Category Archives: Blog

Blog

First Speakers Announced for GeoRabble Sydney #5

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We have some great talks lined up for our next Sydney GeoRabble, on Thursday 23 August.

Sponsored by EBR

In a GeoRabble first, Tim Leigh will let the audience choose the topic for his talk. Democracy at its best! Choose anything from Web GIS to Mobile App development or Dog Sledding, and Tim will improvise!

Other Rabblers include:

  • Andrew Harvey – “Open StreetMap, My Story”. Andrew’s short but sweet narrative about his experience with OSM, why he’s contributed, what he’s learnt from it and what he gained from it.
  • Mark Greenway and Kelvin Nicholson – “Happy Mapping”. How their GovHack team created a map of ‘Gross National Happiness’ combining mapping and statistical skills.
  • Stephen Lead – “Mapping the Anzac Diaries”. How the State Library of NSW displays diaries written in the trenches of WW1 in a modern and enticing manner, including placing the diary entries on a map.

There are still speaking slots open. Have something interesting, passionate of fun to share? let us know by emailing sydney@georabble.org.

For this GeoRabble, we are bringing back the free Pizza (thanks to EBR), so don’t miss out! Spaces are limited. Join our Meet-up group, or register here!

Blog, Perth

GeoRabble Perth #3

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GeoRabble #3 Perth, 25 July, Belgian Beer Cafe

A very successful event attended by 80 people, of which half had not attended before.  Several of the usual faces commented that they did not know quite a few people, so perhaps GeoRabble is succeeding in reaching out beyond the spatial nucleus.  Tom Brownlie was the Master of Ceremony and reminded people of the rules of GeoRabble – including to celebrate all things spatial.  Bringing the rabble together to quiet down and listen to the two speakers was easier than thought with the amount of chattering.  David Brady gave us a interesting talk about fact and fiction using maps as the examples.  Apparently there are lies/inconsistencies within the Asterix maps!
Continue reading GeoRabble Perth #3 →

Blog

Speakers & Panel Confirmed for GeoRabble Perth!

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The panel is confirmed, the food’s been ordered, the venue has been cleaned…

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Trappist on King

Belgian Beer Cafe,

Cnr King & Murray Sts Perth

With two short talks, speakers David Brady (Fiction and Fact); and Lance Martin (WA Police Concept Car) are set to plumb the depths of the abyss that is the geospatial mind and see what pearls they can find.

Our expert panel of Phil Beach, Chelsea Samuel, Sonny Tham, Bernard O’Sullivan and Richard Brown have not been allowed in the same room together in the hopes of some rabble fireworks.

Big thanks to this evenings sponsor Amristar

 

 

If you would like to talk at a future GeoRabble event, please send and email with the title and a short description to perth@georabble.org.  Talks are limited to 10 minutes.

Blog, Events, Sydney

Announcing GeoRabble Sydney #5, and Call for Speakers

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Join us for the fifth Sydney GeoRabble, with great (short!) talks, cool people and a few drinks. And: we’re bringing back the free pizza!

When: Thursday 23 August 2012

Where: Occidental Hotel, 43 York St, Sydney.

Doors open 5:30 PM, talks start 6PM. Please join our Meetup  Group, or RSVP here, so we can plan catering.

We will be announcing speakers soon.

If you would like to talk, send an email with the title and short description to sydney@georabble.org. Talks are limited to 10 minutes.

Blog, Events, Perth

GeoRabble Perth #3 Announced!

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Having had a strong showing at the last Perth Georabble, the middle of the year calls another night out for GeoBeer, GeoTalks, GeoDiscussion and GeoRabble.
With a good shortlist of speakers, and a discussion panel on the use of data warming up in the wings, the venue organised, now is the time to get your tickets.

GeoRabble Perth #3

Wednesday July 25
Doors open 5.30pm, talks from 6.15pm
Trappist on King
Cnr King & Murray Sts Perth
Perth, Western Australia 6000
This time in a very special GeoRabble first, we’re going to use half the night in an open panel discussion.  What are we talking about? The amount of effort versus return?  Poor quality data in, can only result in bad decisions?  Or can we create silk purses from hogs ears? Perfection in information is a matter of definition as rubbish data can still be perfect for specific situations, depending how it is used and what it is used for.
Help us and the panel put fact before fiction – perhaps!
Contact: perth@georabble.org for more information
Blog

The Boundary Mapper’s Cookbook

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Dots on maps don’t always tell you the full story behind the numbers.  In cases where you’ve got postcode, suburb or council based data – you’ll want to be able to map those boundaries to tell a richer story than text, numbers or dots can do.

Here’s a quick and dirty guide to getting up and running with boundary data just in time for GovHack:

1 – Install PostgreSQL 9.1 : http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdownload

2 – Install PostGIS 2.0 : http://www.postgis.org/download/  (there are now 64bit binaries for those who want serious spatial power)

3 – Download some Shapefile (SHP) formatted boundary data and load it into PostGIS (there’s a GUI – PostGIS Shapefile and DBF Loader 2.0 – inside the PostgreSQL Admin Console).  If you’ve got another format there are OS tools you can use – try OGR2OGR (handy guide here)

4 – Download some data to go with those lovely boundaries – e.g. some juicy hot off the press ATO Tax data

5 – Install PHP 5.3 on your web server with the PostgreSQL PDO drivers : http://php.net/downloads.php

6 – Download the PostGIS RESTful Web Service Framework 1.1 (PRWSF)

7 – Edit the PRWSF /inc/database.inc.php file to set your PostgreSQL database connection

8 – Download Leaflet Javascript API

9 – Get a Cloudmade account for a free API key to access to an OpenStreetMap tile layer of your choice

10 – Edit the PRWSF /v1/ws_geo_attributequery.php file to support callbacks for cross domain JSON:

     echo $_GET[‘jsoncallback’] . ‘(‘;

                require_once(“../inc/format.inc.php”);

    echo ‘)’;

11 – Leech some code from GitHub

FYI – the ABS has a rich collection of boundaries for you to use under Creative Commons licensing.  This links directly to their own stats as well as the stats of many other agencies and organisation, such as the ATO (who recently released a tonne of tax data!).  This data is ripe for rich visualisation:

http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/ABS+Geography+Publications#Anchor8

Note: 2006 Census data uses he ASGC boundaries.  2011 Census data will use the ASGS bdys when the data is released on June 21.

LeafletTest
Here’s one I prepared earlier…

Blog, Brisbane, Events

Bend it like Queenslanders at GeoRabble Brisbane #1

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PhotoGrid_1334807056661
GeoRabble Brisbane #1 rocked! We had 107 registrations  and although the numbers on the night are uncertain it was BIG. As the hordes arrived the organizers gave up on checkins, threw the pages of sticky name labels into the crowd and joined the party. Rain threatened and Lord of the Rabble Rob Clout was stressing, but on the night it was perfection and the outdoor venue (PigNWhistle) overlooking the river was sublime . The show went on and many people stayed on to rabble on late into the night. If you were there, or if you took any photos, we’d love to hear from you! If you weren’t there but wish you were, well, we’d love to hear from you also. Add a comment or send a tweet to @georabble !

Continue reading Bend it like Queenslanders at GeoRabble Brisbane #1 →

Blog

NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2012

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GeoRabble is excited to be associated with this year’s NASA International Space Apps Challenge, a perfect opportunity for geo-geeks to meet, and work with like-minded developers, scientists and other space experts from all over the world.

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge is an international codeathon-style event that will take place over a 48 hour period in cities on all seven continents – and in space – on the weekend of 21-22 April, 2012. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing solutions to global challenges.

With under a month to go, the hype of the event is gaining momentum around the world. The Space Apps Challenge in Australia now welcomes two new satellite events to the programme, one being in Adelaide at the Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century at Flinders University. The other will be hosted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. This will now open up the opportunity for more participants from other cities in Australia to get involved.

You can be part of this great event as a participant, subject expert or volunteer. If you’re interested, there’s more information on the website, you can register as participant or volunteer, or follow the challenge on  Twitter.

Hope to see you there!