[Mapserver-west] Mostly lurking

[Mark Rodrigo]

Jason:

Maybe give the old Maplab toolset a try?
http://www.dmsolutions.on.ca/technology/maplab.html
I like GMap factory. Not easy to competer against MapGuide. They have a
strong UI, fast, and better than the stuff that comes out of Redlands(for
now). I don't know about Chameleon just yet. It seems so darn slow for every
site of that kind I visit.

mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Birch [mailto:Jason.Birch at nanaimo.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:30 PM
To: mapserver-west at lists.maptools.org
Subject: [Mapserver-west] Mostly lurking


> If you haven't already, I suggest you add yourself to this site too:
> http://www.moximedia.com:8080/imf-ows/imf.jsp?site=ms_users

Unfortunately, I can't add myself to that OpenIMF site yet.  I trump
Jeramie's claim as the least experienced user; my only real exposure to
MapServer so far has been checking out the UMN and DM Solutions web sites a
few times over the last few years, marvelling at how cool the OS GIS stuff
was, and moving on.

I am here because I spoke briefly with Mishtu after the Refractions workshop
at GeoTec.  My organisation is heavily invested in commercial GIS solutions.
However, my non-GIS personal interests swing more to the Open Source side of
things, and I am trying to become as conversant as possible with the
technology's capabilities so that if I come across a niche that can be
filled using OS GIS, I will be able to make a good business case for it.
That's where I see this list as being extremely helpful.  Just reading your
descriptions of how you are using MapServer has been very enlightening but,
more importantly, knowing that there is an active support community really
helps to sell any product.

So far, I can see using MapServer for some web services such as WMS
delivery.  I am having real difficulty though seeing it as a replacement for
MapGuide on the front end.  I have not been able to find a MapServer site
that demonstrate the kind of user interface that it would take to make my
users happy.

On a personal level, I have been working with GIS since 1992.  I started out
with PC Arc/Info, TerraSoft, and dBase/Foxpro, moved on to UNIX Workstation
Arc/Info and Oracle, transitioned to ArcGIS, and then with a change of jobs
did a sudden shift to an Autodesk / MapInfo / SQLServer environment.  The
tools change, but the work stays the same.  I currently work for the City of
Nanaimo on beautiful Vancouver Island, Canada.  Today I was speaking with a
recent immigrant who boasts to his family back in Boston that he "lives on
an Island in the Pacific".  Vancouver Island doesn't really fit with the
image that first comes to mind from that quote, but it is idyllic in its own
way.

If anyone's interested, here are the public MapGuide sites that I
administer:
http://enviro.nanaimo.ca/index.cfm?tab_ID=3&content_ID=7
http://citymap.nanaimo.ca/ (Windows/IE only, unfortunately)

Jason


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