FANTOM PLANET

That’s right, I went through a AGS 9.2 overview seminar on Friday, and it friggin’ blew me away.  Of course, I’m one of those lucky people who can implement AGS 9.2 Advanced Enterprise with all the bells and whistles. . .  Come on, “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!” Right?

What it means is instead of stringing together IMS, SDE, and old versions of Server, I can from my 9.2 desktop suite, manage my data effciently and effectively.  I can also build custom applications and task different servers with different capabilities.  So, I could have a few servers to manage my database(s), provide visualization services, geodata services, task services, globe services, web maps, analytical geoprocessing services, and even mobile services.

As you can read, I’ve drank the Kool-Aid.

Even though I saw a lot of cool things in action, I’m still cautious about the “what if I do it” factor.  What if I implement something and it doesn’t work for me, but it worked for ESRI?  Am I up a creek?

I’ll assume the probablities are low of something like that happening, but you never know.

I’m going to try it. I’ll let you know if the Kool-Aid was truth or fiction.

On Friday I saw a demonstration by The Carbon Project about CarbonCloud and ((ECHO))MyPlace. Talk about some wickedly cool apps—especially ((ECHO))MyPlace.

“Echo” does exactly just that; it uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to share geotags and information across its user’s web. The demo The Carbon Project gave was focused on security at a Carolina Panther’s football game and utilized ultra mobile PC’s (UMPC’s) to connect to everyone in their network using WiFi connections. It was pretty schweet. Now, you don’t have to be on a UMPC or using WiFi to connect, you can also use your land-line Internet connection to be a part of the group too.

So, notes, chats, and tags were flying back ‘n forth. Tracking unruly Pittsburgh fans. Pointing out car accidents and such. A lot of people were impressed.

Anyway, questions came out of the crowd like: “Can you make this for Windows Mobile?” “How about voice and audio?” Finally, “Can I have you UMPC?”

So, a pretty cool app. It’s like having a collaborative atlas like Platial, CommunityWalk, or 43Places, but on a live feed.

Perhaps this could be a Where 2.0 2007 feature?