BC, Canada Data and OpenData tools and Resources

A few open data resources of interest for those hacking and mashing up data in Canada...

• OpenDataBc - http://www.opendatabc.ca/
• BC data http://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/
• Data BC Apps Page - http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/dbc/apps/index.page?
• BC Government eteam MapServer list of data services - http://maps.gov.bc.ca/arcserver/rest/services/eteam/eteam/MapServer
• Nanaimo BC Open data layers - http://data.nanaimo.ca/
• BC ArcGIS services directory - http://maps.gov.bc.ca/arcserver/rest/services
• The Data BC Blog - http://blog.data.gov.bc.ca/
• City of Vancouver BC OpenData catalog - http://data.vancouver.ca/
• City of Surrey BC Data products - http://www.surrey.ca/city-services/665.aspx
• BC Government Social Media newsroom - http://www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/connect.html
• Geobase Canada available data products and downloads - Click HERE
• GISuser directory of opengov data resources
  
  More dev tips and hacker tools in this article

BC, Canada Data and OpenData tools and Resources

NOAA vDatum - tidal, orthometric and ellipsoidal vertical datums

A useful transofrmation tool from NOAA - vDatum. VDatum is a free software tool being developed jointly by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (NGS), Office of Coast Survey (OCS), and Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS). VDatum is designed to vertically transform geospatial data among a variety of tidal, orthometric and ellipsoidal vertical datums - allowing users to convert their data from different horizontal/vertical references into a common system and enabling the fusion of diverse geospatial data in desired reference levels. See http://vdatum.noaa.gov/

NOAA vDatum - tidal, orthometric and ellipsoidal vertical datums

Google Public Data Explorer

A handy data visualization resource from Google - The Google Public Data Explorer makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand. You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/home

Google Public Data Explorer

Week End Reading! How to Pass an IT Audit

Learn how one security analyst from a Fortune 500 company, used a GRC tool to automate management of IT controls, verify compliance with policy, and document everything for auditors.
This guide covers the steps and procedures to passing an IT GRC audit -- as told by an enterprise end-user who deployed QualysGuard Policy Compliance. The tool allowed the audit team to be more productive by focusing time on analyzing the data and preparing for audits -- instead of administrating the tool. 

How to Pass an IT Audit

Week End Reading! How to Pass an IT Audit

Building Enterprise Social Communities with Drupal Commons

Learn how organizations are successfully leveraging the momentum of social web services to increase loyalty, brand value, and revenue by implementing open source Drupal to build enterprise social communities.

Innovations in consumer social web services create both opportunity and risk for your enterprise. Your customers and employees are increasingly gathering in online communities of like-minded people, and there is an urgent, growing need to nurture these communities. The organizations that succeed and leverage this social momentum increase loyalty, brand value, and revenue. Those that fail to do so will be stuck merely watching as their communities self-organize wherever the community wants to - probably out of sight, out of mind and out of the influence of the organization. 

Building Enterprise Social Communities with Drupal Commons 

Building Enterprise Social Communities with Drupal Commons

B.C Canada Open Data Hackathon

This month the Government of B.C Canada and their newly created DataBC effort is planning a hackathon, the first ever from Data BC, the Government’s open data initiative.  The event invites anyone from the public who enjoys working with public data products to participate. Ideally, those who are web developers, programmers, writers and the like will get most benefit from the event although anyone is invited to participate – I’d suggest that people who are familiar with the “un-conference” format would be most comfortable and those who aren’t should realize that a loosely structured event with much “audience” participation and interaction is needed in order for the event to be truly a valuable experience.  For an idea on the kinds of data available to hack I suggest you take a look at http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/ – a new initiative from the B.C Government – data products include school scores, fish population data, public trails, and much more.

This first Hackathon will take place August 27 in Vancouver

Details Here and see also http://www.opendatabc.ca/ and http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/

B.C Canada Open Data Hackathon

Adobe and Sony challenging developers

Adobe and Sony are challenging developers, agencies, and content creators to build breakthrough apps for the upcoming “Sony Tablet” devices using the Adobe® Flash® Platform for a chance to win $200,000 in total cash prizes, premium promotion on Sony Tablet devices, conference passes and paid travel to the Adobe MAX developer conference in Los Angeles, and more prizes.
Enter the challenge at www.airappchallenge.com and you can be one of the first to gain prerelease access to the Sony tablets and to the latest version of Adobe AIR runtime and SDK, as well as get an opportunity to have your app featured at Adobe MAX if you submit a working version before September 16

Adobe and Sony challenging developers

Android Hurt Nokia in Q2

The latest from ABI Research... Nokia’s 88.5 million handsets ‘sold-in’ during Q2 are 20 million units less than it sold in its previous quarter. It equates to 7.5 million fewer smartphones and 12.5 million fewer feature phones shipped for a crushing 18.4% sequential drop for the former leader of the mobile device industry. Nokia’s share of smartphone shipments into the channel was halved over the past year and it lost a third of its market share in Q2 alone. Although Nokia remains the top overall handset manufacturer with 24.6% of the 359.7 million mobile phones shipped in Q2, Apple now leads in smartphones with 20.3 million iPhones shipped, with Samsung in second with 18.7 million. See Smartphones and Mobile Devices Research Service

Android Hurt Nokia in Q2

2010 US Tiger Census Information from NAVTEQ

Additional geography layers that are matched to the highly accurate NAVTEQ® map at the street centerline include a new Congressional district layer as well as:

• State boundaries
• County boundaries
• Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
• Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA)
• Minor Civil Division (MCD)

See more info

2010 US Tiger Census Information from NAVTEQ

Source Code Enables Open Government Groups to Create Their Own Open Data Catalogs

Azavea Releases Source Code for OpenDataPhilly।org To Enable Municipalities and Open Government Groups to Create Their Own Open Data - Written using Django, Python and PostgreSQL, Open Data Catalog is intended to display information and links to publicly available data in an easily searchable format। The code also includes options for data owners to submit datasets for consideration, for registered public users to request datasets that do not currently exist, and vote on their favorites। Open Data Catalog is free for anyone or any agency to use.

Source Code Enables Open Government Groups to Create Their Own Open Data Catalogs

ArcGIS For Use (existing users) at Home Just $100

From Esri… For a $100 annual fee, the ArcGIS for Home Use 12-month term license includes:

• ArcView
• ArcGIS 3D Analyst
• ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst
• ArcGIS Network Analyst
• ArcGIS Publisher
• ArcGIS Schematics
• ArcGIS Spatial Analyst
• ArcGIS Tracking Analyst

The ArcGIS for Home Use program is available worldwide.

ArcGIS for Home Use makes GIS available to everyone. This offer is ideal for existing ArcGIS users who want to use the same powerful software at home for noncommercial personal use and for individuals who want to expand their GIS skills. However, anyone can participate in this program. See details http://www.esri.com/arcgis-for-home

ArcGIS For Use (existing users) at Home Just $100

Essential Guide to Google Apps

How about a Google tip... Essential Guide to Google Apps
You're running your own business, have a website, and your own email address. It's great because it gives you that professional edge. Now you're getting lots of emails, and you need an efficient way to read them and manage them. You could use desktop clients like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Apple Mail, but it's a pain to set them up on all your computers and you want to be able to get at your mail even when you're away from your own devices. You try to use the webmail option that come with your web host, but frankly it's unusable. It's slow, and it's confusing. If only there was a better way! Enter Google Apps.

Essential Guide to Google Apps

The Geodetic Toolkit Conversion Tools

Here's a handy tool for some coordination conversion routines... The State Plane Coordinate system provides coordinates on a flat grid for easy computation while maintaining a difference between geodetic and grid distance of one part in 10,000 or better. The utilities in this package provide methods for converting between Geodetic Positions and State Plane Coordinates - check it out at http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/TOOLS/spc.html

The Geodetic Toolkit Conversion Tools

The Ubuntu Karmic Koala Bible

Here's a handy tip for you Ubuntu fans - The Ubuntu Karmic Koala Bible is a guide that's both great for Linux initiates, and invariably useful for Linux intermediates. With over fifty pages of copy-paste tutorials, this guide belongs in the virtual library of every Linux user! Makeuseof.com will walk you through the installation process, meanwhile shedding some extra light on the partitioning process. Don't know the value of a SWAP partition? Don't worry, you will. The guide is aimed, not only familiarizing you, but on making your Linux experience easier in general. Learn how to define command aliases, making the Command Line Shell easy to use!
The Incredible Guide to NEW Ubuntu (Karmic Koala)

The Ubuntu Karmic Koala Bible

ERDAS Offers Japan Imagery

ERDAS is providing access to datasets that illustrate the devastation in Japan after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011. This data is being supplied free of charge as a community service. ERDAS will add new imagery, maps and vectors as they become available.

To see the imagery, please visit http://erdas.com/Resources/DisasterRelief/JapanRelief.aspx

ERDAS Offers Japan Imagery

Indiana State Imagery

Woolpert announced today it has been awarded a three-year, $4.6 million contract to provide 1-foot resolution orthophotography and elevation data for the entire state of Indiana. The imagery and elevation data will be used by numerous state agencies, and will be shared with county governments for use in applications such as tax assessment, property management, economic development and flood control analysis.
http://www.indianaimagery.com/

Indiana State Imagery

The Google Story - Free Book Summary

You probably use Google when you are looking for something on the Web. But do you know who founded the company and why it is unique? Here's the inside scoop. Authors David Vise and Mark Malseed tell the story of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in fast-moving, energetic prose, from start-up to triumph. The authors spend little time considering any of the possible negative aspects associated with Google, but most readers will find that it hardly matters because their book is downright fun, and it ends with a useful set of Google search tips. See The Google Story - Free Book Summary

The Google Story - Free Book Summary

OpenStreetMap now with over 30 Million building outlines worldwide

OSM is still growing at fast pace. With the availability of high resolution imagery from Bing Maps it became possible to trace also objects such as buildings for OSM. Now the number of buildings in OSM has reached 30 million. These buildings are for example used in projects such as http://www.OSM-3D.org where you can fly though a 3D scence generated from free and user generated data based on the University of Heidelberg's implementation of the Web 3D Service (W3DS).

OpenStreetMap now with over 30 Million building outlines worldwide

Esri ArcGIS Online Basemap data Goes Free - Regardless of Use

From the ArcGIS Online blog, Esri has announced that use of ArcGIS online basemap data is free… totally free, and that includes for commercial use as well! From Esri… “As of the end of January, ArcGIS Online basemaps published and hosted by Esri are now freely available to all users regardless of commercial, noncommercial, internal, or external use. This means that you no longer have to pay a subscription fee for including ArcGIS Online basemaps in your commercial-use web applications.” There is a small restriction to be aware of though if you happen to be a high volume user – From Esri… The only restriction is a high-volume transaction limit of 50,000,000 transactions in a 12-month period, which is equivalent to 400,000,000 tile requests per year, or over 1,000,000 per day. See More Info HERE

Esri ArcGIS Online Basemap data Goes Free - Regardless of Use

ViewRanger Global Open Maps edition for iPhone and iPad

This launch on Apple iOS means that the affordable and popular ViewRanger Open Maps edition is now globally available on all three of the most widely owned smartphone OS (Android , Symbian and Apple). It comes with access to a range of global Open Mapping layers from street, terrain to aerial photo and is now available for just US$0.99/AU$1.19/NZ$1.29/GB£0.59/€0.79 for an introductory period (usual price US$3.99/AU$4.99/NZD5.29/GB£2.39/€2.99). The Open Maps version lets iPhone and iPad owners, who are into outdoor pursuits like walking, mountain biking, cycling and running enjoy the benefits of ViewRanger virtually anywhere in the world.

The Open Maps edition, supports the full feature set, to turn your Apple device into a powerful outdoors GPS navigator allowing you to get more from your favourite Outdoor activities. With ViewRanger; you’ll always know your real-time location on the on-screen moving map, you can record your track to export and share. Follow Augmentra at www.twitter.com/viewranger

ViewRanger Global Open Maps edition for iPhone and iPad