Nokia 770

After my post about the new Microsoft Ultra Mobile device, I got a comment about the Nokia 770. The Nokia looks great and appears to be cheaper then the new MS device but it is Linux based and every PC I own or use is Windows. So I wonder how compatible it would be. I'm basically looking for something that I can

• do email on
• listen to music
• watch video
• browser the web
• sync calendar, contacts and task with Outlook
• small
• long battery

Anyone out there using the Nokia 770?

The Ultra-Mobile PC

Microsoft and its hardware partners have come up with new mobile device called the "Ultra-Mobile PC". It runs full Windows XP and appears to be a mash-up of a Tablet PC and PDA in my opinion. The video on this site peaks my interest but I wonder how much they will cost.

Go Everywhere - Do Everything

ArcGIS and Visual Studio 2005

At the Dev Summit last week, I got asked several times about Visual Studio 2005 support. Here is a link to an ESRI Support Knowledge Basic article with more information on the question.

In summary…
ArcGIS 9.1 supports .Net 1.1 and VS.Net 2003
ArcGIS 9.2 will support .Net 2.0 and VS 2005

There is some talk on the forums on using VS 2005 with 9.1 but full support and integration of the ArcGIS SDKs and VS 2005 comes at 9.2


“Value friendship for what there is in it, not for what can be gotten out of it.”
- H. Clay Trumbull

Geodatabase Toolset available

The Geodatabase Toolset is composed of tools used to investigate and diagnose geodatabase performance issues. The tools are designed to work with the geodatabase and the ArcMap and ArcCatalog applications within the ArcGIS Desktop products (ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo). The Geodatabase Toolset also provides the ability to generate descriptive reports for analysis. The tools are organized in two sets, each hosted in ArcCatalog and ArcMap.

In ArcMap, the Geodatabase Toolset is used to review and design characteristics of MXDs, display refresh performance, and for DBMS tracing. In ArcCatalog, it is used to review enterprise geodatabase information.

Many of the tools provide tables containing numerical information that can be exported to external files that can be archived, sent to technical support, or imported to Excel.
Diagnostic tools include:

• Editing information
• DBMS statistics
• Picture showing hierarchical relationship of states and versions
• Visual display and numerical information of spatial index definitions
• Relative fetch timer
• Refresh timer (per layer)
• Ability to start and stop DBMS tracking
• Ability to review layer information relevant to performance
  

ESRI User Conference

I need to look up some information on pre-conference sessions for this years International User Conference and the first think I noticed on the conference web site was that the conference is only 132 days away. We just finished the Developer Summit and it's already time to work on User Conference as 132 days will go by fast.

San Diego is a great place to be in August....

"May your eyes stay filled with stars and your hearts with visions of dreams yet to come"
- Traditional Wedding Toast

Engine in action

It was very exciting at the Dev Summit and BPC to see all the different developers building custom applications with ArcGIS Engine. In my opinion, it looked like more then ever before, people are using the Engine Dev Kit to create a custom solution. I’d like to share some of your good work with the Engine development team here in Redlands so if you are doing any development with Engine, send me a quick screenshot of your application. I want to create a collage of screen shots of custom Engine solutions.

“Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”
- Robert F. Kennedy

Dev Summit is over

The first ever ESRI Developer Summit is now history and the reviews and feedback is starting to come in….

I personally think the event was a success, there are things that can be improved upon for next year but I’m happy. Actually I’m tired…. It’s been a long with week leading up to the Summit and it was a busy few days. Now it’s now to the Business Partner Conference where I’m doing a few sessions on developer opportunities for partners.

Here are a few highlights for me

• The huge turn out, over 700
• The Community Center
• Good wireless
• Comfortable chairs
• Tech Talks
• Area to mingle and meet with people
• Snacks
• Plenary session with Scott and friends
• Hearing from IBM and Microsoft executives that understand the value of the GIS community
• Meeting a lot of really talented developers using ESRI products
  
  I need your feedback, good and bad so that we can build on the good for next year and improve and grow the Dev Summit in the right direction for you the developer. Please send me an email at relkins@esri.com

Dev Summit is rolling now…

The Keynote this morning was great, Scott Morehouse, Director of Software Development spoke followed by several demos highlighting the upcoming 9.2 release. The Technical Session are going strong today and I just upload some more photos on flickr from the wireless in the Community Center.

There are lot of devs here, I think there will end up being close to 800. I think that's pretty good for a first ever event.

Getting ready...

I’m here in Palm Springs helping setup the plenary stage for the big opening session Friday morning. I took a few photos and put them on my flickr site which I’ll try to update each day here in Palm Springs

I can report that the wireless connect is solid here in the main hall where the plenary and keynote session will be.

The Big Dance

Tomorrow I leave for Palm Spring for the Dev Summit and it’s also the start of the NCAA Basketball championship. I also fill out the brackets and big a winner. And my final 4 are Duke, UCLA, Villanova, and Connecticut. I’m a life long Duke fan so I have them winning it all. Who’s your pick? And if you are in Palm Springs, make sure and say hello.

New Dev Summit Tab on EDN

Checkout the new Developer Summit tab on the EDN site.

IBM and Microsoft to speak at Dev Summit

At the Dev Summit, there will be a plenary session each day. On Friday Scott Morehouse, Director of Software Development here at ESRI will be the featured speaker.

On Saturday morning we are going to start early so we have time for IBM and Microsoft to each present before we break into sessions. Check out the IBM and Microsoft session here.

It's already March

It’s a beautiful day here in Redlands, we got a lot of rain earlier in the week but today it’s around 65 degrees F and nice. It’s hard to believe it’s March already, 2006 is over to a quick start. The Developer Summit and Business Partner conference are just a few weeks away and I’ve already been to my first meeting about the User Conference scheduled for August this year.

Last night I purchased an external hard drive from my personal computer at home to backup photos, videos and files but to my surprise it didn’t come with any automatic backup utilities. Anyone have any recommendations on free utility that will backup a few folders from the C drive to the external drive?

“It’s easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.”
- Francois De Le Rochefoucauld