Attached File(s): 

getDueCoords.php_.txt

This post explains how, given latitude and longitude coordinates in Google Maps (specifically, in the Static API), how one can draw a bounding box around them, based on a distance in either miles or kilometers.

Let's say you already know the lat/long of a particular point on the map, and now you want to draw a box around it, or maybe you just need to know the lat/long coordinates of another point, so many km or miles away?  Well, this is the script for you!

Based on a script retrieved from here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?656315-adding-distance-gps-coordinates-get-bounding-box

The trick is that Google Maps wants you to provide it with the lat/long coordinates for each corner of the box.  After several hours of searching, I finally found a script which I was able to modify to give me what I needed.

Simply download the script linked at the top of the page, and then use the following code to create the image you see here. 

Enjoy!

    $lat = -33.872986011907216;
    $lng = 150.90904516601563;

    // Create the static map api image.
    $static_maps_url = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap";
    $static_maps_url .= "?center=$lat,$lng";
    $static_maps_url .= "&zoom=15";
    $static_maps_url .= "&size=300x300";
    $static_maps_url .= "&maptype=roadmap";
    $static_maps_url .= "&sensor=false";
    $static_maps_url .= "&markers=color:blue|$lat,$lng";

    // Figure out the corners of a box surrounding our lat/lng.
    $d = 0.3;  // distance
    $path_top_right = bpot_getDueCoords($lat, $lng, 45, $d);
    $path_bottom_right = bpot_getDueCoords($lat, $lng, 135, $d);
    $path_bottom_left = bpot_getDueCoords($lat, $lng, 225, $d);
    $path_top_left = bpot_getDueCoords($lat, $lng, 315, $d);
   
    $static_maps_url .= "&path=color:334433|weight:5|fillcolor:0xFFFF0033|";
    $static_maps_url .= "$path_top_left|$path_top_right|$path_bottom_right|";
    $static_maps_url .= "$path_bottom_left|$path_top_left";
     
    // Now, draw the image from Google Maps API!
    print "<img src='$static_maps_url'>";

Software License Fine Print

This code is licensed as-is, with no warranty or guarantee, under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

You may use this code however you want, even in commercial products, but only if you include attribution to me, Richard Peacock, as the original author of this small portion of code, but not in a way that implies I endorse your project.

For example, on a Help/Credits screen:  Portions of this project were based on work freely obtained from these developers: Richard Peacock (http://richardpeacock.com), NAME HERE, etc.  These outside developers neither endorse nor support this software.

If you use this code, feel free to email me to let me know!  I'll include a link to your project here.

Recently, my laptop started running hotter and hotter, to the point that it would shut itself down out of protection.  Speedfan reported my core temperature (under load) above 100C (the temperature of boiling water)!  It idled around 60 - 70C.  I almost went out a bought a new laptop, assuming my processor or power supply or something must be breaking down.

Well, I'm glad I didn't, because I fixed it with one simple trick after some googling.  All you need to do is break out your vacuum cleaner, and clear the dust from the laptop's cooling system.

On most laptops, that means two points:  an intake vent, and an exhaust vent.  The idea is that air is sucked into the laptop through the intake vent, passes over your hot components, and then blows out of the exhaust vent, cooling everything down in the process.  This is all done with 1 or 2 fans, which can get very dusty over time.

It's that dust that causes the laptop to overheat.  It chokes the fans and creates a blanket over your components.

So, just take your vacuum cleaner's hose attachment and go over both vents really well.  The intake vent is probably on the bottom of the laptop, and the exhaust is probably on the side or back. On some laptops, to really get rid of all the dust, you might have to take the cover off and blow out the fans/vents with compressed air.  I didn't have to with mine, though.

After doing this, my laptop idles around 52-54C, and under load it gets to around 60-65C.  It's still a little hotter than I want it to be, but that's nothing compared to 100C!

So if you've got a dangerously overheating laptop (use Speedfan to check) then give this tip a try.  If it doesn't work, it probably means you have a more serious-- and more expensive-- problem.

If you've never heard of Synergy, check out there website here.  In a nutshell, it's a program you run on two computers, which lets you use the keyboard and mouse of one to control the other.  Think of it a little bit like a KVM switch in software.  The connection is made over your network or the Internet.  To switch machines you just slide your mouse off the side of one screen and onto another, as if you just had a second monitor set up.

Recently at my day job, I used Synergy to connect my main work computer to a spare computer I set on my desk but did not want to make room for another keyboard and mouse.  I also did not want to connect our company network to the spare computer, for security reasons.  Now, I could have just used a cross-over ethernet cable, but did not have a spare ethernet port on my main computer.

Enter my savior: an ancient serial Null Modem cable.

In the good old days, these little serial cables were used to connect two computers together at a relatively low speed for file transfers and the like.  And if you happen to have one laying around (possible with an extra "null modem" block attached, possibly not), then this guide will help you set up two Windows computers to use it to work with Synergy.

Yes, our old friend Internet Explorer is at it again to make our lives as web developers miserable.  Not many know this, but in IE, a single web page can only reference at most 31 <link>'d CSS stylesheets. For hand-coded pages, this probably isn't a problem.  But when you start using larger CMS systems and applications, like Drupal, you can very quickly run into the 31 stylesheet limit.  This happens in currently all versions of IE, including IE 8.

Most of the time this problem presents itself, the web developer believes he or she is going insane.  Your site looks beautiful in FireFox and Chrome, but in IE everything is off: some things are positioned weird, fonts are the wrong size, etc.  And IE doesn't warn you or let you know this is happening in any way, so you are left to go silently mad trying to figure out what the problem is.

There are a couple possible solutions:

• Combine stylesheets into single, large files.  This may not always be practical or very organized, but hey, you've got to do what you've got to do.
• Use @import instead of <link>
  • For example:
    

    <style>
    @import url('a.css');
    </style>

  • IE seems to be okay with this, and will allow more than 31.  However, @import isn't as great, performance-wise, as <link>.  Also, it may cause stylesheets to be loaded out of order, which can cause JavaScript problems.
• If you are using Drupal, you can try the modules http://drupal.org/project/ie_css_optimizer or http://drupal.org/project/unlimited_css to get around the IE problem.

 Let's hope that the next version of IE lifts this bizzare restriction (but I'm not holding my breath).