new jersey geographer » In the News

Colleague in Need – Atanas Entchev facing deportation

John Reiser — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:12:02 +0000

Update: The GIS community has come out in support of Atanas and his family. Calls for letters of support have spread across Twitter and has been picked up by several other blogs:

SpatiallyAdjusted (James Fee)
GeoMusings (Bill Dollins)
GIS Lounge (Caitlin Dempsey)
An update on Entchev GIS Blog (Randal Hale)

Despite this, the Entchev’s future in the US remains uncertain. If you have written a letter of support, thank you. Please write one if you are able.

Atanas Entchev, a familiar face to many on Twitter and throughout the GIS circles in the Northeast is currently facing deportation to Bulgaria. After emigrating here with his family over twenty years ago to escape political persecution, the US Government is now planning to deport the Entchevs. Atanas, his wife and his two children have been living in Central New Jersey and integrated into the local community. He has been involved with GIS in New Jersey for years, having worked in government at the Department of Environmental Protection and at several firms before starting Entchev GIS Architects back in 2005.

Last week, I received an email from Mayia, his wife, asking for letters of support as he is facing deportation. Mayia’s email is as follows:

I am writing you on behalf of my husband, Atanas Entchev, and our family. As you may know, Atanas and I emigrated to the U.S. from Bulgaria 20 years ago. Today, our immigration case is at a crossroads, and it is pertinent that we obtain letters of recommendation from the community. I am reaching out to you because you have been a colleague, client, or valued business contact of Atanas’. I am hoping you may be able to write a letter of recommendation for him. Time is of the essence, and it it crucial that we gather these letters as soon as possible, by today would be best.

If you are willing and able to write a letter of recommendation, your contribution will be invaluable to our case, and would be greatly appreciated by our family.
Please include your name, signature, address and phone number

Best would be if you can email the letters to:
mentcheva@hotmail.com & ericmarkesq@gmail.com
If not possible please fax to (201) 262-7640.

If you would like to get in touch with me, my contact information is listed below.

Thank you very much in advance, you help is greatly appreciated by our family.

Best,
Mayia Entcheva

I have known Atanas for several years now and I consider him a friend. While I knew he was not originally from here, I never thought of him as an immigrant. He is – in my mind – a fellow US citizen and outstanding professional colleague. He’s not a Bulgarian; he’s a New Jerseyan - which is far different from what you see on TV.

If you have worked with Atanas, please take a few minutes to write a letter stating your support. These letters will be incredibly helpful to him and his family. Please send any letters to the email addresses or fax number above. If using email and if you have access to a scanner, they should be signed with your signature. I’m including below my letter of support for you to use as a guide. (...)
Read the rest of Colleague in Need – Atanas Entchev facing deportation on my blog.

GIS & Live Maps for Hurricane Irene

John Reiser — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:59:52 +0000

New Jersey is in the path of Hurricane Irene. The last time a hurricane actually made landfall in New Jersey was the 1903 Vagabond Hurricane. The mandatory evacuations are underway (NJ OEM) and to my knowledge, it is the first time the Garden State Parkway has instituted contraflow traffic (NJTA, PDF). Below are links to several trackers and GIS resources to keep you up-to-date on the storm.

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Read the rest of GIS & Live Maps for Hurricane Irene on my blog.

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hurricane, NJ OEM, Twitter, Weather

ArcGIS: strong enough for Server, pH balanced for Desktop

John Reiser — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 03:31:54 +0000

James Fee pointed out how ArcGIS is undergoing minor rewording as part of the changes coming to the software at version 10.1.

Those were the good ol' days

One thing to note is that the ArcView license level is now Basic, while the ArcEditor level is Standard. While this brings ArcGIS (for) Desktop in line with the terminology used to describe current ArcGIS Server licensing (Basic, Standard, Advanced), something about ArcEditor being Standard strikes me odd. Perhaps it’s part of being in academia too long, but it seems like ArcEditor isn’t a big seller for ESRI. To me, those looking for the additional functionality over what is offered with ArcView would opt for ArcInfo, completely bypassing Editor. Also, we have (almost) always had ArcInfo licenses for the computer labs, while the Educational Time-out discs provided to students would have the ArcView level license. This two-level mentality must resonate with more people than just me. A recent change is that the last time I requested discs for ArcGIS 9 at the beginning of 2011, ESRI sent us 9.3 ArcEditor-level educational discs. And the ArcGIS 10 education discs I recently received are ArcInfo level. So is ArcView going to be phased out as the “entry-level” ArcGIS? And is ~~ArcEditor~~ ArcGIS for Desktop Standard going to see a decrease in price?

While I personally will miss the quirkiness of ESRI’s licensing terminology, I can see why it is being done. The progression of Basic, Standard, Advanced is clear while View, Editor, Info is not. Especially with the fact that some people are still using ArcView 3 (uninstall, already!) which is completely distinct from the ArcMap program in ArcGIS (for Desktop) 8.x and later.

What’s still unanswered for me is what happens to some of the other “ArcGIS” products. ArcPad? ArcGIS Explorer? ArcReader? They don’t get fancy new names?

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ArcGIS, ArcGIS Server, ArcPad, ESRI, James Fee, rebranding

2cm Photography of the Ongoing Flooding in Queensland

John Reiser — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:45:47 +0000

NearMap has released an interactive map showing the imagery acquired this week of the flooding around Brisbane. 2cm imagery, less than a week old, available around the world through the internet. Pretty soon, laughing about how some fools think the images on Google Maps are real-time will be a thing of the past.

Dangerous Cartography

John Reiser — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:17:10 +0000

Back in March of 2010, Sarah Palin’s PAC released a map of “democratic targets” she would like to see out of office. The map, depicted at right, used gunsights to highlight where the representatives she wants gone are located.

Sadly, today someone shot one of the representatives on Palin’s map. CNN is reporting that Representative Gabrielle Giffords is in surgery; Fox News already listed her as deceased. (Perhaps it was wishful thinking on their part.)

While politics in the US has a long history of unpleasantness, from childish chanting over impropriety to fights and even severe beatings on the floor of the Capitol, I’m still shocked that one party would go so far to imply assassination as part of political fundraising.

I hope Rep. Giffords makes a speedy, complete recovery.

Update: Video of Giffords commenting on the map above and the vandalism and threats it brought. “Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.”

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Gabrielle Giffords, Politics, Sarah Palin, Tea Party

High Expectations for Barnes & Nobles in Glassboro

John Reiser — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:56:50 +0000

It’s only the third day and Barnes and Nobles is starting to disappoint me. I understand that they just opened, but I feel that the disappointments are only going to continue. The selection of books is minimal; on par with or less than the regular selection at the Deptford store. Being “faculty,” I will be able to request that they stock a few extra copies of books I “recommend” (not require) but these books will not be in the general circulation; they will be upstairs with the rest of the textbooks. The Art (and thus Architecture) section is undersized, as well as the Social Sciences/Cultural Studies. This means that Geography and Planning books have a very small, blink-and-miss-it section of shelf in the general circulation.

Currently, the wifi in the Cafe section does not work, so when this is posted, it will be later, from on campus. This should, I hope, only be a temporary inconvenience. Last night, on their second day open, I stopped by at 9:30 after grocery shopping. They were closed. The Cafe, while able to be open for a longer period than the main store, is not. Both the bookstore and the cafe are going to close at the same time, 9pm. This is an incredible disappointment. I also found from the Cafe staff this morning that there are no currently no plans to change the arrangement, even though I heard B&N staff inform the police (during a walkthrough on opening day) that the cafe can be open later. I know “can” and “will” are two very different words, but my hopes are diminishing.

Maybe I have to wait for more of the Rowan Boulevard project to be completed. After all, this B&N is the only commercial building on the street. From where I sit, I can see work proceed on the mixed use “A-1″ building, which will hopefully generate more of a street life on Rowan Boulevard. I still have high hopes for the project overall, but even after it is complete, if Glassboro’s going to roll up the streets at 9pm, the only incentive I have to live in the ‘Boro is that I’m within biking distance of Rowan.

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Barnes & Noble, Glassboro, Rowan Boulevard, Rowan University

The “Danger” of Creative Commons

John Reiser — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:58:17 +0000

Being that I’m a planning and transit buff, I take a lot of pictures of urban spaces and infrastructure for use in my planning work. I post many of the pictures to Flickr, as the site’s a great service and it supports geotagged photos taken with my GPS camera. With the exception of pictures of family and friends, all of my pictures are public and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike license. This allows anyone to use my photographs for most uses, explicitly non-commercial use, provided they note that I am the source of the image. Well, what happens when someone you disagree with uses that image to promote his or her agenda? What if that person is Senator John McCain?

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Read the rest of The “Danger” of Creative Commons on my blog.

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Flickr, Glassboro, Government, infrastructure, photography, redevelopment, senate, train

Changing Landscapes: A Great Release

John Reiser — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:00:57 +0000

Release date was finally here. I woke up in a panic just before 6am because I fell asleep before John sent me the PDF of the report to be posted to the website. I posted the report, double checked to make sure everything was in order, and then visited NJ.com to read the article. I knew that the article was limited to around 500 words, but I was still hoping for the best. (An aside: why aren’t all newspapers considering a brief short version and a longer web version for their articles? It’s not like there’s a restriction on word count on the Web.) The article was there and it was pretty good, all things considered. But, there was an egregious omission – a link to the report.

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Read the rest of Changing Landscapes: A Great Release on my blog.

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Post tags: Changing Landscapes, CRSSA, geolab, Old Media

Changing Landscapes: A Million Little Tiles

John Reiser — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:00:03 +0000

The New Jersey Land Change Viewer, the online component of the Changing Landscapes research project required the generation of approximately one million map tiles. These tiles needed to be served quickly – the online viewer is meant to make the findings of the project and the ramifications of New Jersey’s urbanization patterns readily apparent to the general public. Long wait times do not help get your point across, so we used Amazon Web Services to store and distribute the map tiles.

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Read the rest of Changing Landscapes: A Million Little Tiles on my blog.

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Amazon, Apache Tomcat, Arc2Earth, Changing Landscapes, CRSSA, geolab, Geoserver, GIS, Google Maps, TileCache

Changing Landscapes: Brainstorming

John Reiser — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:00:40 +0000

This gets the GIS geeks excited.

Back in June, the New Jersey DEP Bureau of GIS released the 2007 Land Use/Land Cover data. The data was released in record time, just slightly over 3 years from the aerial photography date. We felt that we needed to release our findings as soon as possible after the release of the data. Before the data was released, John and I began discussing ways that we could make the data presentable to the public in a much more engaging manner than static maps in a PDF report.
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Read the rest of Changing Landscapes: Brainstorming on my blog.

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Changing Landscapes, CRSSA, DEP, geolab, GIS, Google Earth, Google Maps, KML, LULC