POI Harvester

Michael,

I downloaded your program and when I launched it, it said that it isn't a valid Windows Installer.

williea

Michael, I really like the extra options like selectable output type and clicking a column to sort by that column. And the addition of the precision field is a Major addition! One thing I miss from POI Harvester is the ability to delete entries before saving. It's really cool to be able to drag the lat and long columns to the right position before saving, too.

I noticed when saving to Excel, the default display format in Excel is 2 points after the decimal. Not sure if there is anything that you can to about that. But if an unsuspecting person would then edit the Excel file and save to CSV without changing the coordinates display format, that's all that will save to the CSV. That's an Excel issue. But I wonder if it's possible to pass that display definition to Excel when saving as Excel.

I also noticed a bug in entering the radius mileage. If I enter "5" it gives an error message to "please enter a numeric value". I have to enter this as 5.0 or 5.00 miles. A little confusing...

I was wondering why I got so many duplicates? And when I get duplicates there are always exactly 8 duplicates? I did a search for pizza with a 10 mile radius of my zip code. A few places showed up once, but most of them had 8 identical entries.

Averall, a VERY useful program, and the addition of the precision field will help eliminate the blind acceptance of geocoding coordinates.

Johnc,

Thanks for feedback. I corrected the duplicate issue and add the capability to delete items from the grid. I also added a warning about the excel export issue. The data is exported correctly, excel just does not format it correctly. Here is a new link to the update: http://hyperfileshare.com/d/7388c6c4

Michael

williea,

I posted an update. Please let me it this works better for you. I'm using the War Installer to create the installation procedure.

Thanks!

is this a new version of POI Harvester? or and update for the harvester or just a completely different type of software...it has a really wierd download process as well.

Thanks Michael. It did turn out to be a bad download. I didn't realize until after I wrote my post that my computer had only downloaded 104K. I deleted it and re-downloaded and it was fine.

williea

Williea,

This project started when I needed to learn a new development tool kit for some work related projects so I decided to create an application to gather POI information. At the time I did not know about POI Harvester, so to answer your question it is the same type of software. The main difference between it and POI Harvester are listed in the first post with the number one item being the Precision since it uses both the Yahoo! Search service and the Yahoo! Geocode service. POI Harvester used just the Yahoo! Search service and it does not report Latitude and Longitude Precision.

In addition, I am planning to enhance the application from feedback. The next big item I’m planning (v2) is to add the capability to geocode your own address files. I find that I need to this from time to time and it seems to be a good feature to add.

Yes, I agree the download process is odd. I could not find a really good free file download site. If anyone knows of a better alternative, please let know.

The biggest problem is it creates a new link each time I upload a new version. Here is the link to newest version: http://hyperfileshare.com/d/7388c6c4

Michael

Williea,

Right after I finished writing to you I found a better file sharing service. This site has a much better download process.

http://www.mediafire.com/?c4xe8n1d612

Harvester and GetMeMyPOI are front ends that pass your search requirements to the Yahoo search engine and then format and display the results that are sent back from Yahoo. I'm simplifying of course. There are quite a few web-based front ends that do the same thing. GetMeMyPOI does what most of them do not - it shows the Precision of the returned result if you check that option. Otherwise, you would have no idea if the returned result could not find an address match and simply returned the coordinates for the center of the zip code you specified.

Wow, that was fast! What's next - GPX output?

Just a reminder to everyone that the files created with these programs can't be upload to POI Factory.

Any chance you could me a small change, I would think it's a small change. Your right now pointing the search to local.yahoo.com can you have the option to select local.yahoo.ca since your app is awesome, but it doesn't work for us canadians.

Thanks

Trancen,

I looked on the yahoo site and could find no information in reference to the “local.yahoo.ca” url. I’ll take another look later today. As long as the interface is the same I believe I could add some type option in a timely manner.

I started work on a new version that supports geocoding, but I’m not sure of the yahoo licensing. The licensing is a long and hard read and is unclear how their data can be used. Yet, I see that the geocoding sites that people talk about all use the yahoo geocoding url. I sent a message to Yahoo and am waiting a reply.

Mike

Mike,

So what was new that you were learning, ComponentOne controls or .NET 2005?

Doug

Doug,

It was the ComponentOne controls and to a lesser degree .NET 2005. I’ve used the ComponentOne ActiveX controls in a lot of VB projects, but never in the .NET environment. Mostly, I code in native C++ using VS6.0 or .NET 2003 and the work is usually background type services.

Mike

Mike,

I know you stated that this was for trying out a new tool set but I wanted to know if you plan on supporting further development on this app?

If so I have a request.
1) Do you think you could add proxy support?
Where I work we are behind a proxy server
that requires authentication and when I try
to run this app (connection to Yahoo) I
receive a 407 error code
(Proxy Authentication Required).

If not do you see this becoming an open source project by chance?

I just tried this out yesterday. Way cool tool! Thanks so much for making it available. After rearranging the columns by dragging and dropping, the output to a CSV file was then pretty compatible with my Magellan POI file editor. There was still an occasional extra comma here and there in the address, but that was easily fixed. I really appreciate the precision option and how clicking on "details" of a selected POI opens a browser window with a Yahoo page that often has reviews. The "Map" option is pretty sweet as well. Nice work.

Trancen,

I took a look at Yahoo and they currently do not expose the Canadian local search API. The API is certainly geared to the states.

Mike

dschumann,

Yes, I'm planning improvements. In fact, I completed work on a new version that supports geocoding, but I’m not sure of the yahoo licensing. However, I see that the geocoding sites that people use all use the yahoo geocoding API. I sent a message to Yahoo and am waiting a reply I believe will never come.

I would have to research Proxy Authentication, plus it would be hard for me to test since all my connections use a standard gateway. I’ll do some research and follow up later in the week or early next week.

Mike

Can you tweak it up that you can send the data precisely in a csv format, without having to switch things around...

Can you tweak it up that you can send the data precisely in a csv format, without having to switch things around...

allbizz,

Sorry for the delay in responding as I had a long weekend project to take care of. When developing the application I read around and found that not all gps devices use the same CSV file layout, so instead of having an option for a particular device the application provides the capacity to rearrange columns for the individual user’s needs.

Mike

Could you walk me through the process of this...so I can have the cordinates sent to a csv. format for my garmin??

I'm not sure that I understand the question. I do not have a garmin unit. In all cases the csv file will need to be modified for each gps unit. The application allows you to rearrange the columns for output, but all columns are still output. To rearrange a column, grab the column by it's header and move it to a different position in the grid. Does this help?

I have a new version that can be downloaded using the link http://www.mediafire.com/?kw0ydo3y52s from mediafire website. This version has a number of internal changes and adds the following features:

1. Updated to local search v3.
2. Added option to display the user rating and last comment.
3. Added grid reset button. When pressed all added splits are removed.
4. Added work wrap to the grid. Allows you see all data in the cell if it is resized.
5. Updated documentation.

Hopefully, no defects were added.

I have used your application and really like it. I would, however, like to request a feature to delete certain columns. The web address columns are more than I need and I would like the option to remove them before creating a csv if at all possible... this way I can only get the data I need.

It's very simple to edit the data in Excel and Notepad once it is generated.

Select the column, right click, select delete...