[Gllug] Any coders out there?

[Ryan Cartwright]

Dick Turpin wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> I've had an idea (I know I know, theres a first) there are lists out
> there of LUG groups I wonder if its possible to create a module for my
> Joomla website that a visitor could type in their post code and it would
> return the nearest Linux User Group to them?

I think a problem here would be the geographical data. Specifically the
postcode to grid reference conversion. Even if you get the long/lat of
the LUGs you still need to convert the users postcode to long/lat and
that's where the problem comes in. I am assuming here that you are going
to try and return the nearest LUG by physical location and not just by
the closest matching postcode string.

The postcode data is owned by (IIRC) Royal mail and they are not exactly
giving it away. We were looking at doing something similar on a
different project and in the end we dumped the idea because of the
prohibitive cost of the data itself.

I'm not aware of any lookup website that allows you to pass a postcode
and returns a long/lat result. Certainly not FoC.

<snip>
> I have asked on the Joomla forum but not had any replies, anyones input
> would very welcome.

nice idea sorry to sound so negative.
hope this helps
-- 
Ryan Cartwright
http://www.cafamily.org.uk/oss
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