How bout them BUCKEYES!
OSU vs UM
11-9-2006
For those that need to develop 9.2 ESRI extensions on the cheap, here's a distilled version of what you will need to do:
0) make sure ArcGIS 9.2 has .Net support installed
1) install Visual Studio Express (C#, VB.NET, J# flavors available).
2) create a new project (use the dll project template), make sure to reference all the favorite ESRI libraries in the project.
3) change the setting for the project that deals with "COM
Visibility," make sure you set this to true/checked, or you'll never
get your dll to work.
4) create a new class, for this example, implement the "ICommand" interface.
5) right before the class declaration, inside the namespace declaration, add AT LEAST this attribute:
[Guid("*your unique guid here*")]
(generate your own GUIDs here: http://kruithof.xs4all.nl/uuid/uuidgen)
on the next line, it's nice to add a unique program id
[ProgId("AndrewThekenDotCom.EasyCommand")]
6) for the class declaration, make sure to add the PUBLIC keyword,
this is missing from the pregenerated class declaration, it's in the
ESRI examples, but not stated explicitly. I didn't notice for a long
time, and could never figure out why my extensions wouldn't load. If
you are a student of COM Interop, you probably already knew this...
7) IN the class body, add the COM register and unregister functions (these are documented well by ESRI, so go do your homework).
8) compile the dll.
9) copy the compiled dll (and any library dependancies not in the
.Net GAC) to the ArcGIS/bin directory (probably c:\program
files\arcgis\bin)
10) run cmd, cd to the bin directory used in step 9.
11) run c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.*xxxxx*\regasm.exe
*your fancy dll*.dll, this should give some positive feedback like
"Assembly Registered Successfully" or something to that effect.
12) load the ArcGIS app that you built the tool for.. use the
customize dialog to add the tool to the menu of your choice (for
context menus, you can show the "Context Menus" toolbar and drag your
command to it.)
13) Run Command
13.1)Profit!
Questions? Contact Me
8-21-06
Yay pictures!
Katie and Andrew
8-11-06
A not-so-modest proposal.
Ok, some of you Open Source folks aren't going to like me for this
one, but here goes. Normally, I wouldn't suggest such a huge step but
we need to take it. You folks over at the Mozilla Foundation need to
make this happen. Things are easy to implement/design deploy with web
standards, when they are adhered to. Firefox's (and KHTML's) compliance
is very high compared to Internet Explorer. We need to find a way to
get Microsoft to use Gecko or KHTML in Internet Explorer. I realize I
might be spinning my wheels here.
I know this may sound like blasphemy, but always look to the comments made in regards to the LGPL
(I think the following has been stated by Richard Stallman - if anybody
can source the following, email me, it's probably on the gnu.org site).
Let me paraphrase: The LGPL
is designed to allow a developer that wants to add commonly available
functionality to do so without opening the entire application, so long
as that functionality is not materially the core portion of the
application. Basically, making it so that a commercial developer would
choose an Open Source library for some small, non-critical feature
instead of a commercial counterpart. Basically, something like a HTTP
server, which is, at this point, a commonplace set of code. LGPL is
designed to have you adopt Open Source instead of paying for a closed
source trivial portion of code. Essentially, the proliferation of the
Open implementation is more important than getting additional code to
go "Open."
Now, Gecko is not LGPL'd (to my knowledge), but there's a reason
why I brought it up. Untold good would come from giving away Gecko to
Microsoft for IE. they have a rendering engine, they could buy and
integrate any one that they wished, we need them to adopt one that
complies to W3C and the rest. Give 'em the engine, have them integrate
it, code contributions be damned.
Firefox would still have it's place as a more secure browser,
extensions, etc. We'd just have less implementation work to do to get
websites up and looking good. Something I am sure we can all
appreciate.
Let them add in all their Microsoft-y glory. Code change
submissions would be optional. Require that the Gecko engine generally
render in much the same way as it does in other browsers, no more, no
less. We need the web standards for end users and web designers more
than we need Microsoft's code.
Now, let's not think about how perverse it would be to run Internet
Explorer with a Netscape-derived rendering engine. Would Microsoft do
it? Seems like their codebase for IE is so bad that they'll take any
help they can get (seriously folks, I think they had 51% standards
compliance in the 5.x series which jumps to 54% for IE7, I think
Firefox's is about 94% -if anybody can source this, email me.).
PLEASE Mozilla & Microsoft, share your love.
8-9-06
Lots of reviews of a "lack-luster" keynote this week at WWDC - and Wall Street says it didn't go so well, here's why:
1) Not enough new "toys" from Apple, no phones, ipods, dvrs, not
even the whole Leopard feature set. Apple's facing an issue of not
really being able to meet the imaginary things people seem to expect
Apple to do. Wall Street punishes then when every rumor is not met.
2) Too many actors on stage - almost never has Steve left the stage
to someone to do the new product announcements, new feature
announcements (at least for the Apple products), sure Phil Schiller
waves and everybody is glad to see him over iChat. This time, Phil
announced products on-stage, and Steve was sitting on the sidelines.
Asside from all that, Phil's general appearance didn't fit the Apple
image - I mean that his attire wasn't a black turtleneck, and he
stuttered with the product announcements. I think that hurt 'em with
the press.
3) The new Steve: when Steve steps down, there's a new guy to take
care of business. The guy I am talking about is the VP of User
Experience (I think). He was amazing, and had all of Steve's flair,
right down to "and I'd like to show you that now"- black shirt, younger
body - this guy is going to be running the company. The take home
lesson is this: The handwriting is on the wall for Steve to step down -
this makes people nervous.
Just some observations, watch the keynote and decide for yourself.
8-6-06
Getting ready to board a plane and head out to San Diego for the
annual ESRI User Conference. Should be exciting. I will take a few
pictures and update everyone soon. Katie's moving to Durham in two
days, I know she's excited.. so am I!
6-25-2006
Katie and I made a road trip down to Chapel Hill,NC this month.
Katie took a practical exam to get licensed in North Carolina, she did
very well. We also looked at about 10-15 houses where we might like to
live. In the end, we ended up just renting a place because we want to
get to know the area better before we make any moves.
5-20-2006
The new MacBook === AMAZING. The machine runs faster than any other
I've ever owned. It really needs at least 1 GB if you want to run OSX
and WinXP simultaneously - but when it does, it zips. The keyboard is
one of the most amazing parts, it just feels good on your fingertips.
The magnetic latch is superb, the iSight takes beautiful video, making
video conferencing practical, the screen is bright, and the glare is
minimal. All night compiles are now an hour. Compressing DivX happens
at 80fps.. I've never seen a machine move this fast. More updates
coming.
5-10-2006
Sitting next to Andy Lathrop, reminds me that I haven't had an
Apple for about a week, come on Steve, where are the new Macbooks.
Somebody wants me to update GMapsClass to version 2.0 - maybe this weekend.
4-26-2006
Yahoo! has been releasing some nice code for use all over the
place. They have some nice AJAX-y UI Controls that are licensed under
BSD. However, their examples aren't really that clear. I will be
uploading simplified samples here: Simplified-Yahoo. Let me know if these help.
4-24-2006
Over the weekend, my friends Sarah Clapp and Ryan Work got married!
Congrats to both of them, Katie and I are getting excited for our
wedding (2/17/07). Another long-time friend, David Bradway
just asked his girlfriend of a couple years, Laura, to marry him. Looks
like everyone is in Love. If you have no one to call your own, I have
you covered. You can fall in love with new artists, using this fun
little AJAX page: http://www.andrewtheken.com/scrobbler
- I threw it together in a hurry, it's buggy, but it works, pretty
much. I should also mention that it would be cool to make "smart
playlists" in iTunes using this same data.
4-13-2006
1) Ended up in NYC last night. I was able to visit with my friend John Kirkman which was nice, so it wasn't a total loss.
2) Has anybody considered the reason we haven't seen "new" form
factors for macs. I think it's because they don't want an "average"
user coming in and seeing a really "new" looking mac compared to the
"old" stock. It's marketing until they have no more PPC stock to sell.
4-2-2006
The story is good, but Cringley is crazy with the little prediction at the end. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060330.html
3-21-2006
Katie and I went to San Francisco, CA. IT WAS AWESOME! We walked
everywhere, we were both exhausetd at the end of every day. One of the
reasons we went all the way out to Cali was for Katie to attend the
APhA convention (it's a Phamacist thing). Cali also has great weather,
food, scenery, culture, & cheap cameras/luggage. Katie received an
award from the Pharmacy honor fraternity, Rho Chi. This is a national
achievement, and I am very proud of her. I will post pictures of our
trip soon.
2-18-2006
I am officially launching a new project, Eclipse .Net Editor.
I haven't actually released anything yet. Strike that. I haven't even
been able to determine a complete course of action, but this thing has
been floating out there for awhile, and it's an itch that needs
scratched. Wish me luck.
1-22-2006
I take every good thing I said about iLife '06 back. The software
is just so terribly crippled without .Mac. It's more that the .Mac
systems seem so incredibly proprietary, and that is basically against
where we all had hoped Apple was going. Don't get me wrong, I do want
some media integration with everything else I am doing, but I find this
hard to believe. iPhoto doesn't even have (S)FTP support to post
"photocasts" on an independant website. And while I'm on this rant,
when will we get r/w FTP access from FINDER.
1-11-2006
All I can say is.. Underwhelmed. The MacBook Pro is not nearly the
machine it should have been. Hopefully, the next revisions really are a
new generation of Macs... and Apple removes that silly name. iLife '06
on the other hand looks pretty decent.
1-10-2006
Apple is hosting MacWorld Expo this week, THE Steve is giving his keynote today! Expect some cool new stuff.
