Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Link of the Day Lat - Long Finder

Exactly what it says on the tin, find a Latitude and Longitude using a google maps application. It will give you an answer in decimals and degrees and minutes. If you have an address use the search box to the right of the map.

http://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm

Monday, November 24, 2008

Recommended text editor: NOTEPAD++

My favourite text editor, not much more to say, try it you might like it...

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Here are the features of Notepad++ :

  • Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
  • WYSIWYG
  • User Defined Syntax Highlighting
  • Auto-completion
  • Multi-Document
  • Multi-View
  • Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
  • Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
  • Dynamic position of Views
  • File Status Auto-detection
  • Zoom in and zoom out
  • Multi-Language environment supported
  • Bookmark
  • Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
  • Macro recording and playback

Monday, August 18, 2008

2008 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference, September 29 - October 3, Cape Town, South Africa


2008 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference incorporating GISSA 2008, is coming up soon, in September 29 - October 3, Cape Town, South Africa.

Lots of workshops and talks on all things opensource including GeoNetwork, Mapserver, Geoserver, OpenLayers, GRASS PostGIS and many more.

Check out the website from more details...
http://www.foss4g2008.org

The current line up can be viewed here...
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Workshops_and_Technical_Visits

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Monkey Karma

A little more neo-googleography here in its loosest sense. The GISDataMonkey would like to share some good karma and recommend to you all those places that treat me well when I visit, whether its quality or value for money I shall add it to this map. I shall be adding more places from time to as I think of them (or as they earn it)...

View Larger Map

There are restauranrs, cafes, pubs, places to stay and I'm sure I'll be adding things to do too. Leave a comment on either the blog or the map to let me know if you take up any of my recommendations and whether you agree or disagree with me on the service, cheers!

Friday, August 8, 2008

Installing GeoNetwork22 IIS Tomcat and MySQL

Below is a record of how I installed Geonetwork 2.2 on my XP box running off MySQL and served by Tomcat 5.5 and IIS5

Required Files:

Apache Tomcat 5.5.26 .exe file - download here
Tomcat ISAPI Connector 1.2.14 .exe - download here
IIS 5.x
MySQL Server 5.0: The Windows ZIP/Setup.EXE (x86) - downloaded from here
Geonetwork 2.2.0 with JRE1.5 embedded - download here

Configure IIS and Tomcat for GeoNetwork:

If you have not already done so install and configure IIS and the Tomcat connector as described in my previous post Configuring Tomcat 5.5 with IIS 5 on XP. This outlines how I set up IIS to serve Java based applications by passing them on to Tomcat using the Tomcat IIS connector. The reason this is necessary is because GeoNetwork is a Java based application which IIS cannot serve by default.

Once you have successfully configured and tested that the Tomcat Connector is working successfully with IIS it is necessary to configure the Tomcat connector to serve GeoNetwork once it is installed. To do this we have to edit the following files.

In the server.xml found in the Tomcat conf directory (in my install it was C:\apache\tomcat55\conf\server.xml) add the following code at the bottom of the file just before the tag...

<Context
path="/geonetwork"
docBase="C:\geonetwork\web\geonetwork"
crossContext="false"
debug="1"
reloadable="false" />
<Context
path="/intermap"
docBase="C:\geonetwork\web\intermap"
crossContext="false"
debug="1"
reloadable="false" />
<Context
path="/geoserver"
docBase="C:\geonetwork\web\geoserver"
crossContext="false"
debug="1"
reloadable="false" />

then search from the start of the file for port="8080" and replace the text with the text below.

<Connector
port="8080"
maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
maxThreads="150"
minSpareThreads="25"
maxSpareThreads="75"
enableLookups="false"
redirectPort="8443"
acceptCount="100"
connectionTimeout="20000"
disableUploadTime="true"
URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>

Save and close the file.

Then open the uriworkermap.properties file (which is found in the same directory as the file above) with a text editor and add the following before the line /servlets-examples/*=wlb:

/geonetwork/*=wlb
/geoserver/*=wlb
/intermap/*=wlb


Save and close the file.

Restart the Tomcat windows service: Control panel>administration tools>services - look for and select the service called Apache Tomcat and select restart.

Then restart IIS: Control panel>administration tools>Internet Information Services. Then right click on the local computer entry, select all tasks and restart IIS.

Install and configure MySQL:

Download the MySQL file from the required files section above and install a default installation accepting the default settings. Remember to make a note of the password for future reference.

Once installed run a command window and type:
mysql –u root –p
press enter and enter the password. Then type:
create database geonetwork character set utf8 collate utf8_unicode_ci;
In order to see if the database is created successfully using the utf-8 character set type:
show create database geonetwork;
Then type:
grant select, insert, update, delete, drop, alter, index, create on table geonetwork.* to geonetwork@’localhost’ identified by ‘password’;
Then type”
exit;
to close the command window.

Installing Geonetwork 2.2.x:

Download the GeoNetwork 2.2.0 windows installer file with JRE1.5

Install geonetwork accepting default values. Though I installed to C:\geonetwork rather than the program files directory.

Ensure your tomcat service is switched off : Start>control panel>administration tools>services>apache tomcat stop service.

Check Geonetwork is installed directory by starting the inbuilt Jetty server from Start>programs>GeoNetwork Opensource>start server. Then open GeoNetwork from http://localhost:8080/geonetwork/

If it works correctly stop the server: Start>programs>GeoNetwork Opensource>stop server.

Configuring GeoNetwork to run with MySQL:

Now we are going to link it mySQL. Open GAST: Start>programs>GeoNetwork Opensource>start GAST. Then from the options drop down select config and enter the admin username and password then press OK (default is user: admin pw: admin)

Then from DBNS setup select MySQL and enter the following:

Server: localhost (if MySQL is on same server as Geonetwork)
Database: geonetwork
Username: geonetwork
Password: password (or the password used in the MySQL command entered above identified by ‘password’;).

Then click save.

Go to Database set up, and press set up (ignore the Cyclic error if it appears press OK).

Close GAST.

Start up the Tomcat service: Start>control panel>administration tools>services>apache tomcat start service. Then restart IIS: Control panel>administration tools>Internet Information Services. Then right click on the local computer entry, select all tasks and restart IIS.

Then open GeoNetwork here Then open GeoNetwork from http://localhost/geonetwork/ Your GeoNetwork is now served by Tomcat via IIS (notice the address is now localhost not localhost:8080). With the GeoNetwork Data is served by MySQL.

Congratulations!

Resources:

GeoNetwork OpenSource Website
GeoNetwork installation: Presentation by Andrea Carboni
Geonetwork Catalog installation tutorial using Tomcat & MySQL by Dimitrios G. Simos
Installing Geonetwork21 under IIS, Tomcat and PGSQL by Michel Le page

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Configuring Tomcat 5.5 with IIS 5 on XP

I recently set this webserver configuration up because I wanted to run GeoNetwork-Opensource alongside my other websites on IIS default port 80 rather than the GeoNetwork default port 8080. Since IIS can't serve up Java code it is necessary to use Apache Tomcat in conjunction with IIS to successfully serve GeoNetwork and other Java based applications.

*Disclaimer: I am not a Tomcat guru, I am just passing on to you what worked for me, after a couple of wasted days of searching!*

Required Files:

Apache Tomcat 5.5.26 .exe file - download here
Tomcat ISAPI Connector 1.2.14 .exe - download here
IIS 5.x - (see installation instructions below)


Installing IIS:

IIS was already installed on my machine, but for the sake of completeness...

  1. Open control panel from your start menu and select (double click) Add/remove programs.
  2. From the buttons on the left handside of the Add/remove programs window select Add/remove Windows Components.
  3. Select/tick Internet Information Services (IIS) then press the next button.
  4. Then press finish and IIS is now installed.
  5. Check IIS has successfully installed by going to http://localhost in your browser. If it has successfully worked you should see redirected to localstart.asp and see a page which informs you that your web service is now running.

Installing Tomcat 5.5:

This installer sets up Tomcat 5.5 as a windows service...

  1. Save the Tomcat-5.5.26.exe to your hard drive then double click on it to start the installer.
  2. I followed the default installation, with the exception of installing it to C:\apache\Tomcat55 simply to remove any danger of spaces causing a problem in the directory structure at a later date.
  3. Also remember to take a note of your admin password. Otherwise you will have problems at a later stage!
  4. Once installation is complete click OK to start Tomcat as a service.
  5. To check on a sccessful installation navigate to http://localhost:8080 in your browser. If it works you will see an Apache Tomcat default page informing you that " If you're seeing this page via a web browser, it means you've setup Tomcat successfully. Congratulations!"
  6. To check that Tomcat is successfully serving Java servlets and JSPs click the links to the JSP-Examples and Servlet Examples on the Tomcat default page, then execute some of the available examples.

Installing the Tomcat/IIS ISAPI Connector:

Currently if all has gone well you have IIS web server running (on its default port 80 which means you don't have to specify the port in your url ie. http://localhost ), IIS can't support Java applications. You also have Tomcat web server running on port 8080 which you do have to specify in your url - http://localhost:8080, but it can support Java applications.

The next stage is to set up an ISAPI conector so that IIS will serve up your web pages unless it is requested pages including Java servlets or .jsps from certain folders which we have defined. In these cases we want IIS to pass these requests onto Tomcat seamlessly without having to define port 8080 in the url. To do this we need to install Tomcat/IIS ISAPI conector like this...


  1. Save the isapi_redirect-1.2.14.exe to your hard drive and double click on it to start the installer.
  2. Install it to the same directory as your tomat installation (in my case C:\apache\Tomcat55).
  3. The installer automatically copies and installes the relevent files, registry settings needed for the conector. It also creates a virtual directory in IIS called jakarta which is required and also adds the new isapi_redirect.dll as an ISAPI filter for the default website also in IIS. To understand more of what is required to set the ISAPI connector up manually Please check the resources at the end of this article.
  4. Once the installation is completed, restart the Tomcat wondows service: Control panel>administration tools>services - look for and select the service called Apache Tomcat and select restart.
  5. Then restart IIS: Control panel>administration tools>Internet Information Services. Then right click on the local computer entry, select all tasks and restart IIS.
  6. Once both servers have restarted in that order view the JSP-Examples from the tomcat page again. The url should be something like http://localhost:8080/jsp-examples/ the try again removing the ":8080" like this http://localhost/jsp-examples/ - If the installation worked correctly you should be able to successfully view the examples without specifying the port:8080.
  7. To learn a little more about adding your own applications/sites to be served via Tomcat and IIS in this way view the Tomcat resources below. Or use my GeoNetwork install as an worked example (will be published shortly)...
*Note the first time I tried to run the JSP-Examples without the :8080 in the url it didn't work. On further investigation I noticed that the ISAPI filter hadn't loaded properly in IIS and was showing a red arrow. To fix this I simply opened IIS, right clicked the default website and selected properties. I clicked on the ISAPI Filters tab. The filter named jakarta showed a red down arrow. I clicked on it and pressed edit. Then re-brwosed to the ISAPI_redirect.dll which is found in my case at C:\apache\Tomcat55\bin\isapi_redirect.dll. I pressed Apply and OK. Then restarted Tomcat and IIS for good measure. The JSP-Examples then worked correctly without the :8080.

Resources:

Apache Tomcat 5.5 Official Documentation Index
Apache Tomcat Connector Official Documentation Index
Apache Tomcat Connector Official IIS How To Documentation
OnJava.com: Configuring Tomcat with IIS Web Server - Easier to read than official docs!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

PHP5 ISAPI and IIS6 Install on XP

Just recently moved to a new server at work. I seem to install PHP a different way every time. I tried it with an ISAPI install this time rather than using the CGI-bin. It seems to be up and running so far. So I thought I would link to the installation guide I used this time which was pretty straight forward.

Thanks to http://john.parnefjord.se/

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Dynamic KML

The latest in the Google GeoDeveloper Series...

This installment outlines how to query and extract records from a MySQL database and create a KML on the fly to view in Google Earty/Maps or any other client. Mano Marks shows two different applications, one using PHP scripting and another using the python language.

A second demontration by Brian Hamlyn shows a demonstration using PostGIS/PostgreSQL and the GDAL/OGR libraries to create KMLs on the fly.

A useful addition to the video would be a link to download the scripts and syntax used in the demonstrations like was done in the previous workshop by John Coryat.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

EDEN Data Portal: A resource for publically available European environmental data:

This is "one of our" data portal sites we manage for a European research project Emerging Diseases in a changing European eNvironment (EDEN). It is designed as a data repository and resource primarily for the project members, however we have made all the data that is publically available elsewhere on the web available to anyone who takes a minute to register. This data includes satellite imagery, cleaned gazeteers, land cover, DEM, and climate data to name a few.



All the data is clipped to the EDEN extent which includes Europe and parts of the North coast of Africa.. We have even cleaned some of the data up for you or added value in other ways, for instance in the NGA Gazeteer dataset we have removed any place names that are labelled in one country but are georeferenced to another.

Even though most of the data will be available from elsewhere on the web, the fact the EDEN Data portal has so many datasets in one place it is a fantastic place to start looking for what data is available.

The datasite has also one of the most extensive list of GIS links around, over 1000 in all and has a number of tutorials for a variety of GIS software. The site is well worth a look!

FYI: The site was designed and is managed by Euro-AEGIS a partnership of ERGO (my employer) and Avia-GIS for the EDEN Project.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Malaria Atlas Project

The Malaria Atlas Project published the first global risk map for malaria for 40 years earlier this month. It is possible to download the maps as either KMZs, flat image files or PDFs. there are also some 3D representations as PDFs and some animations.

Malaria Risk Map: Check out the Data and find out more for yourself here.

There was a small piece in The Times on the manager of the project Dr Simon Hay to mark the release of these maps which you can view here.

The Malaria Atlas Project is a Wellcome Trust funded joint project between the Malaria Public Health & Epidemiology Group, Centre for Geographic Medicine, Kenya and the Spatial Ecology & Epidemiology Group, University of Oxford, UK with collaborating nodes in America and Asia Pacific region.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Creating Custom Google Maps

The latest from Google Geo Developer series, John Coryat (of maps.huge.info and usnaviguide.com) gives a great talk on how to go about creating custom maps with the Google maps API. I can forgive him for dwelling a little too long on US Specific data sources, as he gave a very good presentation on how to go about posting data using the Google Maps API.


John described a number of different ways of adding data to maps using the Maps API, highlighting the pros, cons and trade-offs of each method. I list the main points I took from the presentation below, if they are of interest take the time to watch the video:
  • Max number points and lines successfully displayed by the maps API in one map window: 50-150 in a view depending on user browser & system.
  • Image Overlays: Whole image overlays & tile overlays.
    • Whole image overlays.
      • Unprojected.
      • Projected.
    • Tile image overlays.
      • Description of structure
      • Tiles cut from single images
      • Static data tiles (can be different images for different zooms)
      • Dynamic data tiles
      • Simulated markers
This weeks presentation was a little more advanced than the previous one and assumed a little more previous knowledge. If you felt left behind a little and would like some getting started tutorials and other useful information the Google Maps API FAQ page is a good place to start. Check out their Articles and Tutorials. If you have further questions sign up to the Discussion Group and Blog.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Digital Geography in a Web 2.0 World - Presentations Online


I attended this seminar a fortnight ago hosted by CASA and the National Centre for E-Social Science (NCeSS) at the Barbican Theatre in London. An excellent event which highlighted how Web 2.0 technology can and is being used with digital geography in the research community, enabling new approaches in modelling as well as in the presentation of results for analysis.

There were some great youtube-tastic presentations which made even the not so relevant topics (to me) fly by. There were two highlights of the day for me. The first was a presentation entitled Geographical Statistics and the Grid (see it here) by Richard Harris & Chris Brunsden. It outlined how they had used the R open source statistics package in combination with a distributed computing network (The UKs National Grid Service) to run a Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) analysis. ...A little dry I know but of relevance to my current work ;-)

The second highlight was the final presentation by Andrew Hudson-Smith on what the future has to offer entitled Web 2.0, Neogeography and Virtual Worlds. GIS and Second Life anyone? Check it out here.

Also worth a mention, Richard Milton launched a new site called MapTube: A place to put maps. Not sure how long it will be able to keep the name, but it is basically a youtube for maps. As I understand it you use their free software GMapCreator to prepare your data. Stick it on your webserver and register the location on MapTube along with anything you want to say about it. Other people can then pick and choose your data and others to mash up onto a single map. See what Richard said about it himself and view his presentation here.

All the presentations are available for download here.


Friday, February 29, 2008

The Google Geo Developer Seminar Series

In my continued fit of Google Mapmania, I set out in search of more information on what I could do with Google Maps. I immediately signed up to two official Google blogs, Google Lat-Long Blog and the Google Maps API Blog. I'm not sure why there are two blogs I presume the latter is aimed more at developers than the former.

Any way it was from one of these blogs I noticed the upcoming seminar series entitled The Google Geo Developer Series. It sounded like just the thing to get me on my way and satisfy my curiosity on exactly what can we get Google Maps to do. The first workshop was entitled Quick & Dirty KML Creation (and is embedded below).


Or watch it on YouTube.com here.

A fairly simple topic to start, but it promises to take us deeper as the series goes on. Despite the simple subject matter to start Ed Parsons is right when he said in his own blog...

Almost everybody will learn something from watching this, from newcomers to the geoweb to the experts out there !

I thought the Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0 looked particularly useful tool, and I'm looking forward to the next installment entitled Creating Custom Maps which should be on YouTube in the next couple of days. Keep tabs on the future weekly seminars here on the youtube Google Geo Developer playlist here.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Data Monkey Becomes A Neogeographer

Last week without evening realising it I took my first tentative steps to becoming a neogeographer. I didn't even know the term at the time, I heard the term coined for the first time two days later at a GIS seminar I attended (but more about that in a later post).


My Wedding Map: My first contribution to Neogeography:  View Larger Map

So what is a neo-geographer and how did I go about becoming one? Well there are a couple of fairly dry definitions of neogeography from Wikipedia and the Platial blog. But basically you become a neogeographer once you find an application out on the web and use it to start adding and sharing some information that you geo-reference (link to a location be that a point, line or polygon on a map).

I became a neogeographer when I dived into Google maps while I was logged in to my Googlemail account and I noticed for the first time the My Maps tab. I was looking for a way to mark on some locations on a map to email them to some relatives. I knew this was possible on Google Earth, which is a great tool but not something that you necessarily want to ask your retired aunt to download just to view your map. I was vaguely aware that it was now possible to do it easily on Google maps too.

In fact I was already aware that it was possible to add your own content on top of Google Maps. I had used Google Maps within a website I worked on 6-12 months ago where I used some quick and dirty javascript code to geo-reference a catalogue of publications (you can view the result here). But I was amazed to see that now 6 months or so on it was possible to create something very similar in a manor anyone could do, (even my retired aunt), and share the results with the world!

So I studiously spent 20 minutes creating my first little bit of neogeography before collecting the email link and sending it off to my relatives. You can view the Data Monkeys first bit of neogeography above...

The map shows some important locations involved in my wedding later this year, a rather boring subject if your not invited, I know. But my first little bit of neogeography all the same, and just in case you are wondering I will be adding more data to it as the date draws nearer....

Well done Google for creating such a cool tool!