Iron Compass

What’s in a Name? Code Signing Certs

Iron

Our development of OnScene Xplorer 4.0 is going very well. So it is time to get a code signing cert (certificate) so users would not have to deal with that annoying popup in Windows asking if you trust to run the app.

Getting a cert is pretty straight forward: fill out a form, pay some money, provide some documentation to prove you are who you say you are, and they give you the cert. Simple, right?

We provided some docs from the Commonwealth of PA which shows our name and address. For the record, our registered name is “Iron Compass Map Company.” The cert authorities also want some additional documentation, for example, a utility bill. So we provided them with a bill from our internet service provider. The reply? We’re sorry, but this doesn’t have the full company name. You see, our ISP seems to only have 18 characters in the billing name, so our bill has “IRON COMPASS MAP C.”

We sent them a vehicle registration from the state, which has our full name, but that didn’t count. OK, so legal documents or records from our state government do not count. I guess they don’t trust the government. Then we got another reply:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for writing us.   Could you please confirm us shall we use the company name as ironcompass.com which is listing in zoominfo.com or do you wish to have Iron Compass Map Company.

Awaiting for your response !!

The lesson? Besides their English being a little suspect, they trust ZoomInfo.com more than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

OK, so we start looking at the bills from our vendors and guess what? All of our vendors either use some variation of our name (Iron Compass Map Co., Iron Compass Map, etc), or they use our mailing PO Box. Oh yes, cert company needs to have the registered address on the bill. The PO Box doesn’t count. Yes, as you would assume, we have our mail send to our PO Box. See, that is why we have a PO Box. Crazy, right? So, they wait.

Please provide us the comcast bill document document with the full company name Iron Compass Map Company, so that we will proceed further 

Wait a minute! We have a virtual phone system that bills annually…maybe they have our full name. Hey, they do. But it has our PO Box and not the registered address. But, in the last few emails, it seems like they are looking at the name separate from the address. Perhaps that will do? OK, Log in…bill history (Feb 2019), print, and email..

I think we have worn them down because they accepted the name with the PO Box address and are moving to the final item. Just thinking, if we were a fake company, wouldn’t we just fake some utility bills too? Only a legitimate company would do this whole back and forth to get a cert. Right?

After all this back and forth, they only need to verify our phone number by giving us a call and provide a code, which we then type into a web form.

Voila! Congratulation IRON COMPASS MAP C…… Iron Compass Map Co…..Iron Compass Map Company, you now have a code signing certificate. Yay!

Round Earth, Flat Map

Iron

Map projections; it’s always a fun topic…if you are a map geek like us. When you make a map, you have to project from a round earth to a flat piece of paper or a screen. Projections are mathematical formulas to take lat/long values and project into a new coordinate system, like feet or meters. I know this stuff is a real yarner. But from our side of the app, it’s a big deal.

When we first developed OnScene Xplorer we used a “localized” projection. The “State Plane” projection was used and localized for each area. There is a “Pennsylvania North State Plane”, and a “Pennsylvania South State Plane” and so on. When we wanted to create a new data set, for example in Camden County, NJ, we had to process the data for the New Jersey flavor of State Plane. As you can imagine, as we brought on more customers, this became a big task and it became difficult to manage the base county datasets in Esri Shapefile format.

When we designed OnScene Xplorer 3.0 we decided to store all of the mapping data in once seamless dataset in a very robust database engine. So we have to move everything to a single map projection before loading into the database. We choose the “World Mercator” projection as it would suite well for any location we mapped. We re-projected and uploaded the mapping data into our master database. From that point forward we could have many people editing our one master database at the same time. No tripping over each other!

But as fate would have it, the web mapping industry gravitated over time to a new map projection created by Google Maps. The “Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere” is now accepted as the standard. So if any app wants to take advantage of services, like satellite imagery, to include in their app, it’s best to use the “Web Mercator” projection.

For OnScene Xplorer 4.0 we will be using the “Web Mercator” projection. So do we have to re-project our master database? Nah, the tools we use to deliver data to OSX 4.0 will re-project the data on-the-fly. Therefore, with an available internet connection, users will be able to view satellite imagery or other web available layers without the performance penalty of re-projecting the data on the users’ devices.

Isn’t technology great? When we first built OSX, most of today’s tech was just a vision. We live in great times, well at least for map geeks like us.

Click here to learn more about map projections