geographika

Setting up a Secure Cascading WMS on MapServer

geographika — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:46:36 +0000

There a number of benefits to using a cascading WMS service – a WMS service that is read and then forwarded on through an intermediary WMS server: you can cache the service (for example with TileCache) to greatly improve performance your application need only worry about a single point of connection, using WMS layers aggregated [...]

64 bit cURL with OpenSSL on Windows

geographika — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:26:23 +0000

MapServer makes use of libcurl.dll to connect to web resources. The reason I’ve had to learn this is because libcurl.dll is vital when using MapServer as a WMS client, or “a cascading WMS server” – using MapServer to connect to another WMS server and then “forward” them as if they were any other map layer. [...]

GIS Servers and the 64-bit Question

geographika — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:55:47 +0000

The following is the first in a series of posts related to configuring a 64-bit Windows server as a GIS server using MapServer and Python. Why move to 64-bit? If a server’s operating system and hardware are 64-bit it seems a waste not to take advantage of them. It may be better to look at [...]

Using TileCache on IIS

geographika — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:43:50 +0000

I’ve previously written about using PyISAPie to run Python under IIS – this allows Python scripts to run faster than using CGI. Rather than starting up the Python interpreter each time a request is made to the web server, PyISAPIe starts the interpreter once and only needs to run the script at each request. TileCache [...]

OpenSource Upgrades

geographika — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:35:42 +0000

Moving to new versions in OpenSource has in the past been like playing Russian roulette. Just now clicking on “Upgrade to WordPress 3.0″ I thought would lead to a greater understanding of the database schema, template inconsistencies, and plug-in idiosynchrocies of WordPress as I met an inevitable “Upgrade Failed. Please see log for details” message. [...]

A 10 Minute Intro on using BitBucket with Windows

geographika — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:38:07 +0000

There are already a couple of official quick start guides to using Mercurial’s Window’s client program TortoiseHG, but below are the bare details of how to use it with a new account on the BitBucket service. 1. Create a new account on http://bitbucket.org/. Then create a new repository for your code. 2. Download the TortoiseHG [...]

Source Control using BitBucket

geographika — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:15:45 +0000

Putting code under source control is on most checklists for modern software development. Even small side projects, scripts, and code snippets can benefit from being under source control. For example: When you improve the code others can see the changes and get the benefits If someone else improves the code those improvements can be passed [...]

OpenAerialMap

geographika — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:57:03 +0000

Everyone loves aerial photography. Some of its early pioneers were the James Bonds of their era. Twenty years ago people could go round neighbourhoods in England and sell people frames photographs of their houses from the air. Today people spend hours looking at the aerial photography layer on Google Maps wondering why so many people [...]

Summary of Hours by Month (for every day)

geographika — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:01:46 +0000

I recently read Mark Forster’s time management book Do It Tomorrow. In summary it suggests creating a task list on a daily basis, and not doing anything other than from items in that list. Only real emergencies should be dealt with. If emails arrive that have to be dealt with then add them to tomorrow’s [...]

We Know Where Your Browser Lives

geographika — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:03:00 +0000

Maybe I’m a little late in finding this, but if you have FireFox 3.5 or higher try clicking this link (you will have to agree to let your browser divulge your location to open the link). The JavaScript code run when clicking the link is as follows, and can also be pasted directly into your [...]