Where to buy and light fireworks in California

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I remember as a kid how fun it was on the 4th of July to light my own fireworks at home.  A bunch of families on the block would get together, have a BBQ, and enjoy the fireworks.

Later, the city I lived in banned them … I had a few choice words for them!

It sure does seem that fun past is just a memory now.  Not so!  There still are areas in California, and for us LA and Orange County, that you can still enjoy buying and lighting your own fireworks.  Check out this nifty listing at The California Fireworks Newswire.

Each city/county has their own rules, so you should consult their web sites or give them a call.  Most sales start at noon on June 28th.

Hey, someone should make an app for this!  Any takers?

Have fun and be safe!  And if you work/live at a city that still has fireworks, tell your leadership thanks for keeping the tradition alive!  I’ll spend my money in your city!  -mike

GeoServer Beginner’s Guide

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If you are into open source geospatial mapping and want to learn how to get your map data up quickly, this book is for you.  GeoServer Beginner’s Guide comes in eBook and Paperback format.

From the publisher: GeoServer is an open source server-side software written in Java that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards. GeoServer allows you to display your spatial information to the world. Implementing the Web Map Service (WMS) standard, GeoServer can create maps in a variety of output formats. OpenLayers, a free mapping library, is integrated into GeoServer, making map generation quick and easy. GeoServer is built on Geotools, an open source Java GIS toolkit.

GeoServer Beginner’s Guide gives you a kick start to build custom maps using your data without the need for costly commercial software licenses and restrictions. Even if you do not have prior GIS knowledge, you will be able to make interactive maps after reading this book.

You will install GeoServer, access your data from a database, style points, lines, polygons, and labels to impress site visitors with real-time maps.

Follow along through a step-by-step guide that installs GeoServer in minutes. Explore the web-based administrative interface to connect to backend data stores such as MySQL, PostGIS, MSSQL, and Oracle. Display your data on web-based interactive maps, style lines, points, polygons, and embed images to visualize this data for your web visitors. Walk away from this book with a working application ready for production.

After reading the GeoServer Beginner’s Guide, you will have beautiful, custom maps on your website built using your geospatial data.

Try the GeoGuessr and Win a Prize!

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Ok, had to repost this because I had a link that allowed you to see my location answers, so this is a do over!  RESET…

Try out the GeoGuessr and see if you can beat my score of 11780!  I challenge you!  The closer you guess where you are, the more points you get.  Post your score by replying to this post.  Send the bit.ly share link you can generate at the end of your guessing game to mcarson@burbankca.gov .  Top score by July 1st will get a map or globe themed prize from me!  Good luck.  -mike

SoCal URISA Networking Social

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During the ESRI Conference, SoCal URISA invites you to a Networking Social at:

Bootlegger Bar & Restaurant
Corner of 8th & Market, downtown San Diego
(Seven blocks from the Convention Center)
Wednesday, July 10th, 2012
4:00-7:00pm

Drinks and appetizers will be served.  Free for Members!  If you are not a member, you can join online or on-site for $30 individual, $10 students.

Please register at:  www.socalurisa.org

Student Reviews of Our Apps

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I was searching on Google for something (I can’t remember what now, like the dog seeing a squirrel I was distracted for sure) and came across a UCLA Advanced GIS class web site that students post their work on.  These students are learning about web GIS and creating applications themselves.  One of the assignments the students had to do was to post reviews of sites that use interactive GIS technology … and some of the sites were ours!  Some of the reviews were eye opening, however we should treat it like a new user trying to use our apps.

So here are some interesting reviews of our sites, sites we post our data on, or other local sites of interest:

LA County’s GIS-NET3 (and here too)

LAPD Crime Map

UCLA Campus Map

Explore Santa Monica

LA Times Mapping LA Neighborhoods

City of Los Angeles Bikeway Map

City of Los Angeles ZIMAS

Beverly Hills Crime Data Map

Beverly Hills Bike Rack Locations

Crimemapping.com

-mike

USGS Map Services for The National Map

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Hello California GIS users.

We wanted to make everyone aware of several map services that USGS supports. These allow you to view nationwide data from The National Map in your GIS software. To use these in ArcGIS – select Add Data button then choose GIS Server from the list, then “add ArcGIS Server”

To add the tiled map cache (these are background topographic map images, including topo maps with and without imagery), use: http://basemap.nationalmap.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services

If you want raster data services, use: http://raster.nationalmap.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services

And if you want vector data services use: http://services.nationalmap.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services

There is also a NED status service (this shows availability and resolution of USGS digital elevation models) at: http://igskmncnvs526.cr.usgs.gov/arcgis/rest/services

Hope these help and please let us know if you have any questions.  Thanks,

Carol Ostergren
Drew Decker
USGS Geospatial Liaison for Pacific Region
NSDI Partnership Office, U.S. Geological Survey
4165 Spruance Road, Suite 200
San Diego, CA 92101
619-225-6430
619-225-6101 fax
ddecker@usgs.gov
http://liaisons.usgs.gov/geospatial/California/
http://liaisons.usgs.gov/geospatial/Hawaii/

Reserved PostgreSQL System Column Names

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So I’m looking at possibly using PostgreSQL for our enterprise geodatabase.  I was working on installing ESRI’s Public Safety COP web mapping application and I was copying feature classes from a file based geodatabase that comes with the app into PostgrSQL and received this error:

“ERROR 000210: Cannot create output Database Connections … Column already exists [ERROR: column name “xmin” conflicts with a system column name …”

What?  You got to be kidding me!  I was following the directions!  I tried ESRI tech support but for some reason they were swamped and could not help me … I’m still waiting for their call back.  Probably everyone is installing their apps!  So I decided to figure this thing out myself.

So I cannot have a field named XMIN as an attribute to my data?  After consulting the PostgreSQL documentation, sure enough, I cannot have XMIN or XMAX as field names because they are reserved system columns.

Great!  So I guess I cannot use the Public Safety COP or any data that has XMIN or XMAX field names with PostgreSQL.  Hmm.  So I thought I would try our Oracle enterprise geodatabase to see if that works. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I got this error:

“Underlying DBMS error [ORA-00972: identifier is too long (DEV.DamageResidentialBuilding_ATTACH)] …”

This is very sad!  I think I will go fire up Workstation ArcInfo and be happy!

arc

And it likes XMIN and YMIN too!

-mike