – they don’t. So I deliver data that they only enjoy in plot format. I had pushed Arcexplorer for years as a solution and it worked. Except now if you deliver any type of imagery or a file geodatabase it won’t work in Arcexplorer. So I complained…..and complained….and complained. Not that my lamentations were heard by ESRI – but ArcGISExplorer was release about a month ago. I immediately downloaded it, installed it, and promptly forgot about it.
I started playing with the ArcGISExplorer product last week. I almost have everything I wanted:
Up until now I have consdered ArcGIS explorer to be about useless. If you had ArcServer it worked as intended as a viewer for your organization/company. If you didn’t have ArcServer – it was really useless. But now I have a decent data viewer that will display in 2D/3D and handle a wide range f image formats. So now with the delivery I can drop this install on the CD/USB Drive/FTP Delivery. The only thing I don’t get with this release is cross platform support (Macs do exist – so does Linux).
The other interesting thing – you can make a presentation. Yes – you can make a power point like presentation in ArcGIS explorer…..and how do you do that? I have some idea but nothing concrete at this point. I’m still playing.
So – go out download it and give it a shot. It’s worth the time.
I was digging around the other day and ran across a blog post on James Fee’s website on VBA not being supported for many more releases. Actually – 9.4 is it for VBA – ESRI recommends pushing development of to c#, VB.net, or python. I went to the official ESRI deprecation document and here you go. I present some nuggets of Knowledge:
When I started my GIS career and worked in a mix of ArcINFO and Intergraph software. I learned and loved ArcWorkstation. It has a warm spot inside my cold cold heart. ArcWorkstation is Dead….and it’s time.
So when Desktop came out almost 10 years ago – maybe more – I wasn’t that happy with it – not sure how many were. One of the things I didn’t like was VBA. I got to where I could tolerate it and even hack out alot of solutions when needed. In the early versions of ArcMap you had to program a solution to a problem since alot of the answers didn’t exist. So I’m torn – Glad it’s gone – Glad I spent more time learning Python. I really need to learn C#.
If you read through the technical document you will also see an end to the Solaris side of life. Probably half my career was spent on Unix – Solaris to be exact. I really hate that. I wonder how much of the Oracle Acquisition and ESRI being heavily in Microsoft technology played a role in that. I know there are alot of Windows Servers out there. Maybe Linux will be able to step up and fill the void.
Anyway enough groaning about being old. It was interesting to read through it. For most it’s no big deal. For myself and my customer base it’s not a big deal….but it is interesting for us Arc nutjobs.
So way back when I walked to work uphill in the snow……..without shoes…..
So Arcview 2 (I think) was out and we were working to deliver data (actually plots – but that’s another story for another time) to a client. The client had no data viewing software so we struggled on what to do. ArcView 1.0 was out and about and it was free (still have a copy on CD) so I downloaded the executable and put it on the CD….or maybe had the guy running the project do it.
A few years later ArcExplorer came out. ArcExplorer for the six of you keeping up with this blog was ESRI’s attempt – really first attempt – for a free data viewer. As I remember – and maybe falsely – it would run on Windows and Unix (Solaris). So for a while all our data deliveries came with ArcExplorer. I loved ArcExplorer.
Flash forward to now. A client I have currently doesn’t have data viewing software. So I went back and revisited some options. ArcGIS Explorer is mostly useless unless you have ArcGIS Server. If you have that then it’s uber useful. Google Earth – while it has a high gee whiz factor – is mostly useless if you’re dealing with Geodatabases/Shapefiles/anything that isn’t a KMZ file. Erdas Titan just about does it – but this guy isn’t online alot.
So back to ArcExplorer. The great thing is it’s still free. The bad thing is that it just about useless with my data. The download is small and the application is very functional. BUT…………….
Back when life was just about Coverages and Shapefiles and Tiffs things were so much easier. So I don’t know what to do at this point. While I love OpenSource Software there isn’t much out and about that doesn’t the trick either.
So here’s my call out to ESRI – Fix ArcExplorer. Make it more functional – it doesn’t have to collect data – just view the data formats ArcGIS produces. I don’t care about SDE, I don’t care about WMS services…I just want to hand this off to the customer to let them view the data.
So in the last two months I think I’ve hit three conferences – actually it was exactly three….no make that four. At three of them I gave a paper on the Conasauga River Alliance and I think after the last one I need to change papers…or actually solidify my paper giving abilities. Actually both.
I was quite surprised that at two of the four – almost all the papers were about some server issue an organization was wrestling with or just ArcGIS server in general. It appears the ESRI marketing machine has done a good job. I wonder if it’s been too good a job. At the last conference there were three of us out of probably 10 or more papers on simple data collection/analysis. Data collection it almost seems has been abandoned for the word Mashup and Flex API. I will admit the ArcGIS server software holds a ton of promise and everyone seems to be jumping on board. I’m a bit jealous of the companies that have taken on ArcGIS server as a product. it seems like each company is trying to out do the next with widgets and toolbars and buttons.
Of course it was all a reminder of just how big of a fish I am in the pond. In one way it’s exceptionally unnerving – my team of one. In another sense it’s exceptionally exciting – I am a team of one currently and can hold my own with a some of the best. Having some of the best even acknowledge me at this point is quite an accomplishment…in a way. Even if it’s not unlike waving a large red flag in front of several bulls.
Anywho – things are settling down on my end finally. Expect some excitement in the weeks and months to come.
