We’re delighted to announce that ProjectX is now officially a Google Maps Enterprise reseller. We working with a number of high profile companies to integrate Google Maps into their websites.

If you want to know anything about the different licensing models ie. Free, Premiere or Enterprise for  Google Maps. Please contact us and we’d be happy to help you with your requirements.

We’re also, partners with Zawadski Ltd who are Google Apps Enterprise specialists.

Microsoft have release a new version of Virtual Earth Web Service and Map control. There’s a swag of new features including:

• New Mobile Support - Blackberry, Windows Mobile and iPhone
• Internationalised versions - English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish for users in Western Europe.
• New international reverse geocoding - Users can now find international addresses with reverse geocoding, which is now available anywhere Virtual Earth has routing.
• Extended parsing capabilities - Users can expect better match rates for addresses in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
• Pushpin clustering - The new map control includes the ability to zoom in on a map to better visualize a cluster of points.
• New landmark hints in routing - Customers in the U.S. and Canada can now use maps that feature familiar landmarks, such as gas stations and fast-food restaurants, called out by name.
• New imagery metadata - Users can now find out the relative age of a given image, which will help them assess if the imagery is still relevant to their needs.
• New one-click directions - Through the Web Services, customers can now get directions in one click, choosing from route options by shortest time, shortest distance, or traffic flow.

What’s of interest to ProjectX is the reverse geocoding and landmark directions.

The landmark routing is a step in the right direction. Navigation by landmark is a very common way that we explain directions to people. Its nice to see that Micorsoft is lifting the bar.

We use a lot a reverse geocoding and it’ll be interesting to see how comprehensive it is and how fast the webservice is.

We’re working with Zawadzki Limited to bring a high level seminar on “Using Google Maps”. The seminar is in Wellington on Friday 26th September 8:30am to 10:30am. The event is free, but you will need to register for the event.

Here is the overview for the seminar:

Using Google Maps

Google Maps is a great tool for making the data you already hold more accessible to your staff, your customers, or the public. Using Google Maps as your platform, you can:

	make it easy for all your staff to benefit from the geospatial information you already maintain
	link information stores to Maps and help users find and interpret information faster
	engage your public with interactive Maps-based applications

In this two hour session we will cover:

• What types of information can be presented using Google Maps

• How to use Google Maps to visualise your existing information sets

• How to augment your systems with Google Maps as a front-end

• Examples of effective use of Google Maps
  

• What is involved in piloting your first Google Maps application and common pitfalls
  

• Licensing for Google Maps and differences between the Free, Premiere and Enterprise versions

Further to my first post on using acts_as_xapian, I have been trying to make xapian work with pagination and association proxies properly

class Lesson < ActiveRecord::Base
# Index user_id as a term in xapian

    belongs_to :user
    def self.find_with_xapian(search_term, options={})
      ActsAsXapian::Search.new([self], search_term, options).results.collect{|x| x[:model]}
    end
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :lessons do  #Extend this association
      # Override the method in lessons
      def self.find_with_xapian(search_term, options={})
        ActsAsXapian::Search.new([proxy_reflection.klass],
          "{proxy_reflection.primary_key_name}:#{proxy_owner.id}  #{search_term}", options)
        .results.collect{|x| x[:model]}
      end
    end
end

This will ensure that current_user.locations.find_with_xapian will find the correct number of locations, enabling us to work with pagination, etc. What’s left to do is to get the Search object out so that we can get matches_estimated out. I’ll leave out for next time.

This post was brought to you from Software Freedom Day, New Zealand.

Here is a collection of interesting links as discovered by the ProjectX Team

7 accounting tips for beginning businesses
Added on 09/20/2008 at 11:47AM
Jason Frieds 10 things we learned at 37 signals
Added on 09/20/2008 at 11:47AM

How to never forget anything ever again
Added on 09/20/2008 at 11:46AM

Why small web design companies should think big
Added on 09/20/2008 at 11:45AM

Those who have succeeded at anything and dont mention luck are kidding themselves. - Larry King
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:56PM

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm - Winston Churchill
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:55PM

How to make a million dollars
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:54PM

Stanford offering free Computer Science and Robotics courses
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:51PM

AWS content delivery service: Amazons lifting the bar again
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:48PM

Freakanomics look at the current banking crisis
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:46PM

Tim O’Reilly - Stop throwing sheep do something worthy
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:45PM

What it costs to sack a person
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:40PM

Sergey Brin’s personal blog
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:39PM

Squirrelfish Extreme
Added on 09/19/2008 at 11:31PM

iPhone v Android: platform vs product
Added on 09/18/2008 at 02:40PM

SVG effects for HTML content
Added on 09/18/2008 at 12:19PM

Polypage - wireframes via ajax
Added on 09/18/2008 at 12:15PM

CSS transformations now in Gecko
Added on 09/18/2008 at 12:14PM

Jakob Nielsen has just written an article on location finders. The article outlines some behaviour changes of users in finding locations over the years.

The lastest research has found…

It’s still striking that 73% of users went to a search engine (mainly Google) when we asked them to find a nearby location for a specific company. Only 13% went straight to that company’s own website, while the remaining 13% went to a dedicated mapping service.

Given this changing behavior, we now have guidelines for search engine optimization (SEO) for the locator.

We’ve focused on making ZoomIn SEO friendly from day one so that businesses can be easily found. We constantly tune our system to ensure that we’re at the top the list for a result.

This re-inforces the need for businesses to make sure that their locations are being “found”, using ZoomIn is a good way to make sure that happens!

Xlink is a collection of interesting links as discovered by the ProjectX Team

Donkey Kong source code found….
Added on 09/16/2008 at 09:29AM


10 aspects of web 2.0 strategy that every CTO / CIO should know
Added on 09/16/2008 at 09:27AM


What entrepreneurs need to know about founders stock
Added on 09/16/2008 at 09:23AM


Don’t buy that textbook download it for free
Added on 09/16/2008 at 09:22AM


GPS tracking can drive employees over the edge
Added on 09/15/2008 at 08:25AM


20 visualisation libraries
Added on 09/12/2008 at 10:54PM


Seth Godin - 8 startup insights
Added on 09/12/2008 at 10:48PM


20 best countries in the world for startups: Come on bloody New Zealand
Added on 09/12/2008 at 10:39PM


Curious Hack. How to solve a maze in Photoshop
Added on 09/12/2008 at 10:33PM


Space invaders in javascript: Cool Well done Chris
Added on 09/11/2008 at 01:13PM


UA Profiler
Added on 09/10/2008 at 05:29PM


Awesome Time Waster: YUI Pacman
Added on 09/09/2008 at 02:53PM


The “Feedization” of the Web
Added on 09/08/2008 at 10:28AM


NZ VC scene… Nothing Ventured
Added on 09/08/2008 at 10:26AM