I'm currently developing an application for the emergency services (target market is NY) A crucial part of the application is the mapping feature. I'm currently using Google maps API and Bing, as a proof of concept, and it's working great. I like google a lot better as it seems to have more features and looks better. I've been finding that sometimes google is inaccurate about 10-20% of the time (Bing is also inaccurate, but not as much). It's working for a proof of concept, but as this is for emergency services, I need the maps to be as accurate as possible. I wouldn't have a problem using one API to geocode, and then use google to display. Does anyone know a good geocoding service out there that could live up to these standards? (Free would be best, but I'd take fee based services suggestions too)
Thanks!
For something like this you really want to pay someone and get support, corrections, fixes etc on demand. Mapquest might have an offering that suits you (and their geocoding is generally very good).
Related
I am researching the best way to use non-standard webfonts on a high-traffic site.
Really it comes down to whether we use a service such as Typekit / Google or serve the fonts ourselves.
The terms of use on Typekit are clear, but with Google I cannot find any information about:
uptime
how many times a day / month I can request the font
Does anyone have any information on this, or experience of using in on a site with a lot of traffic? The terms of service just points you to Google's generic APIs Terms of Service.
In these terms it states:
API Limitations
Google may set limits on the number of API requests that you can make,
at its sole discretion. You agree to such limitations and will not
attempt to circumvent such limitations.
But this is very broad - there doesn't seem to be any indication of what the limitation is, other than it may be limited.
for a "business critical site" you can always use typekit from adobe
as for the option to host the fonts yourself... read again the paragraph you cite above:
You agree to such limitations and will not attempt to circumvent such
limitations.
I have been assigned a task to find a decent spell checker (UK English) preferably the free one for a project that we are doing.
I have looked at Google AJAX API for this. The project contains some young person's (kids less than 18 years old) data which shouldn't allow exposing or storing outside the application boundaries. Google logs the data for research purpose that means Google owns the data whatever we send over the wire through Google API. Is this right? I fired an email to Google regarding the privacy of data and storage but they haven't come back. If you have some knowledge regarding this please share with me.
At this point our servers might not have access to external entities that means we might not be able to use Web API for this over the wire. But it may change in the future. That means I have to find out some spell checker alternatives that can sit in our environment and do the job or an external APIs.
Would you mind share your findings and knowledge in this regard. I would prefer free services but never know if you have some cracking spell checker for a few quid’s then I don't mind recommending to the project board.
Technology using ASP.NET 3.5/4.0, MVC, jQuery, SQL Sever 2008 etc
Cheers,
Naren
GNU aspell might be suitable for your needs.
Yandex provides one. It is mainly targeted to Russian-speaking auditory, but it contains a dictionary for the English as well.
I did do some googling and searching on this site but did not find exactly what I was looking for.
I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction here. I'm an ASP.NET/SQL Server developer and would like to develop a (intially) basic social networking site (gasp). Before I start from scratch with a blank solution in ASP.NET, I'm wondering if there are any frameworks out there ASP.NET specific that would serve as a good starting point. I'm already thinking of using the Google Maps jquery control for my Google Maps integration, as well as the 'sharethis' control for my social networking website sharing integration. Captcha for human authentication... But other than that I'm not sure what I can leverage... Nothing on Google jumped out at me on my search terms.
I'm also wondering if anyone else has done something similar and could share their post mortem/war stories with me.
I'm also open to learning a new platform/language if it would mean saving time - my experience is mostly in ASP.NET, so that is what I plan on using if it makes the most sense. My initial requirements are basic and realistic - profile setup (images, information, etc.), 'group' creation, Google Map integration, calendar controls shared by groups, SMS support, discussion forums among groups, searching for groups, OpenID integration most likely, etc. I am not going to try to build the entire site and then release it, but take baby steps and release pieces of functionality at a time.
Any advice is greatly appreciated for a broad question such as this. Thanks again.
I've found DotNetOpenAuth which seems to be a nice API for handling OpenID for ASP.NET web forms. They also have an ASP.NET MVC version
I also found MS Web Platform. This looks like some good stuff. Anyone ever use it and think it would do well for this sort of app?
I found a library for DotNetNuke called ActiveSocial. It's priced right ($500) and has more than the features I need but lacks some. I wonder if anyone here has ever used AS before. Is DNN easy to extend so I can add Google Maps functionality and such? It doesn't say anywhere on snowcovered (the vendor that sells AS) if AS comes with the source. If it didn't, then I might be screwed because I wouldn't be able to integrate the functionality I want.
I went through this exercise about 15 months ago when I built a SNS for a client. Hoping to find some basic framework for Friends, Chat, Profiles etc I was pretty disappointed.
That said, in retrospect I wish rather than building one that we would have purchased a solution like Community Server. As with most projects I looked at the problem scope with beer, no strike that, ambitious goggles on and the level of work to cover all the edge cases was more than I imagined.
Tread careful my friend, tread careful.
I think this is what you're looking for. Kigg is an open source ASP.NET MVC app that would be a good starting point for what you want. Here is the url: http://www.codeplex.com/Kigg
You can also find a site that is using this here: http://dotnetshoutout.com/
At the very least you will learn the ASP.NET MVC framework which is fantastic.
While not exactly intended to be used for social networking sites, both of these frameworks can help you so you don't have to start from scratch:
DotNetNuke: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/
Umbraco: http://umbraco.org/
Also, for an out of the box solution (no code involved) you could always try this: http://www.ning.com/
Good luck!
I am building a new web site in asp.net, and im newbie with using maps.
For my web site i will need the following functionality:
display a map of specific location.
display route map between two or more location
calculate distance between 2 locations.
I found most of the functionality at the Bing Maps interactive SDK site:
and it works fine.
My questions are:
does it cost money to use this SDK ?
for the third task, i understand that i will have to use MapPoint Services.
(is there another way??) does it code money to use it?
I will really appreciate it if you dont send me links, cause my english is not the best one...
thanks a lot
It sounds like you're at the decision making stage of your project and weighing up the pros and cons of various frameworks. Due the nature of developing commercial applications using maps (supplied by Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any other map provider), it might be an idea to code against a library called MapStraction.
It allows you to easily swap and change map providers depending on commercial and/or customer requirements. It also provides a consistent interface so changing your map provider half way through the project isn't a big deal.
Have a look at using OpenStreeMaps. It's completely free, and so far I have been very impressed with it. In my area, it's more accurate and detailed than Google maps.
In the UK OS maps are also free.
Bing Maps is a good option. If your website is public and the map is publically available, then you can make use Bing Maps for free if you have less than 125,000 page views (similar to a session) of your map page in a year as noted here: http://www.microsoft.com/maps/product/licensing.aspx
If you expect a higher volume of usage then you would need a license. Note that Bing Maps licenses tend to be cheaper the Google licenses. This is pretty neat as Bing Maps has much more data than Google.
Also, MapPoint Web Services are not need, nor do they exist anymore.
Read the licenses carefully, both Bing and Google Maps cost money, if you use it for commercial purpose.
E.g. read this blog post:
http://www.47hats.com/2009/07/google-maps-the-10k-gotcha/
However, if you using it for your non-commercial app, it is free.
Another option to consider for those looking at this thread is Azure Maps, Microsoft's newer enterprise mapping platform. It usually costs less than Bing Maps and provides more features and services. It is also a part of Azure which make things a lot easier if you are already developing in Azure. Find more information at https://azure.com/maps
You can do all of that using just Bing Maps. The Bing Maps routing service can b sued to calculate the driving distance between two locations. If you want the straight line (as the crow flies) distance then it's just a simply calculation.
For Bing Maps you will always need a license, however there are free licenses. If you qualify for free usage depends on your use case. There's a good tool available for figuring out if you need an Enterprise license or if you qualify for free usage here: http://www.microsoft.com/maps/Licensing/licensing.aspx
I'm looking for a guide to interpreting results from Google Analytics. Also is there an API for accessing the data?
I'm looking for a guide to interpreting results from Google Analytics.
I like Advanced Web Metrics; it's come in quite handy. Recommended if you're at least somewhat familiar with analytics packages in general. Otherwise pick something a little simpler, like Google Analytics 2.0.
Also is there an API for accessing the data?
You can find the API here
Google released an Analytics API on Apr 21, 2009. As usual with Google, there are a few caveats:
It is in "public beta". Everyone can use it, but they reserve the right to modify the API at any time.
Most, but not all metrics and dimensions are available. You can mostly ignore this fact until you start doing advanced combinations.
Read-only access.
They provide full developer documentation and an Analytics API Google Group for discussion.
http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/
Note:
As a new SO user, I can't add any relevant links for this answer, so feel free to edit this post and add them in.