A geospatial career journey
For the past two years, have been working with a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) provider supporting various data architecture and geospatial activities. This is a classic infrastructure business that cycles through phases of design, construction, and maintenance as the built environment changes. This leads to a lot classic GIS editing over time - which can mean the … Continue reading GeoParquet Backup and Restore
I flew home from St. Louis yesterday, returning from the FOSS4G North America conference. I took a different approach to the conference this year than I did in 2023. Rather than moderate sessions and participate in a lot of on-site logistics, I sat in on more sessions so I got to see a lot more … Continue reading A FOSS4GNA Savasana
A couple of weeks ago, I had a need to return GeoJSON from PostGIS. This is something I've done many times, but I usually do the final formatting in the application/API layer with Javascript or Python. Basically, my workflow has been to SELECT, using the built-in ST_AsGeoJSON function to convert the geometry to GeoJSON. I … Continue reading Producing GeoJSON with SQL
On March 1, 2024, ArcMap will transition into "mature support." This means it will stop getting patches and updates. While ArcMap is not scheduled to be retired until 2026, the lack of patches and updates is the death knell for any modern software. At a minimum, many IT shops will begin to uninstall it simply … Continue reading Pour One Out for ArcMap
I've been integrating pg_webhooks into some project work lately. Conversely, I have not been using n8n much, but a vendor rep used it in a demo of some workflow automation capabilities for a platform one of my customers is using. I had dabbled with it about two years ago but haven't done much with it … Continue reading Using pg_webhooks with n8n – A Simple Example
FOSS4G North America was an opportunity for me to reconnect with both community and technology. I enjoyed being able to both learn new things and refresh my skills with technologies such as PostGIS. I was reflecting on how, a couple weeks prior to the conference, I introduced the concept of PostgreSQL window functions to a … Continue reading Window Functions and PostGIS
At the time of my last post, there were a few outstanding issues that I wanted to address in the code of pg_webhooks. I've addressed three of them this week. There wasn't actually a route to unsubscribe from a channel, so I added that shortly after the initial release. Another key shortcoming was that the … Continue reading A Few Updates to pg_webhooks
PostgreSQL's NOTIFY/LISTEN method for subscribing to events from a database is a subject I return to periodically. I've touched on it in one form or another over several years. My latest run at it involves building a Node Express application that will allow external systems to subscribe to webhooks that are fired by NOTIFY statements … Continue reading A Simple Webhook Interface for PostgreSQL NOTIFY
I'm a CIO. That means a typical day can involve a range of activities: responding to data calls for security audits, reviewing SOC2 reports of prospective platform vendors, managing subscriptions of existing vendors, handling GDPR requests, ensuring data from corporate systems is meaningful and relevant for our internal stakeholders, attending meetings of various sorts. Somewhere … Continue reading Reconsidering the Spreadsheet
Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion on Clubhouse, hosted by Todd Barr and Jordan Cullen, and including Will Cadell of SparkGeo. Clubhouse seems to be a really convenient venue for setting up such a forum with low barriers to entry, so that was enjoyable. The topic of the discussion … Continue reading Return on Non-Investment