you'll find the notes to my recent presentation on AJAX and forms to the New York Web Standards Meetup Group as well as a Safari CSS hack that I made use of the other day.

since we talked about setting the MIME type with PHP, we figured we might as well give an example of how to do it with classic ASP as well.

Serving XML:

Response.ContentType = "text/html"
Response.Charset = "utf-8"

Serving XHTML:

If InStr(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT"), "application/xhtml+xml") > 0 Then
Response.ContentType = "application/xhtml+xml"
Else
Response.ContentType = "text/html"
End If
Response.Charset = "utf-8"

→ more information on serving XHTML

In PHP, the MIME type is set through the header function [note the header function must be called prior to outputting anything to the browser].

To correctly serve XML, call the header function with the following arguments:

header("Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8");

Correctly serving XHTML is a bit more complicated. The $_SERVER array contains the server variables, allowing us to interrogate the Accept HTTP header:

header("Vary: Accept");
if (stristr($_SERVER[HTTP_ACCEPT], "application/xhtml+xml"))
header("Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8");
else
header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8");

→ more information on serving XHTML

ExtremeTech is currently offering a full chapter from their new book on Google Maps/Earth. This chapter provides a detailed explanation on building a community site through Google Maps.

thanks Donna

Three posts bundled as one about various things Google Maps API, including: an API plugin for Dreamweaver [no JavaScript required], one-minute mashups by Google, and the datum and projection used by Google.

(more…)

As posted earlier, we're teaching a hands-on workshop on Google mashups during UW-Milwaukee's GIS Day. We'll also be working with grad students before and after the workshop. All of the materials used before, during, and after the workshop [lectures, powerpoints, demonstrations, etc.] will be available online.

Internet GIS: Google Maps + Mashups
15 November 2006 . 1:30 pm–4:00 pm
Lubar Hall N234A
After a brief introduction to mashups [web applications that combine content from more than one source], learn how to create your own Google Maps mashup. You'll be amazed at how fast and easy it is!
[some familiarity with HTML and JavaScript will be extremely helpful]
free [registration required]

We hope to see you there!

there was a cute [well, quirky anyway, and somewhat offensive to the geotagging community] and informative article on flickr and geotagging in today's new york times, "pictures, with map and pushpins included." the article defines geotagging, mentions different ways to do it, discusses EXIF headers, and even mentions a product the labs uses and endorses, robogeo. it also questions [and provides several different takes on] the rationale for geotagging.

(more…)

"put an interactive map on your website/blog in under a minute" via platial's new mapkit, or so we heard. okay. start: 0.00

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Class DbConn - Line(461) Failed to execute query'…

end: 0.56. oops. we had the very easy registration form completed in under a minute and were ready to receive our mapkit, but received the above error on submit.

try again. start: 0.00

end: 0.20

wow!!! instant mashup in under a minute. the claim is true, but will it work for you? mapkit will work on any site that doesn't strip out javascript or force content through an html conversion. many of the blog services and products [such as wordpress, which the labs uses^*] do strip & convert blog posts.

ok. let's get advanced and try to customize our map. start: 0.00

end: 0.45. ok. a little disappointing, though, since the only customization permitted was changing the marker to one of six predefined styles. [it also appears that one can only have one mapkit per page.]

overall, mapkit is a very simple to use, fast, and useful application. and, at a cost of $0, one can't beat the price point.

^*to run javascript on a self-hosted wordpress blog, download and install the text control plugin. cut and paste your javascript into the body of the post [<script type="text/javascript" languge="javascript"></script>], and set the text control to format the post with "no formatting" and "no character encoding."

via the official Google Maps API Blog:

"As an important reminder, we plan to shut down API Version 1 in the first week of November. If you haven't upgraded yet, please visit our upgrade guide. The Incompatibilities section contains a helpful list of known incompatibilities between Version 1 and Version 2 of the API. We did not preserve many of the undocumented functions between Version 1 and 2 of the API. Please join the Maps API discussion group if you have any problems.

"The quickest way to upgrade is to update your Maps API <script> URL to refer to 'v=2' instead of 'v=1.' Since Version 2 preserves the old GMap interface, your site should theoretically continue to work without any further changes. However, in practice, you may have to spend some time debugging. Once we shut down Version 1 of the API, we will serve Version 2 to your site, even if you are still specifying 'v=1' in your <script> tag. For this reason, it is important that you test your site with 'v=2' before November's transition."

→ read the entire post

On 15 November 2006, during UW-Milwaukee's GIS Day, schiller labs will be teaching a hands-on workshop on Google mashups. Here's what you need to know:

Internet GIS: Google Maps + Mashups
15 November 2006 . 1:30 pm–4:00 pm
Lubar Hall N234A
After a brief introduction to mashups [web applications that combine content from more than one source], learn how to create your own Google Maps mashup. You'll be amazed at how fast and easy it is!
free [registration required]

we hope to see you there!

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