Category Archives: blogging

SQLite for ArcGIS Pro FTW

October 10, 2022 By in blogging, Computering, GIS, shapefile Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

I work in an Esri shop. My workflow includes periodic ingestion of MS Access and shapefile data. ArcGIS Pro doesn’t recognize Access. This has caused me to stick with ArcMap for one particular process. Esri’s suggested alternative to Access (“Use Excel”) has proven problematic for me to use with Pro for a variety of reasons.

Enter SQLite, which I wish I had tried sooner. Pro works with SQLite. Unlike Excel, SQLIte does not try to guess your fields’ data types (though it will if you ask). Access ⇒ CSV ⇒ SQLite ⇒ ArcGIS Pro is my new workflow. I haven’t opened ArcMap in a while.

Back in February 2019 I used Pro instead of Map for a full month, as a test. I went back to hybrid Map/Pro after that, until now. I may never open ArcMap again.

The Ten Commandments of GIS

July 16, 2021 By in blogging, Computering, GIS Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Voted by GIS users

  1. Thou shalt save often
  2. Zip before you ship the shapefiles
  3. Thine date format shall be YYYYMMDD
  4. Thou shalt not mingle thy units, feet and meters, together
  5. Thou shalt back up your files
  6. Use a unique ID column for joins
  7. Honour thy project and define projection tools
  8. Use Geopackage
  9. Thyself is thine own master if you use open source
  10. Postal codes are great … if you are mailing a letter

Two of my favorites — “Never open the XLS file with Excel” and “Thursdays are pantless” — did not make the top ten. Such is life.

This is a snapshot of the vote as of 20210716T154422Z. The poll is still open. You can see the other candidates and the live results after submitting the form. Submit a blank form if you just want to see the results.

Let’s all go back to blogging

October 20, 2019 By in blogging, Cycling Tags: , Leave a comment

I’ll go first.

I went for a bike ride yesterday. Nothing new, except this time I allowed myself to break away from the pursuit of performance metrics (speed, distance, etc.), and focused instead on the journey (autumn, sun, cool air, trees). What a difference! I still hit some decent numbers, but that was secondary.

Here’s a pic from a break I took along Canal Road and the Delaware and Raritan Canal in Franklin Township, New Jersey:

Autumn_biking_on Canal_Road