OpenSourcery

The Portland Open Source Geospatial users group will /not/ meet on the fourth Wednesday of April, owing to a regional conference that many OS-GIS members will attend instead.

But May? Yes. May is in the books. The fourth Wednesday of the month, May 27th, to be exact.

There are several exciting demonstrations in the offing, but the May selection remains TBD. Please check back here later for more information. In order to help us prepare the space, please RSVP on the Upcoming page.

As always, the user group meeting is free and open. Please join us at OpenSourcery's office on NW Lovejoy between 16th and 17th streets. We strongly recommend biking, walking, or using public transportation.

*Please note* OpenSourcery's developers will be working right up to the meeting time, so please plan to arrive as close to meeting time as possible. Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you here.

OpenSourcery is excited to join forces with yet another forward-thinking nonprofit whose mission is "to support watershed restoration programs and develop new sources of renewable energy." The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) began as a partnership with the Bonneville Power Administration but has since grown into its own important force by developing and marketing innovative green power products for consumers. Please visit their about us page to learn more of the good work they do (and watch their animated short).

The Bonneville Environmental Foundation has been working with a company called Fat Spaniel to provide monitoring and analysis of BEF's Solar 4R Schools program. The program intends to educate students and teachers on the benefits of solar power, including real-time data on the kWh of their solar systems and links to solar curricula. It's a very cool site with even cooler potential. That's where OpenSourcery comes in.

BEF currently has a web application that shows some of the interesting data that's being generated, but doesn't take the important step of bringing schools, teachers, and students together to learn from their experiences. They needed to connect with each other, map solar projects online, and communicate their excitement about solar energy. OpenSourcery and BEF determined that Drupal was the ideal framework because it already provides many of the solutions without reinventing the wheel. And OpenSourcery was the ideal choice to develop the new web application because of our experience building social networking and online mapping tools for other nonprofit organizations. We're able to leverage our previous work to give Solar 4R Schools more development for their budget.

A few technical outcomes:

• Integrated Google Maps with geo-plotting of data points
• Google charts to display solar generation on site-by-site basis
• Tools for students and educators to share reports
• Custom theming with Solar 4 R Schools' existing branding
• Developing the first web application that communicates with the existing Fat Spaniel API

We believe that the Bonneville Environmental Foundation will benefit from OpenSourcery's agile development practices. As with all projects, we give BEF online, real-time access to projects tasks OpenSourcery has completed and weekly updates on the hours dedicated to their work. With Agile collaboration, short iteration cycles, and leveraged software, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation benefits from what we believe is truly the best way to develop software.

The Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership (LCREP) first worked with OpenSourcery last year, when they needed to ditch their (to be charitable) "inconsistent" Microsoft Access-based mapping tools. Their maps would only work on Internet Explorer 5, cost more than their nonprofit could afford, and proved a serious burden on the organization. Round one of working with OpenSourcery cured that initial problem.

Now LCREP is in the position to upgrade their website and their tools. It's a story we love to hear and retell: because other river groups have developed powerful open source mapping tools (also working with OpenSourcery), LCREP can leverage community efforts to improve their own website. It's community development at its finest.

Beginning this December, LCREP has contracted OpenSourcery to:

And OpenSourcery will provide further value with short code bursts, frequent iterations, and all the other benefits of our Agile development process. We look forward to providing a tremendous amount of value to our friends at LCREP, and to working with them on a successful launch.

Thank you for reading.

Oregon Trout, a nonprofit dedicated to "return[ing] health to every stream in the state, while inviting every student in Oregon to act as stewards of their home waters," has pegged OpenSourcery to develop an interactive, multi-disciplinary Drupal site that will foster and sustain stewardship among young people.

Oregon Trout came to OpenSourcery because they needed a professional development shop capable of rapidly and successfully implementing a feature-rich website. They were also encouraged by our long-standing involvement in the national watershed conservation movement, lead by Sales Engineer Will Illingworth, who has presented on Internet technologies at two National River Rallies, and Project Manager Sean Larkin, who has worked with national and regional watershed conservation organizations since 2001. Sean has presented at the last seven River Rallies.

OpenSourcery is excited to undertake the project, which involves the implementation of many key Drupal functions: in-browser content editing; image upload; a custom workflow to tie together locations, results (data), images, video, and users; Google Maps integration with user added content; 3rd-party video embedding; and multiple search options.

We're humbled and proud to work with an organization of Oregon Trout's caliber. They join a wide range of national, regional, and local conservation organizations that have worked with OpenSourcery – including River Network (OR), the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership (OR, WA), RiverSource (NM), and the Molokai Community Service Council (HI).