Looking for aggregate census data and boundary files?  Check out the National Historical Geographic Information System.  They include census information from 1790 to the present.

Through the NHGIS Data Finder, users may:

• Filter and sort through thousands of available tables and boundary files
• Select and download multiple tables and boundary files, for different geographic levels and from different years, all in one request

All free of charge!

They have currently released:

• 2013 American Community Survey 1- and 3-Year Summary Files
• 2012 American Community Survey 1-, 3-, and 5-Year Summary Files and associated GIS boundary files
• 2009 American Community Survey 5-Year Summary Files and associated GIS boundary files
• Time Series Release 5: 17 new tables including Poverty Status, Ratio of Income to Poverty Level, Means of Transportation to Work, and Households by Household Type
• Data Finder improvements for a better user experience

NHGIS is also preparing the 2013 ACS 5-year Summary Files and 2013 GIS boundary files for release by early 2015.

After 25 years, the Census TIGER data is still in demand.  Even the USGS plans on using it as the primary source of road mapping data for its National Map Viewer and Topo digital mapping applications.

The State of California is offering GIS services for organizations that need access to GIS resources.  See the LA County eGIS posting here.

CGIA is looking for someone to create their next web application that will make accessible a list of GIS contacts throughout the State of California.  The competition is open to anyone.  First prize will be $1,500.  Click here for more info.

As you read this post, there are many digital attacks going on over the internet.  The most common is called the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.  A DDoS attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. They target a wide variety of important resources, from banks to news websites, and present a major challenge to making sure people can publish and access important information.  Watch this video to learn more.  Click below to view real time and historical DDoS attacks worldwide.

If you use ESRI’s Collector for ArcGIS in your organization, it looks like they have updated the software to 10.2.7 for both iOS and Android platforms.

For the iOS platform, Collector now fully supports the new resolutions introduced with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.  In addition, a number of key software defects were addressed.

For more info, visit the announcement here.

More scary pictures about the drought, this one about California groundwater loss.  NASA used satellites to measure the Earth’s gravity field, which is influenced by many factors including stored water in the soil and rocks.  Click on the image to read the article.