For all you .NET wonks out there, I had some serious trouble finding the solution that fit my business (CitySourced – http://www.citysourced.com) when it came to processing geo spatial elements. Yes, there’s the SQL Server 2008 and their new spatial types (which I use as well), but there was nothing that allowed me to work with geo spatial elements directly in my .NET application. We’re now using ESRI’s ArcGIS 10technology for a lot of the heavy lifting at CitySourced, but there is definitely a need for doing some of this in-application.

That being said, I’ve collected the libraries that were most useful to me and zipped them up. I’m doing this because the library I’m most fond of was the most difficult to find and get working – SharpMap 2.0 beta.

Download my .NET_GIS_Libraries

In addition to the download, I’ve decided to add links to all my favorite websites. Enjoy!

http://sharpmap.codeplex.com/
http://dotspatial.codeplex.com/
http://projnet.codeplex.com/
http://geoapi.codeplex.com/
http://mssqlspatial.codeplex.com/

And a great how to blog for SharpMap 2.0 – a must read!

http://geekswithblogs.net/JuanDoNeblo/archive/2008/04/13/showing-esri-shapefile-layers-on-a-virtual-earth-map.aspx

Now that CitySourced is on Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, I’m a huge fan of what it offers both developers and startup companies. That being said, I wanted to put a quick note out there about a fix to a bug I found to help spread the knowledge I’ve gained getting into the nuts and bolts of it. With CitySourced, the original application was written in .NET (C#, 3.5 Framework), so the port was relatively simple. Once we started playing around with it though, the development app fabric kept crashing on us for no apparent reason. I searched Google (and Bing) and came up with nothing. Upon closer inspection of the code, it appears that if you redirect and specify the “EndResponse” flag as true, the app fabric bombs. So, in summary:

This BOMBS -> Response.Redirect(“~/my-new-url”, true);

This WORKS -> Response.Redirect(“~/my-new-url”, false);

I guess Azure doesn’t like ending the response prematurely. Luckily, we had abstracted any and all redirects to a utility class (eg, ContextUtil). So we updated our code in one place and viola! Our code worked perfectly.

I’ll be doing a pretty in depth post on our complete migration, what I like, what I didn’t like, etc. Stay tuned!

So I find these types of email / messages quite amusing. First, that someone would actually take the time to sit down and write something like this means they have an extraordinary amount of time (read: no friends or life). Second, the message is typically so vague and cryptic, the author really just comes off as a complete retard imbecile. Third, the author rarely identifies themselves only reinforcing their cowardice and lack of utter integrity. If you’re going to call me names, at least tell me who you are you wuss.

To what am I referring? Well, I got this message to my MySpace account a few weeks ago, and I just had to laugh. I’ve now posted the message for all of you to enjoy.

So… enjoy!

In case some of you can’t see the image, I’ve transcribed it here:

“City Sourced is the most outrageous capitalistic bullshit I have ever seen. If you want a “clean” neighborhood, move to the fucking suburbs to slowly die like the rest of the feeble fucks like you. I don’t like you at all. Major fail.”

I don’t know if many of you know, but I founded a company called CitySourced recently. Very simply, we make it really easy to make your city a better place with your smartphone. See a pothole or some graffiti? Snap a picture of it with your iPhone and it automatically gets reported to City Hall. Cool, eh? Well, I think it is. (Granted, I’m really, really geeky) While our application works in over 1900 cities nationwide, we recently launched CitySourced as the official mobile platform for the City of San Jose. We held a download day on December 12th, and I have to say, the results are really impressive. In just a few days, hundreds of issues have been reported, and all those issues have been worked into the backend workflow of the city itself. The reports that get filed will be automatically updated when at various stages in the report lifecycle (submission, confirm receipt, resolved, etc.) This is just one of many cities to adopt our platform officially, and we’re excited to bring on many more as the new year approaches.

If you’d like to download the CitySourced application for your city, you can do so here (it’s completely free!) – http://itunes.apple.com/app/citysourced/id336854714

And if you have any issues that come up, please don’t hesitate to email them to me.

Enjoy the app, and have a very safe and happy holiday!