Updating mapping global earthquakes project

[ehmatthes]

I've received two requests for updates via email:

• update for Windows
• I followed along and was able to implement on my side. I then tried to do something similar for New York City, but the basemap that was drawn looked off (i.e. Manhattan wasn't really there). So I found a shapefile of NYC boroughs online and thought I would just be able to plot/visualize the shapefile and then plot lat, long points on top of it like in your tutorial, however it wasn't so simple. I kept getting errors about the shapefile and based on the research online, it seemed I needed to save the shapefile in a different format. I followed this tutorial and seemed to save the file into the appropriate NAD 83/ UTMZone 18 N (NY/LongIsland EPSG 26918) projection.
• However when trying to re-import the file in python I would still get the same error. So I found another format for the "shapefile" in geojson format and was wondering if you might be able to point me in the right direction with respect to a tutorial on how I might:
  a) visualize the geojson file as a map in python and then
  b) plot lat, long points on top of it.

[ehmatthes]

Some of these libraries have evolved, so there's a lot that can be done in revisiting this project. In particular, I think the installation can be simplified. Installation of common visualization packages should be moved to separate notebooks, so every project that uses them doesn't need to cover installation.