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The value of data (even the historical stuff)
Saturday, August 02, 2008 10:42 AM
Our friends at the Oklahoma County Assessor entered ESRI's GIS in Action video contest . The folks at OK County Assessor are one of our customers that I most admire. They're passionate about what they do, they've got their priorities straight, and they get things done. Their video reminds me of working with historic map data from where I live. Back... Read More...
by Steven | 1 comment(s)
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Is it still okay to release version 2.0 software if isn’t about social networking?
Thursday, July 24, 2008 9:45 AM
“ 2.0 ” is such a buzzword, naturally incrementing to this on an actual 2.0 product version somehow doesn’t feel right anymore. A product called Geocortex Essentials 2.0 sounds like it should it should integrate with Facebook or something. Read More...
by Steven | 1 comment(s)
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The Monk and the Riddle
Sunday, July 06, 2008 11:16 PM
Speaking of the " Latitude Library ", I just finished reading an interesting book recently added to our inventory, "The Monk and the Riddle" . Written by Randy Komisar , self-described virtual-CEO and technology entrepeneur, the book is quick to reveal the roots of its unusual title (no clues here though!), but slow to reach its point: its... Read More...
by Darin | with no comments
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Books: A Top Performing Investment
Friday, June 13, 2008 12:03 PM
I just read Peopleware for the first time last night. It's a classic I should've read years ago. People are generally pleased with a 15% return on an investment. For me, business and technology books provide a return on investment that is often orders of magnitude greater. In fact, at Latitude, we have a bottomless book budget because we’ve learned the... Read More...
by Steven | with no comments
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Stepping Back and Looking Back
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 11:15 AM
Steady, gradual change is easy to underestimate when you're up close to something. While working on my GISWORX (Dubai) keynote for next week, I opened a few of my 2003-2004 PowerPoint presentations that examine the significance/future of web-based GIS technology on society and decision-making. Despite the fact that I don't feel like the fundamentals change... Read More...
by Steven | with no comments
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United States of the World
Monday, April 14, 2008 3:48 PM
Back in 2005 Steven posted a map in the office kitchen, showing US States named for countries with a comparable gross domestic product (GDP). I noticed the United States of the World map that Steve had clipped out of the Globe and Mail, as well as a remake in the Strange Maps archive: The blog comments suggest that the accuracy of the source data may be in debate... Read More...
by Jade | with no comments
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Cost Recovery?
Sunday, April 13, 2008 12:17 PM
I was parsing through my inbox last week, and was reminded that the topic of access to government-produced geospatial base data continues to challenge society. While it isn’t a sexy issue, it is an important one. On a separate note, I have an idea… Governments should recover the cost of building local roads by charging citizens a hefty up-front fee if they want... Read More...
by Steven | 1 comment(s)
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Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Thursday, April 10, 2008 1:56 PM
I've always been fascinated by the Hollywood game "the six degrees of Kevin Bacon" . Its a pop-culture version of the well known "six degrees of separation" idea - we're all seperated from anyone on the planet by, at most, six people. Except, in the "Kevin Bacon" version, you interconnect Hollywood stars via Kevin Bacon.... Read More...
by Darin | 2 comment(s)
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Picked up a cold on my way home from the DR
Friday, February 29, 2008 2:04 PM
I just got back from 10 days vacation, with a cold, which I caught somewhere between the Dominican Republic and Victoria. The " Pandemic Spread and Airline Travel " map from Infonaut's Map of the Moment shows a map image from NASA, showing flight pattern s over the USA. Watch this video to see a 24 hour view of the air traffic over the Continental... Read More...
by Jade | with no comments
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ColorBrewer
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 8:58 PM
A client sent a link to ColorBrewer , a web tool to help choose optimized color schemes for thematic maps: http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer.html For each of the mini legends shown at Step 3, you are able to get not only the color specs, but also whether the color palette is friendly for color blindness, projectors, photocopiers, laptops... Read More...
by Jade | 1 comment(s)
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New Webinars Scheduled
Sunday, January 13, 2008 9:42 PM
We put together a number of webinars for the launch of Geocortex IMF 5.2 a little while ago, and got some great feedback from clients. So, we've added a few more and hope to offer them on a recurring basis. Topics vary from new products to new releases to technology we feel clients and prospective customers should keep their eyes on. Check out our Learning... Read More...
by Darin | with no comments
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Technical Debt
Wednesday, November 21, 2007 7:33 PM
Steve McConnell (Code Complete) does a great job of discussing the concept of Technical Debt. "The term 'technical debt' was coined by Ward Cunningham to describe the obligation that a software organization incurs when it chooses a design or construction approach that's expedient in the short term but that increases complexity and is more costly... Read More...
by David Stevenson | with no comments
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Location is revealing
Monday, November 05, 2007 5:50 PM
We’re doing lots of work with Automated Vehicle Location these days, and I’m fascinated by the impact of better information about the location of people and things. The benefits of tracking non-human assets are fairly obvious, but at first the notion of tracking people didn’t sit well with me (it made me think of a radio-collared moose). However, I’ve come to... Read More...
by Steven | with no comments
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Visitors from Above
Friday, August 10, 2007 2:12 PM
People googling other people to learn more about them has become part of modern life. A few months ago I was debating the best way to ship something to a company, so I brought up their location on Google Maps. On a whim, I switched to imagery and saw "head office" was a rural farm (incongruous). It is common knowledge that lots of businesses (particularly... Read More...
by Steven | 3 comment(s)
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