mmm...SuperBock. The drink of choice to millions... of Portuguese

My little bro. OK, maybe not so little anymore....

It's 3 AM and I'm testing out Picassa on my blog.
Hmmm, not a bad program. Now if Picassa could attach geotags to the photo metadata and export to Google Earth.... that would rock!

CS 

2 weeks done!

So it's been a couple of weeks now at the new job and it's been great. HELP has a diverse group of people involved and I'm really impressed with the way data, maps, and other important files are set up. For a large research group, I'm finding it's really easy to find the files I need quickly.

Personnel are fantastic too. The Provincial Mapping Team are a close nit group and have really helped me out this week with all the cartography work I've been doing in Freehand and Illustrator. And munching on daily mangos....fantastic!

For the past two weeks, I've been working on mapping out 23 socioeconomic variables related to early childhood development, mostly in the 3 Revelstoke school districts. Freehand is a great tool for cartography and I'm interested in seeing how different Illustrator is in comparison.

James from Spatially Enabled posted about the new changes in ArcGIS 9.2. We at HELP export our basemap layers from ArcGIS as JPGs to Freehand and go from there. ArcGIS 9 just doesn't past mustard at this point for all the map production at this point. A shame really, but who knows? Maybe in 5 years we won't need it.

(Yeah, right.) ;)

Windows PowerToys & JAlbum

I was flipping thru some old postings on GIS blogs that I haven't read in a while. Rob Elkins, of Rise & Shout, mentioned Windows Powertoys. Had a go out it and downloaded the HTML Slide Show Wizard, Image Resizer, and a PowerToy Calculator. I've enjoyed the first two immensely but can only see myself using the conversions options in the calculator.

JAlbum is another great free program for making web albums of your photos. I've played around with different photo sharing programs before (see some examples here) but the options in JAlbum are fantastic. I especially like the BananaAlbum skin but this new SlideShow Powertoy may give it a run for its money.

Now if I could figure out a simple way to display my travel pics & stories with a web GIS mashup that didn't involve Google Maps.... hmmm.... any suggestions?

Oh yeaaah... I'm a working stiff again!

Lucky, lucky me. I'm back at UBC - again. For one more year.

Had an interview a few weeks ago with the good folks from the Human Early Learning Partnership, a research group whose objectives are to:

1. To build effective partnerships and serve as British Columbia's early child development research infrastructure.
2. To measure, analyze, interpret and build effective frameworks for new, interdisciplinary understanding in child development.

They have a core group of mapping & GIS folks and I'll be replacing someone there who's off to England for a Masters in GIS. I'll be their GIS Officer and doing a bit of everything, from data entry & cartography to fine-tuning a ArcIMS site.

The HELP mapping program is a good example of partenerships between research and local communities. The researchers are interested in the health and social markers of young children and through the Early Childhood Development Portal, communities can see the results of surveys in their communities on-line. Community coalitions interested in the results (i.e. Richmond (PDF)) can then develop programs to target/improve at-risk children in their communities (or schools &/or daycares for example).

So yours truly has a couple of weeks to enjoy the last remnants of EI and the sunny weather. I start back at UBC on August 1. Thankfully, this will allow my liver to recover after a stint in Las Vegas for a buddy's stag. (VEGAS, baby, VEGAS!)

ArcGIS Templates: Aren't there more?

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on my GIS data editing skills in preparation for interviews with local gov't bodies (i.e. cities, regional districts, etc). One of the more common tasks I've been asked to do is to come up with a map of a parcel or subdivision in question usually at the 1:5000 scale.

First time out, I really sucked at it. Then I found the "Utilities.mxt" file through the Page Layout toolbar. Handy, but you'd think there would be more especially since several levels of goverment are serious customers of ESRI.

Anyway, I tried Googling for MXT files. Nada. ESRI Support online? Nada too. I thought perhaps some agencies may have standard templates that consultants would have to use for contract work but I'm snookered at this point.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Cheers.

Ugh....

So it has been awhile.

Damn.

What's new here? Nuttin' much. Was let go from my last job (boss moved to Kingston, Ontario!) so I'm looking for work in here in Vancouver. Permanent. Full-time.

But after wrapping things up at UBC, I had a lot of "life" stuff on the backburner to deal with. So I'll collect EI, sort out my long-lost travel pics, update my resume, yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah ...

...until I get a great job.

I'll update those links in the meantime!

On-Line and Doing Fine!

Hi there
Welcome to ArcVancouver, my musings on geospatial trends in the Vancouver, BC area. I hope to post things on occasion but feel free to pass on any new GIS tips if you are in the industry.
Cheers
Carlos