FOSS4G NA

Initial Thoughts on FOSS4G North America

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FOSS4G North America (FOSS4GNA) wrapped up yesterday, closing out with another thought-provoking keynote by Paul Ramsey. Paul’s talks on the “economics of open source” have evolved over the years and, while this talk certainly discussed such economics, it was so much more. Paul is one of the best speakers you will see and his talks … Read more

Early Bird Registration for FOSS4G-NA Closes Soon

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David Bitner sent out a reminder that Early Bird reagistration for the FOSS4G North Americaconference closes on 1 April 2013. After that, the price goes up by $50 US. You can register online at EventBrite. The preliminary program (PDF) for this year’s event looks exceptional, building upon and potentially exceeding the outstanding quality of FOSS4G-NA … Read more

FOSS4G North America

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It’s rather fitting that the second plenary talk on Wednesday had to do with “firehose” applications since the FOSS4G North America (FOSS4GNA) conference was something of a firehose in itself. Despite the fact that the event was smaller than the worldwide event in Denver back in October, I came away with the same “full brain” feeling.

It feels like I never leave this place.

Of course, given the recent production release of PostGIS 2.0, that was kind of the big story for this event. I attended a number of PostGIS/PostgreSQL-related sessions and came away with lots of new information. I especially enjoyed Paul Ramsey’s “what’s new” talk on Wednesday. One thing I enjoy about his talks (here and in Denver) is that he’s not afraid to throw sample SQL up on the screen. It’s one thing to hear about a new feature but it’s another thing entirely to see a concrete example. Some may find the idea of raw SQL in a presentation abhorrent but it worked for me.

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DC/MD/VA Area Geo-Event Scene Getting More Active

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There was a time only a few years ago when, if you lived in the DC/MD/VA area, planning your geo-conference schedule for the year went something like this: Register for the ESRI FedUC and then start booking plane tickets for everything else. That is no longer the case with more events occurring in the area. Here’s a round-up of a few events that are on my 2012 schedule so far:

You can never have too many of these...

ESRI Federal GIS Conference (formerly known as the Federal User Conference): 22 – 24 February. This is probably one of the longest-running and largest events in the area. This year features another DevGeo session, focusing on developing applications with the various ESRI tools. Last year was the first time it was done at a FedUC and the room was packed all day. This conference is obviously an ESRI show but the last few years have included unofficial, after-hours gatherings of people working with a wide range of geospatial tools. Even if you are not an ESRI user, there may be something going on in the vicinity that would be worthwhile.

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