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[Google] Map advice needed

Hey folks

I have a project, where i will need to locate potentially a lot of people on a map of the USA. they will be over the entire USA, so i assume, that i will need to start by showing not individual pins on a USA map - but similar to Google Analytics - to start with States, and then drill down to a resolution that is low enough to see pins.

i will have my data coming from an MSSQL database - probably using ZIP codes.

so -
1) can anyone point me in the direction of studying the basics here - or even getting some kind of off the shelf product.

2) can Google take ZIP codes as pointers, or does it need long/lat specifications?

3) are there other ideas to use - other than Google maps?

Thanks!!

thedwill

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/

thedwill

and some samples

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch.html

kneidels

ASKER

thanks thedwill, i have seen all i these - i was just hoping to get ideas from other folks.
maybe for example, gmaps isnt the way to go - maybe there are better solutions etc...

thanks

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Ray Paseur

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kneidels

ASKER

thanks very much Ray -for some reason i missed your reply on this till now.

i am using ZIPs, because on the site - we feel its less of a hassle for people to signup with (instead ofn a full address)
.
i usually program in ASP, but will try understand the flow of the code you pasted - many thanks.
if you have a sample implementation of this it would help me a lot.

thanks again for the advice!

Ray Paseur

"a sample implementation of this" is available on my web site here:
http://www.laprbass.com/RAY_class_SimpleGeoCoder.php

You can install that code and run it on your own server. It will work just fine with a zip code only, but the precision will (obviously) be less than if you have a full address.

You might also find some examples using ASP if you noodle around the Google Apps site.

Best, ~Ray

kneidels

ASKER

Great , thanks Ray ( i missed the actual HTML part there)

any idea how something like this could work for Canada? i suppose i would need to ask for a city there, as zip doesn't work?

Ray Paseur

Canada has postal codes.
http://www.laprbass.com/RAY_class_SimpleGeoCoder.php?a=&c=&s=&z=S7H4K1

kneidels

ASKER

amazing - thanks Ray!