Flock – Y! Maps extension

For those that are in the ‘GIS = desktop software’ camp, this post will maybe not appeal, but for others you may be interested in the release of a new Flock extension (my browser of choice).

They have embedded the Yahoo Maps GIService into the browser, via an extension download – actually it is technically a re-release as it was part of the earlier developer previews.

In a nutshell, it lets you create a Yahoo map using the addresses or address links you find on web pages. This feature provides a quick way to map a list of addresses of interest in a specific area. However, Yahoo Maps lack of good support for anywhere else but the US is still apparent and I could not get it to recognise UK addresses.

I would love to see the ability to drag and drop geotagged photos or display of GeoRSS and/or geotagged RSS feeds and hope the guys and gals at Flock could improve this.

I urge you to try out Flock, it really is a good, opensource browser worthy of a little experiment – you’ve got nothing to lose!

technorati tags:flock, GIS, spatial, web_mapping, yahoo_maps

Blogged with Flock

Is Spatially Extending the DBMS the Right Way To Go?

OK, so I’m starting to post and straight off it’s nothing to do with the UK (I’m having doubts about this approach anyway). As part of my distance learning course (read more about me) I am currently half way through a database module, and the assignment may be an interesting topic to post. Please note I am not seeking answers/trying to plagerise etc, merely posting my thoughts.

The assignment has asked us to consider ways in which we would like to spatially extend MySQL (looking at Oracle Spatial and PostgreSQL/PostGIS was one of the first things I did), but the question assumes that is what we want to do anyway. But is it?

At this early stage, I can’t help but feel that it is not the best way to go. Whilst I can see a few advantages, there is something in the back of my mind that doesn’t feel right about spatially extending the DBMS.

Are they not for managing the data, that is what they do best. Leave the spatial operations to the GISoftware (ideally get rid of middleware into the GIS software), and use the DBMS for storage only. If current trends continue, will we not end up with Oracle competing against ESRI rather than complementing each other (As Oracle creates a DBMS GIS, and ESRI creates a GIS DBMS)?

I accept that storage of geometry types is one advantage of a spatially extended DBMS, and am prepared to give in to that one.

As I say, it early days yet, and as I investigate the literature this week will hopefully add a bit more. You never know I may give up swimming against the tide by the end…

technorati tags:GIS, DBMS, spatial

Blogged with Flock

Direction of this blog

Inspired by Dave Bouwman’s blog post about an apparent lack of GIS blog conversations, (GIS Blogs: Where’s the conversation?) and taking up another comment that maybe filtered blogs that cut out all the clutter would be advantageous, this is the way I am going to go.

I do not want to be a poor mans slashgeo or planet geospatial, simply inserting links or full blog posts. What I envisage is finding things that interest me, taking out the juicy bits and writing about them. Conversations are not just about adding comments to the bottom of a post, conversations can be found in highlighting other posts and adding value.

The ‘filtration’ I have choosen is to be UK centric, it’s where I am from and where I can relate to. I would best describe myself as a good GIS user; the problem for me is going to be at what level I post. Simple google mash-ups may not appeal to GIS professionals, but talk of a cool .net script someones just produced for ArcMap 9.1 isn’t going to appeal to the ‘typical’ web user. I guess I will have to try a few posts and see where it starts going.

technorati tags:GIS, spatial

Blogged with Flock

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