Welcome (yes, it's me)

Welcome to the Blog of the Santa Clara County Surveyor being brought to you by Gwen Gee, PLS, CFedS.







We hope this will provide you updates and handy information about our office.















Thursday, September 1, 2011

Research for maps?

Yes, we are still in the "low" tech era when it comes to maps and records researching.
What keeps us from getting into the "high" tech era is of course money and cooperation.

Here's a couple of questions that will help us target your needs.

We have a database for recorded maps and Corner Records.
What file format or what program would be more beneficial to you?  i.e. MS Access, FileMaker Pro

How do you typically search by? street? APN? County Grid number?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

G

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

One more thing about GPS

One thing I want to mention is the looming threat to lose our GPS that we rely on so dearly. Please check out the link below. Short story is that a company LightSquared is on the verge of putting all our our survey grade GPS outta whack....how? INTERFERENCE. Simply put. We rely on having a good signal for good results (yes, along with a few other good things) Now imagine our GPS couldn't pick up a signal for initialization or  get connected to a base station. That would be a bummer. We expect that every now and then which then usually follows up with a call to tech. support. But imagine if all that expensive equipment just won't pick up a signal anymore....that would be a big time bummer. Don't think we want to go back to the way we "used to do" it in this day and economy.


I invite you to check out the following website. Read it for yourself, make your own decision.

Save Our GPS at  http://www.saveourgps.org/

We didn't get on the GIS train when it came, I hate to see us get passed up again.

ACSM - Survey Summit - ESRI UC Conference

Hi all,

San Diego was definitely where is was all at.
Well at least for surveying and mapping with some good weather too.

While our shrinking survey profession continues to survive, the GIS community grew a bit.  The ESRI User Conference had 15,000 attendees this year.  This is the first I've attended both.  The Survey Summit registration gets you into the first two days of the ESRI User Conference.  There couldn't have been more of a sharper contrast that these two conferences, yet our work interlaces in many ways.  Perhaps we could someday ride the GIS wave like a surfer does on a surf board.  I'll leave that for another discussion or post.

For the conference information:


Survey Summit   http://www.surveysummit.com/index.html

ESRI User Conference  http://www.esri.com/events/user-conference/index.html

Maybe see you at the next gathering....
Gwen

Friday, June 17, 2011

June is here!

And June is half over.  Time flies.
It's budget time and the long story short, we are still here.  Same staff, same place.
We're survived another budget and starting July 1 is the new fiscal year.
Be aware that there may be changes in other departments, maybe some revised fees.
We are going to stay the same.

But what comes around the corner is July and the Survey Summit in San Diego.
It is in conjunction with ACSM conference.  So if things are slow, plan a trip to sunny San Diego, learn new things, see what's out there.  If things are going too fast for you, take a moment and treat yourself to a sunny San Diego day.  And with registration for the Survey Summit you get a couple of days at the ESRI User Conference.  So that is a good deal.

Monday, May 23, 2011

National Surveyor's Week display


Display during National Surveyor's Week
at the County of Santa Clara, Office by the Office of the County Surveyor
Thank you to the Mt Diablo Surveyors Historical Society
for their participation.

Monday, May 16, 2011

2009 Manual of Instructions - SALE PRICE !

Yes, the price has been reduced to $55.00 for CLSA members.
Check out the their website.

It's a great improvement, color diagrams, easier to read and has included updated information from BLM memorandums and circulars.

http://www.californiasurveyors.org/index.asp

Impressive, great reference and makes great gifts and donations.

TTFN
Gwen