GISDataMonkey

Drupal 7.x Search and CSS feed bugs due to extra lines

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:32:00 +0000

I recently noticed that the automatic css feeds that Drupal generate and the site search tool were not working on my Drupal 7 site. After a little digging courtesy of Google this pretty old post on the Drupal community site helped me solve both problems at once.

The search function was returning an error when I searched on any term. While the CSS link would prompt me to save or open the file in firefox rather than render a CSS page automatically. When checking the downloaded file you could see the first line in the file was blank followed by the expected xml tags and script befinning on line 2.

Basically both bugs appear to be caused by blank lines before the opening or after closing PHP tags ( and ?>) in the module files.. In fact as best practice developers are encouraged not to include the PHP ending tag in their module files as it is so easy to save a file with one or two blank lines at the end to the file which causes errors.

A number of solutions and quick fixes are aoutlined in the linked post. I basically dragged all my module files into my favourite text editor and visually checked for blank lines before the opening PHP tags. Then continued to check visually that all the module files which did have closing PHP tags "?>" did not have any trailing blank lines or spaces after the tag. In my case I found only two modules with closing PHP tags and both had blank lines after the tags. After deleting these the bugs were solved.

To locate the module files which need to be checked they are found in the sites/all/modules/ directory. Within each module folder check the file with the .module suffix for blank lines as described above.

Django, Windows7, Virtualenv, TCC/LE

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:05:00 +0000

Today I have been Wrestling to set up a development environment for Django 1.5.1 on Windows7 using Virtual environment. As normal in real life there were a number of complications such as:

I have a number programs on my laptop which install and run different versions of Python (such as ArGIS and SPSS)
I had previously installed an older version of Django in one of the python installs.

These complications were compounded by the fact Virtualenv keeps loading global site packages on Windows as described here. After a morning of searching google and stackoverflow and trying out different suggestions I found this very easy to follow guide by Jtiai which solved all my problems.

The key section that solved my conflicting python issues under virtualenv was the following configuration of TCC/LE command shell. (I wonder if you can configure cmd.exe in a similar way?).

Under working directory create subdirectory config. In this directory create startup file for TCC/LE called tcstart.btm

@echo off
rem Override system python binding to handle virtualenvironments
set .py;.pyc=python.exe

Now create (copy) TCC/LE shortcut on desktop and rename it appropriately. Open Properties for shortcut and add to Target “C:\django\config\tcstart.btm”. You probably want to set Start in to something useful, like C:\django

For the record the environment I have now installed comprises of:

Python 2.7
Django 1.5.1
virtualenv 1.9.1
TCC LE 13.0

How to Add Google Maps (Bing, Yahoo and Open Street Map too!) as a background in QGIS In 10 Easy Steps

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Last week I wrote a short how-to tutorial outlining how to add google map satellite imagery or map layers as a background in Opensource GIS software package QGIS. Infact the OpenLayers Plugin allows you to add data from all the major online map players, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps and Open Street Map (OSM).

The guide was originally written for the members of the EDENext FP7 project, but is available to all, and downloadable from the EDENext Data Portal GIS Resources page.

I hope it is useful, please leave any feedback in the comments.

Delicious Links of the day...

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:21:00 +0000

statconn

Posted: 20 Sep 2010 09:21 AM PDT

Powerful data analysis from inside your favorite application. The DCOM application is a dependency for Spatial Ecologies Heospatial Modelling Environment

Geospatial Modelling Environment - SpatialEcology.Com

Posted: 20 Sep 2010 08:56 AM PDT

The replacement for the excelent Hawths Tools

My favourite thing about MyISAM MySQL tables!

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:30:00 +0000

One important feature that distinguish MyISAM from InnoDB is that MyISAM tables are generally binary portable. If you need to move a table from one MySQL server to the other, just copy the files from first server to the second server and you are ready to go. In some instances it’s a lot handier than using say mysqldump.

I found out my recent MYSQL backups were currupted... Only after our server had been compromised! So I spent half a day reading up on how to try and recover data from an old MySQL Data Folder. Untill I stumbled across this quote hidden in one of the comments on this page: MySQL: the Pros and Cons of MyISAM Tables.

So for MyISAM tables it is possible to copy the folder containing the database table files (by default found in your MYSQL data directory eg. MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\data\nameofschema) and paste it into the equivilent data folder of a different MtSQL installation. of course this will work best if the installation is a similar version to the original.

Very useful to know if like me your MySQL dumps were currupted or you are foolish enough not to back up your data with a sqldump in the first place.

How to import a Mapinfo Interchange Format .MIF to a shapefile

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:15:00 +0000

I downloaded some species distributions from AgroAtlas earlier which were in MapInfo MIF/MID format. It had been years since I had to import this format to .shp to view in ESRI ArcGIS and it took a little digging to figure out how. So I thought I would blog it so I would have it documented for next time.

First of all I checked ArcGIS for a quick win, and was disapointed. Apparently there are two options.

The first is to use the MIF to shapefile utility found in the ArcGIS8.x toolbar as documented here. However this didn't work for me. I got an error stating "Unable to finish conversion" and the tool only created a .shp and a .shx, with no .dbf or .prj for that matter.
The second ESRI method was to buy the ArcGIS Data Interoperability Extension which seemed a little xtreme just to check out a couple of small datasets.

So I got onto google and found a third non-ESRI solution using the GDAL/OGR Simple Feature Library in FWTools. FWTools is a set of Open Source GIS binaries for windows or linux including the GDAL/OGR command line libraries. FWTools is the easiest way to install the GDAL libraries onto windows and can be done via an installer .exe file downloadable here. Simply double click the exe file and follow the on screen installation instructions. Once installed open up the FWTools Shell from either the start menu>programs or the desktop short cut then enter the following command:

ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" c:\output-path-to-shapefile\mydata.shp c:\path-to-mif-mid-files\mydata.mif

That was the simple how-to example,ogr2ogr has many other parameters that can be specified click here for full ogr2ogr usage documentation.

Ogr supports multiple data formats including: ESRI Shapefile, MapInfo Tab file, TIGER, s57, DGN, CSV, DBF, GML, KML, Interlis, SQLite, ODBC, ESRI GeoDatabase (MDB format), PostGIS/PostgreSQL, MySQL.

Other references used in researching this article:

http://osgeo-org.1803224.n2.nabble.com/Fwd-FWrools-OGR-utilities-mif-to-shape-conversion-ogr2ogr-not-recognizing-mif-file-td5313127.html

http://www.bostongis.com/PrinterFriendly.aspx?content_name=ogr_cheatsheet

Football banter through the medium of 3D Mapping

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:59:00 +0000

Some Aberdeen fans have been using Google Sketch-up to wind up rival fans in Scotland. By creating quality sketch-ups of scottish grounds with famous scorelines (favouring Aberdeen) posted on the stadium score boards and images of Aberdeen celebrations on the big screens.

Internet pranksters use Google Earth to wind up opposition football fans

Bringing football rivalry into the GIS arena. I like it!

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Delicious Links of the day...

DISCOMAP - For Developers

Posted: 11 Jun 2010 12:01 AM PDT

Environment Agency Spatial Data Portal Developer page. They have been kind enough to provide some examples of the technology used within their applications

http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~hseltman/files/convertData.R

Posted: 15 Apr 2010 03:56 AM PDT

This function uses R to get all or several datasets in some particular "foreign" data format (e.g., SPSS, SAS, etc.), and then writes them back out as text files (or returns a data.frame).

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:55:00 +0000

Delicious Links of the day...

R-Sessions

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 04:12 AM PDT

Useful articles on a variety of different R-Project topics, from How-tos to, performance, software and book reviews.

R-Sessions 10: Conditionals

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 04:10 AM PDT

Simple Conditional examples for R-project Statistics

[R] looping through data frames in a workspace

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 08:49 AM PDT

Off a message board.

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:41:00 +0000

Delicious Links of the day...

R Data Import/Export

Posted: 01 Apr 2010 01:44 AM PDT

How to import and export different data formats with R-project Statistics

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:57:00 +0000

Delicious Links of the day...

CreateParameter Method (ADO)

Posted: 08 Mar 2010 03:09 AM PST

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:23:00 +0000

Delicious Links of the day...

Avia-GIS

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 06:58 AM PST

Avia-GIS "Agriculture and Veterinary Information and Analysis" is a Belgian consultancy company founded in 2001 that specializes in the collection, processing and analysis of spatial information, and the development of space-time information systems.

Euro-AEGIS

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 06:56 AM PST

Euro-AEGIS, European Agro-Environmental health GIS associates EEIG, is a European Economical Interest Grouping (EEIG) founded by Avia-GIS (Zoersel, Belgium) and ERGO (Oxford, UK) in 2004.

Earthworks-jobs.com - Jobs in Oil, Energy, Gas, Geoscience, Geosciences ...

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 06:47 AM PST

In my opinion the best website for Environmental science (especially GIS) related jobs.

Infectious Disease Research Network (IDRN)

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 06:43 AM PST

Our focus is on UK-based research, although we welcome international members and collaborators. - Also has an excellent Job page if you are looking for opportunities in this field.

ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 - Creating a new geodatabase

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 03:04 AM PST

ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 Help - Creating a new geodatabase. Official documentation on creating Personal, file and ArcSDE geodatabases.

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:19:00 +0000

Delicious Links of the day...

Interactive Guide to the National Grid

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 01:06 AM PST

Ordnance Survey Guide to the National grid with a 2-side PDF guide, including the Alpha-numeric grid map with numbers.

Web colors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 03:48 AM PST

A Selection of W=web colours that can be utilised for palettes in web GIS applications such as ArcIMS and Mapserver.

Delicious Link: FormatPercent Function - VBScript

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:38:00 +0000

FormatPercent Function - VBScript

Posted: 21 Feb 2010 06:13 AM PST

VBScript format percent function

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:16:00 +0000

British national grid reference system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: 19 Feb 2010 07:06 AM PST

Useful GB Ordnance Survey Alpha-numeric grid location map and description.

Delicious Links Of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:09:00 +0000

Delete Raster Catalog Items (Data Management) - ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 help
Deletes all raster datasets contained in a raster catalog. - Or a subset of items if used within ArcMap with a selection.

How to publish your Delicious bookmarks on Blogger curtesy of Blog:Cogley

Launch of the IGAD Livestock Information Portal

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:09:00 +0000

The IGAD LPI (Livestock Policy Initiative) team have recently re-launched the www.igad-data.org site as the IGAD Livestock Information Portal. As well as continuing to provide the most comprehensive GIS database currently available for the IGAD region. It is now also a key resource of Livestock Policy documents, updated by contacts on the ground in each of the seven member countries.

IGAD is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a seven-country regional development organization in East Africa. Its headquarters are located in Djibouti City. The member countries include Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.

The IGAD Livestock Policy Initiative is a project implemented by IGAD through the UN FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation) with the financial support of the European Commission.

GISDataMonkey is now on Delicious

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:50:00 +0000

I have started adding my bookmarks to Yahoos social bookmarking site Delicious. So check out my internet and add me to your own Delicious Network.

http://delicious.com/GISDataMonkey

You will find bookmarks relating to a wide variety of topics including GIS, programming, statistics, disease and epidemiology and many more. For a taster check out my Delicious tag cloud which I have added to the bottom of the right-hand column of this blog.

Enjoy!

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE EDEN 2010 - Emerging Diseases in a changing European eNvironment

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:07:00 +0000

The end of a project I have been contributing to over the last 3+ years culminates in the following conference in Montpellier next year. A European funded multi-disciplinary research project co-ordinated over 50+ institutions accross Europe and beyond. It has done some exciting research into the understanding anf spatial modelling of vector-borne disease...

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
EDEN 2010
(Emerging Diseases in a changing European eNvironment)

10-11-12th May 2010
Montpellier, France

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

From 2004 to 2010, the EDEN project (http://www.eden-fp6project.net/) has operated in 24 countries with 49 partner institutions and 80 scientific teams. This represents more than 200 research years of work on the effects of environmental changes on the emergence of vector-borne diseases in Europe .

EDEN is organising an International Conference in Montpellier , 10-12 May 2010, to present its most exciting scientific results to the international community, and to stimulate debates with prominent world scientists in this critical area.

To ensure a wider debate the conference is not restricted to contributions from EDEN partners only but is opened to any interested scientist or research team working on similar topics in Europe or at its fringes.

The conference will cover the following groups of vectors and vector-borne diseases:

- Mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases, including arboviruses (e.g. West Nile Virus, Rift Valley Fever) and malaria,
- Ticks and tick-borne diseases,
- Rodents and rodent-borne diseases,
- Sandflies and sandfly-borne diseases.

The content of poster and oral communications presented during the conference should focus on:

- The identification of high-risk ecosystems for the emergence of vector-borne diseases,
- Biological, ecological and epidemiological processes involved in the emergence of vector-borne diseases, and their modelling,
- Applications for improved vector or disease monitoring, and disease information systems.

Registration will officially begin from 30th September 2009, but advance submissions of proposed talks, or posters, are welcome from now on. The EDEN Steering Committee will take the final decision on which talks and posters will be included in the final programme.

More information on the conference is available at http://international-conference2010.eden-fp6project.net/

We would be grateful if you could advertise this conference widely.

The EDEN coordinator

Links of the day

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:20:00 +0000

IE web developer addons reccomendations by sixrevisions.com

and

HTML Escape Characters: Complete List from www.theukwebdesigncompany.com

Dell Latitude Bluetooth Solution after installing XP service pack 3

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Problem:

After installing Windows XP service pack 3 my Dell Latitude D810 lost its Bluetooth . I couldn't switch Bluetooth on using Function F2 (The blue light didn't go on). Since I couldn't switch it on I couldn't use any bluetooth devices.

Fix:

I followed XBoxBrians solution from this thread. Basically downloaded the Toshiba Bluetooth stack from here. I installed it (it firstly uninstalls the existing stack). This updated the bluetooth software and drivers and seemed to fix my problem. I can't promise that it will solve yours but I hope it helps!

Link of the Day Lat - Long Finder

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:23:00 +0000

Exactly what it says on the tin, find a Latitude and Longitude using a google maps application. It will give you an answer in decimals and degrees and minutes. If you have an address use the search box to the right of the map.

http://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm

Recommended text editor: NOTEPAD++

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:48:00 +0000

My favourite text editor, not much more to say, try it you might like it...

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Here are the features of Notepad++ :

Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
WYSIWYG
User Defined Syntax Highlighting
Auto-completion
Multi-Document
Multi-View
Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
Dynamic position of Views
File Status Auto-detection
Zoom in and zoom out
Multi-Language environment supported
Bookmark
Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
Macro recording and playback

2008 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference, September 29 - October 3, Cape Town, South Africa

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:11:00 +0000

2008 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference incorporating GISSA 2008, is coming up soon, in September 29 - October 3, Cape Town, South Africa.

Lots of workshops and talks on all things opensource including GeoNetwork, Mapserver, Geoserver, OpenLayers, GRASS PostGIS and many more.

Check out the website from more details...
http://www.foss4g2008.org

The current line up can be viewed here...
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Workshops_and_Technical_Visits

Monkey Karma

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:27:00 +0000

A little more neo-googleography here in its loosest sense. The GISDataMonkey would like to share some good karma and recommend to you all those places that treat me well when I visit, whether its quality or value for money I shall add it to this map. I shall be adding more places from time to as I think of them (or as they earn it)...

View Larger Map

There are restauranrs, cafes, pubs, places to stay and I'm sure I'll be adding things to do too. Leave a comment on either the blog or the map to let me know if you take up any of my recommendations and whether you agree or disagree with me on the service, cheers!