For some reason there isn’t a reasonable URL shorteners specific to Google Maps, so I decided to write one up.  I thought of using bit.ly for shortening map URL’s, but I wanted a TinyURL domain that let users know they were going to get a map.  So I decided to register myloc.info and build a simple TinyURL map engine.

UberTwitter uses a very similar domain, myloc.me.  Their results send you to a Uber advertising page with a map in the middle.  Not very mobile friendly, but free is free I guess.  My version works great with the iPhone. It automatically pulls open the Map application. Normal browsers are redirected to Google Maps.

As an add on, I created a basic GET JSON API, so myself and others could easily incorporate this service into projects.

With the status of the overall economy, I figured it would wise to research MySQL as a possible alternative to SQL Server for client development. It seems we all must do more with less, and MySQL being essentially free, it’d be worth checking out. 15Seconds does a great job explaining the install process of a new MySQL server. There are a ton of articles about the differences between SQL Server and MySQL and worth reading if you plan on implementing either in a production environment.

So I converted a Data Library that uses either MySQL or SQL Server based on the data provider you’ve specified in the web.config.

<connectionStrings>
<add name="MyDB"
connectionString="server=localhost; user id=uid;
password=pwd;
database=db; use procedure bodies=false"
providerName="MySQL.Data"/>
        </connectionStrings>

The library can execute and return datasets, datareaders, scalars and nonqueries using either Plain Text or Stored Procedures on either platform.

Dim dt As New Utilities.DataTools
dt.SetParam("?prm_ID", 0, ParameterDirection.Input, MySqlDbType.Int32, 1)
Dim ds as DataSet = dt.ExecSQLDataSet("
SELECT * From Table Where ID = ?prm_ID", CommandType.Text)
dt.Dispose()
dt = Nothing