It has been one week now since I first started here at Nijel.  Some of the difficulties that I have been encountering while working at Nijel would probably have to be getting settled in and getting prepared for what there is to come.  I have been downloading various types of softwares and plugins in order to get started on the upcoming projects.  Difficulties I found in that were making sure to select the proper downloads and software versions.  Another problem I came across was making sure the programs worked correctly after downloading them.

My first project at Nijel was to transform raw data from a spreadsheet and turn it into a shapefile.  The type of raw data I transformed was for the after school programs in Arizona.  I first had to take the raw data and edit it to fit the guidelines required before converting the file.  This included changing column headers, changing amphersands to the word “and”, and changing spaces with underscores.  At first I thought it was going to be a long and tedious job to change all of these things.  Then I realized that there was a quick and easy way to get this task done.  What I did was used the shortcut “Find” and “Replace all” function in the toolbar to make the job much easier.  Then I saved the file into a .ods format.  I was then confused about what to do next because I was recommended to try a new method in converting the file.  This method was to use a Geocoder that was installed into QGis.  I ran into some problems here because the Geocoder was not working properly.  So then I just stuck with the original method of using the geocoder at batchgeocode.com.  This method was simply inserting the data and letting the program find the coordinate systems (longitude and latitude) of the after school programs in Arizona.  I ran into some problems with the geocoder here as well.  Some of the data that was decoded was still left without a coordinate system.  I had to manually take the addresses and load it into the program as a single address.  Then I took the output of the geocoder and create a new spreadsheet with the new data.  I then uploaded the spreadsheet into QGis as a delimited text file making sure to change the deliminator from a comma to a pipe.  Afterwards the data was completely uploaded I saved the file into a shapefile and loaded on the Nijel ftp server.

My experience so far at Nijel has been pretty good.  JD, Lela, and Nancy have all been very welcoming and helpful in assisting me at Nijel.  We have held weekly meetings over Skype which is something new for me.  I thought it would have been weird at first that I could work at the comfort of my own surrounding instead of heading to an office to work, but it has not been bad at all.  I am excited and cannot wait for upcoming projects I may be working on while here at Nijel.

Sincerely,

Richard Chuong

One of NiJeL’s terrific clients, Beatitudes Center DOAR, has recently decided that they will be changing their organization’s name, and they are looking for focus group participants to give them input on the new names they’re considering. They particularly would like to hear form people who know little or nothing about their organization, so if you’re available on Tuesday, October 21, they will be having two groups sessions at 4:00pm and 6:00pm that will run for about 90 minutes. These sessions will be held at the Church of the Beatitudes on the SE corner of 7th Avenue and Glendale (555 W. Glendale Avenue in Phoenix), and they will provide dinner and $20 to reimburse you for gas and as a token of their thanks. Please consider attending if you can!


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The Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya is using GSM/GPS to track elephants and then map that data using Google Earth.  This is interesting and definitely on the frontline toward improving wildlife conservation efforts.  Though I don’t know the technical details of the project, I am hopeful that this technology will assist conservation biologists with species location, tracking, and identifying the extent of critical habitats.

Link to the maps here http://www.savetheelephants.org/tracking.html or read the article in Wired.

http://tinyurl.com/mappingelephants

The following is an excellent short talk by Schuyler Erle at FOSS4G 2008 about the need for free and open-source geospatial data. I could not agree more.


Schuyler’s Lightning Talk from Christopher Schmidt on Vimeo.