Multi-location lookup now available on tizomat
It has been a while now that tizomat is online, offering comprehensive services to check the current time in any given geographic location. As previously promised we are now moving forward to offer a multi-location lookup option. With this extended functionality you can check the current time in different locations around the globe.
22 May 2012
Setting the correct Nokia Web Maps Bounding Box
I came across a problem with the Nokia Maps Bounding Box for multiple markers when the zoom level is relatively low (i.e. zoom level lower 2). If you zoom out (lower zoom level) you will see that several world maps appear next to each other. When Nokia Maps places a marker it places the marker only on the map in the middle. When calculating a bounding box Nokia Maps will choose the minimum bounding box covering all markers. This poses a problem specifically when markers are on opposite sides of the map. As an example, let's take 2 markers in Tokyo and in San Francisco. Nokia Maps will now choose the minimum bounding box, which spans over the Pacific ocean choosing San Francisco from the map in the middle of the initial screen and Tokyo from the map to the left. Since the markers are both on the middle map, you will only see the marker over San Francisco on the map.
18 May 2012
A tooltip with SVG and Javascript
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an xml based graphics format that can be quite useful to render dynamic images. All major web browsers today have some support and render SVG markup directly. In order to avoid any compatibility issues you can use an SVG parser such as canvg. In my case I use the build in Nokia Maps SVG parser (find more information here). First of all, I will show you how to create a static SVg tooltip in the SVG markup language. Then I will expand this to a dynamic SVG tooltip in Javascript that will adjust its size to the text. See the image below for the tooltip.
01 May 2012
Nokia Maps: An alternative to Google Maps
Since Google has introduced quotas to their maps API in the end of 2011, web programmers will have to pay if their applications exceed these usage limits. Depending on your application these usage limits can be generous or less generous. Therefore you might have to look for an alternative, which could be Nokia (formerly OVI) maps, which is still free.
23 April 2012
Technorati Blog Claim
I am claiming the tizomat blog to Technorati's Blog Directory. This will index this blog in their directory. The code needs to be in a post as to demonstrate that access to the blog can be made. Read more here: technorati The blog claim token:
BHK2NAXYS5DU
14 April 2012
A short history of global time zones
Some may ask where did the division of time zones really begin? Many are unaware that up until the 19th century geographically and commercially separated locations kept their own time, one town's time may have differed from another town. Once integrated railway systems and mass communication became mainstream the need for an integrated convention became highly apparent.
14 April 2012
Time Zones in Python
At the core of the tizomat website is a time zone look up mechanism. In this post I will describe the different tools that I use to determine the time in any location in the world. As input I take the search result from the Ovi Maps geographic search of the location, which provides me with information on the country and the coordinates of the location to lookup. I am using the Olsen database to determine the time zone from the geographic location and calculate the local time using the pytz library to calculate the actual time.
12 April 2012
Overview Analytics, Adsense and Adwords
Google provides website owners with a set of handy tools to analyse, promote and make money of your website. Google Analytics is the main tool that allows to analyse website traffic from all different angles. Adwords is Google's service for promoting a website via advertising on other websites or within Google's search results. Finally Adsense gives the webmaster the opportunity to place advertising on its website and earn revenues. This article will give a brief overview on these three services and their basic functionality.
03 April 2012
Setting up Aptana Studio 3 for Django
I am describing how to set up Aptana Studio 3 with Django. I had to decide among a multitude of different development environments (IDE for Integrated Development Environment). My choice fell on Aptana Studion 3 as it integrates quite nicely with Python, Django and offers text highlighting for Javascript, HTML and CSS (all that besides being open source).
03 January 2012
Step by Step Website for absolute Beginners
I have recently been asked to help create a very simple company website. Since I have very little knowledge of web development yet and the owner of the website even less, I tried to find the easiest possible way to get a simple website running.
22 December 2011
My little Django - tizomat pony
I stumbled upon this website that was created for Europython 2009 and let's you create a django mascot for your website. The mascot is a magical django pony that has the tizomat colors.
14 December 2011
Web Development Tools
Before starting tizomat I did numerous hours of research into the various tools that one uses to develop a website. There is a multitude of frameworks and a terminology that is easily overwhelming.
Since I want to learn the tools to program sophisticated websites I ruled out relatively quickly any options that would not give me the flexibility to scale up in flexibility at a later stage. With knowledge of C and Matlab I was confident enough to believe that I would relatively quickly learn a new programming language. However I did not want to spend endless hours learning new coding techniques.
20 November 2011
Learning Web Development with Tizomat
The Internet enables creativity and innovation. With very little investment one is enabled to prototype ideas and test in the market place. As a total newbie to web development my goal is to acquire the expertise to implement all my ideas. As such the idea behind creating tizomat was to learn the basics of web programming by implementing an easy example. I will use this blog to write up the steps that lead to the completion of the timezone tool.
15 November 2011
Tizomat domain acquired - check back for updates!
We just purchased the domain www.tizomat.com. Tizomat will be an easy to use timezone lookup tool. It will enable search for a location and give back the current time shown on a map.
10 November 2011
