Unifying the spatial database

My working day started as usual. The PC was turned on at 9 in the morning. I typed the password for own account into the prompt. Now I am online and working.

I currently work on GIS for one of our clients. The client is a responsible logging company with headquarters in Sweden. It manages forest in North-European Russia and soon it will go through an audit according FSC regulations. It hired our small consulting company to teach their workers FSC principles and to design and implement forest GIS.

What I'm doing now is designing schema for a spatial database. Their old spatial database is based on Austrian GIS: WinGIS. It is very ancient and does not let to edit anything in the database. So we decided to offer them cheaper and more reliable solution - QGIS + PostgreSQL/PostGIS.

That was a long foreword, I guess. =)

The logging company gave us its ancient database, and we might do all the work manually if not I suggested to use PostGIS spatial extension to PostgreSQL. They are all under GPL licence and easy to learn.

So, as I was made responsible for database design and implementation I started to think, how to create and develop it wisely so any forest worker or manager can benefit from it. I will write later on about database implementation details etc.

Particular task that I am busy with now is unifying the spatial database into ONE. Initially I had around 50 different tables in old FoxPro .dbf format. I fed them with shp2pg script to Postrges database and started to write a procedure that automatically merges these tables into ONE. 

As I am writing here with simple words it could be an illusion of simplicity. I will go in details in my next posts.

One more cars-hater))

Check this out: http://home.pacbell.net/kwdelong/cars.htm

It looks like I am not alone with my feeling. =D Although the web page was modified on November 29, 1997 last time.

This man has much more deeper thoughts than I have. I should note them somewhere in case I'll defend my opinion.

Remark! The page is outdated so pull it out from Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20021228072836/http://home.pacbell.net/kwdelong/cars.htm =)

Intro

This is the first entry in my blogger-life. =)
I've tried it coz I am willing to say what I think to broader audience. The feeling is so strong that start my first blog discussing it.

So, I hate cars.
Firstly, because of their influence on the environment. They pollute the Earth with hazardous motor emissions. I do not want to breath with the air polluted by damn cars. Though I am aware that cars are not the hugest air pollutant. But anyways, there is energy needed to supply car industries!

Secondly, I am not seeing a personal automobile as perfect mean of transport. In accordance with statistics, the most deaths are caused by car accidents! I do not rely on mass transport, as buses, either. I better buy a bicycle than a month ticket on a bus. I better buy a yacht than a speedy car.

Thirdly and not lastly, I do not understand people's wishes and aims buying a car. They spend money for pollution of bigger Home than their apartments. And they simply don't realize that, or maybe they are aware, but taking no responsibilities. =(

That is a pity.

Do not think that I am an old-fashioned guy but I am more "greener" in mind than you could imagine.