Success! The Eighth Annual GeoElections User’s Conference

The headliner at the conference this year was guest speaker Catherine Clark McCully, Chief of US Census Redistricting Data Office. Chief McCully spoke about the preparations for the 2010 decennial enumeration in which the Bureau is presently engaged. She also provided a time line for the release of both geography and demographics for the P.L. 94-171 data used for redistricting at state and local levels.

Attendees learned how new features in MI Pro 10.0 in addition to numerous feature enhancements to GeoElections® will make them more effective. The two features that appeared to receive the greatest interest were WebElections™ and GeoPackager©. Read other stories in this issue of GeoElections News.

St. Lucie Team Integrates

GeoElections Data With

Garmin Hand Held

James Macrellis spoke about an application that loads mapped polling place information onto an economical Garmin hand held. After explaining in detail how to use the “GPS Export” in detail with a Power Point presentation, Jim distributed CDs with the software and instructions to all attendees.

Census Bureau Chief Opening Speaker

Catherine McCully, Chief of Census Redistricting Data Office provided the opening presentation covering a broad range of topics which included a brief history of the Census Bureau, history of the Redistricting Data Program, and the five phases in the 2010 Redistricting Data Program.

Of specific interest was the discussion of the compressed VTD Data Verification Phase schedule our participating Florida elections officials will be working with in the first quarter of 2010. This is the follow on step from the work performed 1st quarter of 2009.

MapInfo Professional Includes New Icons For Tool Bars

With MI Pro Version 10, the icons for the Tool Bars have gone through a dramatic redesign. The new look is listed below along with the name of the Tool Bar and the name of the icon. And, by the way, MI Pro Version 10.0 now has an update available from PBBI, Version 10.0.1.

MI Pro 10.0’s new flexible user interface greatly improves organization and productivity. The new user interface allows users to dock toolbars on all four sides of the application helping to improve the efficiency, reduce screen clutter, and save time. MI Pro10.0 also includes a powerful new layer control. This redesigned layer control, can be either a floating or docked window remaining visible during the entire mapping session, providing quick and easy access at all times in addition to an auto-hide feature.

MI Pro 10.0 offers great map finishing and output options. The dynamic scale bar automatically adjusts and updates as you zoom, pan, and resize the map window. Once the desired maps are created, MI Pro 10.0 supports exporting maps to layered PDF format. The PDF layered format allows future access to the various layers of data. This enables specific layers to be turned on and off, depending on the requirements, providing flexibility for the end user, your readership. Web