ArcGIS Explorer and Windows Vista SP2

ArcGIS Explorer Build 900 seems to run well enough under Windows Vista SP2 so I was surprised today to have this otherwise very useful utility tell me that my new laptop Failed both Minimum and Recommended Requirements because of it.

The lack of certification for Vista SP2 is also indicated by its absence from the ArcGIS Explorer System Requirements.

I'm curious about whether there are any known issues with running AGX Build 900 on Vista SP2 as opposed to SP1.

Geodesic Buffers in ArcGIS Desktop 9.3

Ever noticed that the results of an ArcGIS model that includes a Buffer tool can be different when run at 9.2 and 9.3/9.3.1?

It happened to me while providing ModelBuilder training yesterday which made me suspect that a change relating to projections may have been implemented between versions.

Sure enough!

An excellent explanation of the change in behaviour appears in ArcUser under the heading of Geodesic Buffers.

MapBuilder now retired?

I was surprised this morning when I saw that there was a new release of MapBuilder (version 1.5) because I thought I read a while back that it had become a retired project. Looking back at the announcement which I was recalling, from Cameron Shorter, it looks like 1.5 represents the final release which was planned at that time. I wish the MapBuilder team well in their "retirement".

MapInfo Professional 10 Highlights

This afternoon I attended my first ever MapInfo (now known as Pitney Bowes Business Insight, or PBBI) User Forum. It was a big turnout and I suspect one of the biggest events in Brisbane's GIS calendar for 2009. I was surprised by how many faces were unfamiliar to me and also by how many were very familiar.

Highlights of MapInfo Professional 10 for me were its slick new interface, particularly the rich functionality of its Layer control, and its support for direct editing of SQL Server Spatial and PostGIS data.

RabbitScan

I was just watching an ABC Landline program about the 150th anniversary of rabbits being introduced (disastrously) to Australia while eating lunch, and spotted a fellow former postgrad and friend from the Zoology Department at the University of Adelaide (Greg Mutze) amongst those attending a filmed briefing. It got me interested, so I visited the RabbitScan website. It turns out to be a project that involves crowd sourcing of spatial information about the distribution of rabbits - with a view to reducing it. There's no web map to view the distribution that I could find, but I hope that will one day be there.

In the meantime I wish all involved with the project every success, and a Happy Easter!

Update: I just received an e-Newsletter from Spatial Vision and was pleased to see that they are providing web mapping to this project using Google Maps as the underlying technology.

REST "vs" SOAP

I normally give developer topics a wide berth on this blog, but I got the tip from James Fee that the presentation by David Chappell at the recent ESRI Developer Summit was not to be missed.

For me this is by far the best distillation of the key differences (pros and cons) between SOAP and REST that I have come across. It not only acts as an excellent layman's guide to those two topics, but also describes, in an easy to follow way, how they relate to additional topics including: WS-*, WSDL, WCF, XML, HTTP, GET, PUT, DELETE, POST, JSON, SSL, ACID, JavaScript, Flex, Silverlight, Java Server Faces and ASP.NET.

It also introduced me to the term idempotent and I particularly liked his final conclusion: "The best decisions come from reason, not emotion"

GISP-AP came in today's mail

I was very pleased today when I received notification of my GIS Professional - Asia Pacific (GISP-AP) Certification in the mail from the Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI).

If you are a GIS Professional working in Australia, the SSI is an organisation that I recommend and of which we are a Gold Partner - you can see the recently new NGIS logo on the SSI Specialist Certification page.