Monday, January 10, 2011

MapGuide 2.2 RC testing with PostgreSQL (Success)

I tried out the newer FDO PostgreSQL driver for PostGIS in the latest MapGuide 2.2 RC2 beta
with a local PostgreSQL db on Windows 7 64-bit (32-bit version of MG),

result? it works really well

Just make sure your not using version 9 of PostgreSQL , FDO 3.5 doesn't
support v9 yet, FDO 3.6/ MapGuide 2.3 will

I ended up downloading and installing the db twice as I forgot about
the lack of support for 9.0 with FDO 3.5

Remember! you need to make sure the libpq.dll's are in your system path

http://trac.osgeo.org/fdo/wiki/FdoPostgreSQLNotes

My testing was with some OSM (openstreetmap) data for Victoria, Australia
which I downloaded and loaded with osm2pgsql (use -s if you don't have lots of ram)

http://downloads.cloudmade.com/oceania/australia/victoria


IMHO, the OSM shapefile's have a nicer data structure than how the
OSM files get imported by default into PostgreSQL

Alas, the shp files have ":" in the column name which breaks SHP FDO,
PostgreSQL FDO works fine with these, translating them to _

but you can load the shape files easily into Postgres

lack of ordering support in MapGuide does still leave proper road rendering
rather inanely complex, http://trac.osgeo.org/mapguide/wiki/MapGuideRfc69

PostGIS rocks, faster than Oracle and free! Oracle's spatial licensing is so like 1990's

I wrote this, coz I figured it's important to tell some software success stories,
often people only post about problems, which can be depressing when your searching

http://mapguide-central.ennoble.com.au/

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

New Explore Australia website with expanded content

Explore Australia recently relaunched their website with a new design (by Thirst Studios) and heaps
of new content, including Fishing Spots, National Parks, Campsites and Caravan Parks.


So next time your going travelling anywhere around Australia, remember your Explore Australia Travel Guide !

Behind the scenes, the website was developed by Ennoble Consultancy Australia. It's powered by Coldfusion
and Oracle, with Maps produced via MapGuide Open Source and statically served using Amazon Cloudfront
and Openlayers.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Firefox Page Zoom problem with the Numeric Keypad Solved [Ubuntu]

Ubuntu by default doesn't work with the numeric keypad because of
n annoying system default. So in Firefox, page zoom using Ctrl-Plus and Ctrl-Minus with the
numeric keypad doesn't work. Grrr

solution: under System, Preferences, Keyboard, Mouse Keys (tab)


simply uncheck the "Pointer can be controlled using the keypad" checkbox (i.e. like the above)