GIS Portals have been a talking point for a while and ESRI has published a new press release which talks about the new GIS Portal Toolkit which is being offered free of charge. Redlands, California—To further improve geographic information system (GIS) data access over the Web, ESRI has updated its GIS Portal Toolkit for ArcGIS. GIS Portal Toolkit is a free technology and services solution for implementing local, regional, national, and global spatial data infrastructure (SDI) portals. The toolkit gives users a Web site starter and all the functional capabilities needed to deploy a GIS portal for an...

Google has now updated Google Chrome to version 0.3.154.0. This new release is only available to the development channel. You can gain access to the development channel by enabling Google Chrome to check for these updates. Instructions on how to do this can be found here: http://mandown.co.nz/google/… This build features a bundle of new fixes and changes. Some of the problems I have been experiencing with Google Chrome have been with plugins like Adobe Flash. This is very noticeable when browsing Youtube. The full list of fixes and changes can be found here:...

Earlier this year the TDC Group announced Freeance Mobile 2.0. Freeance Mobile 2.0 incorporates ESRI’s ArcGIS Server 9.3 Postgres database integration. BlackBerry smartphone users can now access ArcGIS Server 9.3 map services to field map point features to ArcSDE records in a Postgres database using GPS enabled BlackBerry smartphones. To go with this release as part of the ESRI Speaker Series, a new podcast has been posted which interviews Matthew Reddington discussing the company’s GIS solution. Matthew Reddington, CEO of TDC Group, an ESRI Business Partner, discusses how his company’s...

Google Chrome has been out for a few weeks now and the uptake has been phenomenal! I have to say Google has done an amazing job in providing a great user experience. It’s the little things that Google Chrome does that make it stand out as a browser. To go with this is very light and fast. I have been using it as my primary browser over the last few weeks and have discovered a few bugs here and there but I have to say it’s a very polished first beta release! I was wondering when Google would be updating Chrome. Today Google announced an update for Google Chrome and has provided developers...

There have been a number of queries from users asking if is possible to install the ArcGIS 9.3 JavaScript API locally within your own environment. If you have been using the ArcGIS 9.3 JavaScript API then you will be familiar with this line of code. This allows you to connect and download the hosted ArcGIS 9.3 JavaScript API’s. <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/?v=1″></script> What happens if you are in a restricted environment and have no access to the internet? ESRI has now made available the ArcGIS 9.3...

Late last month ESRI announced that ArcGIS 9.3 Service Pack 1 will be available for download later this year in November. They original announcement feature bug fixtures for ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Engine, ArcGIS Server and ArcIMS. Today ESRI released an updated document of changes. This has now been extended to ArcGIS Image Server and ArcSDE. The issue/fix count as from my previous posting: Product Issue Count ArcGIS Desktop ~ 70 ArcGIS Engine 1 ArcGIS Server ~ 80 ArcIMS 1 The updates issue/fix count as of now: Product Issue Count ArcGIS Desktop ~ 250 ArcGIS Engine 7 ArcGIS...

Something that slipped past was the announcement of ArcPad 7.2 and the beta program which is now open. ArcPad 7.2 beta program is now accepting applications. So what’s some of the new features coming in ArcPad 7.2?   Well it sounds like the ArcPad Development Team has been very busy making some great changes. A Fresh new Look! – new modern icons are used in ArcPad 7.2, which allows ArcPad to take advantage of different screen resolutions New Open Map Dialog – the open map dialog has been enhanced for easier navigation of map documents ArcPad Toolbar Manager – a new...

One of the great new features of ArcGIS 9.3 is the error reporting system that has been introduced. Whenever a crash is encountered ArcGIS 9.3 will give you the ability to to send an error report to ESRI. We have seen this feature introduced in a number of other software products out there and it’s nice to see ESRI has included it in the ArcGIS 9.3 release. So why are these error reports important? We think that error reporting can result in significant improvements in our support to you. To help us with this effort, at 9.3 all the ArcGIS Desktop applications as well as ArcGIS Explorer have an...

Earlier this year ESRI Press announced a new book/methodology that has been publish. The Business Benefits Of GIS, An ROI Approach talks about how the return on investment can be calculated in the GIS space. AS part of the ESRI Speaker Series a new podcast has been posted which interviews the authors of this new book. David Maguire, Victoria Kouyoumjian, and Ross Smith, discuss their new ESRI Press book, The Business Benefits of GIS: An ROI Approach, which details a return on investment (ROI) methodology that explains how the implementation of a GIS can create business value for an organization. We do...

This is a very common question that a number users ask. The Geodatabase Development Team has an excellent post on this. There are two ways to go about connecting to ArcSDE. One is to connect via the application server connection and the other is to make a direct connection. Essentially these are the same, the difference is where the work is being done. I think the picture below sums it up nicely. This highlights how each connection method works. So what is really happening here: As you can see, the type of connection really just dictates where the spatial processing is being done (the gsrvr process...