World Countries and IP geocoding API for App Engine

I have been writing here again and again about the inherent problem that App Engine based Applications have in using third party API’s with quota limits based on ip addresses since all of those are served from the same block of ips alocated by Google  © and therefore have to share those quotas with other applications hosted on App Engine using the same service.

Today I am happy to offer a free IP geocoding and world countries information service API and hope this solves to some extend the problem of Server side IP geocoding for fellow App Engine developers.

Detailed service description and more information is provided here : "World countries API"

Happy coding:-)

Allegro Non Troppo - Using Tropo API in App Engine

I was looking for an SMS - Voice gateway for an application of mine and after thoughtfully looking into Clicatell - twilio etc. I opted for Voxeo's tropo.
Do not ask much for the reasons I am not ready for a war over which one is better or cheaper to use.
I just felt like that tropo's "develop free - pay as you go once in production" business model fits well with App Engine's model that is on the same line, same applies to application scaling which is analogous to App Engine's.

So I decided to give it a try and here are my preliminary assessment of the service:

A bug in tweepy streaming API

I found a bug in tweepy streaming API .
It can't filter by tag with non Latin characters.
I was astonished coz this was working when I used it some months ago (version 1.3 if I remember well).
So here is my small contribution to the project :
def filter(self, follow=None, track=None, async=False):
   params = {}
   self.headers['Content-type'] = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
should be :
def filter(self, follow=None, track=None, async=False):
   params = {}
   self.headers['Content-type'] = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8"
I have only tested streaming and only tag filtering - probably this applies to other parts but I am not sure.

geognos

 Today I published beta I of geognos application hosted in the cloud by google app engine.
You can select and visit any country from here: http://www.geognos.com , or may be take a look at my own country here: https://www.geognos.com/en/place/greece
If you do not like it you can blame only me, since I have done all the staff my self (css, Html, Python - javascript , 4 different API interface programming etc. etc.)
This site is a mashup of 4 APIS and shows textual and visual (thanks to: Google Visualization API ) information for all countries of the world. Users can navigate to different countries by selecting a country from the compo box provided in top right corner of each page or from the links provided in home page.  
For each specific country a live map provided by Google Maps API v3 is included. The map provides the functionality (move, pan, zoom, etc.) of Google Maps. Right clicking on any point of the map pops up an information window displaying geographical information about this point (Latitude Longitude, PO Code, city, country etc.) User can also navigate to points of interest (capital, cities, neighboring countries etc.) of the particular country by using the selector box provided in page top.
Interesting photos from the country are displayed (courtesy of panoramio.com api) on the top right part of the page. users can view a bigger photo by clicking on one of the thumbnail photos shown in photo region. Also photo's geographical coordinates and other information is shown on the map. This information is presented translated to user's language thanks to Google AJAX Language API Clicking on the bigger photo displays a real size of the photo on top of the map region. Users can navigate to next-previous set or photos by clicking the respective arrows located at the bottom of thumbnails. Clicking on the "play" button located between the left right arrow puts the photos on a "slide mode" which is activated when user clicks on "left" - "right" button. While in "slide show" mode photos are auto-displayed until user clicks on "pause" button. Slide show is self terminated after a number of photos, in order to eliminate over-demand on the servers. Clicking on the left "=" button synchronizes photos with the contents of the map at that time and displays only photos located on the region included in the map, try this after moving - zooming the map.

Panoramio Photo API (II)

It seems somebody in Panoramio listened to my prayers and they were fast to respond. So according to their official Forum ( http://www.panoramio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20934 )
" Panoramio API: "count" is not working and changes in call back function. We are working in bringing them back."

Panoramio Photo API

I am using  Panoramio JSON Photo API since quite some time.
Well, during last weekend they have a major maintenance of their platform.
Unfortunately after this maintenance the API format has been changed without any notice, It took me half a night to realize what was happening and fix my mash-up application.
I have filled a report here ( http://www.panoramio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=239662#239662 )
Lessons learned : If  you are using any third party APIs - have a plan and be ready for surprises !.