Beginning Google Maps Applications

In the last few weeks we’ve seen an explosion of people complaining about the lack of asinh() on the Windows version of PHP. We use the asinh() function extensively in Chapter 7 for the custom tile overlays. Admittedly, we didn’t test any of the code against windows versions of PHP (we’re LAMP folks), so until […]

Over the past two months—since Beginning Google Maps Applications hit shelves—we’ve had a handful of basic questions about PHP, CSS and SQL. I just want to clear up a few misconceptions that people may have about the content of our book so that everyone can get the most out of reading it.

We’ve had a few questions about the purpose of apikey.php and db_credentials.php in the online source code. In most instances where the online listings don’t match those presented in the book the inclusion of these two files are the only signicant difference. So here’s a quick explanation…

Last week, I demonstrated some tools for importing Shapefile data into an SQL database. It’s time to put that stuff to work.
If you’re in a rush, here’s the final demo: translucent state overlays on a Google Map. It’s not the quickest thing in the world, nor is it entirely quirk-free; it exists as an initial […]

Yesterday, I demonstrated a KML file of Ontario Parks. Although this approach has some fairly serious limitations over a full mashup, the portability and ease of deployment make it an excellent choice in some situations.
In this article, I explain how the techniques used to generate the Ontario Parks KML. These are general-purpose tools that could […]