The ENTCHEV GIS Blog

Off-Topic Announcement

Atanas Entchev — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:26:51 GMT

I have been quite busy lately -- not only with GIS stuff, but with the launch of our corporate branding and web design and development division. We are now live and operational. Check us out at ENT3R.com.

Busy

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:21:22 GMT

Did not forget the blog -- have been extremely busy, that's all. Will be back, eventually.

2008 MAC URISA Conference Report (on Global Climate Change)

Atanas Entchev — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:54:15 GMT

The biennial MAC URISA conference took place April 7-9, 2008 at the Enterprise Center, Burlington County, Mount Laurel, New Jersey. The conference had a new format (two-day conference plus one day workshops) and a new venue. I liked both, even though I had to travel farther.

Dr. David Robinson of Rutgers University gave the keynote address. Dr. Robinson is also the New Jersey State climatologist, and was introduced by Seth Hackman (MAC URISA Treasurer and a former student of Dr. Robinson’s) as a Nobel Prize winner.

Beginning his address, Dr. Robinson humbly refuted Seth’s introduction, stating that he was merely a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore. Dr. Robinson proceeded to present a stimulating address on global climate change and GIS.

I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Robinson after his address. I asked his opinion about the statements of another State Climatologist (Alabama’s), who was also on the IPCC team. Dr. John Christy from the University of Alabama-Huntsville confused plenty of folks, including me, with his statement that, among other things, Alabama is getting colder, not warmer, and the Antarctic ice cap is thickening.

Dr. Robinson told me that he knew Dr. Christy personally, has high regard for him as a scientist, and that Dr. Christy just “sees the data differently.”

ENTCHEV Delivers 2010 Census LUCA Project, Satisfied Client Says Will Consider ENTCHEV Again in Ten Years

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:12:35 GMT

The title is an actual humorous exchange between my client and me.

On a serious note, this was a challenging project. I hope Census will make use of the products of our hard work. And, for the record, the Census Tools for ArcGIS extension was not very useful.

New New Jersey Geospatial Forum (NJGF) Leadership

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:48:55 GMT

In case you missed the news, the New Jersey Geospatial Forum (NJGF) has a new leadership. Dave Kunz from Sussex County is the new Chair, Brian Embley (NGO representative) is the new Vice-Chair, and Lyna Wiggins from Rutgers University is the new Secretary.

See full Executive Committee membership list here.

The New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association (NJAPA) Publishes “GIS and Privacy”

Atanas Entchev — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:22:40 GMT

[UPDATE March 25, 2008] Scott A. Grams - Executive Director, GISCI, wrote to me to point out that the GISCI Code of Ethics and Rules of Conduct interrelate to these issues.

The New Jersey chapter of the American Planning Association (NJAPA) published my article "GIS and Privacy" in its 2008 March-April bulletin "Plan This!", in the Opinion Corner (page 24 of the PDF). The article originally appeared in Directions Magazine in 2005, and is now being republished with minor updates.

With more non-GIS professionals (such as planners) becoming exposed to GIS all the time, the NJAPA thought it important to educate its membership on some of the non-technical issues surrounding GIS.

From the article:

“Are GIS systems privacy intruders, or do they merely expose unrealistic privacy expectations? I think it is more of the latter.

[…]Seminars dealing with privacy issues in GIS include examples of how a clever burglar can use the New Jersey Open Public Review Act (OPRA) to gain access to information, and then use GIS to analyze that information, in order to determine where to strike next. […]An unlikely scenario, in my opinion."

is microsoft competing with esri

Atanas Entchev — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:07:41 GMT

[UPDATE April 3, 2008] Check out this screenshot of the new interface of ArcExplorer Build 600. It sure looks like a Microsoft Office application, dunnit? <via James Fee>

This Google search string brings a lot of traffic to the ENTCHEV GIS blog, so I am going to milk it for even more traffic.

No, seriously, I want to address the question. In my opinion (I am not the first, nor the only one to say this), Microsoft and ESRI are on a converging course. Hints abound, the most recent in a James Fee post from the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit, about an upcoming build of ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) [bolding mine]:

“ESRI demonstrated build 600 (which isn’t the next version) and it has the new “ribbon” interface that you’ll recognize from Microsoft Office. Now tasks aren’t hidden in the table of contents, but available quickly and easily. It really does look like a Microsoft Office application which should help with its adoption. The usability of build 600 is really striking compared to the existing ArcGIS Explorer builds and even Google Earth.”

My answer to “is microsoft competing with esri?” is “No.” My supposition is that there is a Microsoft-ESRI merger or acquisition in the works.

I wrote about other events pointing to the same conclusion here and here, as did Directions Magazine here, Ogle Earth here, and James Fee again here. We even have pictorial evidence from Virtual Earth for Government

Other GIS Blogs Digest

Atanas Entchev — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:47:52 GMT

Believe it or not, there are other GIS blogs out there. Here are a few snippets from three of them:

James Fee reports from the first day of the ESRI Business Partner conference in Palm Springs:

“Jack [Dangermond] says Microsoft and Google are the key to collaborative GIS using ArcGIS Server as the back-end. The hope is ArcGIS will integrate with everything moving forward.”

Ed.: It appears that Jack is betting the farm on ArcGIS Server…

###

A commenter who goes by ‘appliedmaps’ speculates about ESRI’s future on the UK ArchaeoGeek:

“Jack’s been running the company since its beginning (longer than Bill Gates ran Microsoft) and someday he’ll retire or be gone. AFAIK, there’s no order of succession within the company. When Jack leaves, there’ll be a power struggle, some factions wanting to sell out to Oracle or somebody, some factions wanting to go public, etc. What you can be sure of is that the entire product line (which, let’s face it, is based on 10-year old technologies with a bit of surface polish) will shift.”

Ed.: While we don’t normally lend support to anonymous opinions, this one is very much in line with our own thinking. We are also impressed with the rare proper use of apostrophes throughout the entire post.

###

Christopher Schmidt tells us Why Open Source Matters:

“This is why Open Source software is so important. So you think you have a stable relationship with your vendor? Maybe you think that you’ve come to a great licensing agreement that you’re happy with? Remember that so long as you’re working in an environment where someone else controls the tools you use, you’re not able to make your own rules.”

Ed.: But let’s not forget, as John Cowan reminds us, that the licensor even of open-source software is still the sovereign owner of the code, and could revoke the license.

New Jersey GIS Positions – Supply and Demand (Take Two)

Atanas Entchev — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:56:05 GMT

My original post New Jersey GIS Positions – Supply and Demand generated a lot of insightful responses and comments. To summarize: Readers agreed with my observation that, as Cool Hand Luke puts it, "What we've got here is failure to communicate." Indeed, there is no other way to explain the seemingly paradoxical situation where a large pool of GIS job hunters coexists in space and time with a large list of GIS job openings.

Could it be that the job postings are written in a way that discourages qualified applicants? Or are the expectations merely unrealistic? A glimpse into the situation may be offered by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in his “Parkinson’s Law”, published in 1957. Writes Parkinson in the essay “The Short List”:

“Only a little thought is needed to convince us that the perfect advertisement would attract only one reply and that from the right man. Let us begin with an extreme example.

Wanted – Acrobat capable of crossing a slack wire 200 feet above raging furnace. Twice nightly, three times on Saturday. Salary offered £25 (or $70 U.S.) per week. No pension and no compensation in the event of injury. Apply in person at Wildcat Circus between the hours of 9 A. M. and 10 A. M.

[…]The skill of the advertiser consists of adjusting the salary to the danger. […]If there is more than one applicant, the figure has been placed a trifle too high.”

Compare this with a GIS job opening that has been sitting on NJGIN for over four months:

“REQUIREMENTS: ABILITIES Extensive knowledge of and experience with ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) products ArcInfo, ArcView, ArcMAP, ArcCatalog as well as Trimble GPS equipment. Knowledge of and experience in computerized data entry and formatting, data base management, and data base utilization. Ability to maintain your focus on long-term work assignments. Knowledge of all phases of computer map preparation including digitization, data transmission, data reformatting, and map production. Experience with Trimble GPS products and software including data dictionary development, GPS data collection, correction and export. Knowledge of and experience in Metadata creation. Knowledge of ESRI products Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst, ArcIMS and ArcSDE, Visual Basic Scripting as well as Microsoft SQL Server and Adobe Illustrator a plus.”

Why is this position still open after four and a half months? Is it asking too much, or offering too little?

New Jersey Transit Partners With Google

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:23:36 GMT

Both BusinessWeek and New Jersey Transit announce that Google will soon be helping New Jersey Transit train riders plan their trips.

"Under a deal announced earlier this week, travelers will be able to use Google Transit to get trip times and transfers between 164 rail stations and 60 light rail stations. The information will be integrated with Google Maps.

More than 30 transportation agencies around the country now offer Google trip planning, but NJ Transit is the first in the Northeast."

FWIW, New Jersey Transit has consistently avoided ESRI technology in the past, and this most recent development continues the trend.

Vintage ArcView 1 T-shirt

Atanas Entchev — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:36:51 GMT

Look what I found yesterday in a forgotten pile of old clothes – a genuine ArcView 1 t-shirt. I think I won it in a map competition at the NJDEP in 1992. It says “arc view geographic explorer esri © ESRI ‘92”.

I wonder how many are still out there. Let me know if you have one.

Meatspace Matters

Atanas Entchev — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:52:38 GMT

In an internal study (noticed by Adena Schutzberg at the All Points Blog), Google found that "micro-geographic networks" are where information flows.” In other words, physical proximity influences people’s behavior more than factors such as mailing lists, online social networks, and the like.

This finding may seem ironic in the “Internet age” where, we are told, technology facilitates the global economy by making distance irrelevant. Yet time and again we are reminded that distance and location do, indeed, matter a great deal (see Marc Andreessen’s take on the issue).

Good news for us GIS folks, eh?

Summary: Pricing for GIS Training

Atanas Entchev — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:38:12 GMT

Two weeks ago I asked readers to chime in on the topic of GIS training pricing. In addition to the single comment left on the blog, I received several email responses. To summarize, it appears that there are two very different segments of GIS users, with training options tailored to each.

Email respondents James Costigan and Mike Toney are Manifold users and spoke highly of affordable (under $100) Manifold GIS training videos from gisadvisor. ESRI software users and trainers, on the other hand, agreed that GIS training pricing options for the ESRI platform are similar in range to what ESRI charges for instructor-led courses.

Your mileage may vary. I want to point out that this is a summary of the responses I received to my post, and does not pretend to be a comprehensive or representative study of GIS training pricing in the US.

[UPDATE February 28, 2008] In a comment posted after I published this summary, Alan tells us that he never took any formal GIS training -- he learned ArcView 3.2 and then ArcGIS 9.2 on the job, by doing and asking questions. In my experience, Alan's approach is representative of a large segment of GIS users.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:07:01 GMT

"Adding technology to a bad process only adds speed to a very bad process." So said Jim Geringer, former governor of Wyoming and ESRI's director of policy and public sector, speaking at ESRI's FedUC (Federal Users Conference) in DC.

Joe Francica from the All Points Blog was there, and has more on the subject.

Create Your Own Google Earth Layers

Atanas Entchev — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:35:40 GMT

In 4 minutes and 50 seconds a Google staffer explains and demonstrates how, using a free Google product called Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0, you can create your own Google Earth layers and publish them in Google Earth or Google Maps, with attributes such as photos and descriptive text. Have fun!

All Bikes Weigh The Same

Atanas Entchev — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:15:38 GMT

Bicyclists have a saying: “All bikes weigh the same.”

Indeed, a 20-pound bike needs a 30-pound lock; a 30-pound bike needs a 20-pound lock. A 50-pound bike does not need a lock.

I was reminded of this fact of life as I was following (and occasionally chiming in on) James Fee’s Open Thread, mostly about how “free” open source GIS is. Dimitri from Manifold brings up a few good points to the discussion, such as:

“If you make what you think is a "free" service the linchpin of your GIS work, you'll eventually find out it is not free at all, it is a commercial product that is as commercial as, say, ArcInfo. It's just got fewer features and less performance and requires endless mashups with your own time invested in software development if you ever want to do anything with it that significantly approaches GIS. You know, the whole re-inventing the wheel thing. And, if it continues to be crushingly uneconomic for the company that hosts it, as competition inevitably arrives you could find it is no longer around.”

and

“A good example is Linux, which has to my mind been an appalling waste of a generation or two of programmers in a narcissistic effort to re-engineer an operating system that was already grossly obsolete in the late 1980s, with no greater point, apparently, than substituting some private intellectual property ownership of some core parts of the model OS upon which it is based from AT&T's ownership into Red Hat ownership. Linux now is much more expensive than UNIX was.”

Just like a biker ends up carrying more or less the same weight -- whether as a bike or as a lock, the GIS system users end up paying, one way or another. They pay the software vendor if they choose a commercial platform, or they pay the implementer (in staff time or consultant fees) to glue together the pieces of the “free” solution.

In the end, all bikes weigh the same.

Pricing for GIS Training

Atanas Entchev — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:29:49 GMT

I would like to take a poll and summarize the results for pricing for GIS training, much like I did for pricing for GIS services. I don’t want to go into the “training vs. education” debate, which is a whole different topic. I am talking about GIS training, as in short GIS courses given by a vendor, a consultant, or an educational institution.

We know what ESRI charges for instructor-led training. For face-to-face training the current published price is $490 per student per day, or $3,820 per day to send an instructor to your site. Given that even the shortest course is two days, students (or their organizations) are looking at a minimum of $980 per student (to send away), or $7,640 for an on-site class.

This is clearly the high end of the market. I have heard and seen various other numbers, all over the map. What are you, as a student, willing and able to pay for high-quality GIS training? What are you, as a trainer, charging for high-quality GIS training?

I will summarize all responses. Post a comment, or email me at info@entchev.com. Remain anonymous if you wish.

[UPDATE] I am reminded of this quote from Derek Bok, past Harvard University President: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

GIS and Privacy

Atanas Entchev — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:03:07 GMT

I am getting more questions about GIS, privacy, and OPRA (the New Jersey Open Public Records Act) than ever before. The issue is not new, but is becoming more relevant for more towns, as GIS systems become commonplace. I have written on this topic before.

A year ago I blogged about the New Jersey Geospatial Forum (NJGF) meeting in which Catherine Starghill, Esq., Executive Director of the Government Records Council (GRC) of the State of New Jersey, discussed OPRA issues with the New Jersey GIS community.

In March 2005 I published an article "GIS and Privacy" in Directions Magazine. I believe that three years later the article is still relevant, and I invite you to read it.

From the article:

“Seminars dealing with privacy issues in GIS include examples of how a clever burglar can use the New Jersey Open Public Review Act (OPRA) to gain access to information, and then use GIS to analyze that information, in order to determine where to strike next. A typical example is that of the person requesting information about houses with dog licenses, then about houses where senior citizens live, and then about houses with alarm systems. At which point the municipal official becomes suspicious, denies the information request, and prevents the perpetrator-to-be from firing up his GIS application, executing a Boolean logic SQL query, and plotting out a map of his targets. An unlikely scenario, in my opinion.”

New Jersey Transit Selects Intergraph

Atanas Entchev — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:41:45 GMT

A press release announces that “To advance public safety and security efforts associated with nearly 251 million annual passenger trips, New Jersey Transit Corp. (NJ TRANSIT), the nation's third largest transit system, will deploy a suite of Intergraph's integrated emergency incident response, planning and…” This is where my RSS feed cuts off; the URI points to a blank page at the time of this writing, which will likely be fixed by the time you read this. [UPDATE] Fixed here.

In the summer of 2005 I went to a pre-bid meeting at New Jersey Transit. The project at hand was an implementation of a web-based GIS of sorts. And the first words out of the NJT representative’s mouth were: “We are not switching platforms.” They must have been deluded with questions about ESRI vs. Intergraph, and apparently decided to preempt the issue. It looks like New Jersey Transit is staying the course, which is probably good for the overall New Jersey GIS ecosystem.

Garmin Super Bowl Commercial

Atanas Entchev — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:51:59 GMT

For a second year in a row Garmin shelled out the big bucks for a Super Bowl commercial ($2.7 million for a 30-second slot in 2008 (not including, of course, production costs)). So consumer GPS must have gone mainstream, right there with Bud Light and Hyundai, no? Or Garmin must think that it is about to.

Garmin is doing the GIS industry a huge service. If the job of marketing is to create demand for a product or service (Attention --> Interest --> Desire --> Action), Garmin is almost single-handedly footing the bill for raising awareness and creating demand for GPS/GIS services across the board (much like Google did back in 2005 by launching ‘Google Maps’). Go, Garmin!

And that 13-yard Eli pass to Burress with 35 seconds left? Wicked. Go, Giants!