GIS Dev Cafe

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, GeoSearch and GeoBlogSearch.
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Microsoft released their newest search engine beta implementation today,Tafiti (Swahili for “do research”) . Tafiti merges Microsoft Live search and Silverlight , their newest web technology display mechanism, to provide a very unique visual experience compared to other search engines like Google and Yahoo. Continue Reading »

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In the past weeks there has been a good deal of discussion on the GIS community and communication. There has been numerous comments and blog postings all pertaining to this topic (including one I missed a couple of weeks ago from slashgeo). When I started this series of postings, I was just curious how other GIS professionals perceived the notion of a GIS community. In this post I would like to highlight what I consider to be the “take away” points from this discussion and offer my final thoughts.
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Earlier this week I asked the question “Where is the GIS Community”. After much discussion of this topic on various blogs and comment sections, I am not sure I can still answer the question in exactly the same way as before. I still feel a lack of something, which I dubbed community. I have come to realize that maybe the community is there, but what is really missing is communication, the necessary exchange of ideas that holds a community together or even brings them together as a group. I am not saying we all need to get in a big circle and hold hands while singing kumbaya around a giant bonfire. Instead we need to talk more to each other and less at each other, we need to exchange ideas not just sit and listen on the sidelines, there needs to be active participation as this is not lecture hour at university. Let me explain…
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I have been working in GIS Software Engineering and Development for a couple of years now and have often pondered the question “Where is the GIS community…. Does Anybody Care?”. Based on my experience, there is no such thing as a GIS user and/or developer community , instead there are loose connections containing blogs and sites with little discussion in the form of comments or cross blog interaction(Unless the discussion involves ESRI and/or ESRI licensing). To me, the concept of an online community composes a place where people with an interest in GIS and GIS development can go and be a part of something larger then themselves,a place of belonging, a third place, a common ground.
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Neogeographers are the wave of the future… Or are they the bane and destruction of all that is spatial and cartographic? From a geography/GIS background, what books or resources do you think would give neogeographers an understanding to create meaningful cartographic output?

The idea of this post is to illicit suggestions from the geography/GIS community and to generate a running list of must read books and resources for neogeographers and the just plain curious.
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