James Fee GIS Blog

Blogging GIS, Google Earth, Virtual Earth and Programming

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Developing in a Virtual Environment

May 8th, 2008 · 14 Comments · GIS

I’ve asked the question on Twitter, but I’d like to get a more broad idea of what people think about developing applications inside a virtual environment. Results were pretty much on both extremes, either people love it, or people told me I need to get a new IT staff. We do have [...]

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Google App Engine for Developers

April 10th, 2008 · 2 Comments · GIS

Niall Kennedy has written an excellent overview of Google App Engine from aimed at developers. Well worth the read.

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ArcGIS Server REST API for 9.2

March 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment · ArcGIS Server, ESRI, Microsoft, Open Source, OpenLayers, Virtual Earth

The ArcGIS Server RESTful API will come out at 9.3, but what about those who need it now? Well Dave Bouwman has blogged about its release. Because we all love demos, here is the link to the ArcGIS Server RESTful API.
http://65.101.234.201/rest/
Notice that it is running on OpenLayers. Think about what you are [...]

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U.S. Navy to require “open GIS”

March 7th, 2008 · 14 Comments · ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, ESRI, Open Source

A reader forwarded me this article from Federal Computer Week about the Navy looking at only accepting “systems based on open technologies and standards”.
Vice Adm. Mark Edwards, deputy chief of naval operations for communications, broke the news March 5 to a Navy IT Day audience in Vienna, Va., sponsored by AFCEA International. “The days [...]

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MapDotNet Server with Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight 2.0

February 29th, 2008 · 3 Comments · MapDotNet Server, Microsoft, Virtual Earth

Now this is exciting.
With our new WPF and Silverlight 2.0 map controls, developers and designers will soon be able to build rich interactive mapping applications for the desktop and web. In our opinion, WPF and Silverlight 2.0 take giant leap forward from other user interface technologies such as Windows Forms, Java, Flash, JavaScript [...]

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Mapping the Poles

January 31st, 2008 · 14 Comments · ArcWeb, ESRI, Google, Google Maps, Microsoft, Open Source, OpenLayers, Virtual Earth

So how the heck are you guys doing it? Google Maps and Virtual Earth have so much distortion up there (or down there as the case may be) that mapping is very difficult. Plus what happens when they navigate off the edge of the map? Anyway the closest thing I’ve found [...]

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Web Mapping Systems and Services

January 8th, 2008 · 22 Comments · ArcWeb, ESRI, GIS, Google, Google Maps, MapDotNet Server, MapPoint, Microsoft, Virtual Earth

I spent most of the afternoon talking with folks about web mapping systems and how to choose a direction to go. What is painfully obvious when you start laying out the different frameworks, APIs and servers is that there is just no clear answer as to what system to pick. When it comes [...]

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Developer needed

November 5th, 2007 · 20 Comments · FWTools, FeatureServer, GIS, OSGeo, Open Source, OpenLayers, PostGIS, PostgreSQL, QGIS

Lets make this simple. If you have experience with:
Python
PostgreSQL
PostGIS
GDAL/OGR
OpenLayers
and at least some knowledge of:
GeoJSON
FeatureServer
GML
KML
dealing with the above on Windows (Linux may come down the line)
and live in either Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, or New Mexico; email me
james.fee at gmail.com
Position can be contract or full time work.

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GIS for Web Developers

October 26th, 2007 · 7 Comments · Uncategorized

I’ve been doing the traveling and then getting sick routine this week, but at least today when I got into work I saw that the GIS for Web Developers book showed up on my desk. I probably won’t be able to start reading it until next week because I have a couple friends coming [...]

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Simple design can help users solve problems

October 10th, 2007 · 12 Comments · GIS, Open Source

Somewhat of a follow on to my previous post about the WPServer Demo.
Ask 37signals: Is it really the number of features that matter?
Good software is about balancing value and screen real estate and understanding and outcome. If it takes 20 good features to get there, then great. If it only takes eight, even better. It’s [...]

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How Popular is SharpMap?

August 21st, 2007 · 29 Comments · SharpMap

I had a reader email me asking about SharpMap asking how “viable” it is? Well that is always a hard question to answer, but if you look over on CodePlex, SharpMap is the third most popular project. I know a few people who are developing with SharpMap and many more that are actively [...]

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James on REST

August 14th, 2007 · 11 Comments · Uncategorized

Since everyone is blogging about REST I was feeling left out, so here is my post.
Think about this as ordering a Domino’s Pizza.

You make a call and you get something in return. If you do it while lying down on the recliner, that is very RESTful.

If Howard Dean is screaming for a pizza, [...]

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SharpMap is the new MapObjects?

August 14th, 2007 · 11 Comments · SharpMap

Bill Dollins is talking about how SharpMap is giving him back his “old MO vibe again”. What caught me eye was:
The open source nature of SharpMap was a huge plus and I’m having fun doing things that I always wanted to do in MO.
I can’t think of another ESRI “product” that has generated more [...]

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Adobe ships ColdFusion 8, do ArcIMS developers care?

July 30th, 2007 · 16 Comments · ArcIMS, ESRI

I saw the news that Adobe announced the shipping of ColdFusion 8 today. I remember when ArcIMS 3 arrived, ColdFusion was the way that almost everyone developed ArcIMS sites. I recall at one of the sessions at the UC I was the only person who asked about the ActiveX controls and no one [...]

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MetaCarta Releases “MetaCarta Labs On A Stick”

May 25th, 2007 · 6 Comments · FeatureServer, Open Source

Sure, LiveCDs are fun, but running applications on a flash usb memory stick is where its at.
MetaCarta Labs has assembled a collection of demos which can be run with no external dependancies. With a MetaCarta Labs USB stick, you simply insert the USB drive into the USB port, and double click the ‘run’ script [...]

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Poly9 FreeEarth - Digital Globe Using Flash

May 10th, 2007 · No Comments · GIS

I wanted to let you know about FreeEarth, Poly9 has launched FreeEarth which is a cross platform digital globe which uses the Adobe Flash plugin. It even has a javascript API. World Wind Java was supposed to be released today, but it still hasn’t show up. Until then feel free to play around [...]

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Talking About REST

April 26th, 2007 · No Comments · ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, ESRI, ESRI Developer Network, GIS

There have been quite a bit of posting about REST in Planet Geospatial over the past couple weeks. Steve looks back on a post from a couple of years ago that suddenly became very relevant.
I am glad ESRI is thinking about putting a REST API in front of server but it is also not [...]

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My eyes…the goggles do nothing!

April 19th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Uncategorized

I guess my JRE has been updated and as a result I now have a huge indicator when Java plugin is going to crash my browser.

What is it with orange anyway? When did that color become cool again? Frankly it stands out like a sore thumb. At least I have a better [...]

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New ESRI Course: Developing Applications with ArcGIS Server Using the Java Platform

February 27th, 2007 · 4 Comments · ArcGIS Server, ESRI

A couple readers emailed me to complain that I forgot to add the new Java ArcGIS Server course to my blog in addition to the .NET ones. Just an oversight I assure you.
Well this ESRI course introduces the Java Web Application Development Framework and teaches you how to build custom ArcGIS Server [...]

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Application Message Box of the Month

December 18th, 2006 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

I love it when programs tell you that they CAN’T do something. This was on the difficult operation of File > Exit. You can guess that after clicking OK the program crashed.

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