Jpfulche's Blog

I came across a few problems with trying to join my data with ArcGIS, but all were able to be solved. I had somehow deleted one of the FIPS and shifted all the cells up. This caused some major confusion for about 20 minutes, but I finally figured it out.

Here are the terms I need to define for the last part of this lab:

1.) .DBF / Dbase file- A .DBF file is a file form that is used for processing data in ArcGIS. This is an old form that is no longer included in Excel, but it is still available for use in Open Office.

2.) Select by Attributes- When you select by attributes while using ArcGIS, you are essentially telling the software to select a certain part of the data that is present for the map you are using. For example, I could tell ArcGIS to select only major highways in the state of Ohio.

3.) Query- A query is a feature of ArcGIS that allows you to give commands. For example in lab 5, we had to use a query to tell ArcGIS to calculate population change between each decade.

4.) Fields (in a Table)- The fields in the table represent the different columns of the attributes table.

5.) Records (in a Table)- The records in the table represent the different rows of the attributes table.

6.) Attributes- Attributes in ArcGIS are the different bits of data that are begin use to create the image of the map. ArcGIS groups these different attributes into an attributes table to sort the information by fields and records.

7.) Relational Database- A relational database is a way to group different sets of data together by using common attributes or characteristics. This is the way in which ArcGIS works.

8.) Join Function- The join function is used to link two different sets of data together. Lab 5 had me link (join) the data from my computer to the data stored in ArcGIS.

9.) Monitor Fire- A monitor fire can occur when trying to link use the join function in ArcGIS. Basically, since this process can be very.. frustrating.. it is possible that the computer monitor will catch on fire.

10.) Calculate/ Field Calculator- When using a field calculator in ArcGIS, you use a query to help calculate a certain value. (Lab 5 used a field calculator to calculate the population changes between the different decades  in the 20th and 21st century)

Just updating the second half of Lab 2. These are the two maps I created to show the Marriage and Divorce rates for the state of Ohio. To do this, I added two new “Census Block Groups” layers to my table of contents in ArcMap. Then I created a new attribute for each layer and then exported them as a .jpg file. I ran across no problems while doing this part of the Lab.

Marriage Data

The above map shows the different amounts of people who are married in each area of Ohio.

Divorce Data

The above map shows the different amounts of people who are divorced in each area of Ohio.

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I guess I’m doing back-to-back updating today. I began Lab 4 on Monday (Oct. 5), but completely forgot to save my work. It really only took me about 5 minutes to get to the same point, though, so it was not a big deal. Lab 4 has caused me no trouble so far, which is an extremely good thing. Maybe I’ll make it through this Lab without asking a single question? We shall see. for now, I’m just here to upload my world map, which is shown below.

Literacy Rates

Due to sickness, I was not in class at all last week. I have just now completed Lab 3, as I was busy playing catch-up on Monday. A reason it took me so long was that I was also working simultaneously on Lab 4 and Lab 5. This allowed me to realize a problem with one of my county names from this Lab that would have caused problems in Lab 5. Fortunately, this saved me a future headache.

Through doing this lab, I have come to realize that computers are extremely picky. I had a few problems trying to edit my data in Excel, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly.  I believe that what we did in Lab 3 was relatively straight forward. Nothing was too complicated or too troublesome. If I came across a problem, it would take me 2 minutes maximum to figure out what was wrong and fix it, which is really not a big deal.

I’m definitely glad that we are only required to map out population change for one state in the United States instead of having to deal with the whole country. A project like that would take a long time and a lot more patience than I actually have. I definitely have mass respect for those who do this type of work for a career.

Lab two has proved to be somewhat of a pain. I have run across a few different errors, but all have managed to be sorted out. My biggest trouble was concerning the map mash-up page. At first, I had trouble with trying to get my map to show up at all. I had been doing it the hard way (putting each point in separately).. but I finally realized it would be much less hassle to just put everything into a KMZ file from google earth. Once I did that, I was able to get the web page to work properly. I had been spending so much time on this that I was behind on customizing my different pages. They are still not exactly how I want them, but I have changed them at least a little bit from the generic look. I used a few different websites to help me through the process of finding codes for fonts, among other things. After i found these websites, I was able to customize my page. This was a long process since I was trying to go between 3 different computers. for some reason, I was having problems saving some of my page sources as Mozilla FireFox. They kept saving only as Internet Explorer. Beside this, however, I was able to figure most everything out. The one thing that is still messed up is the API Key for my map mash-up page. The site still says that it rejects it, even though I have applied for multiple keys to try and fix the problem. Through all of these problems, I was able to learn a lot about HTML and how it works. I have a deeper understanding of how to deal with the issues that I faced.

I began my search for relevant data by using www.google.com. I searched for “United States Census Bureau,” which allowed me to find http://www.census.gov/. I then searched for “County Population 1900,” which brought me to a page that allowed me to choose the state that I wanted. I clicked on Illinois and it brought me to a page which included all of the census data between the years 1900-1990 for every county in Illinois. (http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/cencounts/files/il190090.txt) The title of this document was “ILLINOIS Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990.” I then saved this file under my personal data folder. Overall I found the process relatively easy. I did not need to spend a lot of time searching for the data that I needed. I did not try to use the Yahoo search method since I am very familiar with google.com. I figured I would be just fine using Google, and it turned out that I was correct. I feel that it is fast and easy to find free information using keyword searches. After I found this data, I searched for the 2000 census data for the counties in Illinois. This was harder to find since it was not on the same page as the first data that I collected. The only document I was able to find at first was a .htm file, not a .txt file.

Some of these sites (Wikipedia) might not be entirely reliable, but I feel like these websites will help me to understand the reasons for population changes in Illinois. Many of my sites focus on Chicago, but this is only because it is a very large city that I know has seen large population changes over the last century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chicago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Illinois

http://www.historyillinois.org/hist.html

http://www.illinois.gov/facts/history.cfm

http://www.aviewoncities.com/chicago/chicagohistory.htm

http://www.chicagohs.org/history/

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