New Years Resolutions

Aiming to be a little better with this blog than years previous, or at least document my attempts to get more "professional".

The Lift app helps. Will try to blog once a week and post some semi-permanent GIS activities that I think you'll find interesting. 2014 will be a year of python programming. If that's for you too (and it should be in your toolkit if you call yourself a modern-day cartographer/GIS analyst), get yourself to PyCon 2014 in Montreal! 

Cheers y'all.

PS. 2013 blog of the year, IMHO? Drunken Geographer! 
PPS. In all seriousness, you should be following Planet Geospatial. It's your source to all good geospatial  blogs.
PPPS. Because sometimes you'll just find golden gems like this from Tobin Bradley's blog, Fuzzy Tolerance: What's in My Toolbox 2014. Will have to do one myself, maybe the next one. His, though, will be substantially be better. ;)

Happy Holidays Everyone

... and good cheer to all.


It's been an interesting 2013. 2014 is going to be even better, I hope.

In the meantime, go track Santa today.

Exhausting #GISWeek

Right now....



After this workweek.... ugh, so busy!
And what I'm going to do when I get home....


#GISWeek

When I saw that I made it to OpenGeo's The Top 100 Geospatial Influencers List...

(Via http://ladodgers.tumblr.com/post/59486896740/vivir-mi-vida)

... at #46 though...



(But seriously, thanks for acknowledgement, really enjoying the talk on twitter today!)

Career Illumination

After almost 6 yrs doing map production, I really gotta learn some JavaScript and Python. Again. 

Argh. The banes of GIS work... You are either a mapper or a programmer, and the two are not that interchangeable at the municipal GIS level.... 

That open source web GIS with leaflet is looking interesting. Might have to cut my teeth on that sometime.

When I have to forward a map request to my colleagues for our online map application...

Post #FMEWT 2013 Thoughts, Vancouver edition

So, on Tuesday, Dale & Don did the annual Safe Software FME road show, showcasing the latest & greatest stuff in FME 2013.  Good times. Always a good time to go, meet some fellow #FME'ers and check out the new stuff.

I won't go into all the details (you can find it here, a live blog account, and watch James Fee & company discuss it here) but I did enjoy 4 big things:

1) Better Labeling, via the MapTextLabeller. 
Even though it's an extra cost add-on, you can't deny that adding better labeling transformers are really going to help those customers with limited GIS budgets. This helps fill that void somewhat. Maplex in ArcGIS covers a lot of the same (if better) functionality, but if you don't have access to that resource, this will do nicely if you aren't tied into the Autodesk/ESRI stack.  And definitely helpful for guys like Jonathon McIntyre making those high quality floor plan PDF's from FME.

2) Uploading and testing your CAD files right to FME server, to QA/QC those pesky as-built drawings from contractors.....! Geometry validation is going to be very useful for our infrastructure GIS guys here in the office.

3) Real-time tracking.  Watching Dale's TESLA in real-time was pretty cool, and pulling the City of Vancouver's data via FTP into FME's workbench was just as awesome.

4) Reading ZIP files! Writing to ZIP files! Damn, wish I had this when I was revamping the scripts for our Open Data site. No biggee, Python helped out on that regard.

Thankfully, I've got 2013 installed at work now so I'm excited to try out the new stuff right away!


Yes, Soup for me! heh, heh, heh.....

When I get work approval to attend Safe Software's FME Users Conference (#fmewt) next week

ht: DBA Reactions

Google Streetview Hyperlapse

Simply amazing.

Update: What's even better... go make your own on the Teehan+Lax. Here's my 30-40 commute, roughly, from home to work. There & back in 10 seconds.

(ht Gordon Price on Pricetags)

How to prep for the ESRI #devsummit dodgeball tourney (hipster-style)