Interested in map history? Doing a research projected in map history or cartography? You might want to check out The International Directory of Researchers in Map History.
The purpose of the directory is to promote communication among researchers who study the history of maps and to provide information about the field to the public. The directory is an open source for contact information, current interests, research projects, and publications related to map history. Check it out.
ESRI has updated ArcGIS Online for March. One of the big ones is what they call Smart Mapping which include new ways to symbolize data, “smart” defaults, and data-driven workflows. Check it out.
Check out HistoricPlacesLA.org. It is the first online information and management system specifically created to inventory, map, and help protect the City of Los Angeles’ significant historic resources. It showcases the city’s diversity of historic resources, including architecturally significant buildings and places of social importance, as well as historic districts, bridges, parks, and streetscapes.
Thanks goes to Barry Waite at the City of Carson for pointing out this resource.
Check out this map from NPR’s Planet Money blog depicting the most common job in each state from 1978 to 2014. What emerges is a story of changing economic, demographic, and technological circles over a period of 36 years. There sure were a lot of truck drivers in 2004 … “puttin’ the hammer down on the super slab”!
If you use ArcGIS Online to publish maps and apps, ESRI’s December update brought some new options for customizing and embedding maps.
Looking to buy a home? Or should you just rent? Here is a neat little map app from LA Times showing where you can afford to live. You enter your household income, percent of income you want to dedicate to housing, a down payment you can afford to place on a house if you were buying, and the length of mortgage in years. Once calculated, a nice map is displayed showing how much you are willing to spend on housing and the areas that are cheaper to own, cheaper to rent, or difficult to afford. Areas are divided by zip codes. Hover over an area to get median home prices, monthly home costs, and median rent.
The LA Times had an interesting map on measles vaccination rates at child-care centers in the Los Angeles area. You can see some scary clusters … that’s you Santa Monica! Click the map to read the article.
Check out this historical atlas of the California State Highway System. The atlas has a reversed chronological assembly of official California highway maps from 1990 back to 1918. The maps are bound together with a custom cover and include regional enlargements, illustrations, descriptive text, route descriptions, and construction and funding status. Download the maps in their high resolution glory!
Check this map out showing how much snow it takes to cancel school by state. Click it to read the article about how it was created.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3341866/1086833227377542722.0.png)
Google has announced that they are ending support for Google Maps Engine (GME). If you are using GME to store your vector and raster data in the cloud, be aware that your GME data will be removed in a year on January 29, 2016.
So where can you migrate your data now? Safe Software has written an article listing some options that you have. Of course if you use their FME product, it’s just a one-step process! However, besides the sales pitch, they do present some options that you have to migrate your data to.
I personally have used ArcGIS Online and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) to store spatial data. With ArcGIS Online you have to buy a plan first, then you will consume credits when you store your data there. With Amazon RDS you can use SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or the new Amazon Aurora with costs for the instance (server) size/database type, consumed storage, and traffic. Keep in mind that ArcGIS Online has tools built-in to analyze and display spatial data as well as being integrated with their ArcGIS software products. Amazon RDS is just a storage solution, so you will need to come up with other options for analyzing and map display of your spatial data in the cloud, like using ArcGIS software or something else.
SoCalGIS.org 