Congrats go out to Joseph Kerski (long time colleague and Geo-acquaintance of mine) and to Tom Baker on their new positions at ESRI – officially announced today by ESRI. Kerski comes from the USGS and Baker from the University of Kansas where both have been heaviliy involved in promoting and developing GIS educational material, GIS EDU outreach, GIS lesson plans, etc… Baker will lead the creation of a new ESRI EDU portal and Kerski will oversee ESRI GIS classroom content. For realted weblilnks see www.esri.com/university and www.esri.com/k-12
Archives for November 1, 2006
Add yourself to the GISuser Mapkit – a fun social networking API from platial
Platial, the very cool social networking mashup community has a public API available to anyone who wants to test their service and embed their own map into their website or blog. I created a “GISuser” Mapkit over at GU – a test mapkit that I created in seconds. Please feel free to test the app and add yourself to this map… enjoy! See the GISuser MapKit here see also platial.com for more on the API. Platial and their mashup apps have actually been around for some time. I recall seeing their very cool stuff at Where 2.0 earlier this year and they were definitely one of the coolest and most talked about apps that were showed off… social networking was definitely BIG at where 2.0
State and Metropolitan Area Data Book
A reminder about a very useful, new resource from the Census Bureau… The State and Metropolitan Area Data Book features more than 1,500 data items for the United States and individual states, counties and metropolitan areas from a variety of sources. The files include data published for 2005 population and housing unit estimates and many items from the 1990 and 2000 Census of Population and Housing. Information in the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book covers the following topical areas: age, agriculture, births, business establishments, communications, construction, cost of living, crime, deaths, education, elections, employment, energy, finance, government, health, households, housing, immigration, income, manufactures, marriages and divorces, media, natural resources, population, poverty, race and Hispanic origin, residence, retail sales, science and engineering, social services, tourism, transportation, and veterans. See the complete publication here – http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/smadb/smadb-06.pdf (PDF) or http://www.census.gov/compendia/smadb/
2006 State and Metropolitan Area Data Book
A reminder about a very useful, new resource from the Census Bureau… The State and Metropolitan Area Data Book features more than 1,500 data items for the United States and individual states, counties and metropolitan areas from a variety of sources. The files include data published for 2005 population and housing unit estimates and many items from the 1990 and 2000 Census of Population and Housing. Information in the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book covers the following topical areas: age, agriculture, births, business establishments, communications, construction, cost of living, crime, deaths, education, elections, employment, energy, finance, government, health, households, housing, immigration, income, manufactures, marriages and divorces, media, natural resources, population, poverty, race and Hispanic origin, residence, retail sales, science and engineering, social services, tourism, transportation, and veterans. See the complete publication here – http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/smadb/smadb-06.pdf (PDF) or http://www.census.gov/compendia/smadb/
USGS Seamless Data Server.. a simple reminder
In a recent reminder from sommeone at the USGS, I have to admit that I have neglected to promote this fabulous data resource. Most users know about it (or should know about it), therefore, as a result it sometimes gets forgotten. Thing of the seamless data distribution system as the grand-daddy of the USGS geospatial repositories… and then some! This site has complete coverage of theNational Elevation Dataset that supercedes Digital Elevation Models, complete DOQQcoverage, over 30 Tb of urban imagery, one-time coverage of full resolution Landsatimagery, and much more. Also, the data are seamless, so you can put a box aroundthe data without having to figure out quadrangles and then having to assemble themall. Here’s some details from our friends at the USGS if you need to hear more… Free downloads are availble – up to 1.6 Gbytes of data in 100 MB files in one user request. Users have unlimited access to the interactive map and can make unlimited requests.The amount of coverage area depends on the number of products selected for download.For example, if NED 1 Arc Second is selected as the only product a user can downloadup to a 30 square degree area. But, if NED 1 arc second and NED 1/3 arc second areselected, then the area available for download will be considerably smaller. To seethe various sizes of coverage area for each product, click on the List of Productsdrop down, select the desired product. User can define an area of interest by drawing a box, defining coordinates, or useavailable templates to cut out the area. The first method of drawing a box (square or rectangle) is best for defining ageneral area. The coordinates are displayed, in decimal degrees, in the bottom leftcorner of the window as the mouse is moved over the map. The second method ofdefining coordinates can be used when the user wants a precise area and knows thecorner coordinates. The third method is the use of provided templates, such as 7.5min quadrangles. Bookmark this one, or maybe even set it as your homme-page! http://seamless.usgs.gov/
