Grapefruit

ArcMap Attribute Transfer tool doesn't work?

This is exactly the problem with the Attribute Transfer tool I remember from days long gone by (a tool misleadingly and inappropriately located by default in the Spatial Adjustment toolbar; I added it to my Advanced Editing toolbar which is where it makes more sense, since transferring attributes has nothing to do with spatial adjustment that I can see):

• Both datasets involved are selectable (line and/or poly)
• Nothing is selected
• Editing session is open on one dataset
• Click one feature with the Attribute Transfer tool (and the feature flashes), click the target feature, and nothing happens. The Attribute Transfer tool's thin line and end point are still floating there, acting as though they are still waiting for you to click a target feature to transfer attributes to.

The answer is you first need to use the entirely separate Attribute Transfer Mapping tool (also located in the Spatial Adjustment toolbar) to set up which fields map to which from one data layer to the other.

The problem: when nothing happens, it should be a cue for a helpful (ha!) error message, or even better, a prompt from the separate Attribute Transfer Mapping tool (why are they even separate?) asking you which layers and fields you want to work with.

Porter James Kiblinger

Born June 26, 2009, at 2:13 PM. Mother and baby are in fine health. More to come here when time allows. Thanks everyone for your kind words and wishes!

Urbancase

Hey look: Urbancase has great furniture available at Click! Design That Fits and other cool things at urbancase.etsy.com.

Summer salad

• Oxbow Farm butter lettuce from the Ballard Farmers' Market.
• Pickled herring from our little fish store, Fresh Fish Co. on 80th and 24th.
• Walnuts.
• Zinfandel vinaigrette (with grape seed oil, dijon mustard, worcestershire sauce, and a squirt of agave nectar).
• Cracked black pepper.

Glass of Pinot Grigio.

Mantel is Just Alright with Me

Done. Ain't nothing like a deadline to get you motivated.

See the last twelve pictures here to get an idea of the finished product.

Time is the cure

The rash on my arm is now a week old. Fortunately it is not very itchy, and it is somewhat less gross looking. But it is still quite prominent, prompting me to wear long sleeves at a time when I might not otherwise. Our doctor in Tennessee when we were kids said, Poison ivy takes about three weeks to cure if you treat it, and twenty-one days if you don't.

Urushiol

Turns out the Smoketree or Smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria
and Cotinus obovatus) is closely related to the sumacs (Rhus). It's in the family Anacardiaceae (the cashew family or the sumac family), and apparently produces urushiol, the toxin in poison ivy, oak, sumac, etc. Which is to say, if you are growing one, and you prune it, you may end up with a rash on your arm.

PHP getimagesize()

Calling getimagesize() returns an array:

Array
(
    [0] => 300
    [1] => 200
    [2] => 2
    [3] => width="300" height="200"
    [bits] => 8
    [channels] => 3
    [mime] => image/jpeg
)

The value in index 3 is a text string that expresses the image's width and height.

So:

<img src="image.jpg" alt="Descriptive text" <?php $dimensions = getimagesize("image.jpg"); echo "$dimensions[3]"; ?> />

Joining tables fails in ArcGIS

Null or empty values after what appears to be a successful join? Field names can't start with a number, as is hidden here. Thanks, as always, ESRI, for all the helpful error messages to keep me from WASTING TWO HOURS chasing this problem around.

Norman Weir

Aerial photos reveal an ancient fish trap from the time of the Norman Conquest.

Dave Montgomery discusses weirs in his book King of Fish. (I am particularly partial to the book's illustrations, and to this page.)

Seals Roof Leaks on Wet or Dry Surfaces - Even Under Water. Works Easily in Cold Temperatures. #1 Choice of Professionals.

If a little trickle comes through your kitchen ceiling on a rainy, snowy, blustery Sunday in March,

you might find yourself

in a raincoat on the roof,

holding a can of "Henry's 208," which, as it turns out, has a picture of you on the label.

PS: You may, when you return to the dry warmth of your sofa, enjoy reading the short story "Wayne's Fate" in the book Typical by Padgett Powell. Also, the story "christmas" in In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders.

ArcGIS 9.3: ArcMap "extent rectangles" disappeared

Hi again, ESRI users. If your ArcMap zoom or selection extent rectangles vanish (the lines that create a rectangle around the area you are zooming to or from, or that define the areas you are selecting), or if you can no longer see lines or polygon features as you're drawing them in edit mode, check your Advanced ArcMap Settings Utility (C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Utilities\AdvancedArcMapSettings.exe), Symbols/Graphics tab, "Selection feedback rectangle outline symbol." If the line width is set to less than 1, that line won’t be displayed in ArcMap at all. Which begs the question, "why should one be able to set said line width to a value lower than 1?" And, "why do I bother asking questions like this any more?"

(Credit goes to my estimable colleague Erin for unintentionally inflicting the problem upon herself and then unearthing the solution.)

The Programmer's Quick Guide to the Languages

Look out, Harvey: in an effort to make this page more google-able, I am hereby linking to the UW's Harvey Greenberg's Programmer's Quick Guide to the Languages (also known as "shootfoot.html"). I admit I don't actually get a lot of the jokes, but I know people who do and I like to entertain them.

Finder crash on startup "EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)"

OS X 10.4.11, 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM

Finder crashes on startup with following error:

EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x900241c0

Thread 3 Crashed:
0 0 + -1878900288

Culprit was DropBox Login Item.

Make ArcGIS always write TFW files with TIFs

This file:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\ESRI\Raster\defaults\tiff.pdf

despite its file-name extension, is actually a "preferences definition file."

If you open it with a text editor (instead of an Adobe application), you can edit it (after making a backup copy of course).

Change the line:

   tfw_access( "World File Access" ): "Read"

to:

   tfw_access( "World File Access" ): "Write"

As is noted in the file below that line, the "Write" setting means "[A] World [.TFW] file [will be] read as [a] fallback on input[,] and [will be] written on creation/modification [of a .TIF file]"

So, if you generate a new .TIF it will still be a GeoTIF (i.e., it needs no .TFW because the coordinate-system information is self-contained in the .TIF file), but there will also be a .TFW file too, in case you are giving the file to someone whose software doesn't read the coordinate information inside the .TIF file. If you trash the .TFW, the .TIF will still know where it lives.

(612) 725-2693 Northwest Airlines Lost Baggage

Wondering what happened to your "delayed" luggage from a Northwest Airlines (now part of Delta!) flight from over a month ago? Don't bother with their website or claim-tracking web page or various 800 numbers or the other 800 number for customer service that the ticket agent gives you when you call the regular 800 number. Just call the Central Baggage Service International number: (612) 725-2693. Then you can talk to a guy who swears the check is in the mail, which information he looked up using the same claim number you entered on the claim-tracking web page, begging the question, what database is it he is using and why does it (apparently) differ from that which drives the web page?

ESRI time-waster #940267

Hey ESRI: Thanks. Thanks for letting me name a feature class with a 47-character name, and for letting me include it in a topology, and for then giving me a useless "Failed to create new feature. The table already exists. Invalid argument." error when I try to make edits, until I finally figure out it is because 47 characters is actually too long, sort of. Rename it to a shorter name and it works. Why not JUST ENFORCE A UNIFORM CHARACTER LIMIT ACROSS THE BOARD FROM THE OUTSET?

Thanks again. Really.

A little late to the party

In case the news hasn't trickled to all parts of the globe yet:

He'll be here in late June. That's he, as of today.