A Blog on Google API 's

Google Map Mashup With Twitter : Live Twitter

2011-04-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

We are introducing you a new mashup Google Maps Mashup With Twitter.Its a cool mashup in which you pickup a place on the map and we show you the latest 5 tweets within the radius 25km of the map .We have done this with the help of Twitter Search API . You can query the Twitter API to get the latest tweets , tweets within a location , latest tweets by a person etc . We have made use of this cool Twitter feature to develop this Twitter Mashup .

We are giving away this

code

of this

Google Maps Twitter Mashup

to all our

FREE SUBSCRIBERS

. It is free to Subscribe , just click on the

Orange colored RSS Reader or the BLUE colored Reader count

on the top left. You can also connect us using Google Connect, Twitter or Facebook .

"If you liked this mashup , please leave back a comment as a token of appreciation"

Twitter Google Map Mashup Example

To get the Latest Tweet

Click on the Map

Input the Location

Latest Tweets Result

Create Multiple Facebook Account using Single Gmail Account

2011-04-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

Click Like If you Agree

Gmail neglects period while creating email accounts .
The fact is that while creating your GMAIL account it
reserves for you all the combinations of the period or
dot for your account .

If you are creating an Google Mail Account with the
username as james.bond@gmail.com gmail will reserve all the
combinations of the period for your account .
That is no one else can register with the username
as jame.sbond@gmail.com or jam.esbond@gmail.com .

Create Multiple Facebook Account using Single Gmail

Using this property you can create multiple Facebook account
all linked to a single Gmail Account . Try all the different
combinations of period(dot) of your emailid to create multiple
facebook accounts .

Man Behind Google Map Marker .. the PIN you see on Maps ??

2011-04-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

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Google Map Marker or the small PIN we see on
Google Maps when we search for a place . The small
tiny red colored oval marker that fits so well in the
Google Maps .

Who Invented Google Map Marker or Google Map Pin??

Ji Lee the ex Creative Head Of Google was the man behind
this creative oval shaped Google Marker . Google initially
came up with many different pointers like circles, squares
small sphere , but all of these overlays didn't create the charm
that the pin shaped 45 degree pointer created .

Who is Ji Lee ?

Born in Seoul, Korea, and raised in São Paulo,
Brazil, Ji Lee studied design at Parsons School
of Design . Ji Lee is currently working as the
Creative Director For Facebook after his exit
from Google . Ji LEE is also the man behind the
famous Google Bubble Project which spreaded like a
virus in the New York City .

Other :
If you are using Android smartphones this may be of Great Use to you .

Turn Your Digital Content into Apps for Android within an Hour!

Google Latitude : Ruby on Rails Example using Oauth

2011-04-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

Click Like If you Agree

Spent a few days searching for Google Latitude example
RUBY on RAILS and I am happy to say finally found a
good post on Google Latitude . I thought it would be great
to include this one in my blog as it already contained a lot of
stuff on Google Latitude .

Register Domain with Google

1) Go to: https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageDomains
Add a domain name if you have or
Get cheap and good web hosting ($7.99 per year)
Thats the cheapest price you can get on the web with
a large no of of features .
  Hosting Includes 99.9% Uptime, RV Site Builder,
Fantastico Deluxe Scripts, Softaculous Auto Script
Installer, Ruby On Rails, Ruby Gems, Virus Scanner,
  WHM cPanel w/ZamFoo 7.1, CGI, Perl, PHP 5, cURL &
GD, suPHP.

They are not that famous I guess but definitely a good one.

After registering your domain , the next step is to create
an pair of RSA keys , this one is needed for encryption
of the data to be send during the OAuth Handshake .

In linux and OS X you can use openssl
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024
-sha1 -subj ‘/C=US/ST=CA/L=San
Francisco/CN=example.com’ -keyout rsakey.pem -out
rsacert.pem

Upload the rsacert.pem, and keep the rsakey.pem in a

safe place. For the Target URL path prefix, Just add

the domain name.

Get the Oauth Consumer Key and Secret .

2) OAuth GEM

Include in your environment.rb

config.gem "oauth"

You need to install it to use in your system .
Recommended version 0.4.1 .

3) Generate OAuth Access Toke Model

$ ruby script/generate model OAuthAccessToken
Note: I've done this because I don't want to store

my access token directly in my User model. This

gives me the option of having tokens for multiple

scopes for a user through a polymorphic association.

Migration:

create_table :oauth_access_tokens do |t|
   t.string :oauth_token, :oauth_secret, :scope
   t.string :subject_type, :limit > 30 #for polymorphic association
   t.integer :subject_id
   t.timestampsend

4)User Model

has_one :latitude_access_token,
:model_name => 'OAuthAccessToken',
:as => :subject, :conditions => ['scope = ?','latitude']

5)Setup OAUTH Consumer for Latitude

Create class lib/o_auth_consumers.rb

class OAuthConsumers

Latitude = OAuth::Consumer.new( CONSUMER_KEY,

CONSUMER_SECRET, {

:site => "https://www.google.com",

:request_token_path => "/accounts/OAuthGetRequestToken",

:access_token_path => "/accounts/OAuthGetAccessToken",

:authorize_path=> "/latitude/apps/OAuthAuthorizeToken",

:signature_method => "RSA-SHA1",

:private_key_file => "#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/rsakey.pem"

#path to my rsakey that I saved earlier

})

end

Remember to change the CONSUMER_KEY and

CONSUMER_SECRET which you got from step1.

6)Generate Controller for APP

ruby script/generate controller latitude

require 'oauth'

require 'oauth/signature/rsa/sha1'

class LatitudeController < ApplicationController

def index

#check the user has a latitude oauth access token

if current_user.latitude_access_token

token =

OAuth::Token.new(current_user.latitude_access_token.oauth_token, current_user.latitude_access_token.oauth_secret)

@request = JSON.parse(OAuthConsumers::Google.request('get', "https://www.googleapis.com/latitude/v1/currentLocation", token).body)

@lat = @request['data']['latitude']

@lng = @request['data']['longitude']

@time = Time.at((@request['data']['timestampMs'].to_i)

/1000).strftime('%b %d, %Y - %T')

else

redirect_to :action => 'authorise'

end

def authorise

if !params[:oauth_token]

request_token = OAuthConsumers::Latitude.get_request_token(

{ :oauth_callback => "http://localhost:3000/latitude/authorise" },

{ :scope => "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/latitude" }

)

session[:oauth_secret] = request_token.secret

redirect_to request_token.authorize_url +

"&domain=example.com&granularity=best&location=all"

else

request_token = OAuth::RequestToken.new(

OAuthConsumers::Latitude,

params[:oauth_token],

session[:oauth_secret]

)

begin

access_token =

request_token.get_access_token(

:oauth_verifier => params[:oauth_verifier] )

rescue

redirect_to :action => 'index'

end

if access_token

#now save the access token for this user

OauthAccessToken.create :subject => current_user,

:scope => 'latitude',

:oauth_token => access_token.token,

:oauth_secret => access_token.secret

end

redirect_to latitude_path

end

7) Get the Latitude To Work

That's pretty much it. Go to http://localhost:3000/latitude,

you will be directed to Google to authorise your account,

then once that all goes through, you will be sent back to

your app, an Access Token will be created which will be

stored for your user. I'm not exactly sure how long this

lasts at the moment, but I'm testing that right now and

will update if I find anything important.

Thanks to Ben Petro for creating the code on Ruby On Rails
platform .

Geocode Zip Code on Google Maps

2011-04-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

Click Like If you Agree

Enter 5 numbered US Postal Code
Or Enter a address to geocode .
If you are using Google Chrome 11 or smartphone
then you can use the microphone to speak out the Address.
It uses Google's Speech Recognition Tool .

Gmail says "You sending mail to the wrong guy!!"

2011-04-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

Starting today you would never miss out someone special when you
send mails . Gmail adds two new features into Gmail "Don't Forget Bob"
and "Got the Wrong Bob" ,don't go by the names this are the two super
cool features integrated into gmail .

"Don't Forget Bob "

Many times while sending group email invitations we miss out important
persons unknowingly and have faced embrassing situations due to this .
For instance my friend Prashant forgot to include his dear friend Satish
in his email birthday invitation .To avoid such situations gmail introduced
this feature which prompts you to include "Satish" in your mailing list .
Gmail provides this suggestions based on past mailing habits .

"Got the wrong Bob"

This prevents you from sending mail to the wrong person .Suppose you are
sending mail to a group of friends regarding the weekend trip you are going
to make . By mistake you include Bob(your boss) instead of Bobby(your friend)
Gmail provides you suggestions Did you mean Bobby ? which helps you
rectify it and prevent you from the dilemma .

Page Speed : Performance Analyzer from Google Labs

2011-04-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Page Speed another product from Google Labs , but this

time not of much use to the public , but a product
developed keeping the web developers in mind .

There exists two versions of this product
1) Page Speed Offline which you install into your
Chrome or Firefox Browser .
2) Page Speed Online which gives you the performance
report online .

We took the test and the site http://googlelatiude.blogspot.com/
got an rating of 86 out of 100 on desktop analysis & from mobile
point of view scored 80 out of 100 .

Page Speed did give us suggestions on how to improve the performance
and they were really informative .The suggestions were classified
as

High Priority
Medium Priority
Low Priority

Luckily we had hardly any High Priority Performance degrading factors

& we are working on Page Speed Suggestions .

With the massive shift in the internet users towards mobile , optimizing

your website for mobile has become more crucial than doing for the

desktop pc. Page Speed provides you suggestions on how to improve

your site performance for mobile devices .

Check out the Page Speed Home Page

http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/

Google Safe Browsing : Will Reduce the Adsense Click Fraud

2011-04-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Google Online Security Blog: Safe Browsing Diagnostic To The Rescue

Google Chrome Speech Recognition mashup with Google Maps

2011-04-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Click Like If you Agree

Google see its browser as the central part of its future computing devices .

With Chrome OS to be released in US,UK ,India and other countries in

around June 2011 , Google Chrome will be used for everthing from listening

to music to creating office documents .

The latest version of Google Chrome enables support for Speech Recognition,

based on HTML5 standards . You can now specify speech as one of your

inputs in your HTML5 form , record what the user speaks and interpret it .

Speech Recognition is one of the widely unexplored fields and with Google

entering this field ,we will surely find many speech based API's in near future.

How Google Chrome Speech Recognition works ?

Even though there aren't much details on the web regarding the working

of Google's Speech Recognition algorithm , it is roughly based on calculating

the MFCC co-efficient of each and every word Google has in its database ,

when you speak a word and pass it to the Google Server to interpret ,it

matches the MFCC of the word spoken by you with its database and returns

you the closest matching word from the database . What all words might

Google have in its database ?? The greatest weapon Google has is its data

that ranges from the Searching trends to Regional Searching data and this is

a one factor that will make it one of the top Speech Recognition Enterprise.

Google makes use of its huge database to give user specific speech to text

conversion based on the regional data it has .

How to use Google Speech Recognition in Google Maps Application ??

Create an input tag with text as type like this <input type="text" id="address" x-webkit-speech />
Create an div in which your Google Map will be displayed .
Create function to geocode your address .
Create an marker to display the location on the map .

Complete code below is as follows

<html>

<head>

<title>Google Speech Recognition Mashup Google Maps</title>

<style>

#map_canvas {

height: 400;

width : 600

}

</style>

function initialize() {

geocoder = new google.maps.Geocoder();

var latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(-34.397, 150.644);

var myOptions = {

zoom: 8,

center: latlng,

mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP

}

map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map_canvas"), myOptions);

}

function codeAddress() {

var address = document.getElementById("address").value;

geocoder.geocode( { 'address': address}, function(results, status) {

if (status == google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) {

map.setCenter(results[0].geometry.location);

var marker = new google.maps.Marker({

map: map,

position: results[0].geometry.location

});

} else {

alert("Geocode was not successful for the following reason: " + status);

}

});

}

</script>

</head>

</body>

</html>

This feature can be integrated with number of websites that have a field for

address in their form .Google Speech Recognition works particularly well

with recognizing addresses , however when it comes to recognizing names

Google still has a lot to improve . One improvement Google could certainly

make is embed extra attributes in input tag that will help it narrow down the

search results . For eg in this example it would have been great if it had given

an attrbute like place,email address or phone numbers , which would make

the speech to text conversion more specific .
Related Articles
Geocode Address For free
Google Latitude Mashup with Google Maps

Twitter used for Email Harvesting!!!!

2011-04-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

Click Like If you Agree

Your favourite social networking site Twitter can now be used for
Email Harvesting making it a threat to your online security and
privacy . Well even I was shocked to learn this at the first place
when I learnt how simple it was !!!

Social Networking site Twitter has this great feature of searching
twitter for the latest twitter updates at http://search.twitter.com/
Just go to this twitter search page , enter your search keyword and
there you have the latest tweets on twitter regarding the keyword
you have searched .

Spammers use the same technique for Email Harvesting .In your
twitter search box type in @gmail.com OR @yahoo.com OR
the keyword mail me at and you can get the list of Email address
in your twitter search page . People tweeting usually have this bad
habit of leaving their email address in their tweets while tweeting and
this eventually becomes a threat to their online privacy .Email Harvetsers
can write a simple program that runs every X seconds fetching them
new email address . So the next time you leave your Email address
online in Twitter or any of the Web directories ,get ready to be the
target of the spammers .

Google Groups targetted for Email Harvesting!!!

2011-04-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

Email Harvesting??
Well to many who dont have much idea what email harvesting is ,
let me put it down in few words. E-mail harvesting is the process
of obtaining lists of email address using various methods for use in
bulk email or other purposes usually grouped as spam.

Why is Email Harvesting done for ??

Email Harvesting is a great tool that can be used to market your
product .You get a list of email address using Email Bots that
crawl the web to get the email address from different websites
all over the web .

What are the tools available for Email Harvesting ??

Email Grabber
GSA Email Spider
Email Extractor

Google Groups a Target of Email Harvesting??

I recently found a great increase in spam in my inbox &

liitle research on Google showed me Google groups was

one of the major targets of Email Harvesting Bots .The major

reason for it being targetted was some of the google groups

used to make their posters email address publicly visible ,

this would make it easy for the spammers extract the email

address.Still the question remained was how were the spam

mail being sent ending up in my Gmail Inbox rather than the

Gmail Spam section?? The spammers joined this group using

their spam email address & hence they could easily bypass the

Gmail's Spam Filter which resulted in spam reaching your inbox.

Periodic Table of Google API's

2011-04-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

Did you know ? Google has its own periodic table just as periodic table of
chemical elements . So spend more time developing , rather than spending
time searching for which API will suit your developing needs . Well I myself
found it to be a gift & I bet it will be same for you .

Click on the image to zoom

Google Periodic Table also lists the different categories of API's
like Search ,Books API,Gadgets,Chrome,Location based API's .
So next time an API gets added all you have to do is view the
periodic table & you know whats new in Google Products??

Geocode Address for free

2011-04-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

Note : The current page looks has been disoriented due to the
new design to the blog . We will try to bring this back to
normal as soon as possible . Sorry!!!

While googling on the web for a geocode address database which I needed for one of my projects and after visitng a number of sites that did give me an geocode address database but at an cost ranging from $30-$200 that I couldn't afford at any cost. So I decided to use Google Maps , Yahoo Maps and Microsoft Bing Maps to create my free geocode address database.So the first thing I had to check out was which of this mapping giants would me give me the most accurate results .So I started by testing out the values returned by each of the maps. For well known places all 3 of them would give me accurate results, but as places became less famous, Microsoft Bing really sucked & was giving me a city level accuracy only!!!!
So Microsoft Bing Maps was ruled out as being suitable for creating an geocode address database . Now the next option was Google Maps & Yahoo Maps and the good news was that both were giving the most accurate & almost the same reuslts all the time .I wonder if this two Mapping Giants use the same common database ??

Is there any difference between Google Maps and Yahoo Maps ??? Each has its own pros & cons and telling which one is better is still a tough job . 1)Google Maps is extensively used in many web applications as comapred to yahoo and graphic wise Google Maps is far more superior than Yahoo Maps . 2)Yahoo Maps takes less time to load than Google Maps . 3)Google Maps allows you to geocode address at 2000 queries per day . 4)Yahoo Maps on the other hand allows you to geocode address at the rate of 50,0000 queries a day i.e almost 25 times more queriies a day . 5)Google Maps Api allows you to use their Directions Api but Yahoo Maps Api doesn't allow you to use their Directions Api expect on the Yahoo Maps homepage .
So lets get started setting up the geocode address database !! Yahoo Maps Geocode Address Database Creation
// Json encode the data function json_code ($json) { $json = substr($json, strpos($json,'{')+1, strlen($json)); $json = substr($json, 0, strrpos($json,'}')); $json=preg_replace('/(^\|,)([\\s\\t])([^:]) (([\\s\\t])):(([\\s\\t]))/s', '$1"$3"$4:',trim($json)); return json_decode('{'.$json.'}', true); } // function to get the geocode of the address function geoCodeYp($point) { $yahoo_appid = 'Your yahoo app id'; // Replace your Yahoo AppID here $pointenc = urlencode($point); // URL Formation that will fetch you the results on query $url="http://where.yahooapis.com/geocode? location=".$pointenc."&gflags=R&appid=".$yahoo_appid."&flags=J"; // get the contents of the URL formed $jsondata = file_get_contents($url); $json_data= '{ a: 1, b: 245, c with whitespaces: "test me", d: "function () { echo \"test\" }", e: 5.66 }'; $coord=explode(" ",$point); // this will json encode the data . $convertedtoarray=$this->json_code($jsondata); // line1 of addrress comprising of house,street no etc // line 2 of address comprising of city state country $line1 =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['line1'] ; $line2 =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['line1'] ; $county =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['county'] ; $street =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['street'] ; if(($line1=="")\|\|($line2=="")\|\|($county=="")\|\|($street=="")) { $yahooresults['status']="noresult"; } else { $countrycode=$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['countrycode'] ; $statecode =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['statecode'] ; //$county =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['county'] ; $city =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['city'] ; $house =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['house'] ; $latitude =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['latitude'] ; $longitude =$convertedtoarray['ResultSet']['Results']['0']['longitude'] ; $yahooresults = array('countrycode'=>$countrycode,'statecode'=>$statecode, 'county'=>$county,'city'=>$city,'street'=>$street,'house'=>$house, 'latitude'=>$latitude,'longitude'=>$longitude); } return $yahooresults ; }
This are the two functions which you need to create the geocode address database . So how do I call this geocode function . Include this two functions in a single php file . 1)Suppose you want to get the geocode address of a place say "Bohemia" . You can simply call the function as geoCodeYp("Bohemia") . To further store the result in database : $result=geoCodeYp("Bohemia") ; // get each of the values as $latitude=$result['latitude']; $longitude=$result['longitude']; .............remaining variables.................. You can store each of the results in database by retrieving the remaining values . 2) To geocode address of a point(latitude&longitude) //Example $latitude="72.5632" $longitude="19.756"; // You have to include space between the latitude & longitude $point=$latitude." ".$longitude ; //call the geocode function geocode($point);
Time required to setup the geocode address database?? Suppose you have to want to geocode the address of around 5,00,000 address 1 yahoo appid -> 10 days 2 yahoo appid -> 5 days 10 yahoo appid -> 1 day This way you can create your own geocode address database . "If you liked anything about this post or have any queries free feel to comment . If you are not a developer & want help in setting up the geocode address database you can send me a mail or comment on this post ."

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Create your first Android App , You donot need to be a programmer for that !!!!!!

2011-03-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

Google Labs comes up with another invention & this one
I bet you is gonna be a super hit !!!

Google App Inventor (Beta) is an Android app maker which
lets you create your own Android apps & that too on a browser ,
and best thing about it is that you donot need to be

a programmer for that !!!!!

So lets get started

Computer requirements

1 . You need to have java 6 installed on your computer .
You can download the latest jdk from www.java.com

2.Install the App Inventor Setup

a) For Windows users you can download it from

http://dl.google.com/dl/appinventor/installers/windows/appinventor_setup_installer_v_1_1.exe

   b) After the installation of app inventor it may ask for the location
   of the software , if it does so then specify it as
   C:\Program Files\Appinventor\commands-for-Appinventor
   because this is where the adb.exe file is located .

3. Once you are done with this please login using your
google account to appinventor.googlelabs.com.

Click on My Projects and now you are ready to create
your first app .

Building my first App

Click on New , Give a name to your project . Oki Lets
name it MyHome .

   MyHome:- Its a simple app in which you have pics of
   your family member ,when you click on the pic a call is
   established to the family member .

Step1:

So first you decide what your screen should look like .

For that we will be using Labels & Buttons .

On the left hand side of your browser you have Basic List

From that select the Components Button and drag & drop it

on to the screen .

Next add a Label to the screen .

Step2:

In my MyHome App I have included four buttons for 4 family

members & a label for each of them .

Step3 :

Set the Label text properties to the text of

of your choice .

Label1: Mother

Label2:Father

Label3:Brother

Label4:Sister

Step 4:

Your screen should look like this now .

Once done with this,the next step is to set the properties of the

Button .Clear the text properties of the button .

To set the Image Properties : Click on Image on the Properties box

and upload the image of your choice .

Your screen should look like this now

Step 5 :

   You need to establish a call when you click on the pic for that
   you need to add the phone component .The Phone component
   is available in the  Social  Tab of the Pallete .

Choose the Phone Call Component and drop down it to the Screen .

We have four members & so we will be using four phone call

components .

Step6 :

Set the Phone Call Properties .

Enter the phone nos in each of the phone call component with the

nos of the corresponding members .

So this ends up the Design of your App .

Now the next step is to build the Application Logic .

On your browser click on the Open Block Editor Button .
A file will be downloaded(AppInventorForAndroidCodeblocks.jnlp)

Double Click on the file and wait till the Block Editor opens , it may
take sometime though around 30-50 secs .

Once the block editor is open the next step is to connect it with
a device .
If you are using a emulator click on New Emulator& select a emulator .
Now click on Connect to the Device button & wait till the device is
connected .

   Step 7 .
   Select Button1 on My Blocks Editor .
   From the list of options select the Onclick block

   Step 8
   Select Phone Call on My Blocks Editor
   Form the list of options select the MakePhoneCall Block

   Repeat this step for each of the buttons .

   So finally you are done with the application logic & you can
   download it to your Android Phone or computer to use .

   If you want to emulate it in an emulator then you will have
   to install it on your computer .
   Download the app you have created :- For that next to the
   Open Block Editor Button you have one more button that
   gives to the option of downloading it to the computer .

   For trying your app on a emulator :
   1. Download the app and place the app in the folder
     C:\Program Files\Appinventor\commands-for-Appinventor

   2. Open the cmd prompt on your computer .
   Make the root directory of cmd prompt as
   cd C:\Program Files\Appinventor\commands-for-Appinventor
   3. Install the apk file my running the command
   adb install MyHome.apk

   So you have finally installed the apk file & now you can
   view your working MyHome app on your emulator !!!!!!

   If you still have any problems creating your first app , please do
   write.

   If you liked something about this article ,you can show your appreciation
   by a vote of thanks .

Thanks for reading ,
Vaishakh Thayyil

Google Latitude Mashup With Google maps

2011-03-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

My Second post was on getting the user's location using

google latitude/badge api .This thread is definitely a

continuation of the earlier post , here i will show you how

to display the user location on google maps .

For that we will be using a jquery plugin called JQUERY:GMAP3

Step1

Create a php file that will return the latitude & longitude

Step2

Make an ajax call to the php file

Step3

Display the google latitude result on google maps

Step1

######getposition.php #######

<?php

//Replace the YOURUSERID in the url below with your Badge userid .

$url="http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge/api?user=YOURUSERID&type=json" ;

// We get the content

$content = file_get_contents( $url );

print($content); //This will return the data in json format

Step 2 & Step3

For the ajax calls we will be using jquery functionalities directly ,a call

will be made to the php page, which will return me data in json format

which we will parse using jquery parseJSON() function .After this using

the jquery GMAP3 library(http://plugins.jquery.com/project/gmap3)

we will be displaying the marker on google map .

#### Showmap.html ######

<html>

<head>

<style>

.gmap3{

margin: 20px auto;

border: 1px dashed #C0C0C0;

width: 500px;

height: 250px;

}

#container{

overflow: auto;

text-align:center;

width: 100px;

margin: 20 auto;

}

.box{

float: left;

width: 20px;

height: 20px;

margin-left: 20px;

background-color:#FFF;

border:1px solid #000;

}

</style>

$(function(){

// ajax call to the php page

$.ajax({

type: "POST",

url: "getposition.php",

success: function(msg){

var obj=$.parseJSON(msg);

// Parse data recived .For more details check //http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.parseJSON/

var latitude=obj.features[0].geometry.coordinates[1];

var longitude=obj.features[0].geometry.coordinates[0];

var coord=new google.maps.LatLng(latitude,longitude);

$('#test1').gmap3(

{ action: ':addMarker',

latLng: coord,

map:{

center: true,

zoom: 14,

mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROAD

}

);

}

});

</script>

</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

This was just a basic mashup of google latitude & google maps .

If you want to use all the functionalities of google maps you can

refer the site http://night-coder.com/jquery-plugin-gmap3.html

which has clear explanation of using google maps jquery plugin.

If you have still queries about this thread , please do comment .

Thanks !!

Download Code

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Easier way to use Google Latitude

2011-03-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Click Like If you Agree

Hi Everyone ,

My first post was about getting the Location using Google Latitude Api using OAUTH,

it is extremely useful when you want to create an application that gets your app users

location and you can mashup with google maps api or yahoo maps to create killer apps .

But if you are creating a system in which you create google latitude account for your

customers or you want to track your kids from your home , there's a simpler method

for doing that , a shortcut rather than going the OAUTH way i.e. Google Latitude Badge .

Step 1

Log into your google account through which you are linked to Google Latitude

Step 2

Goto https://www.google.com/latitude/b/0/apps

Enable your google public location badge account by selecting the radio button .

Step 3

So once the basic steps are done you are ready for using the Google Latitude Badge

http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge/api?user=YOURUSERID&type=json

Paste this url onto your browser and you can see how the json response is .

You will get a response like

{ "type": "FeatureCollection",
"features": [
{ "type": "Feature",
"geometry": {"type": "Point", "coordinates": [-73.2575225, 40.7758618]},
"properties": {
"id": "YOURID",
"accuracyInMeters": 2380,
"timeStamp": 1289029283,
"reverseGeocode": "Brentwood, NY, USA",
"photoUrl": "http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge/api?type=photo&photo=JtJ_zy4BAAA.Bk0BAmxqLUX6UTW4cdN2Zw.TcwN7VercOwesfkijix_mg",
"photoWidth": 96,
"photoHeight": 96,
"placardUrl": "http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge/api?type=photo_placard&photo=JtJ_zy4BAAA.Bk0BAmxqLUX6UTW4cdN2Zw.TcwN7VercOwesfkijix_mg&moving=true&stale=true&lod=1&format=png",
"placardWidth": 56,
"placardHeight": 59
}
}
]
}

Depending on the server side language you are using you can retrieve your results 

accordingly . However I will be showing you how to get the results in php .

<?php

//Replace the YOURUSERID in the url below with your Badge userid . 

$url="http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge/api?user=YOURUSERID&type=json" ;

// We get the content

$content = file_get_contents( $url );

// We convert the JSON to an object

$json = json_decode( $content );

$coord = $json->features[0]->geometry->coordinates;

// this will give you the coordinates of the user

echo $coord ;

$timeStamp = $json->features[0]->properties->timeStamp;

// timestamp of the last update

echo $timestamp ;

// If you want to retrieve the longitude & latitude separately 

$latitude=$coord[0];

$longitude=$coord[1];

echo "Your current coordinates  Latitude :".$latitude."  Longitude".$longitude ;

?>

You can further mashup with the google maps api to show the location 

on the google maps .

Steps to get OAuth Playground working for Google Latiude

2010-10-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

Step 1: You must have a domain registered with Google here:https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageDomains
This is how Google identifies your application, even if it's an installed program, not a web app. Once your domain is registered, take note of your OAuth Consumer Key and OAuth Consumer Secret, you'll need them later.

You can also register at google appengine if your creating an application and don't have a domain .

Step 2: Now you can go to the OAuth Playground:http://googlecodesamples.com/oauth_playground/

Scope: Nothing checked

Input your own:https://www.googleapis.com/auth/latitude

Modify OAuth Parameters

oauth_signature_method: HMAC-SHA1

oauth_consumer_key: <yours from domain registration>

consumer secret: <yours from domain registration>

oauth_token_secret: <blank>

oauth_token: <blank>

Step 3 :

Click "Request Token." oauth_token_secret and oauth_token are now
filled in, and you have an unauthorized request token.

Step 4 :

Google Latitude uses a different Authorization endpoint than other
Google services!
When you click the "Authorize" button, your browser will redirect tohttps://www.google.com/accounts/OAuthAuthorizeToken&oauth_token=token....
YOU MUST NOW CHANGE THE URL

http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/OAuthAuthorizeToken?domain=example.com&oauth_token=token
Keep the oauth_token parameter the same, but change the URL, and add

the Latitude-specific parameters discussed in the "Using REST"
document:http://code.google.com/apis/latitude/v1/using_rest.html#auth
Once you're on that Authorization Service page, click "Grant access."
You'll be redirected back to OAuth Playground

Step 5:
You can now exchange your Authorized Request Token for an Access
Token. Click the "Access Token" button.

If it fails just redo the steps and I think it should be fine .

Step 6 :

In the Drop down box Slect Get Option and enter the URL

https://www.googleapis.com/latitude/v1/currentLocation

This should return you a JSON result that will return your current location .

Actually Google gives you different options to set location

1) Either through a GPS enabled mobile phone or

2) You can set it manually using the iGoogle Latitude widget .

I hope this will be helpful for someone who is creating Apps with

Google Latitude Api

Thanks,,,

Vaishakh

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