Software That Changed Your Life - 2020 Edition

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Way back in 2006, I wrote a blog post called Software that Changed Your Life.

Well that might be a big title for this post, but I was talking with some folks over the weekend about software you’ve used or software that has really influenced your life. I think many people say Google Earth has changed how they view data, but for me it really wasn’t that impressive since Google Earth is more of a validation of what we’ve done over the years than a life changer

I thought it would be fun to look at how things have changed since then. My job is very different, I can’t remember the last time I created a map or changed cartography in a mapping product. I think one can look at that 2006 list as how I got to the point that I lived the rest of my life. So here is the updated list:

  1. HyperCard - I just can’t stress enough how much this changed my life. The concept of a database and visualization. The scripting language on the backend, and everything that eventually become the web (buttons, forms, etc) on the front. I’d like to think that I would have learned to program a different way, but teaching myself Hypercard is exactly how I go to where I am today.
  2. BBEdit - to this day I still use BBEdit. I think I purchased my first copy back in about 1994 and I’ve used it probably every day since then. I’m sure I’ve used every text editor. Today I use BBEdit, VS Code and of course Nano, yet I find myself in BBEdit more than anything else. I taught myself Grep using BBEdit and probably after a hypertext markup language, Grep has done more for me than just about anything. From JSON to Python, from CSS to GeoJSON, from JavaScript to Perl, I write it all right here.
  3. Perl - I was going to put JavaScript here. I probably should have put JavaScript here. But I have to be honest, the scripting language that got me thinking about scripting was Perl. I rarely use it anymore, other than pulling some script out of a folder and running it one off. I use Python more for my scripting or JavaScript. But from the time I bought the first edition of Programming Perl I was hooked.
  4. PostGIS - So another one I thought about. Elastic? MS Access? DBF? SQL Server? I mean what database should be the one that changed my life. It has to be PostGIS. Without it I would probably have put MySQL right here. But no, it’s PostGIS. The reason this blog was created was to learn more about PostGIS and how to get that damn thing installed on Windows Server. Some day on my newsletter I’ll write about the impact of Simple Features for SQL. From the moment in 2005 when I got PostGIS working until today, I’ve always had PostGIS running somewhere near me.
  5. Safe FME - Sadly I don’t use FME anymore. But let me be crystal clear here. There is no better tool out there to help you manage data. I probably should find myself a copy of it and run it again. At WeoGeo we used it for everything. I’ve used it while at Architecture firms, Engineering firms, startups and in between. Data is agnostic and using a tool that is helps keep the integrity of data. Before FME I spent so much time trying to keep all the data in one format and in one projection (I was young, let me be), but when I was able to drag a reader on to a workspace, throw up a transformer and then connect that to a writer, I was hooked. FME should be standard issue for any true Geospatial data user.

Some other software that didn’t make the list but could have and I didn’t mention above? GDAL/OGR, Tippecanoe, ArcGIS, Excel, Google Earth and Photoshop. Such a personal list and one I think changes over time. I think the core of what makes me who I am is up there, but it is also up in that 2006 list too. For fun you can look at the Way Back Machine and see the comments on that blog post. I see Sean Gillies, Morten Nielsen, Brian Timoney, Steve Pousty, Bill Dollins, and others in that list.

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March 11, 2020 bbedit fme perl postgis Thoughts






Back in the Day

This is probably 80% of what I remember about ArcView 3.x. I also remember VTab and FTab.

At least we could open the APR in Notepad….

March 10, 2020 ArcView shapefile Thoughts






PHXGeo

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I started the PHXGeo Meetup group way back in March 2013. It actually wasn’t the first version of PHXGeo, that was started in November 2010, and that group actually put on the first and only WhereCampPHX. You can see what it looked like back, then. When I left WeoGeo in 2013, I decided to move from that WordPress site to Meetup to better help run the group. Eventually, I turned over management of PHXGeo to Ryan Arp sometime in 2016 and set off to the land of CAD and BIM. He’s done a great job keeping it running along with the help of some great volunteers which warms my heart.

There was a meetup last week, but alas with my foot I was going no where. But I am excited to engage the local geography group again and hopefully help them continue to grow it. If you live in the Phoenix metro area, make sure you join the meetup group so you can learn more about what they are up to and when the next meetup will be. Don’t forget, State of the Map US 2020 is in Tucson this year so there is more reason to get excited about Geo in Phoenix.

I still control the PHXGeo twitter account and domain, so if you aren’t a meetup kind of person, look at those and they’ll be updated with the meetups.

March 8, 2020 geography meetup phoenix Thoughts






Microsoft Geo

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I still see projects now and them that are spatial. I think of the US Building Footprints project and how they had to give away the data and couldn’t monetize such a project. Bing Maps went through so many name changes that we can’t even recall them all. Heck Microsoft bought Nokia but only the phones. They didn’t buy HERE (Navteq) which could have been a great coup for them.

Visual Studio Code… Someone needs to check some files into Git.

I have to admit, I’ve been a user of BBEdit since about 1994, but I’ve found myself using Visual Studio Code much more. If I search my blog posts over the years, there are posts littered with Visual Studio hate. But now I find VS Code to be my go to code editor and not only for programming but also editing GeoJSON files.

But this really has me thinking. Microsoft and Geo really has died. I’m not saying that SQL Server isn’t used for spatial queries. Or that occasionally I see Bing Maps used in apps. But really they have become such an also ran that I really couldn’t even recall the last time I used Bing Maps API, let along SQL Server (I actually do recall and it was SQL Azure back in 2016). For a company that really has reinvented itself, they have fumbled what little they had in spatial away.

I’m sure I have a screenshot of Bing Maps, but I didn’t search for very long.

While at Cityzenith, we dealt with CityNext, which had much sway in the Smart City space, but so like depth. I think it was just an excuse to get their name on Smart City conferences.

I have to tip my hat to Microsoft for many things, but in our space, they really have become at best a follower, at worst an also ran.

At least old Gil is trying…

March 6, 2020 Bing Maps CityNext here nokia SQL Server Thoughts






Toolkits

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Bill and I have a podcast that we do almost once a month. Podcasts are a lot of fun because you can talk about things easier than writing about them. There is a free flow of ideas (or maybe garbage) out of your head and on to a mp3. One topic we talked about months ago was GIS clients. We talked about tools we use but I just happened to be listening to it last night and I realized maybe I wasn’t as honest with myself as I should have been.

GIS users, if you need a friend, get a dog.

I’m not a GIS user…

Fair point though, what is a GIS user? I think of it as someone who uses GIS software. But even that it is somewhat of a mess because one person’s GIS software is another person’s toolkit. Ignoring that issue for a second, what do I use for GIS?

  1. GDAL/OGR
  2. Turf.js
  3. Elastic
  4. PostGIS

I think that pretty much covers it. I mean there is some Shapely and some other libraries, but that short list is all I use anymore. That of course has a lot to do with my job, if I was GIS Manager at the City of Townsville I might need other tools, but that list above is pretty much it. I can’t help but think of these things as Toolkits rather than GIS software. They are all part of a deeper workflow that I use when I need to use it. The end result is never QGIS, ArcGIS, uDIG or whatever madness you use in your daily life. It is either GeoJSON or database” (where database could mean a lot of things).

God made men. Men made proprietary software systems

This blog is about to have it’s 15th year anniversary and I can’t think of a better example of how things have changed since that moment. I also think GIS lends itself for this workflow orientated environment anyway. Ignoring the crazy ArcGIS Desktop years with wizard based GIS, mostly GIS has been scripting workflows to accomplish your needs. Fortran, AML, Python, you name it. We use these methods to not only get results but document them. In the end I think all the tools we use for GIS are Toolkits and not software. Yes, one must put a name on something, but GIS has always been about toolkits, even in proprietary workflows, and will always be this. Maybe when we check in right before I retire in 2035 we can see how we are doing with this.

My guess? Still using toolkits.

Toolkits are a real genius” move…

March 3, 2020 elasticsearch gdal postgis Thoughts toolkits turf.js






A Calendar Is the Last Great Frontier

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Workflow wise, I’m pretty set on many things. I love the Studio Neat Panobook and Totebook for note taking. Both are amazing and I can’t see myself ever leaving them. Task management wise, I used to live in Things and then Todoist and then Things again. But that process taught me one thing about todo lists. They are the worst way to measure your life. They create anxiety and unrealistic goals because they are islands on to themselves. The fix for me was creating a daily goal list the night before and put that in my Panobook. Then I can check those off with a pen and life feels wonderful. For those reminders that need a little reminding, I just use Apple’s Reminders app which does all I need.

Email is awful, but there is no help in sight (maybe Hey will solve this). I suppose Slack owns the chat space. But Calendar is what just fails me every time. I’ve tried all the products. Fantastical, Google Calendar, Timepage, you name it. The simple fact that I can’t list more than a couple here really shows what the problem is. There is nothing to innovate.

I feel like I use a calendar in a couple ways; I put events up such as Meeting with Bill” or Connor’s Lacrosse Game”. I put up blocks of time, Work on proposal for the Queen”. I put up out of office notifications, Vacation in Hawaii”. The problem with calendars as they are used today, is they all treat those three ways of measuring something the same. Start time, end time, notification. Then we throw up some blocks like a Kanban board and try and find time to get it all done.

I feel like an optimal calendar would be the opposite. Rather than have a blank board to put things on, you should be carving out time to work on things that matter to you. My best work is done in the white space of a calendar and rarely gets recorded (unless I’m charging time to a client).

I probably don’t need a new app to do this. I could obviously start putting time in the calendar to capture these moments of focus. I wonder if the dynamic of thinking of a digital calendar as an old fashioned paper calendar is where we should be. As I said, shame this space hasn’t been explored as well as todo and email apps.

March 3, 2020 calendar Thoughts