James Fee GIS Blog

The wireless connection here is less that ideal, but I’m going to try and live blog the DevSummit Plenary.  Just refresh the page for updates (but keep in mind I’m not the fastest typer in the world).  You can also follow some discussion at my twitter account:  http://twitter.com/cageyjames 8:32 AM: Video starts showing the languages [...]

For all those who can’t resist installing the latest service pack for ArcGIS, here it is: ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5 ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 5 ArcIMS 9.2 Service Pack 5 ArcGIS Image Server Service Pack 5 In case you can’t remember if you care or not, check out the Service Pack 5 announcement. Freakin’ [...]

Well I think most would agree, the 2008 DevSummit was one of the best.  There was tons of new stuff to learn about, much more attendees, more ESRI staff, better layout of the conference (the Community Center was particularly good) and better session (and more of them).  So what did I take away from the [...]

We’ve hit on this discussion before and with the Developer Summit coming up maybe it is a good time to think about the direction processors and their movement to multi-cores and 64-bit processors. At 9.3, ArcGIS Server Enterprise (or whatever ArcSDE is called these days) will move to 64-bit. This is a huge improvement as [...]

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5 will be available by the end of March. This appears to be a “true” service pack release and not a feature release. I’m not sure I’ll bother installing it on our ArcGIS Server implementations, but we’ll deploy on all our ArcGIS Desktop seats. One change did catch my eye. Launching [...]

PostgreSQL is about to get really integrated into ArcGIS workflows in 2008. First off we have ArcGIS Server Enterprise (ArcSDE) which will support PostgreSQL (ESRI and PostGIS data types) and now we have zigGIS 2.0 which will support PostGIS/PostgreSQL without the need for the traditional “ArcSDE” connection. First and foremost, the zigGIS codebase will remain [...]

OK, so here is what is happening at 9.3 with ArcSDE. ArcSDE finally rides into the sunset. Even though technically ArcSDE has been replaced at 9.2, it was still a separate product. Now at 9.3 it will become fully integrated into ArcGIS Server. ArcGIS Server Enterprise will be the “traditional” ArcSDE level where ArcGIS Server [...]

Announced earlier this month and talked about for at least a year (I think they mentioned this at the 2007 Dev Summit), ESRI is moving away from socket licensing to using the number of cores on the server. Through November 30, 2007, ESRI licensed server software based primarily on the number of physical sockets on [...]

I just got this tidbit of information from a friend who talked to Ed Katibah (lead Program Manager for SQL Spatial). Spatial datatype, methods and indexes will be supported equally on all SQL Server editions (Express, Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise) at no extra charge. That means anyone who wants to use the SQL Server 2008 [...]

I get a ton of emails asking me exactly how ESRI’s geodatabase replication works. It is pretty slick to be honest so I think everyone who has SDE should probably learn more about it. ESRI has posted a podcast titled “Geodatabase Replication: Working with Replication that explains in more detail what geodatabase replication is. Geodatabase [...]

The ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 4 is available for download on ESRI’s support site. ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 4 ArcIMS 9.2 Service Pack 4 ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 4

This is clear to me: FeatureServer + ArcSDE Data Store = Holy Grail Being able to store data in ArcSDE, but still access it freely across any and all platforms. ArcGIS clients can hit ArcSDE and everyone else can enjoy data served by FeatureServer. But deep down this is even bigger than FeatureServer because really [...]

We knew about this back in July, but ESRI has posted an announcement about Service Pack 4. Nothing about ArcGIS Server yet and that should be a big list because ESRI puts new features in their Service Packs. What is missing is the Vista support that was promised. I’m not sure why that isn’t listed [...]

I’m “stuck” in Waikiki this week at our Honolulu office helping them get back on track with their GIS after our GIS coordinator resigned to join her husband in the peace corps on Tonga. The new GIS person is really excited about GIS and that is always nice to be around. Sometimes even I need [...]

Great news yesterday out of the GIS in the Rockies Conference. I was planning on going to the conference this year, but just got so busy I could tear myself away from work. Remember what Jack says about being successful at GIS: “Now is the time to be the last one out of the parking [...]

I’ve had my head down working hard on some projects this week so I haven’t had an opportunity to really keep my eye out for important news, but Nate Irwin has caught my eye with news about MapDotNet Server 2007 6.1.2 being released by ISC. One new improvement that caught my eye: Substantially improved rendering [...]

We’ve implemented more ArcIMS sites than I can recall over the past few years. The chief developer on my team has probably as much AXL experience as anyone I know. But times change and clients have different expectations than they did in 1999 or even 2006. “Because you didn’t come here to make the choice, [...]

I’m probably only one of a few people who actually use the CAD Client, but I’m very happy to see that it was released today. AutoCad 2007 support is not there (2006 and earlier) so it isn’t the perfect solution, but at least now we can work with data inside our ArcSDE with our Autocad [...]

Richie Carmichael has updated his ArcGIS Diagrammer 9.2 Beta to improve performance and better handle UNICODE characters in the XML.

Update – The service pack 3 has been pulled. Updates will be up later on Friday. As promised by ESRI, the Service Packs are out. ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 3 ArcIMS 9.2 Service Pack 3 ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 3