i need to build something like mapQuest

George King wrote:

 > If you need to look up street addresses, then mark them on a map,
 > and then print the map, see Microsoft MapPoint. You have a choice of
 > pushpin and other symbols, as well as a callout to hold the street
 > address. I have had a few problems with recent street additions, but
 > otherwise very accurate for the U.S. The software will also generate
 > driving directions.

You will need to subscribe to the MapPoint web service. The MapPoint desktop
app won't work on the backend of a website; Microsoft won't support it; and
it's a violation of the MapPoint end-user license to use it that way.

You can use the web service for not a lot of money if you find the right
MapPoint reseller, though. And it's worth the money. Since it's implemented
as a web service, you don't need a Windows web server to use it. And
MapPoint Just Works -- yes, Microsoft is capable of producing mind-numbing
amounts of crap, but I've had the opportunity to use MapPoint and develop
apps for it, and I think MapPoint is a stellar product. Especially
impressive considering that it's a Microsoft app.

**SJ "Yes, I said something good about M$. Take note; it doesn't happen
often." S

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 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

Check this one out :

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.housingmaps.com/" target="_blank">http://www.housingmaps.com/</a>

Basically they are taking the housing listings from Craiglist, and
displaying them using google maps. Kind of a neat idear!

I don't think it would be too too difficult to clooge something together
using a database, and querying google.

j


"Dica" <genpub5.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:67CdnVpMkfI6EzXfRVn-vg@rogers.com...
 > i've got a client who wants to distribute a flyer with a city map that has
 > X
 > marks where the garage sales will be for that week. right now, he spends
 > about 4 hrs each week looking up the address on mapQuest, notes the
 > approximate position on the street, and then adds a mark to his own map in
 > roughly the same position. he wants to use his own map so he can insert
 > advertising for his business.
 >
 > so, what i need to do is basically read the address, find the approximate
 > X
 > and Y coordinates on his map, and add a mark. if i had to manually figure
 > out where each street address's corresponding X and Y coordinates are on
 > his
 > map, i'd never get this done. can anybody recommend a solution, custom or
 > third party?
 >
 > tks
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

"James Kerekes" <jkerekes DeleteThis @telnet.ca> wrote in message
news:Uehqe.15018$Nd3.792632@news20.bellglobal.com...
 > Check this one out :
 >
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.housingmaps.com/</font" target="_blank">http://www.housingmaps.com/</font</a>>
 >
 > Basically they are taking the housing listings from Craiglist, and
 > displaying them using google maps. Kind of a neat idear!
 >
 > I don't think it would be too too difficult to clooge something together
 > using a database, and querying google.


see, that's what i'd like to do, but i don't have access to googles
database. without that, i'd have to create my own database with every
address in the city and it's corresponding X Y coordinates.

this mapPoint option looks promising, though.

tks


 >
 > j
 >
 >
 > "Dica" <genpub5 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
 > news:67CdnVpMkfI6EzXfRVn-vg@rogers.com...
  > > i've got a client who wants to distribute a flyer with a city map that
has
  > > X
  > > marks where the garage sales will be for that week. right now, he spends
  > > about 4 hrs each week looking up the address on mapQuest, notes the
  > > approximate position on the street, and then adds a mark to his own map
in
  > > roughly the same position. he wants to use his own map so he can insert
  > > advertising for his business.
  > >
  > > so, what i need to do is basically read the address, find the
approximate
  > > X
  > > and Y coordinates on his map, and add a mark. if i had to manually
figure
  > > out where each street address's corresponding X and Y coordinates are on
  > > his
  > > map, i'd never get this done. can anybody recommend a solution, custom
or
  > > third party?
  > >
  > > tks
  > >
  > >
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

James Kerekes wrote:

 > Check this one out :
 >
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.housingmaps.com/</font" target="_blank">http://www.housingmaps.com/</font</a>>
 >
 > Basically they are taking the housing listings from Craiglist, and
 > displaying them using google maps. Kind of a neat idear!

I read that Google is "taking down sites" doing neat things with Google
maps.

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 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

John Bokma wrote:
 > James Kerekes wrote:
 >
 >
  >>Check this one out :
  >>
  >>http://www.housingmaps.com/
  >>
  >>Basically they are taking the housing listings from Craiglist, and
  >>displaying them using google maps. Kind of a neat idear!
 >
 >
 > I read that Google is "taking down sites" doing neat things with Google
 > maps.
 >


They shouldn't have built the site in a way that allows this in the
first place. Now the cat is out of the bag, (proverbially)

see:

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/06/09/google.map.hacks.ap/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/06/09/google.map.hacks.ap/index.html</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

John Bokma wrote:

  >>http://www.housingmaps.com/
  >>
  >>Basically they are taking the housing listings from Craiglist, and
  >>displaying them using google maps. Kind of a neat idear!
 >
 > I read that Google is "taking down sites" doing neat things with Google
 > maps.

Yup. Licensing issues, folks. Don't get sued, it hurts



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"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

Doug wrote:

 > They shouldn't have built the site in a way that allows this in the
 > first place. Now the cat is out of the bag, (proverbially)

So? That makes violating their terms of use ok?


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Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

More 'word on the street' kind of stuff than anything else, but still
interesting:

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/05/google_maps_hac.html
<cut and paste>

I asked about Google Maps hacks, like this week's Chicago Crime site,
at the Google Factory Tour. Particularly, I asked if their agreements
with Navteq and Tele Atlas, who provide the underlying map data for the
service, would require Google to shut down sites that used the map data
without Google's permission. They responded that they had every
intention to not shut them down as long as their licenses permit it,
and one of the engineers insinuated that they might be working on a
Google Maps API or a similar way to build on top of Maps (he actually
said, "to make them not hacks," by which I think he meant not
unauthorized). They also said they hoped that the data licensors would
realize that increased traffic benefits them.

</cut and paste>
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

"Dica" <genpub5.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:67CdnVpMkfI6EzXfRVn-vg@rogers.com...
 > i've got a client who wants to distribute a flyer with a city map that has
X
 > marks where the garage sales will be for that week. right now, he spends
 > about 4 hrs each week looking up the address on mapQuest, notes the
 > approximate position on the street, and then adds a mark to his own map in
 > roughly the same position. he wants to use his own map so he can insert
 > advertising for his business.
 >
 > so, what i need to do is basically read the address, find the approximate
X
 > and Y coordinates on his map, and add a mark. if i had to manually figure
 > out where each street address's corresponding X and Y coordinates are on
his
 > map, i'd never get this done. can anybody recommend a solution, custom or
 > third party?
 >
 > tks
 >
 >

thanks for all the replies. i'm looking at the costs for mapPoint($450.00)
VS ms streets and trips($46.00). all i need to do is be able to
programmatically pass a series of street addresses to the programme and
generate a graphic. anybody know if i can do this with Streets and Trips?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

Dica wrote:

 > thanks for all the replies. i'm looking at the costs for mapPoint($450.00)
 > VS ms streets and trips($46.00). all i need to do is be able to
 > programmatically pass a series of street addresses to the programme and
 > generate a graphic. anybody know if i can do this with Streets and Trips?

It's probably not designed for that purpose, and I doubt you can do it.

I'm not talking about buying the MapPoint program either, I'm talking about
subscribing to the MapPoint web service and using SOAP/XML to get the info
you need.

The companies maintaining the map data charge a lot of money for it. You're
not going to find a cheap solution.


--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol DeleteThis @JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

"Steve Sobol" <sjsobol.DeleteThis@JustThe.net> wrote in message
news:d8kn4v$2ha$1@ratbert.glorb.com...
 > Dica wrote:
 >
  > > thanks for all the replies. i'm looking at the costs for
mapPoint($450.00)
  > > VS ms streets and trips($46.00). all i need to do is be able to
  > > programmatically pass a series of street addresses to the programme and
  > > generate a graphic. anybody know if i can do this with Streets and
Trips?
 >
 > It's probably not designed for that purpose, and I doubt you can do it.
 >
 > I'm not talking about buying the MapPoint program either, I'm talking
about
 > subscribing to the MapPoint web service and using SOAP/XML to get the info
 > you need.

so i can pass the mapPoint service a series of addresses, the web service
adds a graphic for each one of those points, and then sends me the graphic
via XML?


 >
 > The companies maintaining the map data charge a lot of money for it.
You're
 > not going to find a cheap solution.
 >
 >
 > --
 > JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol.DeleteThis@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
 > Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
 > temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)
 >
 > "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest 

Dica wrote:

 > so i can pass the mapPoint service a series of addresses, the web service
 > adds a graphic for each one of those points, and then sends me the graphic
 > via XML?

I believe so, but you can check the Microsoft Developer Network website at
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/" target="_blank">http://msdn.microsoft.com/</a> to be sure.

As I've mentioned, you can find MapPoint resellers that will sell you X
number of dips into the database for not a ton of money, but it probably
will still be significantly more money than purchasing Streets & Trips, and
it will be an ongoing cost. On the other hand, you get a buttload of
functionality for the money, and as I mentioned, you can find reasonable
prices if you shop around.

--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol DeleteThis @JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: i need to build something like mapQuest