Category Archives: try this

Google Maps API x Joomla x More

To start playing with Google Maps API I began with Using PHP/MySQL with Google Maps – Google Maps API – Google Code to create a location map for my high school reunion website.  For the reunion website map I used the Googlemaps plugin on on Joomla Extension Directory.  It was easy to get going, just follow the Google Code walk through, create a db file and the generate kml.  Once kml is generated place url into the Googlemaps plugin and your map is ready. For the reunion websites map, I created a form for registration.   When someone registers or submits their contact information they are added to the db and the kml data for the map is pulled and displayed via the Joomla plugin.

So I tried this tutorial again and decided to modify the map a bit more then I did previously. This time I wasnt using on Joomla and just getting some more experience with kml and modifying maps.

[iframe http://mkahn.com/dev/gmaps/index5.html 520 350]
The few properties I modified

[code lang=”html”]
map.setMapType(G_HYBRID_MAP);
map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl3D());
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(28.540519, -81.378864), 2);[/code]

Thats really it, nothing major

Few links that helped-

Geocoding resources
Batch conversion of addresses to lat lng
Map icons
Map Basics
Map Reference
Google Maps API Tutorial

Next I plan to play with polygons, draggable markers, and use xml to display infoWindow information.  I’ll update this post after I make more progress.

Email to SMS and MMS

Most cell phone carriers have SMS gateways which take email messages and deliver to cell phones via SMS and MMS.  The carriers email address (ex:  10digitnumber@txt.att.net) determines the destination so if you do not know the correct email, the message will not reach the phone. If you are unsure of the carrier you are delivering to there are teleco databases that allow you to input the area code and prefix or exchange to find the provider.
TelecoData.us
FoneFinder

Once you know the users number and their cell phone provider you can then deliver a SMS/MMS message via email to their device.  Sending email to SMS/MMS can be useful for notification scripts and specialized software modules or if you simply need to send a quick note to someone without a your phone.  SMS notifications are a great way to ping someone since many people keep their cell phone on their hip or next to their bed stand.

Below is a list of carriers and their respective cell phone email addresses.  Most of these are unverified so if you experience any trouble or know of any changes please leave a comment.

Major Carriers:

Alltel
[10-digit phone number]@message.alltel.com?SMS/MMS: 1234567890@message.alltel.com

AT&T
[10-digit phone number]@txt.att.net
SMS: 1112223333@txt.att.net
MMS:  1112223333@mms.att.net
1112223333@mms.mycingular.com

Boost Mobile
[10-digit phone number]@myboostmobile.com
SMS/MMS: SMS/MMS:  1112223333@myboostmobile.com

Centennial Wireless
[10-digit phone number]@myblue.com
SMS/MMS:  1112223333@myblue.com

Nextel
[10-digit telephone number]@messaging.nextel.com?SMS/MMS: SMS/MMS:  1112223333@messaging.nextel.com

Sprint PCS
[10-digit phone number]@messaging.sprintpcs.com?SMS/MMS: SMS/MMS:  1112223333@messaging.sprintpcs.com
ALT:  1112223333@pm.sprint.com

T-Mobile
[10-digit phone number]@tmomail.net
SMS/MMS:  1112223333@tmomail.net

US Cellular
SMS/MMS:  1112224444@mms.uscc.net

Verizon
[10-digit phone number]@vtext.com
SMS: 1112223333@vtext.com
MMS:  1112223333@vzwpix.com

Virgin Mobile USA
[10-digit phone number]@vmobl.com
SMS/MMS:  1112223333@vmobl.com

Additional carriers here (117 addresses)

Via SMS411 and modmyi

Monitoring Resource Usage in OSX

One great pleasure of using osx is that it recovers from high usage and application crashes much nicer then any version of windows could ever imagine doing.  Managing and viewing process status in osx is easy, with Activity Monitor or via terminal with process status (ps).  Also are few widgets for the menubar and dashboard like istat pro that also assist with tracking your usage.

activity monitor Screen shot 2010-01-12 at 10.43.09 PM

A users first option when you notice a lockup or an unresponsive program is to kill it.  This can be done by right clicking on the dock and using force quit or via command line with kill.

So my purpose in writing this post is because I have been maxing out memory usage on my macbook with 4gb in the past few months.  I am working to adjust my usage for a more stable operating system environment until I can make a switch up to a 8gb mbp this year.  To keep a closer eye on my usage I pinned Activity Monitor to my dock and found you can right click on it and change the dock icon to a pie chart of your memory usage in real time.  Do this by right clicking on activity monitor on your dock -> dock icon -> show memory usage.

Screen shot 2010-01-04 at 11.10.23 PM

There are also dock icons for CPU usage, network usage, and disk activity.  This is just one way example of how osx provides a quick easy way to keep a close eye on your usage out of the box.  Pretty awesome.

Followup 5/31/2010
Apple has an article here that explains the different types of mem usage in OSX.
Free (Green):  RAM not being used, that has never been allocated
Wired (Red):   Info in memory that cant be transferred to the hdd
Active (Yellow):  Info currently in memory that has been recently used
Inactive (Blue):   Info in memory not actively being used, but was recently used.  This ‘space’ of your memory is available for use by any application.  It allows for recently ran applications to re-launch faster because it is taking the recently used bits and converting to Active memory.