Geocortex Blog

Discussion Forum Superheroes

As part of our new and improved Geocortex Support Center launch last April, we challenged forum members to participate in our Discussion Forums to share knowledge and help build a strong, vibrant user community. We established prizes to acknowledge key contributors in a tangible way by offering $1000 (MVP) and $500 (runner-up) in support/training/services credits to the two community members that we deemed most helpful to their peers between the launch and September 1st. 

Bravo to our MVPs

We’ve gone through the stats and the Geocortex Support Team has cast their votes. Congratulations to Gareth Finney, our MVP and winner of the $1000 prize. Coming in not far behind, a thank-you to Sonia Dickerson, who has also been a big contributor and has been selected for the $500 prize. Special thanks to you both for actively contributing valuable knowledge to the discussion forums! 

Gareth Finney (MVP) - Spatial Consultant - Department of Sustainability and Environment - Melbourne, Australia

Sonia Dickerson (MVP Runner-Up) - EGIS Developer - Minnesota Department of Transportation

Although Gareth and Sonia are being specifically acknowledged, we’d like to thank everyone who has been contributing to the Geocortex Discussion Forums. We’re really starting to see an awesome community of Geocortex users helping one another succeed with web-based mapping emerge. Together we can continue to build a great resource for people to help each other find answers for common questions and overcome roadblocks.

But let’s keep the conversations going!

We are pleased to announce that we are offering a second challenge round which will run from September 14, 2011 to February 14, 2012.

We are offering the same prize options as before and will use the same participation criteria to recognize super achievers. Please review the original Announcement in the Discussion Forums for background information. We hope this additional incentive will allow the superpowers lurking in everyone to shine through. Winners will be announced shortly after Valentine’s Day 2012.

Latitude is working more and more with distributors to represent and implement our Geocortex technology overseas (we actually hosted our Geocortex Business Partner Summit in Victoria last week – it’s always great to get together in person). As part of this strategy I’m pleased to welcome two new distributors in Europe.

1Spatial is now the Geocortex reseller for  the United Kingdom and Ireland. 1Spatial has been serving public and private sector clients for more than 40 years, and as they continue to build out a practice helping organizations that make extensive use of Esri technology, they determined that Geocortex can help Esri clients achieve their objectives in a unique and compelling way. And we determined they get it, and are good at what they do.

Informi GIS A/S is now the Geocortex reseller in The Kingdom of Denmark. Informi is also Esri’s official distributor in Denmark, and like other Esri distributors who resell Geocortex technology, they determined that Geocortex technology is complementary to Esri’s core ArcGIS Server offerings. I had the opportunity to visit their offices in Copenhagen last January; they’re a great group of people with a top-notch reputation.

You can read more about our business partners here. 1Spatial and Informi will undoubtedly do some excellent work in the months and years ahead to introduce Geocortex technology to people in their countries, and it’s a pleasure to have this opportunity to work side by side.

We are pleased to announce that Geocortex Essentials 3.4.2 is now generally available to customers.

This is a maintenance release to address some known issues in the product. In addition to our regular bug fixes we’ve paid particular attention to REST endpoint performance and improved support for secured ArcGIS Server services.

Geocortex customers can visit the Geocortex Support Center to download this update and product release notes.

When Latitude Geographics relocated its waterfront offices last year (approximately 100 meters eastward), we wound up with a better view of Victoria harbour. The harbour is actually a very busy one; with float planes, kayaks, canoes and boats of all type coming and going all day.

Over the past two weeks we have had the pleasure of looking out the office windows and seeing the following two images of beauty.

The first is the Attessa IV pictured below. Please note the helicopter pad. Very cool.

Today, the Pallada from Russia set anchor in nearly the same spot. Very impressive.

With the nice warm weather, Victoria harbour is a great place to drop anchor this time of year. The 270 Russian sailors on board surely will take the opportunity to do a lot of sight-seeing over the weekend.

We’ve used Salesforce.com across a number of departments for several years now, and I’m a big fan. When you factor in all the costs of an internally deployed CRM, I think we’re way ahead.

This morning we experienced a two hour Salesforce.com outage during regular business hours. The outage happened with one instance among the many they deploy, but it happened to be the one we’re on.

For me, what’s most interesting about the relatively brief outage is my reaction to it. I was a little bit outraged. After all, what am I paying them for? I found myself reflecting on the risks associated with becoming increasingly reliant on Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings. Truthfully, my gut expectation is zero unplanned service interruptions.

I should be more realistic given that for the last ten years we’ve been a SaaS provider (ArcIMS hosting, now ArcGIS Server hosting). Our goal is maximum possible uptime of a fairly complex system. While we’re good at avoiding downtime, every once in a while something trips up. And although we respond quickly and effectively, I figure most clients feel just like I do when it happens to us.

Contrast this with internal systems deployed by folks you know and work with. A couple nights ago our IT team was doing some complicated internal email server maintenance/upgrades as part of scheduled downtime. It took longer than the expected hour. It took a few hours. I made a phone call later in the evening, and was informed that a couple unexpected issues had cropped up and were being addressed. I was fine with it, because I knew Alex and Barry were working aggressively on it and I know them to be extremely smart, hardworking guys. In fact, I felt bad they were stuck in the office dealing with MS Exchange gremlins until 1AM. My gut expectation of them is rapid recovery from unforeseen challenges.

SaaS may be imperfect but it’s an alternative to in-house systems that, if we add things up at lots of organizations, probably experience comparable (if not more) downtime. The specific examples I’ve used are merely anecdotes and they differ in key ways; my point is that I think people tend to be far more empathetic when we’re working with the actual people who are responding to a system failure.

The Geocortex Sample Flex Viewer provides Geocortex Essentials licensees with a viewer template for creating applications based on the Esri and Latitude Flex APIs. Release 2.1 highlights include:

• Viewer Template Engine Support: The Viewer is now shipped as a template which can be “plugged-in” to the Viewer Template Engine in Geocortex Essentials.
• Internationalization: The Viewer is now internationalized, meaning it can now be localized for languages other than English.
• Updated ArcGIS API for Flex Support: The latest version (2.3.1) of the ArcGIS API for Flex is included and completely supported.
• Quality Improvements: Various bugs/issues identified since the last release have been resolved.
• Availability of Source Code

Sharing the design principles of our Geocortex Viewer for Silverlight, we hope our customers enjoy working with this next-generation viewer design that seeks to incorporate the simplicity of web mapping with the power of feature-rich web-GIS applications. More information can be found in the Geocortex Support Center.

Geocortex Viewer for Silverlight 1.2.1 is now generally available to customers.

The Geocortex Viewer for Silverlight is part of Geocortex Essentials; however it is shipped and released separately.

This is essentially a maintenance release to address some known issues, but does also contain some minor feature enhancements as well as improvements to performance. For more information, Geocortex customers can visit the Geocortex Support Center to download this update and product release notes.

At the Esri user conference in San Diego this week, Latitude Geographics will be providing a short 20-minute presentation in its booth (#2417) on Tuesday and Wednesday at 5PM.

Say Goodbye to the Web-GIS Viewer: An evolution from “one-off” Web-GIS viewers to purpose-specific spatial application delivery is underway – stop by and learn all about it.

San Diego Convention Center

We’re looking forward to another great User Conference in San Diego this year. Look for Latitude Geographics in Booth 2417 in the Exhibition Hall.

If you’re planning to attend, we want to make sure you’re aware of the following Geocortex-related presentations and events taking place.

Presentation: Geocortex Technology Update

Geocortex clients, prospective clients and partners interested in learning more about our product plans are invited to attend this technology update session. The objective is to provide information about the current status of Geocortex technology and our product roadmap; topics will include Geocortex Essentials 3.5, our strategy for mobile technology, and our Spatial Application Infrastructure approach. Hosted by our President and CEO, Steven Myhill-Jones, we welcome your participation and questions.

Date: 07/12/2011 (Tuesday)

Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Location: Room 27 A, San Diego Convention Center

Event: Geocortex Picnic and BBQ

We’re pleased to invite our clients, prospective clients and business partners to Embarcadero Marina Park South, located immediately behind the San Diego Convention Center. Unwind from the busy conference, relax and join us seaside for a pleasant picnic lunch with members of the Geocortex community and staff from Latitude Geographics. Please be sure to RSVP by July 7 if you plan to attend the BBQ.

Date: 07/13/2011 (Wednesday)

Time: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Location: Embarcadero Marina Park South

Presentation: Key Principles Linked to Long-Term Success with Web Mapping Initiatives

Having played a role in the development of hundreds of web mapping and web-GIS applications, Latitude Geographics has identified several principles that influence the long-term success of web mapping deployments. By being mindful of these principles and balancing the natural tensions that exist between them, organizations can better achieve their program objectives. This presentation will be of particular interest for individuals currently contemplating technology change. This session is presented by Steven Myhill-Jones and is as part of the GIS Managers Open Summit; more information on the Summit can be found here.

Date: 07/13/2011

Time: 2PM

Location: Ballroom 20 B/C, San Diego Convention Center

The online agenda for the Esri UC can be found here. Given everything going on, don’t forget to mark your calendar with events/sessions you plan to attend! We hope to see you in San Diego next week.

There is a new Ocean Basemap available on ArcGIS Online for your bathymetric needs.

This map service is designed to be used as a basemap by marine GIS professionals and as a reference map by anyone interested in ocean data. The basemap includes bathymetry, marine water body names, undersea feature names, and derived depth values in meters. Land features include administrative boundaries, cities, inland waters, roads, overlaid on land cover and shaded relief imagery.