I recall a few years back I used to follow something called the Carnival of the Moblists… essentially, it was a fun recap of recent items of interests coming out of the mobile industry and bloggers that shared stories related to mobile app development.
I was a fan of the format and it was quite fun. I’ve always wanted to revive the format but with a Geospatial twang, so, in my first edition, please find a short recap of some items of interest from the GIS/GeoGeek community. Please note, if these updates persist, I’m wide open to submissions and suggestions to feel free to ping me @gletham to make suggestions.
And So… A carnival of activity from the Geospatialists
From James Fee @cageyjames of WeoGeo. James shared a tweet recently about the newly revamped WeoGeo website, complete with a totally new UI and loads of new functionality. Fee comments on the blog post (http://www.weogeo.com/blog/NewWeoGeo.html) about how WeoGeo has been helping the industry locate and discover GIS / Geospatial data for 5 years now and to kick off 2012 with a step in the right direction their new Marketplace page delivers a new user experience that should be familiar to users and also offers map tiles based on OSM and Natural Earth data. See details of the new WeoGeo MapView at http://www.weogeo.com/help/MapView.html
Always a fabulous source of innovative tips and tricks, Ubisense founder Peter Batty (@pmbatty) recently shared a couple of snippets about his experience with the new Kindle Fire tablet… perhaps you might also be tinkering with the idea of grabbing this sub-$200 Android device – I’m thinking it’s the idea device to keep on hand when you need to test something out in the Android environment. Peter commented how impressed he was with speed experienced on the Fire while running the myWorld mapping app… good to know! Oh.. an FYI, Batty has also shared recently that Ubisense is hiring and in particular, searching for a senior project manager preferably with experience in the utilities market. See more on Pete’s blog at http://geothought.blogspot.com/
One of my favorite D.C area GeoGeeks to follow, Bill Dollins constantly delivers great tips. Of particular interest, Bill has put together a nice paper.li summary from some of his favorite twitter streams, he calls it the DC/MD/VA Geo Post – find it at http://paper.li/billdollins/DMV-Geo. For anyone on twitter that’s interested in Geo technologies in the VA, Maryland, DC area you’ll want to keep tabs on this resource and follow Bill. If you want more of Bill you have to follow his blog at http://blog.geomusings.com/ and be sure to friend him on Twitter @billdollins
Tina Cary, a Colorado based Geo consultant and tech analyst always has plenty of goodies to share. I recall when Tina was first tinkering around in social media and in particular, with Twitter, and now she’s often a source or many re-tweets and loads of Geo tech goodies.. well done Tina! Tina keeps tabs on many of the news providers in the industry as well as the developer crowd and GeoGeek community and she shares plenty. Recently, Tina shared a pointer to a fine resource on social media usage and considerations for companies looking to explore the World of social media. The article provided some fine tips and encouraged me to pen a blog post about it as a result.
Follow Tina on Twitter @tinacary
Amanda Staub (@Amandahstaub), from Washington State is passionate about Geo technologies, loves to share, and is involved with WA URISA. She’s another must-follow GeoGeek on Twitter and is a long time contributor to my "Women of GIS" Twitter list, a popular stream in the community. Amanda recently reminded me about the latest release of the GIS Profesional newsletter, a publication of URISA – see http://www.urisa.org/theGISprofessional. This is a fine read and a must have for anyone involved in GIS, particularly in local govenment and municipal GIS. FYI, you can follow Amanda on twitter @amandahstaub or connect with he on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/amandataub
Mano Marks, Google evangelist. If you aren’t familiar with Mano, he’s a very handy contact for any Geo Developer that’s creating apps and services using Google Map tools, APIs etc… Mano does a great job keepin the community in the know about all things Google Maps Dev.and is a terrific person to circle on G+ where Mano is very active. Via his G+ stream Mano recently shared an interesting tip from Sorin Adam Matei about A KML Historic and Literary Map of Pearl Harbor on the Morning of December 7, 1941 (7:55 am). This is an amazing historical recap of the events the took place and you can experience it in Google Earth – See HERE for the post.
Follow Mano on Twitter @manomarks, check out his blog http://randommarkers.blogspot.com/ or find him on G+
Cartographer, Gretchen Peterson frequently shares some tips with me and has loads of goodies on her twitter stream and blog. Gretchen comments how sometimes you just need to fit in a few minutes of learning time into your day. Here’s a few slideshows and a presentation that may add inspiration and enthusiasm to your normal workday routine:
Secrets of Simplicity: rules for being simple and usable, a slideshow by Giles Colborne
The Complexity of Simplicity – A slideshow by Dan Saffer
The Beauty of Data Visualization – A presentation by David McCandless
Integrating Creativity Science with GIS – A booklet by Gretchen Peterson
Gretchen shares loads of Geo tech goodies, particularly tidbits about N. Colorado and cartography. Follower her via @petersonGIS
Geographer and GIS EDU evangelist Joseph Kerski (@josephkerski) is always full of useful information – note, Joseph has been featuring a GIS EDU tip a day and at year end will be rounding out his running "What Is Geography" geo tips with #365, pretty darned impressive! Joseph recently noted how The National Research Council (NRC) has created a landmark report entitled Understanding the Changing Planet: Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences. He believe’s this has key implications for GIS education and as a result has penned a detailed blog post about the report. Joseph looks at a short list of high-priority research questions that are relevant to societal needs that have come out of the research findings and comments that these points all fundamentally support what the GIS education community has been engaged in these past 20 years – see details HERE
Paul Davis (@pauldavisaccela)is a colleague and PR guy who I’ve dealt with over the years. Paul always has plenty of great stuff to share and he does a fine job keeping me in the loop with the activities of his client,Accela (they do some really cool mobile GIS work for the enterprise user). Paul recently shared an awesome tip about something billed as "Innovation Nation". This is essentially a snapshot of the state of web mapping portals in the US as reported by Governing. The article provides a hyperlinked map that then reveals interesting stats about State web portals… quite cool! See http://www.governing.com/innovationnation
Some other notable Tweets of interest shared and Faved by the Geo Twitter-Sphere:
- @mashable Know of a digital project that is improving your community? Submit it to our Global Innovation series:
- @JohannesKebeck Mapping your Excel Workbook in the cloud with Bing maps
- @developerworks Mobile Apps vs #Mobile Websites – Tips to decide which way to go
- @ErocssonLabs Should I localize my mobile app? – FierceDeveloper
- @pauldavisaccela Handy "innovation nation" snapshot map of state web portals in US, via @GOVERNING.
- @boydjane What makes u flinch? Understand this and you can do anything! Get @julien’s new book The Flinch for free
- @pauldavisaccela Handy "innovation nation" snapshot map of state web portals in US, via @GOVERNING. http://www.governing.com/innovationnation #gov20 #egov
- @skipcody Compiling QGIS with Eclipse CDT on Ubuntu http://bit.ly/vvWi9R #gis
- @nn4d WIP Connector –> "Making Sense of Smartphone Market Share for Developers: Don’t Get Lost in the Data!" http://bit.ly/tc2IP8
- @cybercity3d Honolulu buildings "dragged and dropped" into Esri’s CityEngine http://fb.me/FlJwScDP
- @skipcody Compiling QGIS with Eclipse CDT on Ubuntu
- @nn4d Making Sense of Smartphone Market Share for Developers: Don’t Get Lost in the Data!
- @mcknut My Siri proxy can check me in now too. Code here:
- @cybercity3d Honolulu buildings "dragged and dropped" into Esri’s CityEngine
- @datatechsoln Whoa!! Did Canada just become the most aggressive public reporter of greenhouse emission data?
- @kwinkunks It can’t be a coincidence that St Barbara is not only the patron saint of geologists, but also of brewers
