BETA VERSION: Map Locator Hack

Welcome to my first BETA Release of

Map Locator Hack or How-to-Find members in a nutshell

This is my first try to get help from you guys. I tried to develop this on my own but i failed. I need help from all of you.

Before i start to describe what this hack does please take a look at the live demo. It makes my life much easier. Live demo can be viewed here.

Please move your mouse over the marks. You will see userinformations.

So this hack provides a map for VBulletin to show where your members are living. But i do not have the data for the US. I just have the data for germany and due to this i can only provide the german map. I have added the US map and a map of india but without the data i will not be able to finish this hack for other countries.

Please read my installation instructions completly BEFORE you start installing this hack. This hack is not easy to install and it will take you at least 30 min to get it running with the german map.

I would like to add: This is not an official release. This is a BETA version which is currently in production. I would not post this in this BETA section when i would not need your help. So what i need from you ? Please read my install instructions and read the part about the US data. If someone can provide this kind of data, i will be able to publish this hack.

If no one can provide this data, i will not continue with this hack because it works for me and due to the help of an indian VB member i will finalize this hack for him for india. So it is up to you.

UPDATE BETA 1.01:
After having done the base work, i focused now on the performance. If you have many members in your domain and many people open this map, your server will struggle. The heavy SQL part of this hack will bring down your server. Due to this i implemented a performance improvement.

I created the following logic around the hack:
- check if the number of ZIP code entries of the members has changed.
- if yes, then redraw the map with all queries ( a lot of queries which are required )
- if no, then take the already drawn map and take the userinfo which has been saved into a file rather then redo all queries again

Improvement:
- Up to 800% because people do not change their ZIP code so often
- if new ZIP codes are added only 1 person will issue the heavy SQL load to your server and this just ONCE
- every other person will get the cached version of the map with a really nice performance ( 5 queries in total )

And on top of that i added the Locator template to the cached templates. So this hack should be performing very well now. You can check it on my live demo site.

I have updated the ZIP file with the new locator.php file. For upgraders, just replace the locator.php file in your forum root folder. Then please do a "chmod 777 data" in your forum root folder. All set all done.

Cheers,

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by 58sniper

http://forums.devshed.com/t60834/s.h...ight=zip+codes

Hi 58sniper,

i also found this page during my google search but question:

Did you try to download at least one of these files ? You would not believe it, but NONE of them work. Thanks so far but this link does not help.

I am currently investigating the first link from Oly51. Let's hope i can use this data.

Cheers,

[58sniper]

I do have a MySQL database with 40,000+ zips in it if you need it....

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by 58sniper

I do have a MySQL database with 40,000+ zips in it if you need it....

Hi 58sniper,

what i need is a SQL file/source file like:

City, x-location, y-location, ZIP codes

Example:

'San Francisco', '37.65863', '122.30839','94005 94014 94044 94066 94080'

If you can provide this for US for all ZIP codes, then yes. Otherwise no.

Cheers,

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by oly51

Pseudomizer - What about this link?: http://forums.devshed.com/showthread.php?t=157248

It's free Zip code database and it's in MySQL. Hope it has the data you need.

Hi oly51,

i just checked out this data. This data is correct and includes the correct GEO locations ... BUT ... i am missing one important part in this database: the City names. This DB is useless for me without the city names like

94005 San Francisco x y

What they have is:

CA94005 x y

I do not know how i can get the city names into this db with all these zip codes. But this is the best source so far. With the city names this would be perfect and i could start working on the US version of this hack. But without ... no.

Cheers,

[58sniper]

42741 zip codes here. This is the best I could do.
It's in the format:

99950 +55.542007 -131.432682 Ketchikan AK Ketchikan Gateway Standard

Which is zip, lat, lon, city, state, county, class

The only thing that this is missing (that I've determined) is the aliases. Some zips (mine included) are actually used in more than one city. Only the primary city is listed.

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by 58sniper

42741 zip codes here. This is the best I could do.
It's in the format:

99950 +55.542007 -131.432682 Ketchikan AK Ketchikan Gateway Standard

Which is zip, lat, lon, city, state, county, class

The only thing that this is missing (that I've determined) is the aliases. Some zips (mine included) are actually used in more than one city. Only the primary city is listed.

Hi 58sniper,

just for my understanding: What do you mean with aliases are missing ? The format i need is, that one city can have multiple ZIP codes or suburbs. In this case i have to choose one name for the city and add all the ZIP codes to this city. This is what i need. Is this what you mean ?

And another question: You can provide 42741 ZIP codes. How many are there in total ? Any idea ? So how many are you missing ?

Cheers,

[58sniper]

As far as I know, that includes all of the zip codes in the US. Some will say that there are more than 70,000, but that's not entirely true.

In my case:
48315 is my zip code. But that zip code is used in Utica, and in Shelby Twp (where I live).

If I look up my zip code, it's in the database, but only listed as Utica. Some databases would list it twice, once with each city name. Mine lists them once with the primary city. No duplicates.

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by 58sniper

As far as I know, that includes all of the zip codes in the US. Some will say that there are more than 70,000, but that's not entirely true.

In my case:
48315 is my zip code. But that zip code is used in Utica, and in Shelby Twp (where I live).

If I look up my zip code, it's in the database, but only listed as Utica. Some databases would list it twice, once with each city name. Mine lists them once with the primary city. No duplicates.

Ok. Let me check what i can do here. I will come back to you if i can use this file. Thanks so far.

Cheers,

[oly51]

Here's a MySQL dump of a Zip code dB

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by oly51

Here's a MySQL dump of a Zip code dB

Ui. This looks good. I will install this into a db and i have run a couple of queries to make it distinct but this looks like the best source so far. Let me check now.

Now i have 2 sources where i can check. I hope one of them will work.

Thanks so far and now please be patient. In the meantime i need volunteers to install this hack on their servers and obviously this volunteers should be located in US. Who wants to be the BETA tester ?

Please make sure that you get the prerequisites running before i give you the data.

Cheers,