[Ottawa_users] contacts

[Dave Sampson]

Most of what I have learned about GIS has been self taught so pardon the
offloading of resources. I also find that learning something is a lot
easier when you have a particular task at hand to do.... so here are
some questions to think about and some reosurces to get you started...
hope it helps.

Well I guess the first place to start is maybe answering some questions.

1. What do you want to do with GIS
2. Do you have a specific problem?
3. Would you know the difference between raster and vector and when
either one is used
4. Do you own or will use a GPS?
5. Are you on windows or linux? (or mac?)


Some resources that might help.
* The university of Guelph Geography dept. they might have some intro
GIS courses you can drop in on or take http://www.uoguelph.ca/geography/
* This is a good book for getting an intro to GIS and open source
software http://www.grassbook.org/
* here are all the tutorials for GRASS.
http://grass.itc.it/gdp/tutorials.php  if you complete this list you'll
know more than the average GIS user.
* OSGEO4W is a stack of open source software you can install all at once
instead of seprately (this is a windows thing, let the list know if you
are using Linux and if so what distro) http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/
* Here sre some QGIS documentation and tutorials
http://www.qgis.org/en/documentation.html

The Canadian centre for remote sensing has some great online tutorials
for image processing of satellite imagery:
http://ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/resource/index_e.php#tutor

GeoConnections is a National program helping to build capacity in the
field of Geomatics for Canadians... check out their online tutorial:
http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/training_manual/e/ this will
be a good intro to geospatial web services, standards and metadata.

For some free data check out the following resources:
* http://www.geobase.ca/
* http://geogratis.gc.ca/

The atlas of Canada should give you some idea of what kinds of products
can be made from GIS outputs. Certianly not the only use for GIS but it
may provide some motivations. They currently have a feature on polar
maps:

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/english/index.html




That is enough resource dumping from me for now.

i hope this sends you on your way to self discovery.

Cheers






On Thu, 2009-08-13 at 13:56 -0700, Mike Waters wrote:
> Hi there,I have sent an email or two in the past regarding the following subject: How to get started in an ESRI position. This task is the Catch 22 in the finest example.
> I have a strong IT background, however the leap to GIS is quantum.
> Any suggestions ? I have tried to acquaint my self with GIS and as you might guess there is a limit to this, Appreciate any suggestions in the Guelph.        Michael Waters
> 
> 
>       
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