ESRI and Facebook?

The ESRI UC conference blog is now on Facebook. There's a long list of comments about this running on James Fee. Most think its a strange move by ESRI, me included. Many corporate sites block Facebook. So your stuck doing work from home. Plus not everyone wants to mix their professional online with personal online lives.

Not being a Facebook user nor much of a social networking enthusist, I'm still trying to figure out the advantage of doing this. My guess is it helps ESRI better track who's reading their info (part of the group), but it seems to do it at a heavy price. I've thought about creating a EWUG group on LinkedIn, but didn't see a real advantage to it (is there now, and if so would I be better off doing it on Facebook now?)

Anyone know if the other official ESRI blogs are headed down the same route? If not, why is the UC blog different?

Tips for Excel in ArcGIS

The new ESRI Training Matters blog had a recent post about Excel. Since 9.2 (and 9.1 for those with the Business Analyst Extension), you've been able to use Excel tables in ArcGIS. However, it isn't always easy. The article describes some common problems and how to work it out. I know I've made used Excel tables to have non-GIS people populate GIS data in the past. This should help make this a bit simpler and with fewer suprises.

What EWUGers want for Christmas?

You can now update your GIS using hardcopy. From the ADAPX website:

Capturx for ArcGIS Desktop enables you to print out any ArcGIS map and feature legend on standard paper, and then make changes and annotations to the map in ArcGIS by simply writing on the printed map.

Seems to me like old-school digitizing with out the digitizing board.

Its a niche tool, but if you have the need why not? Could be really useful for public-participation GIS.

Source Digital Urban