Gas Scarcity In Atlanta
Posted by Aaron VanWieren on 06 Oct 2008 | Tagged as: General Ramblings
I never thought I would live to see the day I would be waiting for over 20 minutes to get gas. Atlanta and the southwest were hit hard by the gas shortages caused by the oil refinery shutdown caused from hurican Ike, leading to weeks of empty pumps and long lines at stations that had gas. But, that has finally loosened up a little and things here in Atlanta are starting to return to normal.
I remember the weekend that Ike hit Texas. My tank was 1/4 full and I did not think to fill up on Friday. It was a Sunday and I had heard that gas was growing scarce. I work 40 miles from my home and became a little worried about having gas the next day to get to work. I drove out to get gas and was amazed to find almost every gas station empty, pumps covered with no gas. Continue Reading »
What did GIS on the internet look like in 2001? Thanks to Google we can now search like it was 2001 (Does not work like “Search like it was 1999″, but I digress)! Google has recently put their 
Don’t know if anybody else has posted this, but ESRI was featured in a Channel9 video a few weeks back. Most of this video focuses on GIS technologies for the general public, but there are some interesting things for spatial developers. Of interest to developers is the discussion of SqlServer 2008 and ArcGIS 9.3 potential implementation. A little long and at times basic, this video is still an enjoyable watch and has some take away value, if anything it is interesting hearing ESRI talk about themselves and their development methodologies. 
As a developer of GIS, and more broadly Microsoft .Net software, I have come to realize there is a level of information overload within the industry. There exists more data, information, tools and programming language concepts than can realistically be absorbed. Often, I rely on Google Search to find the information and implementations I need. Without getting too bogged down in the nitty and gritty of programming methodology, the point is that programmers, heck all users, today have an overabundance of options to discover new data and information. The online search tool then plays a necessary role in assisting and aiding in discovering this flow of information quickly. But when performing a search the user has to wade through tons of results often consisting of numerous unrelated links, before finding the information they were looking for. So how exactly can users find information faster with more reliable results? One answer is Google Custom Search. This post will explain how this tool is useful for searching for specific GIS and geographic related information, with a focus on a new search tool I have added to this site,