Lab 4: Introducing ArcMap

     Using ArcMap for the first time can be very difficult. Not knowing where certain buttons, or tools, are can be stressful because you'll spend half an hour trying to find a button that you are only going to use for a split second. Also, if ArcMaps is updated and the tutorial is not, things would have been slightly different and making it difficult to figure out.
     After going through four hours of four exercises, the fifth exercise is a bit easier because by then you've mostly have a sense for where all the tools are and how to find them. ArcMap can become easy with practice, but at first is not.  
      GIS is nice because you can create maps that project the same topic with different areas of focus. In other words, you can look at one thing from different areas and perspectives. By being able to add graphs to the maps, it can help understand the statistics that your map is representing. Also, by being able to add color to the maps, it can help to get a better visual representation of what you are trying to explain.
     The bad thing about ArcMaps or GIS is that they are constantly trying to be improved but the tutorials are not. I feel that if you are going to update these tools then you also have to update the tutorials so that users do not get confused.  Also there are tools that are repetitive and I feel that they should just be one general tool bar and then have the extra fancy buttons on other tool bars. For example, there are different zoom buttons on a lot of the tool bars and I think they should minimize the amount of these so that there are only about two or three: a layout view zoom button and a data view zoom button, and maybe a fixed zoom button.

Lab 3: Neogeography

View Places to Visit near Downtown San Diego in a larger map

 https://www.google.com/maps/ms?msid=218285822211737746576.0004cc3294a76c0150f75&msa=0

     Neogeography can be resourceful because it can give detail about certain things in a specific areas. It's resourceful because it portrays things that are interesting to one person that might be interesting to other. Its is good for creating maps with personal or community activities pointed out. It has potential because many people can create these types of maps using other geographical tools, so it becomes easier for non-experts to make them.

       The problem with neogeography is that it is not very formal and has little or no standards. When anyone can make a map of this sort, there is a chance that the information given is wrong. Sort of how in Wikipedia anyone can say anything so one is not guaranteed that everything is correct. Also if one gives someone a map of this type there might be things in it that don't correspond to what that someone is looking for. So if I give someone my map of San Diego, it might not work for them if they are trying to find a hospital because my map mostly labels places to visit not emergency places.

Lab 2: USGS Topographic Maps

1. Beverly Hills Quadrangle
2. Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood
3. created in 1966 and revised in 1995
4. National Geodetic Vertical Datum
5. 1: 24000
6. a)5cm : 1219.2 m
    b)5" : 1.89 mi
    c)1mi : 2.64"
    d)3km: 12.3cm
7. 10 feet
8. a) public affairs building:  34degrees/4'/30'' North, 118degrees/26'/15'' West     34.075, 118.4375
    b)tip of Santa Monica Pier: 34degrees/0'/30" North, 118degress West/29'/50"
                 34.008333, 118.497222
    c)Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir:  34degrees/7'/20'' North, 118degress/24'/15'' West
                 34.122222, 118.404167
9. a)Greystone Mansion:    500 ft    152.4 m
    b)Woodlawn Cemetery:  40 ft     12.192m
    c)Crestwood Hills Park:  600ft    182.88m
10. Zone 11
11. 3763000mE, 362500m N
12. 1000
13.

        Elevations Chart

14. GN 0degrees48' / 14miles
15. North
16.

Lab 1 Interesting Maps

     This is a map of Kuwait City, Kuwait. It is a tourist map. It came from the Libraries site of the University of Texas at Austin. One can find this map and many other city maps here: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/cities_sites.html
What I found interesting about this map was all the detailing. I think having drawings on the map can really help a tourist find something because sometimes buildings don't have names out front. It facilitates finding a place when you know what it looks like and you know the main streets.

This map is about the earthquakes that have happened in California and Nevada with in the last week. It came from the U.S. Geological Survey site, a  government webpage. What was most interesting was that majority of earthquakes have happened closer to the coast of California than out on the border between Nevada and California. Its also interesting that there was a whole cluster of earthquakes in the south of California, unlike the northern region where they seems to be in a line and more spread out. You can find this map here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/

 This map is "the contiguous United States visualized by the distance to the nearest McDonald's". It is very interesting to see the amount of McDonald's in the United States. The amount is so incredible that it outlines the whole country. I found this map on Data pointed which is the home of artist and scientist Stephen Von Worley's data visualization research. You can this map at: http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds/