I intended to blog once or twice during the ESRI International User Conference, but found my conference schedule and meetings all-consuming. This was our seventh time exhibiting at the conference, and I think it was the best one yet. ArcGIS Server 9.3 is what we hoped it would be, the new/emerging developer APIs are valuable, and I generally think ESRI is on the right track. I’m excited about the coming year.

Since it was first released, I’ve been very candid about my perspective on ArcGIS Server 9.2 (that it was the future but not quite ready for prime-time). This has caused consternation among some, but I always defended my position because our customers count on us for advice about technology and timing. 

I’ve always contended that, regardless of new capabilities, the majority of ESRI customers will be reluctant to move from ArcIMS to ArcGIS Server until the shift doesn’t involve any significant steps backward from ArcIMS. There have been two main aspects to this; comparable performance and comparable functionality.

I think I can now see the tipping point. Aside from the general improvements in 9.3, during the plenary on Monday afternoon, ESRI announced that the new rendering engine for ArcGIS Server (which everyone was expecting as part of 9.4) would ship as part of ArcGIS Server 9.3 Service Pack 2 in January or February 2009. Even though you can actually do lots to improve performance (Mapservice/application tweaking and pre-rendering), this is big news for organizations that have been awaiting improved performance that doesn’t require much rearranging of the furniture.

Bottom line… things are falling into place. Last year, we talked mostly with people who wanted to learn more about ArcGIS Server. This year, we talked mostly with people serious about getting going with ArcGIS Server. I predict 2009 will be remembered as being a significant year in the widespread transition from ArcIMS to ArcGIS Server.

The JavaScript/REST APIs have been generating lots of buzz, but I think the (really) new Flex API is awesome too and will garner lots of attention at ESRI’s International User Conference next week. Check out the samples:

http://resources.esri.com/arcgisserver/apis/flex/index.cfm?fa=samples

ESRI has clearly been hard at work on this, and it seems pretty slick.  I can't say for sure yet, but I'd guess that a lot of the work that was put into ArcWeb Services was leveraged, and it appears to offer most of the functionality needed to build a basic site with Flash.

We’re doing plenty of work to incorporate emerging technologies like this into Geocortex Essentials in an agnostic way, but for 2.0 we’d planned to concentrate on leveraging the heck out of the JavaScript/REST APIs alongside Web ADF. But the more I play with this, the more I want to cover the Flex API right away too.  It’ll be interesting to see how people react to this next week; this will help guide our decision.

Our friends at the Oklahoma County Assessor entered ESRI's GIS in Action video contest. The folks at OK County Assessor are one of our customers that I most admire. They're passionate about what they do, they've got their priorities straight, and they get things done.

Their video reminds me of working with historic map data from where I live. Back in 1998 I was at a map library and found a stack of aerial photos of Victoria from 1928. I got permission to scan them and did some rough georeferencing of them using a recent Victoria ortho. It was absolutely fascinating to see how much Victoria had changed in seventy years. In fact, comparing the landscape between 1928 and 1998 profoundly changed the way I think about growth (especially in our region).

When ArcIMS was released a couple years later, I couldn't get permission from the copyright holder (a government agency) to make them available over the web through an ArcIMS service (on a volunteer basis no less). I guess someone got worried about the massive opportunity cost associated with losing out on licensing revenue associated with sepia aerial photos from 1928. Not that they had any model for licensing them even if someone did want them. I love my country, but our misguided geodata policies have impaired decision-making in the places we live. Things are slowly improving, but we need to be aggressive in changing the geospatial data status quo in cases where it is quietly failing us. 

One of the "exciting" things about developing products and services for a major software vendor like ESRI is the fact that our product release schedule is often heavily influenced by the release dates (and events) of ESRI.

The recent release of ArcGIS 9.3 (most importantly for us, ArcGIS Server 9.3 and ArcIMS 9.3) came with it the need to upgrade all products in the Geocortex suite to ensure compatibility.

In reply to today's Geocortex IMF release announcement email, Steve Tharp at Chesapeake Energy wrote, "Man you guys are cranking it out before the esri UC".

He's right... although I suppose its no surprise since ESRI has been doing some "cranking out" of their own.

Earlier this month (on the 10th of July) we released Geocortex Essentials 1.4 Beta (for ArcGIS Server 9.3) and we're releasing the final at the end of this week.
Last week (on the 23rd), we released Geocortex Uptime 1.2.2 which is compatible with ArcIMS 9.3.
On Monday we released the ArcGIS Server Connector for Geocortex IMF to ensure compatibility with ArcGIS Server 9.3.
Yesterday we released Geocortex Statistics 1.3 which is compatible with ArcIMS 9.3.
Today, we announced the release of Geocortex IMF 5.2.2 which is compatible with ArcIMS 9.3 (and contains some fixes to ensure compatibility with Mozilla Firefox 3).
 

Every time I’m being briefed on the latest report designs for Geocortex Optimizer, I can’t help but get a little thrill when I see a Popular Extents map amongst all the important tables, graphs, and charts.  

We’ve mostly (and I think rightly) invested in aspects of the product that extract and present all kinds of metrics relevant to the ArcGIS Server stack. As CEO, I know this should get me most excited because these types of metrics represent the core value prop of the product. But as a geography geek, if you hooked me up to machines that measure my physiological level of interest, I’d undoubtedly get most excited when I see the map.

Well, I'm happy to blog that two weeks after the release of ArcGIS Server 9.3, we're offering full Geocortex Essentials compatibility. I must concede that this work didn't take two weeks; it took a couple months (we were very busy during the Beta program during which we made some educated guesses that proved correct).

We're actually releasing two new versions of Geocortex Essentials: Geocortex Essentials 1.3.1 Beta, and Geocortex Essentials 1.4 Beta. 1.3.1 is a maintenance release in the ArcGIS Server 9.2 edition of Geocortex Essentials.  It contains updated language resources and bug fixes for customers who've built apps on 9.2.  1.4 is the big release that supports ArcGIS Server 9.3.

It has been a pleasure to start using the new features in Web ADF 9.3.  Most notably (for developers):

• The new Web ADF JavaScript object model (not to be confused with the JavaScript API released in tandem with ArcGIS Server 9.3, which is also cool and we're doing lots of work with)
• Support for MS AJAX partial postbacks which will streamline future development (thankfully, adding full support for partial postbacks wasn't as arduous as we thought it might be)

Maybe we've been staring at it too long, but it appears the long-awaited 9.3 performance improvements are quite noticeable (we'll be able to quantify these improvements once we start playing with the Geocortex Optimizer Alpha in a couple weeks).  Cool.

Next, maximizing the performance of Essentials (which has never received that much attention because we didn't really worry that much about our stuff being a bottleneck with 9.2) will be a core focus during the next couple 3-week iterations.

But first, I think the team is going to enjoy Latitude's annual "4th of July" picnic this afternoon/evening up at Shawnigan Lake.

I came across a cool new language feature in C# 3.0 called Automatic Properties. A C# property looks like a member variable but behind the scenes are 2 related methods: a getter and a setter. The idea is that when you retrieve the value of a property, the getter is called and when you set the value of a property, the corresponding setter is called.  Properties are used all over the place and are frequently used when implementing server-side ASP.NET controls where setting a value such as the text field of a text box control causes the UI to be updated.

Declaring a property in C# looks like

string myPropertyValue;
string MyProperty
{
                get { return myPropertyValue; }
                set { myPropertyValue = value; }
}

Most properties do not have side effects and as you can imagine, declaring a lot of properties can quickly become tedious.  To alleviate this pain, C# 3 has a new construct called Automatic Properties.  In C# 3, the declaration of MyProperty becomes

string MyProperty { get; set; }

... a bit more concise and very similar to the syntax used to declare a property in a C# interface. If you wish to implement a more involved getter or setter in the future you are free to do so, without affecting the users of the class.

Speaking of the "Latitude Library", I just finished reading an interesting book recently added to our inventory, "The Monk and the Riddle".  Written by Randy Komisar, self-described virtual-CEO and technology entrepeneur, the book is quick to reveal the roots of its unusual title (no clues here though!), but slow to reach its point: its the journey that matters, not the destination.  Set within the context of new technology ventures, Randy presents the central premise of his book (and the driving force behind new arrivals to Silicon Valley and the so called SPDs at Bear Stearns) as the "Deferred Life Plan"; dedicate every waking hour to work today in order to enjoy life later with all the commensurate toys.  Having lived the Silicon Valley lifestyle for several years, I could immediately relate. 

Overall, I found the book largely readable due to its intriguing anecdotes about Randy's numerous technolgy ventures - I'm a sucker for business non-fiction.  Dissecting the successes and failures for technology ventures is infinitely more interesting than anything fiction writers could come up with!  Conversely, I felt the premise of the book missed its mark - the "Deferred Life Plan" is a well worn cliche.  Or is it?  For those reading the book, perhaps it will beg the question: "Am I doing what I'm truly passionate about?"  Regardless, I recommend checking it out.

Yongzhi and I are just wrapping up a week in Beijing as part of the Canadian Geomatics Science & Technology Partnering Mission to China 2008 delegation.

It has been an interesting week full of meetings and site visits. Being part of the delegation seems to have really opened doors for us at a number of agencies.

Yongzhi is heading to Chengdu (his hometown) for some R&R tomorrow, and I've now got a few days to explore before I fly back to Canada. I travel to Xi'an tomorrow to see the Terracotta Army, after which I return to Beijing. I still can't get over the size of Beijing--I feel like it would take weeks to do justice to the city.

Between the giant new architecture projects I've seen in Dubai and Beijing the last few months, Victoria is starting to feel like a tiny fishing village.

We just got word that 9.3 is now shipping. We should have a 9.3 compliant release of Geocortex Essentials for ArcGIS Server out the door shortly after we receive 9.3 and are able to address any major changes made between the release candidate and the final release.

Today is the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere; the longest day of the year. At our latitude it starts getting dark around 10PM and gets light again at 4:30AM.

Technically, the days do start getting shorter from now on, but this is beside the point (we have more daylight than we know what to do with and in the next few weeks we start to enjoy the best few months of weather all year). I now enjoy saying this too, and never tire of the exasperation from those on whom the irony is lost.

The Optimizer team has been heads down, working towards the first release of Geocortex Optimizer for ArcGIS Server. It's been a great challenge. Like most software projects, there are never enough calendar days to implement the large number of good ideas we would like to incorporate into the product. The textbook I used in a recent project management course suggests that 1 day spent in planning is worth 4 days spent in implementation and testing. Given that I only have 20 business days to finish optimizer implementation, I computed I could stretch my implementation time to 65 days by planning for 15 and implementing for five. Just kidding, Steve.

I like to use UML class and sequence diagrams when designing features. To create them, I've tried both Microsoft Visual Studio and Visio. Visual Studio class diagrams look nice but unfortunately, Visual Studio has no support for sequence diagrams. Visio is ok, but really is more of a drawing tool than a design tool. The UML tool I settled on was Visual Paradigm for UML. It is a full featured, reasonably priced UML tool that despite a few quirks and a number of bugs that I've learned to work around, works quite well. If you're into UML, check it out. It might be what you're looking for.