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  • Adding Custom Google Maps to Your Website

    Posted on October 21st, 2009 admin 4 comments

    Hey visitors of AGeniusBlog.com

    Just popping in, have no time to write any posts anymore, due to school, and studying for exams :’(

    Article From: http://stiern.com/tutorials/adding-custom-google-maps-to-your-website

    Adding Custom Google Maps to Your Website

    Maps are often placed on a company website to help customers find their way there. For that, Google Maps is excellent. But wouldn’t it be nice to add your company logo, parking lots, train stations, etc. to the map, to help the customer even more? It is very simple, and in this article I am going to show you how.

    Before we start, check out what we are going to create:

    Please upgrade your browser

    Now, here is an overview:

    Overview

    Google Maps API

    The Google Maps API allows you to embed maps directly into your website. All it takes is a little JavaScript, and for beautifying—a little CSS. Version 3 of the Google Maps API has just been released, and of course, that is what we will be using here. You can read the entire documentation over at Google Labs, and while you are there, be sure to get an API key.

    Getting the Coordinates

    As I do not expect you to know the precise coordinates of your location, I will explain a very quick way Google has provided to do this. When you know the exact address, you can put it in an URL of this form:

    http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=1+Infinite Liip,+Cupertino,+CA+95014,+USA&output=csv&oe=utf8&sensor=false&key=your_google_maps_api_key

    When you enter this in your address bar, you will see this:

    The coordinates of Apple's head quarter in CupertinoThe coordinates of Apple’s head quarter in Cupertino

    The first number is the status code, and 200 means that everything is okay. The second number shows how accurate the address is—in this case the number is 8, which is good. The last two numbers are latitudes and longitudes, which are the numbers we need.

    Adding the Map to Your Website

    There’s no need to hesitate – let’s add that map to your website! Open your favorite HTML editor and create a standard HTML file with UTF-8 encoding. First of all, we have to create the viewport and tell our HTML file to get the JavaScript file from Google Code. Add these lines between <head> and </head>:

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    <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script>

    After the URL, you will notice sensor=false. As we do not use any sensor, such as a GPS, to locate the location, this is set to false.

    Just below what we have just inserted, write the following:

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    <script type="text/javascript">
	function initialize() {
		var latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(57.0442, 9.9116);
		var settings = {
			zoom: 15,
			center: latlng,
			mapTypeControl: true,
			mapTypeControlOptions: {style: google.maps.MapTypeControlStyle.DROPDOWN_MENU},
			navigationControl: true,
			navigationControlOptions: {style: google.maps.NavigationControlStyle.SMALL},
			mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
    };

    Let’s split this up to ensure that we understand it fully. In line 2 we create the function initialize(). Inside this function we are going to define the basic settings of the map. In line 3 we create a new variable, latlng. latlng stands for latitudes and longitudes. The variable contains the coordinates we’re going to use as the center of our map.
    After that, we create the variable settings. You have a lot of options here.

    zoom specifies—you guessed it—how far the map will be zoomed in. Play around with the number to get it to fit your location.

    center specifies our center. By writing latlng, we refer to the variable we created earlier, and the coordinate inside that will be used.

    The last code changes the layout of the map to a bit more minimalistic look in my opinion. The controls in the upper right corner (Map, Satellite, Terrain) are changed to a drop down menu, and the scaling/navigation controls in the left size are changed to small controls.

    mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP defines that our map should be of the type ROADMAP – you can change this to either SATELLITE, HYBRID or TERRAIN.

    Below the previous code, write this:

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

    This code creates the variable map, and defines that the map should use the settings we just created.

    Write

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    }
</script>

    to end the function, and move to <body>, and write this:

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    <body onload="initialize()">
  <div id="map_canvas" style="width:800px; height:500px"></div>
</body>

    By doing this we are telling our site to execute the initialize() function when the site is loaded, and insert a <div> with the size we want our map to be.

    Try to view your site now. Cool, isn’t it?

    Adding Markers

    Now we have to add some markers. Let’s start by creating a standard marker—we’ll customize it in a moment.

    Right below

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

    insert the following code:

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      var companyPos = new google.maps.LatLng(57.0442, 9.9116);
  var companyMarker = new google.maps.Marker({
      position: companyPos,
      map: map,
      title:"Some title"
  });

    Try to update your page, and watch the magic. So, what have we done?

    First, we create the variable companyPos, where we specify the position of the marker. Next, we create the marker itself using the variable companyMarker. You can add more settings than these, but we will get to that later. These settings are fairly logical, so I won’t go into more depth with them.

    Customizing the Markers

    Even though this could be enough to show your customer how to find you, we can still make it a lot nicer. Create an image in Photoshop with the size 100×50 pixels, and create something similar to this:

    Create your logoCreate your logo

    Next, create a shadow for your image:

    The logo shadowThe logo shadow

    To add these images as a marker instead of the standard marker, change the marker code to this:

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    var companyLogo = new google.maps.MarkerImage('images/logo.png',
	new google.maps.Size(100,50),
	new google.maps.Point(0,0),
	new google.maps.Point(50,50)
);
var companyShadow = new google.maps.MarkerImage('images/logo_shadow.png',
	new google.maps.Size(130,50),
	new google.maps.Point(0,0),
	new google.maps.Point(65, 50)
);
var companyPos = new google.maps.LatLng(57.0442, 9.9116);
var companyMarker = new google.maps.Marker({
	position: companyPos,
	map: map,
	icon: companyLogo,
	shadow: companyShadow,
	title:"Company Title",
});

    What we have done here is also really simple. The variable companyImage points to the name of the logo image. Then it defines the size of the image, the origin of the image, and the tip of the image (where the image will be attached to the coordinate). Next, we do the exact same thing for the shadow in the variable companyShadow. In our companyMarker variable we add icon and shadow, and that is basically it.

    Now, if you refresh your site, you will se that the marker has changed into your own logo with an added shadow to it as well. To add more markers, you just follow the same method (remember to change the names of the variables).

    If you have two markers very close to each other, you might want to add some z-index. The marker with the highest z-index, is the one on top:

    Adding zIndex allows you to choose which marker should be on topAdding zIndex allows you to choose which marker should be on top
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    var companyMarker = new google.maps.Marker({
	position: companyPos,
	map: map,
	icon: companyImage,
	shadow: companyShadow,
	title:"Høgenhaug",
	zIndex: 4
});

    Adding Infoboxes

    To add a description of your company when the visitor clicks on the logo we can add a infobox. With the Google Maps API it’s peace of cake.

    Clicking your company logo will bring up an infoboxClicking your company logo will bring up an infobox

    Paste this code right after you define the map variable:

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    var contentString = '<div id="content">'+
    '<div id="siteNotice">'+
    '</div>'+
    '<h1 id="firstHeading">Høgenhaug</h1>'+
    '<div id="bodyContent">'+
    '<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.</p>'+
    '</div>'+
    '</div>';

var infowindow = new google.maps.InfoWindow({
    content: contentString
});

    The code here is fairly straight-forward, and you are of course not limited to headlines and paragraphs – there is room for images as well. To make the infobox appear when your logo is clicked, simply add this code right before the last } in the initialize() function:

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    google.maps.event.addListener(companyMarker, 'click', function() {
  infowindow.open(map,companyMarker);
});

    To make the infobox just a little more pretty, add some styles in your stylesheet file:

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    body {
	font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size:10pt;
}

    And there you have it. One piece of fine-looking Google Map to include on your company website, your travel blog, etc.

    Download

    If you’d like to download the sample files, you can get ‘em right here. Be sure to leave a comment!

    If you liked this post, please buy me a coffee! Donations will be VERY much appreciated!

    Google Tips , , , , , ,

  • How to use 4GB RAM on 32-bit XP/Vista by enabling PAE

    Posted on October 4th, 2009 admin 1 comment

    Original Article from http://etricks.in/2009/09/how-to-use-4gb-ram-on-32-bit-xpvista-by-enabling-pae.html

     

    As advised in the comments below, this way seems to have been patched, I cannot confirm this as I haven’t tried it/don’t need to. 64-bit is out there. -Thomas

    Recently one of my friend bought

    2 GB RAM for his PC. He already had 2GB installed and he added more 2GB to his . But his XP showed only 2GBs. This is very common problem. By default Windows XP supports only 2GB of RAM on 32-bit systems.It is fact that 64-bit systems can support 4 GB of RAM .But very few people know that even 32-bit systems can support up to 4GB of RAM.This can be done by enabling the PAE(Physical Address Extension) on your PC.Now a days almost all processors support PAE.

    RAM problemRAM problem

    How to enable PAE on XP:

    To enable PAE in

    Windows XP you have to edit the boot.ini file. Open boot.ini file. It will be there in your system drive. Suppose your OS is installed in C drive then go to run and type c:\boot.ini and hit enter.Add “/ PAE” at the end of the file.

    It would look something like this:

    multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (1) partition (1) \ WINDOWS = “Microsoft

    Windows XP Professional” / noexecute = OptIn / fastdetect / PAE

    Don’t change anything else in boot.ini or your PC will not boot.Just add / PAE at the end of the line.

    Now restart your PC and check if your computer is showing 4 GB RAM. To do this right click on My computer and select properties.Click on general tab and see if it is showing 4GB or not. If it shows then it means that you have done everything correctly and you can use complete 4Gb of your RAM.

    Enable PAE under Vista:

    It is very easy to enable PAE under Vista. Open cmd and type

    BCDEdit / set PAE forceenable

    Now it should show 4GB of RAM in Vista.

    Warning:Use PAE only if you really have 4GB of RAM or your PC may not work properly. Or if you have got some extra money I will recommend you to go for 64-bit system.

    If you liked this post, please buy me a coffee! Donations will be VERY much appreciated!

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