Visualising data on a map

Mapping data geospatially was the title I was going with originally - what I've gone with is the layman's way of describing this post.

It was at a training day for the Auckland SQL group (a group of SQL Server geeks) earlier this year that I realised how few developers knew what geospatial mapping was, meaning the decision makers in their businesses hadn't seen or didn't know about the vast benefits it can bring.  If you work with any data that involves addresses, you need to start mapping that data geospatially.

If you were given a list of addresses to visit, most people who pull out a map book to work out the best route; unless you were completely familiar with the addresses already, this is the easiest way to figure out a route, check this site out.  Likewise, if you were trying to figure out the most central point to meet, a map would be very helpful.

Mapping data geospatially is taking addresses, converting them to their latitude/longitude, and then using them to achieve your outcome, whether it is putting them on a map, or calculating the distance between them (to name two very basic applications).

In June (yes I'm quick, I know), I posted a topic about the best places to eat, with the idea that this would give me data to help illustrate this post.  I took all the posts, geocoded the addresses (translated them into co-ordinates), and saved them to a database.  A screenshot of the list is below:

As a raw list, if you are looking for a place to eat, it's quite hard to determine anything.  If all these points are put on a map it becomes much easier:

This is only a very basic application, to take this every further I could:

Allow you to enter an address and then show you the nearest food places and the distances to them (with driving directions).
List the food places based on the geographical location (rather than the random order they are currently in)
Give each different food place a different icon depending on it's type (so a coffee cup for cafes, a beer for pubs etc)
Figure out the most optimum way to visit a group of food places using Geosmart's clever routing engine
Geospatially mapping makes visualising your geographical data much easier, and some of the savings that can be made, especially for delivery based industries (by using route optimisation) can be quite significant.

My thanks to Geekzone users Antzzz, BurningBeard, coffeebaron, Ezzie, garvani, gehenna, jofizz, Lias, michaelmurfy, muppet, nickd, NonprayingMantis, oxnsox, rscole86, sarg, snonoz, timbosan, tomgeeknz, vinnieg, and xpd for their submissions.

How to fix Google Apps - Server error

About a month ago, a mate was having issues with his webmail provider.  I suggested he swap to Google Apps (free edition).

All was going well for around three weeks, then when he or any of his other users tried to login, they would be presented with this error:

Unlike our 3Bit email (Google Apps paid edition), the free edition comes with no support, so I had to figure out the solution myself - a quick search of the Google forums show this is a common issue, and no-one really had a solution that worked.

While I wish I could claim some stroke of brilliance, the answer came to me by accident.

The issue is, if you don't verify your domain name within the time frame (three weeks), it seems Google disable the administrator account for the domain, which in turn, causes issues for everyone on that domain.  The ambiguous error message thrown by trying to login to the cpanel for the domain doesn't help.

To check whether your administrator account has been disabled, try logging into Google Accounts.  If your account has been disabled, you will be redirected to this help page.  I sent an email to Google using the link at the bottom of the page, explaining what had happened, and within an hour, the account was re-enabled, and I was able to login to Google Apps again.

I hope this helps save some hours and frustration for anyone else with this issue.