It seems that a great deal of hits come from within the same city. This means that a lot of the hits have no distance/speed calculations when viewing the bill. Also, a lot of hits don't have those stats as some locations don't have lat/long coordinates, which I have once again fallen behind on. And finally, the list of cities listed on the add bill page grows everyday and will soon be incredibly large.
The solution to all these problems is to purchase a database of Canadian postal codes, of which there is 760,000+, and then modify the application to use the postal code data for the hits. I have found a source for such data, but unfortunately it costs $700 USD. Check it out at GreatData. I basically need the $250 list of postal codes and the $450 list of lat/longs for each postal code. BTW, if someone knows a cheaper source of the data, please let me know.
Anyway, so as of today there are 34 users who have logged in more than 30 times. So, I'm proposing that we sorta all help share the cost of the data. My plan is to purchase the data, and modify the site to use the data, including entering bills using the postal code of your location. Then, if you've "donated" to the cause, and hits within the same city, you will see the actual distance travelled within the city, rather than simply seeing the dashes like you see now. Anonymous users and those that choose not to donated will continue to see the dashes for a year's time (365 days) after which all users will see hits displayed using the postal code data. I was thinking $15 for employed users, and $10 for students and retired/unemployed people. What does everyone else think? I also plan to think up some cool other ways to reward those users that donate to us.
If I get enough positive response, I will go ahead and order the data. Let me know (you can reply here in this forum).
Have a great weekend,
-dr
I love the idea. Count me in for sure.
Count me in. Just wondering are the distances by road or as the crow flies.
are the distances by road or as the crow flies?
Since all the data is lat/long based, it's the "great circle" distance, ie. straight-line distance using a map. Crows tend to fly all over the place anyway. :)
-dr
I would donate gladly! Will all the bills previously entered contain Postal code DATA?? Or only after you enter the program into the DB, any bill entered after that will have PCs? I like the idea..
Will all the bills previously entered contain Postal code DATA??
Yes and no. Anyone who donates can tell me the postal code of their entered bills (within one city only) and I will set the postal code of those bills. For example, most of my bills have been entered from my office, so all my Calgary bills will be set to T2S 2S5. Any bills for non-payers or anonymous or whatever will be set to a central postal code within the city the bill was entered in. Special requests will be entertained on a case-by-case basis. Also, this will mean that the site will be down for a couple of days while I convert all the data. Actually, you will be able to everything on the site except enter bills.
-dr
Not a problem. i have a nasty habit of writing down evey bill i receive now.
Count me in too DR…that's a great idea! Too bad it wasn't cheaper though hey?
I'll do it. Though I won't be able to pay for a while, like mabye when I move to Clagary I'll ship the money to you.
Well… I'll have to think about it.
Hmmmm. La di da di da…
OK, got an address to ship the cash to?
AND I INSIST THAT YOU ENTER THE CASH RECEIVED AND COUNT THE HITS AS 'BONUS HITS' EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T NORMALLY COUNT TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN USERS.
He could do that unless he decides to only accept checks. BUt he better not since a don't have a checking account.
I second the motion, dr should enter our bills. Perhaps set up a page to display them as well.
I wouldn't mind paying for the database, but there is so much politiking going on, I wonder if it will be further critia to affect our rank. First it was hits to worry about/look forward to, then the CMT score which seemed pretty fair, impartial; now rank, lord only knows how one qualifies for any given level of subservience, now yet another level - the paids and the unpaids. What if this new feature did not really appeal to me? Distance withing city does not worry me at all, even if I did get some hits, I'd like to see more bills go from province to province and maybe in time we wouldn't have to stamp every bill we see and maybe sooner or later add to our stamps where the bill originated, like …from Quebec! or …from Nunavut! Who knows?
Of course this site is really beginning to cost dr, his time and unpaid labour, perhaps we should start running ads, I wouldn't mind seeing some Canadian business for a change. Ever try buying electronics from the States? If its not the exchange rate, duty fees will kill any bargain. The ads need not be big and obnoxious either like the Yahoo ones. Unless we advertise, it will be another fee for another feature and who knows how much it would cost us.
I changed my mind, I do mind paying because it won't end there. How about a donation fee/ pay what you can instead, but don't overlook running ads?
I think you should be running ads on this site.
dr should be paid for all the hard work put in to this site.
Just tell me where to send it.
dr i feel so sorry for you, this fun project you started is getting so big, that i assume you have no time to ride your F4. I wouldnt hold a grudge if you took a weekend off from the site. This site im sure is becoming a full time job….I really do feel your pain.
Oh i dont mind sending some money in too, like I said you do deserve it.
I don't mind putting in to the software, but I think lack of ads is one of the big things that makes this a superior site. (Of course, as I've mentioned before, I think he should have a bigger ad for his own company, rather than the name in the footer).
However, perhaps backing up a bit would help on his workload too! What I mean is the rankings and so forth are cool, but maintaining them eat up time, data and bandwidth(!). Perhaps if DR were to simplify the program by taking out some of these things, it could ease some of the pressure on him, and may speed things up a bit too!
DR, I remember you saying in one of your posts you were facinated that the Saskatchewan users all knew each others' stamps, and that you hadn't seen any one elses but your own.
When we send you stamped bills, it would be interesting if you could scan them and have a 'hall of fame' page with all our stamps on it…
I was just thinking the same thing. If Pooga still has my bills he may be able to save to show all you at the next meeting.. The gallery would be neat..
DR, will we have to re-new this software annually? I was just checking their 'terms of use'…
"Term: The term of this Agreement for GreatData products commences on the date the products are ordered by the Company and shall continue in effect for a period of one year. This Agreement may be renewed for additional one-year periods at the then current price by mutual agreement of the parties."
Okay, I shall now respond to all the things brought up… :)
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I refuse to have ads on this site. Ever. End of story. I am not looking to get paid for my work on this site, I enjoy programming it as much as you guys enjoy using it. I would take a second job before I put ads on the site.
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I don't want to have a "continuous donation" type thing as I don't want people just giving me money. To me, there's nothing worse than donating money and not knowing where it's going. With this, you know exactly how much I will be spending and what your money is being spent on. As I said, I am not looking to be paid for my time. I am just looking to you, the fanatics of this site, to help me offset the cost of an expense that will be solely for this site. Up until now, this site has simply been piggy-backed on other things; we use Bitonic's net connection, we're hosted on another server that has some spare room, etc… but this postal code thing will be used only for this site. See where I'm going with this?
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I am not trying to make another "ranking system" as suggested by the "paids and no-paids" comment. I simply wanted to make things fair for those that chose to donate. The reason I created the notion of a rank was to make it more fun for everyone. Look at most message boards… you are given a rank based on your message posts. Some people here were given that special rank not because I like them better or they're family or something but because of their hard work promoting the site. If you look at the people that have consistantly responded to newbies on the message board or have made suggestions to making the site better or have basically promoted the "good will" of the site, it is those seven people.
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Okay, I will enter those bills sent to me.
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Okay, I'll scan them all and create a page with everyone's various ways of marking bills.
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I don't think I want to simplify the site. There is no single feature that take very much time. The majority of the time spent on the site is reviewing hits and fixing mis-entered bills.
will we have to re-new this software annually?
That is one of the things I will have to check. I think we would have to renew if we wanted all of the postal code changes. I was thinking that renewing would not really be necessary, as I think I can get the changes from Canada Post and manually make the changes. But we'll see.
So, from what I'm hearing, most people seem to think this is a good idea, so I'm going to go ahead and talk to Great Data about getting the data. I'll keep you posted over the coming week. Thanks for everyone's comments… I'm pretty pumped about moving the site to a new level (no pun intended)… heh. :)
-dr
Sounds great! When will you know for sure that we are getting this. For sure by the end of the week? Just let me know when I should send my \(\)$$!
BTW, will this slow the server down, again?
Heh, while I may get the data by the end of the week, the whole site will need to be modified, so it probably won't be for a couple of weeks.
will this slow the server down, again?
Hopefully not, all the slowness of the site should be solved with the new version.
-dr
Count me in and let me know where to send the money…
B.Kingston
" I refuse to have ads on this site. Ever"
Who'll pay for all these additions?
"I don't want to have a "continuous donation" type thing as I don't want people just giving me money."
Can I get a tax reciept for this?
"If you look at the people that have consistantly responded to newbies on the message board or have made suggestions to making the site better or have basically promoted the "good will" of the site, it is those seven people."
I have made suggestions, most of which are ignored or disliked. I have extended my welcome to newbies, particulary the few Quebecers that traversed here. Why they don't wish or post is anybody's guess; I tried.
"Look at most message boards… you are given a rank based on your message posts."
…..ooooo so that's what it is!
….well, I guess that means no frog from Quebec will ever get a promotion now. Merde!
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