Insights

I recently offered a job candidate a position where he could work about twenty minutes from his house rather than the hour and half he was commuting currently.  The daily work was similar as his current job and I was able to offer him $65,000 per year which was a significant increase from his current pay.   Unfortunately for me, he did not take our job offer because once his current employer found he had a new job with us they offered him $74,000 to retain him at his current…

If you’ve read most of my previous posts, you know I’m a big fan of all things python in GIS. Specifically relating to ArcGIS, because well…that’s the software with which I’m most comfortable/proficient. Like many GIS professionals, my education and experience has revolved around ESRI products. I am however aware of, and have used, other platforms like QGIS, PostGIS, MapBox, Manifold, etc., but just do so much less frequently. I usually hand-write most of my workflows, then build them entirely as stand-alone python scripts before integrating them within an ArcGIS…

Our employees often have a need to view, review, or collaborate on documents when they are not in the same office or location. We find Google's products such as Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms to be great resources that allow us to do just that. Best of all, most of their products are free. Everything is created via a web browser and is stored on Google's servers. G Suite is a more robust fee based package tailored for businesses if you find you need more. I recently had a request…

Zekiah Technologies is a small company, and it can be hard to make ourselves stand out from the crowd in the eyes of potential new employees. While salary, health benefits, and vacation days are incredibly important considerations for applicants, I’d like to take the time to  talk a little bit about the unquantifiable benefits of working with us: all those little things that can make a company a great place to work but never quite make it into the company description. Good work location The headquarters of Zekiah Technologies is…

Zekiah is a prominent employer at NSWC Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) located in King George County, VA.   Many of our hires are local residents but we also recruit from outside the area and we are frequently asked, “Why should I move to King George?” Exciting work at Dahlgren The best reason to work in the area is the work being done at NSWCDD is exciting and cutting edge.    It’s a versatile workforce supporting versatile fields of expertise ranging from mathematics, physics, engineering, chemistry, biology, and computer science creating innovative solutions for…

Driving to Zekiah Technologies for the first time as a new intern, there was only the road and my questions. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the people there and I didn’t know what they were going to expect from me. The questions intensified as I drove. When I finally arrived, my head was buzzing with uncertainties as I turned to see the Zekiah offices for the first time. Looking at the small unassuming La Plata building that houses offices for Zekiah Technologies it could be hard to imagine…

I like to think that I learn more every day, but I still really embrace being a computer novice in a lot of ways. About four years ago, I learned about using Windows’ Task Scheduler to run processes on a defined timetable. The typical things it became useful for in my daily activities were: backing up data from my local machine to a server, running processes during off-hours that consume significant system resources, and automating web download workflows/preparing the data before I arrived at work. It’s best for uses requiring…

While I was in graduate school I didn’t understand why people got master’s degrees in geospatial analysis. Well, I guess I understood it, but I thought it looked like a miserable job.   I would come back from a field excursion with dirt covering me from eyebrows to boot tips, a month’s worth of lab samples in my backpack, happy as can be.   I felt sorry for the geospatial people staggering out from their computer-heated cave.  Now I have become one of those people; one of those sore-eyed, computer-staring people but…

For most of my adult life I’ve dealt with an achy back. It started years ago when I worked at a pet store slinging 50 pound bags of pet food all day, and then come home to more physical work.  When I started working at a desk, I found it to be quite a transition from moving constantly to parking myself in front of a computer all day. My aches didn’t improve. I just started getting new aches like a stiff neck and knots in my shoulders. Around the time…

On 30 September 2015, I gave a talk to the Southern Maryland GIS User Group titled "Interactive Maps Without Map Servers." This post consists of the slides from that presentation interspersed with my "talk track" in order to provide context. Today, I’m going to discuss publishing interactive maps without using a map server. I’m going to do this by focusing on a specific case study for one of our customers, the US Commission on Civil Rights. This example is fairly simple and I chose it for its ease of illustration…