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Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
Commercial, government, and utility organizations have the need to show the locations of their stores or services to make it easy for customers to connect and find the services they seek. Now, during the pandemic, more than ever people are seeking services near their places of residence, the “great localization”. They are looking for convenience and safety, and they are looking for new types of services – medical testing centers, home delivery, pick-up points, recreational options, and more. Even more, the pandemic is changing the local landscape itself; some businesses have closed, some have changed their hours of operation, some are providing new services such as home delivery. Providing mapped data about the location of available services increases consumer confidence, and boosts consumption for savvy businesses and government services providers.
How do I create a store locator with Google Maps?
“Store Locator” applications are relatively easy to implement using the Google Maps Platform. All too often, a poorly implemented store locator creates a cumbersome experience. A well-designed store locator boosts the effectiveness of your website and answers the key question of how to find your office, services or stores. For optimal impact to the bottom line, here are ten things you should consider when building a store locator app using Google Maps APIs:
1.Minimize the number of clicks required to find relevant information.
Provide intuitive filters to present only viable locations.
Drive search with user location, address location, or select a point on the map
Read full story at AppGeo…
first published week of: 01/18/2021
Commercial, government, and utility organizations have the need to show the locations of their stores or services to make it easy for customers to connect and find the services they seek. Now, during the pandemic, more than ever people are seeking services near their places of residence, the “great localization”. They are looking for convenience and safety, and they are looking for new types of services – medical testing centers, home delivery, pick-up points, recreational options, and more. Even more, the pandemic is changing the local landscape itself; some businesses have closed, some have changed their hours of operation, some are providing new services such as home delivery. Providing mapped data about the location of available services increases consumer confidence, and boosts consumption for savvy businesses and government services providers.
How do I create a store locator with Google Maps?
“Store Locator” applications are relatively easy to implement using the Google Maps Platform. All too often, a poorly implemented store locator creates a cumbersome experience. A well-designed store locator boosts the effectiveness of your website and answers the key question of how to find your office, services or stores. For optimal impact to the bottom line, here are ten things you should consider when building a store locator app using Google Maps APIs:
Read full story at AppGeo…
first published week of: 02/22/2021
A collection of free mapping resources
My brother-in-law (Charles Upton) keeps up with his family's history through various sources. Recently he came across a short paper that included, among other resources, a list of free map resources. The paper, "Magic Tool Box" was created by J. Mark Lowe
In addition to maps, includes, newspapers, obituaries/address/basic research, books/digital libraries and records and resources.
Here are just a few the map resources:
For the complete list see attached PDF…PS: one of these resources give you access to free SHP files.
first published week of: 08/02/2021
These tips and tricks will turn you into a Google Maps master
Google Maps may not be at the top of your list of favorite apps, but it's undoubtedly one of the most important apps and services that you use regularly. Whether you're looking up a new restaurant on your computer or navigating to a new location with one of the best Android phones, Google Maps is the navigation aid that most of us turn to time and again.
We've written dozens of helpful guides and how-to articles about Google Maps on this site, but we thought it might be a good idea to organize the best Google Maps tips and tricks that we could find at this point in 2021. So without further ado, let's jump into them!
Tip 1: Time traveling
Read full story at androidcentral…
first published week of: 07/19/2021
Move rapidly and urgently because our world really needs it, because we need to create sustainable solutions, because time is running short,” Esri founder and president, Jack Dangermond, urged attendees at Esri’s second international User Conference to be hosted virtually. “It’s late in the day, but it’s not dark yet.”
Geography matters more than ever, and as the world faces ongoing climate crises, it’s time to act. That was the message as the 41 st annual Esri User Conference opened Monday, attracting more than 70,000 registered attendees, with a focus on achieving sustainability by linking environmental conservation with economic empowerment and social equity.
Location Intelligence Takes Maps from Mountains to Mars
When the Perseverance Rover needed to find the Jezero Crater on the surface of Mars, it did what any traveler might do, it took a map. Perseverance, though, had a particular advantage that previous rovers didn’t—terrain relative navigation. Dr. Fred J. Calef with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained how Perseverance’s long journey to the red planet started with imagery captured by satellites orbiting around Mars. This allowed scientists to create elevation models, point out slope hazards, and let NASA engineers determine how long it might take for the rover to traverse the landscape. The rover needed to know where there were big rocks, high hills, deep sandpits, and where it might be able to land safely in between. And for the first time, a space rover wasn’t estimating within a broad range where it might be best to land. Perseverance knew precisely, within 5 meters, where to go.
Working with a cloud-based geographic information system, the Telluride Ski & Golf resort in Colorado keeps track of, maintains, and organizes all of its operations and assets—400 snow guns, chair lifts, pump house flow for snow-making, and staff—spread across 2,500 acres of private and public mountain land. The resort’s personnel can see the mountain’s geospatial infrastructure represented in a digital twin to visualize what needs to be done, where, in real time, from anywhere. The information is also helping the resort plan for the future, allowing it to determine how best to augment natural snow with manufactured snow to extend its seasons. In the future, Telluride hopes to be able to track everything in real time and send automated alerts to those who need them when issues on the mountain arise.
The USDA Forest Service monitors all of America’s forests. Its BIGMAP uses cloud-computing processing to take in an immense amount of data, including tens of trillions of pixels, and produce results in days. Among the maps the agency has been openly publishing for the public are those showing forest stocking levels in the nation’s “wood basket” and forest types across the US including ones that have a particular susceptibility to western forest fires. The agency is using data visualized in maps to also make decisions about where to focus planting to have the least adverse impact.
Read full story at Esri…
first published week of: 07/19/2021
SuperMap joined hands with Peru GIS software education company Geo Edex to participate in the webinar on "Evento por el Día Mundia del Agua 2021” co-sponsored by the Argentine Electric Power Association, the University of San Carlos Guatemala, and the University of Science and Arts of Chiapas, Mexico. It mainly discussed topics such as water resource utilization, hydrological analysis, water quality analysis and other topics with the participants.
In the webinar, Geo Edex made an online forum report: El Uso del Agua en el Desarrollo de Yacimientos No Convencionales: Caso de Vaca Muerta; Neuquén, Argentina, which sharing how to use SuperMap GIS technology to make 3D analysis on hydropower resources, distribution of underground minerals, mineral classification, and analyze the buffer zone of polluted areas. It introduces the outstanding application advantages of SuperMap GIS technology in water resources utilization, mineral analysis and other fields.
Read full story at SuperMap…
first published week of: 03/29/2021