JUG Events Collaboration

Our proposal for collaboration between this JUG map initiative and the JUG Events is covered in detail here.

http://geocoder.us/demo.cgi

Outside the US, the one free international geocoding service that I have used so far is described here:

   Subject: [MAP] Silicon Valley Web Developer JUG Placemark

In addition to the Placemark XML snippet, please include the name of the country where the JUG is located. This is not always obvious from the Placemark data. Thanks!

   -6.174444,106.829444,Jakarta,Jakarta Raya,Indonesia

   <coordinates>106.829444,-6.174444,0</coordinates>

Geocoding Services

The one free international geocoding service that I have used so far is described here:

http://www.zeesource.net/maps/geocoding.do

As an example, here is the REST request to get the latitude/longitude values for Jakarta, Indonesia:

http://www.zeesource.net/maps/geocode?city=Jakarta&state=&country=Indonesia

And the result you get back in the browser is:

-6.174444,106.829444,Jakarta,Jakarta Raya,Indonesia

Please note that the response comes back with latitude as first value and longitude as the second value. In the KML file XML format, the values are expected in the opposite order. So, you need to reverse the order when placing them in your XML snippet for your Placemark. In this example, the resulting coordinates element with altitude set to zero would be:

106.829444,-6.174444,0

It is currently just a test file with enough data to confirm we can use nested folders to manage the complexity as more JUGs are added for each continent. If you would like to see your JUG listed on this map, see the section below for more information.

Adding Your JUG To The Map

Managing Map Updates

It would be ideal to have one separate person making updates to the KML map file for each continent. I can be responsible for North America and Antartica (:-)). I am looking for volunteers to manage updates for the other five continents. It just requires basic XML understanding and the ability to make updates to our project CVS repository to do this job. I can make the volunteers members of the sv-web-jug project in order to give them write access to our CVS repository. If you would like to volunteer to help in this way, send an email to van_riper@dev.java.net

Thanks!

            <Placemark>
                <name>Silicon Valley Web Developer JUG</name>
                <description>
                    Leaders: <![CDATA[ <a href="http://weblogs.java.net/blog/van_riper/">Mike Van Riper</a> ]]>
                    and Kevin Nilson
                    <![CDATA[ (<a href="https://sv-web-jug.dev.java.net">site</a>) ]]>
                </description>
                <Point>
                    <coordinates>-122.050766,37.392958,0</coordinates>
                </Point>
            </Placemark>

The coordinates are expected in the following order: longitude, latitude, altitude

The name is not allowed to have any HTML markup in it.

It is optional to attach a link to each leaders name in the description text. Because this is embedded in an XML document, you need to use CDATA sections as shown to add the links.

Adding More JUGs

TBD: I'll fill this in with an XML template for JUG data submission along with email address where to send the information soon.

Java User Groups International Map

The KML file is currently checked into the sv-web-jug java.net project and is accessible here.