IP Geolocation (Part 9)

Nothing much to update. I was very busy lately with other assignments.
I modified the code so that the CGI script stores the IP of the users before showing them the map.

Here is the URL http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~ntkey/comp_network/project1.cgi

IP Geolocation (Part 8)

These are the latest additions I have made into my application. Notice the info bubble. It is able to show you the geolocation data of the ISPs. You may click on it or hover across the pins to know about these places better.

The flags in the info markers are provided by hostip.info. It's quite simple to retrieve the images and in addition to that they are using REST service to supply the images, which is something that I favor working with.

The screen shot is as shown. Please feel free to check out the application at http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~ntkey/comp_network/gmaps.html

IP Geolocation (Part 7)

Some updates to the codes on Friday night. There is a bouncing arrow to represent the current location of your ISP. There are plenty of images to choose from, arrows especially, at this website http://www.harrythecat.com/.

At least the map is good to be presented now - with all the push pins and the bouncing arrow to represent the locations of the ISPs from around the world. The next thing that I'll do is to fill in the info markers.

Check out the application at http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~ntkey/comp_network/gmaps.html.
Don't forget to click at the links in the page. The application still needs the ever interesting geolocation data from you.


Let us take a look at the density of the pins in Malaysia. Seems like most of the clicks are from the visitors in the west coast, particularly Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. Yes, look at the link, it does not cost anything to participate in the application. It actually helps you burn a few milicalories from your bodily system by clicking at the URL. :)

Description of the project is continued here.

IP Geolocation (Part 6)

My piece of work before I am finally going to bed. Nothing much to elaborate except to ask the loyal blog readers to click on this URL to check out the latest development. I think it is just getting better, I think.

Description of the project is continued here.

IP Geolocation (Part 5)

I'm switching gear to implement Google Maps to fully illustrate the geodata of the users. Why the sudden change - from Yahoo Maps to Google Maps? Initially I thought of using Yahoo Maps because their overlay looks cooler. But since this project is due in 3 weeks time, I decided to switch to something easier to get things done.

Although the Google Maps API implementation is straight-forward, the developers will still have to look around for examples. I have got something concrete now. Thanks to Mike Williams, (check out his website) who graciously and generously share his tips to change the default marker in Google Maps.

There are two fancy markers I obtained from Visual-Case. Check out their website! They have many fancy icons to fit into Google Maps. http://www.visual-case.it/cgi-bin/vc/GMapsIcons.pl

This is how the map looks like in my browser. I have changed the default marker to a livelier ones. The marker changes color when the cursor is hovered across it.

The URL of the sample application is available here: http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~ntkey/comp_network/gmaps.html


Currently my web application is not integrated yet with other modules. So it is quite dumb not to be able to detect the current geolocation of the visitors.

This is the latest update from me, Nicholas Key reporting from USFCA CS Dept.

Description of the project is continued here.

IP Geolocation (Part 4)

Some of you might be thinking why did I take up such project. The reason is simple. It is very relevant to the course I am taking this semester - Network Programming. You know, it is actually quite fun to build up and have some hands-on upon the applications that already exist.

Let's take this application for example, many of us might be thinking, why is Nicholas building a similar applications that already exist in the Internet? Hmmm, interesting question. Learning the know-hows and integrate relevant components together is quite exciting. You will be as though as working behind the scene knowing how stuffs work technically.

Maxmind has been very generous and accommodating to offer me a license key to make use of their web service. I hope the service will lasts till I finish doing the demonstration of this project.

Description of the project is continued here.

IP Geolocation (Part 3)

This entry is to describe about the rapid increase of the size of the repository. I was so amazed looking at the rate the file size increases. 20B into 28KB in about 2 days? That's a lot of data in XML.

What I can observe from my XML file is that, most of the geographical data, for now, is contributed by the visitors from Malaysia. Thanks to those that received my message to pass along the URL (http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~ntkey/comp_network/test.cgi). I just can't thank you guys enough!

Here is the latest statistics (most to least):
[1] Kuala Lumpur
[2] San Francisco
[3] Singapore
[4] Seoul
[5] Jakarta
[6] Saint Petersburg (my house mate helped me by asking his dad to go to my website. Thank you!)

Let's keep the geographical data coming!

To those that are clueless to what I'm trying to do, please be patient. You will get to see the finished product by mid-October.

Till the next update, this is Nicholas Key reporting from his blog. See you and have a nice day ahead.

Description of the project is continued here.

IP Geolocation (Part 2)

Thank you to those who clicked at the URL of my application testbed. This is a follow-up of the development of my project.

In the previous blog entry, I did some brief introduction and discussed about some implementation details of my project.

Initially the web page displays only the information gathered from the visitors' IPs. Over the weekend, I wrote a method in Python to store the information into a XML file (I chose Python due to its flexibility when it comes to parsing the XML). I reckoned that if the rate of the visitors grows exponentially through December 2007, the repository file is going to be so massive, probably in terms of MBytes. Let's see how things go.

The cycle of the program has changed with the inclusion of the method to store the visitors' information into XML. I have not thought about concurrency issue, yet, when multiple users visit my website at the same time.

But anyway, another milestone achieved, that is to store the information retrieved from the unique IPs.



Description of the project is continued here.

IP Geolocation (Part 1)

This is an initial ground work for Project 1 of the Network Programming course I am doing this semester. It looks quite simple but it's very interesting to look at the query result (the query part is done for you, the visitors to my web page). Check it out!

Here you go. Click on the URL to soothe your burning desire. Warning ... head scratching might take place because of the unfamiliar content. Really geeky content ahead.

"but I don't understand what is this!"

Just click here

More features to come real soon!

Components of this application I'm thinking of: Web service, XML, XSLT, Python, CGI, AJAX. See, I don't need a huge database because the data is provided through web service by MaxMind LLC. XML will be sufficient :)

Oh, I must really thank MaxMind LLC for such great geolocation database! Such great company must not be forgotten of their contribution. This is their URL http://www.maxmind.com/

IMPORTANT: My application does not steal your ISP account username and password. Your privacy is much respected. The purpose of this project is to understand the details retrieved from different IPs from the visitors - the geographical details and the name of the ISP. Thank you.


Description of the project is continued here.

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