Andrew's GIS Platforms reloaded

A GIS group discussion prompted me to update this list of selected desktop & web platforms by delivery and cost - note that it excludes commercially serviced FOSS, as well as web & mobile apps - and the usual caveats apply, see details on last page.

iPad maps

Here is a small selection of mapping tools available on the iPad. Some are from the Appstore, others simply from the web. These are screen shots that I took for those (thanks my readers for how-to tips).

Roundup of web projects

Is it spring in the air or LinkedIn's new (to me) facility to post projects? Here is a round-up of various projects in the past five years as recently posted on my LinkedIn page:

"Better metadata for GIS"

Just posted my two-page extract from the June issue of Digital Energy Journal:

We are going to see much more improved "metadata" system for geo-graphical data - which will help integrate it much more closely with bigger information management systems, writes Andrew Zolnai, sales and marketing director, Interactive Net Mapping Ltd.

5 Ws for citizens-as-sensors

Des Kilfoil at the CBC in Calgary, Canada introduced me 20-odd years ago to the 5Ws, the basic tenets of any investigative reporting, from journalists to police, from Wikipedia:

• Who? Who was involved?
• What? What happened (what's the story)?
• Where? Where did it take place?
• When? When did it take place?
• Why? Why did it happen?
• How? How did it happen?

The power of context, Part III

[Update: I noted on many of my Google Fusion Table posts that, while the data are still on Google Drive for you to view, GFT no longer offers a polygon or heatmap option, only geocoding by country centroid in its new version. Not sure why, but on this, this, this and another example posted as Iframes not Scripts preserved the old GFT maps.]

Ruth Lang created this excellent mashup for the 2010 FIFA World Cup - which coloured all the countries at the beginning and gradually greys them out as they are eliminated - only Spain and the Netherlands are left as at today. This was a labour of love, needing for example some tweeking to work in the Firefox browser, and a testament to SVG.

A Tale of two approaches, part III

My previous posts here, here and here are summarised in today' reply to Matt Ball's excellent Spatial Sustain entry, What comes first, model-based design or integrated project workflows?

A tale of two approaches, part II

Things have moved since my previous post: even though ESRI doesn't want to be geodesign, that is high on their agenda in their business partner conference this week. And since where 2.0 among many others hail location services as the next big thing, it's no surprise Wired quotes Jack Dangermond as pushing handhelds for onsite design as I imagine it:

Crowdsourcing for Dummies

James Fee points out Google's Michael Jones on crowdsourcing in Directions Magazine. But let's not forget the "other" democratisation of the geoweb: the tools and online community to help post geodata of any source you choose.