I g@#$%%ed hate ESRI ArcGIS. You can do cool stuff left and right, some intense analysis, sure. But dumb little crap spooks the hell out of the software and it acts illogically./Rant.
I g@#$%%ed hate ESRI ArcGIS. You can do cool stuff left and right, some intense analysis, sure. But dumb little crap spooks the hell out of the software and it acts illogically.
I agree, it is the most illogical mish-mash and waste of electrons that I have ever tried to learn. I tried learning it a few years ago and couldn't make heads or tails of how to get it to work - NOTHING about it made any sense. I was sitting there at the terminal, knowing EXACTLY what I wanted it to do and having no idea of how to get it to do it. There was no icon for the step I wanted ... "Oh, you have to close this section, open a different section, import the files into that and run that routine with the command-line steps...".
Why is ArcGIS so popular? ESRI has a GREAT marketing department.
Give me some onion-skin paper and colored pens and I'll be in heaven!
Double
Mike
As an "end user" I have no problem doing queries, or generating the maps i need. On a technician level, I would be LOST.
The only thing I don't like about it is the tendency for certain operations to crash the program. Other than that, I think it's extremely user friendly and easy to learn new things. There are also mulitple ways to do certain things, which is cool when you have a "Hey, what if I try this?" moment and it actually works. I'm going to be on ESRI products for a looooong time.
This is what inspired my rant. You can create a map, do a query or two and get results (which combined will take a few hours in some cases), and then just trying to save the d@mned thing crashes the program. And it does so often. It's the little things that it can't seem to handle, which in turn make users spend the time to redo the big things multiple times until the software quits having a conniption.Originally posted by BrianVDB
Hey I was wondering if anyone has had any real success with any of the freeware Mac GIS software out there. Since ESRI doesn't make a version of ArcGIS for mac it as pushed me into a search for a program that will work. So far I have tried QGIS and Grass GIS. But I haven't had too much success figuring them out. Does any know of a good mac GIS program that does all that ESRI does? Thanks.
-Paul
I want ArcView 3.2 back... I tried geocoding some addresses the other day -- something that used to be a few clicks -- and got 21 matches. Sent it over to another GIS user all matches... I hate the ArcGIS.
“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” - Thomas Edison
Simple editing was fast in 3.2
Fortunately for ESRI, they have a large installed municipal base which is very slow to change off from their products. If I found something better I would jump ship due to all the little aggravations. Some things work in layout but not in map view. You can do some things in map view but not in layout. Not that the options are greyed out or not available.... they just fail to operate.
Ugh
Forget that it just crashes unexpectedly...
ESRI, step up your game. Your UNIX product was superior (albeit less user-friendly)
You could use Parallels or VMware to run ArcGIS. I support a few macs, but none are using ArcGIS so YMMV
http://spanring.eu/blog/2006/07/02/a...on-mac-os-x-2/
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=664044
Actually I already do that. I was just wondering if anyone might be using a GIS program that runs natively on the mac os. If anyone else is using a mac based GIS program that has all the same features as ArcGIS I would like to know what it is.
I use a 13.3 inch, white, early 2008 macbook
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB of Ram (2GB in MacOSX, 2GB in WindowsXP SP3)
Parallels Desktop 4.0
ArcGIS 9.2
Runs faster then the computers in the GIS lab
Is this with the nVidia chipset? I am thinking about running ArcGIS on a pre-nVidia chipset MacBook.
Yes it has onboard video 144mb. I also have the Parallels video adapter set at 160mb. It does sometimes struggle when you have heaps of layers shown (e.g. census data) so I normally uncheck the layers I do not need.
Other Info
L2 Cache: 3mb
Ram: DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz
Other tweaks in Mac OS X
Disabled Dashboard
Switch off Bluetooth
Switch off Airport
Disable Screensaver
SMC Fan Control Set at 2500rpm
Nothing Running in the Background
Disable the startup items you do not need
Run the Program Ice Clean from time to time
Desktop has only 5mb (Right Click on Desktop, Select Get Info)
Tweaks in Windows XP
Disabled Screensaver
Only Parallels, ctmon checked running at startup (start->run->msconfig->startup)
Disabled all the majority of the services running (start->run->msconfig->services)
Desktop Icons are only links
Uninstalled everything besides AutoCAD, ProKon, PowerISO, ArcGIS, E-Tax, All other windows programs e.g. messenger, WMP etc.
A few registry editor tweaks
Automatic Updates, system restore, remote assistance turned off
Adjusted windows for best performance
DEP only for windows programs
Virtual Memory 2046mb
Disabled Error Reporting
Defrag every month (takes 5mins)
ESRI ArcGIS 10
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