List of Mac OS X apps that grew on me in 2006

As 2006 is coming to an end one of the things I’ve been doing is cleaning up my hard drive. I have to admit that I have way too many apps on my computer… but the cleaning job forced me to think about the list of apps that I found indispensable in 2006. Below is my list and BTW they are not in any particular order.

• Shapeshifter- If you don’t like the look of Mac OX and would like to change it slightly or totally then this is the app for you. It reminds me of Windows Blinds or Style XP for Windows… Except this doesn’t seem to bog down your OS at all. I’m currently using a theme which looks like iTunes 7 called 7 which you can get at Interfacelift.

• Journler- If you need to keep a digital diary of sorts that includes, URLs, images, and such this is a good program. You can even blog with it. Its essentially free although if you can afford it you should donate.

• Omni DiskSweeper- I recently was at a lost for why I had 10 less GB of hard drive space than when I first turn on my computer since I was cleaning up that day and did not remember adding anymore video files… I searched Mac support and someone mentioned that I probably have something in my tmp folder that was causing a problem. I was wondering where this folder was since I couldn’t exactly get to it. They suggested downloading Omni Group’s DiskSweeper and I did and ran it and it tells you which apps/ folders are eating up lots of space on your HD. I knew that my iTunes folder and Apps folder would be large but then I noticed a folder that was way too large about 10 GB larger than it should have been. Yeah the tmp folder had some large 10GB temporary installation file sitting in it. Disksweeper allowed me to find, delete the file and reclaim my 10GB.

• Imagewell- when it comes to resizing images for the web etal. there is no other tool for me. Its fast and does not reduce the quality of your images like some other programs out there. I use this a lot. Best of all its free!

• Ecto- This is my blogging tool of choice. It supports all the major blogging API like Blogger, WordPress and Movable type. It is availabe for Windows as well as Mac OS X.

• Curio- Blogged about this one before- its basically a project management software that lets you organize all sort of useful stuff like you would a notebook. I’ve already used it to organize my thoughts for 2 grants (which we successfully received) as well as a few web projects.

• Dreamweaver - not particularly just a Mac OS X app perse but this is an old favorite and I have to add it in since I used it so much. I’ve been using Dreamweaver since version 4. I know there are a few other web design tools the likes of iWeb, RapidWeaver, and Sandvox but Dreamweaver gives me ultimate flexibility to design from scratch in design view and switch to code view when I want plus the CSS editing functionality is very straightforward. Its a workflow thing with me and Dreamweaver fits my workflow the best. RapidWeaver with the blocks plug-in is a good second.

• Jet Photo Studio- A FREE piece of software that lets you store, organize, edit, print, and share digital photos. My favorite feature is that it allows you to generate flash based slideshows for the web. It is also available on the Mac and windows platform.

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Packs Now Available

I’ve been checking the ESRI page everyday since I first heard that ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 2 was to be released on December 18th. Alas! It was delayed until after Christmas… Earlier today I went to check and there they were. I downloaded the first of the three because that’s all I had time for today and applied the patch to 2 machines so far. All seems to be working well. I’m wondering if its safe to install IE 7 now (seems to work fine on my Boss’s machine. I’ll have to download the ArcSDE & ArcIMS patch later the ArcGIS Desktop patch was 44 MB. Quite a bit to push over our network. Here are the links to the patch. Go get em! ArcGIS Desktop 9.2 SP 1, ArcSDE 9.2 SP 1, ArcIMS 9.2 SP1

Nollaig Chridheil

Merry Christmas Everybody! Not much going on today just relaxing, stuffing my face, gabbing on the phone and of course spending some time on the computer. I’m stuck in Upstate, NY again for another Christmas except this time there is no snow. Wish I was in Florida eating my mother’s cooking. Guess I should count my blessings… at least I’m not stuck in other places because of cancelled flights. I still wish my Mom would send me a care packet of curried goat, rice and peas, black cake, and sorrel. Yummmmm… I haven’t had curried goat and sorrel since I was in Jamaica back in spring. Not cool I was almost able to get some goat so I could cook my own but it didn’t work out. Perhaps someone will have mercy on me and send/ bring me some. Who knows. Well, hope ya’ll had a great Christmas and Happy holidays to the folks out there who don’t celebrate Christmas Nollaig Chridheil,
Catt

The Case of the Missing Usability Enhancements in ArcGIS 9.2…

Let me start off by commending ESRI on the fine job they have done with the new usability enhancements in ArcGIS 9.2. That said, there are a few more that I would like to see…

That display vs. selection tab blunder- where am I?

Maybe its just me, but I find it a bit difficult to tell when editing a layer if the selection tab is active or the display tab is active (especially I have gobs of other layers in the TOC). I know that the selection tab is the one with the yellow icons by the Layers list at the top but when you have a tons of layers and you are down in the middle of the layers list its hard to tell which tab is active exactly without having to look at the bottom or the left. This results in me clicking in the display tab thinking that I’m specifying which layers are selectable and clicking in the selection tab thinking that I’m turning layers on/ off. I’ve caught myself doing this more than a few times now to blame it on the interface. Here is what I think ESRI can do to make things easier for us payin customers: Make the contents of the two tabs visually different. Simply making the boxes in the selectable layers tab bolder or a different color would help to reduce these common mishaps.

The Topology Editing Options won’t stay put after closing my MXD

While using the modify edge command to move several feature classes via Map Topology I notice that the selected nodes are way too large and usually covers over myproperty lines when zoomed in closely. To mimimize this problem, I’ve developed a habit of changing the topology elements symbology to .30 for selected nodes and .001 for selected edges. I do my edits, save the changes and the MXD file and finish up for the day. Next day I open said MXD again to do more edits… select the modify edge tool to move some more nodes and edges and notice that when I select a node its large again (didn’t I change this the last time?) I go to Editor—-> Options—-> Topology Elements Symbology and low and behold the nodes have reset themselves to 5 and the edges are back to 2. I set them back to .30 and .001 next day I have to set them back again. Next day after that, its OK, I get .30 and .001 I’m happy OK maybe now it will stick, next day we are playing the 5/2 game again. I’m unhappy about this, what a time waster.

A minor enhancement request oh beloved programmers

I like the new calculate geometry tool, I have to admit that my old calculator has gotten little attention since I upgraded to 9.2 almost a month ago. There are two ways to make this tool better. The first way is to include the ability to use a default calculation option. For example, I mainly calculate polygons so I use Area/ Acres US. I notice that the calculator remembers the map projection why can’t it remember that I like to calculate areas in Acres US? There should be some kind of option to specify this so I don’t have to pick it from the list every-time. Also would be nice if it saved these default between sessions. The second request is to put a button on the toolbar to click on a polygon in the main ArcMap window instead of having to go to tables everytime. I thought that this was doable from a demo I saw but I can’t calculate the geometry for a selected feature w/out going to the table. Odd… I think that you can do a graphic but not n actual feature… Still have to look into this one, have been so swamped with work I haven’t the proper time to check out all of the new stuff yet.

ArcGIS Server 9.2 Upgraded Thanks to ESRI!

ArcGIS Server (via ESRI)

I was very excited a couple of days ago to find out that although we weren’t one of the folks that won the ArGIS Server Stratus Grant. We did however, receive an ESRI ArcGIS Server Software grant. This grant allowed us to upgrade our ArcGIS Server Standard to ArcGIS Server Advanced free of charge (minus the time spent wrting and sending off the grant). This is what we needed to do our project in the first place so I was very excited. I got receieved the new codes in my inbox just yesterday. Its funny, I did not want to spend the time applying but I sure I’m glad I did. The praying also helped esp. since we tuned it in at the last possible minute.   Now we can proceed with our project (more on that later) as planned esp. since we were successful in obtaining another grant to offset the consulting and other fees.

Where did my town go?

I just started to read a book that I won at a GIS Day Drawing titled “From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps, Name, Claim, and Inflame” by Mark Monmonier (its generally about the political influences on toponymy in the US over the years thus far) so when I came across this story: Mapmaker puts tiny towns on road to oblivion - CNN.com I was quite taken with it. Basically, a cartographer in Georgia removed 488 communities from the latest version of Georgia’s official map, among some of the names that dissappeared were Experiment, Hemp, and Dewey Rose and one town called Hickory Level just put up new welcome signs… The story is an interesting read if you care about such things. Having just erased a bunch of old data from a few maps the other day I can’t imagine what it would be like to erase a whole community… Yikes we couldn’t get away with this kind of thing around these parts, we can’t even rename a street without having multiple hearings, debate, upset citizenry and other such issues.

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Ipod Pillow

This iPod pillow thing is just plain weird. For $20 you can get this soft squishy pillow that apparently has built in speakers so that you can hook up your iPod to it and play your tunes. The buttons on this thing actually works (how cool is that) and it has a built in FM radio.  I wish I could get my hands on one to check it out instead of having to plop down $20 for it. I already have enough iPod related accessories in my life. I have to admit its cute though and it comes in pink. This would be a good gag gift for someone at work… hmmpf.

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