I use my iPhone for quite a lot things talking on it comprise about 10% of the usage. The other 90% is emailing and text. I’m quite the writer not so much the talker. Anyway, one of my latest activities is taking photos with the iPhone camera, illustrating them  and sending said photos to various persons of interest. I used to snap the photo, then email it to myself, check my email on my laptop, illustrate and email the photo from my laptop. One evening after a few sips of something strong I decided that I was acting stupidly and that there had to be an iPhone app to take care of this business. I pushed the App store button and did a search and after trying a few apps that had awful instructions and a clunky interface I came across goSnap Photo editor for the iPhone. Unlike the other apps goSnap had a very intuitive interface and came with clear instructions. When you launch the app, your tools are at the bottom of the screen. You simply select a snap from you photo library or take a new photo, make sure you are in edit mode (select the pencil) and use your fingers to drag and draw. It’s that simple you can undo by selecting the  undo icon at the bottom of the sceen and select tool options by selecting the wrench. The icons should be very familiar to the average person who has used a photo editor in the past.
I’m really glad that I came across this app it will save me a lot of time in the future. goSnap also reminds me of Skitch one of my favorite photo annotating programs.

I usually don’t post these types of things but in this case,  know that their story and needs are legit…
Ben & Nancy Okumu & their 4 children, were in a tragic auto accident this week.  Ben, a recently concluded post-doctoral work at Cornell and recently accepted a position with a TX-based NGO, Hunger Plus. The family was visiting in Kenya during the transition to the new job when the accident occurred. Nancy was killed, and Ben & all 4 children were seriously injured. Ben and his 10-yr old daughter, Fiona, remain hospitalized.

An article on the accident and the needs of the family ran in today’s Ithaca Journal at:

<http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20090731/NEWS01/907310338/Ithacans-reach-out-to-help-local-family-struck-by-tragedy&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL >

Medical treatments for Ben & Fiona have been delayed because the hospital requires payment for life-saving services already rendered before they proceed with further, necessary rehabilitative treatment, including further surgery. Tompkins Trust Company is collecting donations for the family, made payable to ‘The Okumu Family Fund’ at all their branch locations, or through the mail at: Tompkins Trust Company, c/o Sue Lason, PO Box 460, Ithaca, NY, 14850. 

If you can help please do so.

I was roving around on the net checking out one of my usual blog stops  when I came across this gem of a video  below (Thanks Christina) with different people sharing the reasons that they use a Mac.

As I type on my Vista laced Dell and my Mac Mini is patiently waiting for me to turn it on and get some serious work done like sync my latest Cha-Ching Info among other things, it made me think of one thing… I could use one of those new 13” Mac Book Pros.  I use both a Mac and PC at home now but prefer the Mac hands down when it come to productivity. Only thing is that my Mini is not particularly portable so I’m stuck using my Dell for the time being. I haven’t had much problems with my computer perse except for OS related issues. If I could legally install OS X on here and not break any of the installed hardware, I would do that in a minute.

I have this friend who decided on a whim to buy a brand spanking newly built house. I was feeling for him having just finished building a house six months ago and remembering what it was like when I first moved in. Aside from having to get acquainted with living in a new Neighborhood (City vs. Country), it was a bit of a shocker after the snow melted.  He has two boys and he was commenting on the mud that he will have to keep them out of sans driveway and grass.  I didn’t have two boys to worry about thank goodness but yeah the mud was a challenge. When you build a house they show you all the pretty pictures of the nice driveways and manicured lawns and flowers and all that and you’re like nice, nice, nice where do I sign. However, they throw in a disclaimer at the last minute in fine prints that they don’t do landscaping (at least around here). At this point you’re thinking that they don’t install flowers and such so no big deal in your mind you just want to get the building over with so that you can move in. If you built in winter and all the pretty snow was everywhere no big deal. That’s until the snow melts and you notice that all you have is a house and a mudway.

Where is the driveway? Where is all that grass that used to be here? Somehow you remembered seeing that a driveway was in your contract somewhere but what they don’t tell you is that all you’re getting is the left over gravel they use during construction. If you have a short driveway no problem but if you’re one of those folks that have to have your setbacks forget it they stretch that little bit of gravel out and while its a nice base to start a driveway it is by no means a driveway. So you find yourself forking over more money to have someone else put in a driveway as well as the grass that you have to put in coz whatever grass you had before you started building after the construction equipment leaves you don’t have much of that left either just big swats of mud that seems to get over everything. Around these parts they seed the grass I was envisioning laying down swats of grass but oh no. Here they rock-hound, spread hay, and throw seeds and fertilizer down there and hope and pray for a balance of rain and sunshine. Some companies hydroseed but that cost quite a bit around here. I can see hydro-seeding as a means of repair but not sure I would do it out-right.

Anyway, it has been an eye-opening experience and I’ve met some really neat trade-persons from the various companies in town that does this type of work…but building is not for the impatient.  I suppose it builds character and I won’t look at lawns and trees and driveways the way I used to. Its hard work and it will cost you. If you are thinking of building a home vs. buying one off the market esp. in the Upstate, NY area please ignore those pretty pictures and insist on a driveway and landscaping (at least the seeding of your lawn to replace the areas where they left all the mud) in your building project upfront otherwise you will have to deal with this in addition to moving, unpacking, setting things up the way you want, and painting (they don’t do that either by the way).

I did not get a chance to attend the ESRI Users Conference this year so I was delighted to find out that they had the Plenary sessions posted here. The sessions are small videos that highlight the next release of the software (9.4) instead of version 10 that we were hearing about as well as awards and demos from the conference. This next release seems to be focused mainly on productivity and speed. Making data easier to edit as well as easy to navigate. The work that they have done on this is really extensive so be sure to check out the plenary sessions for yourself. Its nice to know that ESRI is moving in the right direction just hope it all works as planned.

Oh my goodness I am so excited I’m blogging again. A few months ago sometime in the early Spring I decided that I wanted to plant some flowers on my leach field. I figured that was a good place to start because it was a bit more barren and dug up than the other parts of the property. I went out and bought some tools and a few packets of wildflowers from Lowes and came home to do battle with the mud and rocks in the backyard. I raked and I moved large rocks out of the way and raked some more and felt like an idiot the whole time and sprinkled the seeds in the area that I raked. I was envisioning an orange poppy field as I was sprinkling the seeds (which included about 100 poppy seeds- I like poppies… bright orange ones). Anyway, I waited and I looked all Spring and all summer and not one poppy, not one flower, no evidence that I had done anything back there. I was a bit upset that the fruits of my labor was for naught until this weekend I looked back there and I saw the most beautiful sight there was something else besides green back there wow what’s that? Its fushia-purple, I thought I was drinking too much coffee and decide to take a closer look. To my delight there were a few flowers popping up with promise of more to come I was so happy. My first try at planting was not for naught after all the butterflies are enjoying the flowers too… Maybe now I can plant some much needed bushes around the house. I can’t believe I’m playing in dirt, my how things and people change.

For some odd reason ArcGIS does not allow you to batch print MXDs out of the box. If you make maps for a living using ArcGIS this is more than a little bit important. After seeing the question come up on one of the listservs, I decided to put together a little list of utilities that I’ve found. Be warned I haven’t tried any of them except for the first one. One of my friends have used DS Mapbook (the ESRI sample) before and liked it. It batch generates PDFs that you can then print.

1. MXD_Print (only works with ArcMap 9.3) Please note that this only works with ArcGIS 9.3 on 32 bit Windows OS. and is looking for an ArcView license. The author promise to post up and upgrade next week sometime so keep checking the page if the current version does not work on your system (Fixed).
2. MPS-Atlas- Allow for batch creation, batch export, and batch printing of maps (part of the ESRI PLTS extension so you’ll need to invest in this to get these tools) You can always evaluate the product if you need a quick solution but if you need to do this regularly I suggest buying the product.
3. Layout Manager- This is a pretty slick product is general, it will put you back about $900-$1200 depending on which version you order
4. NW Mapbook -free (description here)
5. DS Mapbook- Free-this is fast becoming a real app