Ed "Over" Ip » Tech

ZipCode Radius

eip — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:41:34 +0000

I am working on a personal project that needed a list of US City, State and Zip and the ability to get a list of nearby Zips by radius. For awhile there, I thought I was going to have to pay for a list of ZipCodes but thank goodness I found Gabe Summer’s blog. To pay it forward, so to speak, I have adapted Gabe’s code to SQL Server.

CityStateZip Table

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityStateZip]( [ZipCode] [char](5) NOT NULL, [Latitude] [numeric](18, 6) NULL, [Longitude] [numeric](18, 6) NULL, [City] [varchar](50) NOT NULL, [State] [char](2) NOT NULL, [County] [varchar](50) NOT NULL, [Zip_Class] [varchar](50) NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_CityStateZip] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [ZipCode] ASC )WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY] ) ON [PRIMARY]

GetDistance Function

CREATE FUNCTION GetDistance( @lat1 numeric (9,6), @lon1 numeric (9,6), @lat2 numeric (9,6), @lon2 numeric (9,6) ) RETURNS decimal (10,5) BEGIN

DECLARE @x decimal (20,10);

SET @x = sin( @lat1 * pi()/180 ) * sin( @lat2 * pi()/180 ) + cos(@lat1 * pi()/180 ) * cos( @lat2 * pi()/180 ) * cos( abs ( (@lon2 * pi()/180) – (@lon1 * pi()/180) ) );

SET @x = atan( ( sqrt( 1- power( @x, 2 ) ) ) / @x );

RETURN ( 1.852 * 60.0 * ((@x/pi())*180) ) / 1.609344;

END

GetNearbyZipCodes Stored Procedure

CREATE PROCEDURE usp_GetNearbyZipCodes @zipbase varchar (6), @range numeric (15) AS BEGIN

SET NOCOUNT ON


DECLARE  @lat1  decimal (5,2);

DECLARE  @long1  decimal (5,2);

DECLARE  @rangeFactor  decimal (7,6);
SET  @rangeFactor = 0.014457;
SELECT  @lat1=latitude, @long1=longitude

  FROM  CityStateZip

 WHERE  zipcode = @zipbase;
SELECT  B.zipcode, dbo.GetDistance(@lat1,@long1,B.latitude,B.longitude) Distance

  FROM  CityStateZip AS  B

 WHERE  B.latitude  BETWEEN  @lat1-(@range*@rangeFactor) AND  @lat1+(@range*@rangeFactor)

   AND  B.longitude  BETWEEN  @long1-(@range*@rangeFactor) AND @long1+(@range*@rangeFactor)

   AND  dbo.GetDistance(@lat1,@long1,B.latitude,B.longitude) <= @range;

END

Enjoy!

Google App and 3rd party web host

eip — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:07:04 +0000

In the recent months, anytime I am asked to help a client to set up domain purchase, email and web hosting, I’ve been using a combination of Google App and 3rd party web hosts such as GoDaddy.com. I prefer to register the domain via Google App for $10/yr which include private registration and everything Google has to offer. The same purchase will cost twice to three times as much elsewhere. For example, at GoDaddy, the cost of any given domain might look something like this:

- Domain: $14.99/yr
- Private Domain Registration: $8.99/yr
- Email: $19.99/yr (which reduces your domain to just $1.99)

Total: $30.99/yr

The tricky part (while not really tricky at all) is configuring thr DNS of the Google App to point web hosting to the 3rd party while retaining email and everything else on Google.

To configure DNS for your Google App to work with a 3rd party web host:

Go to the admin dashboard for your domain
Click Domain Settings in the top navigation bar
Click the Domain Names tab under Domain Settings
Click Advanced DNS Settings and following the instructions on the next page
Once you’re logged in, click on your domain name
Click “Total DNS Control and MX Records” in the middle column of the top box
Once you’re in Total DNS Control, remove all the A Records and put in a single A record with @ as the host and IP pointing to your 3rd party web host.
In CNAMES, modify the www record from being pointed to ghs.google.com to @.

That’s it! The changes might take up to 48 hours to propagate but your job is done.

Patient Account vs. Patient Visit

eip — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:20:25 +0000

I’ve been working on a patient data management system for my client based on inbound HL7 messages. An issue I struggled trying to figure out which identifier, as assigned by the hospital, represents the unique patient and which identifier represents the unique visit. I was initially thrown off by the name of PID.18 (Patient Account Number) to think it represents the unique patient. But as it turns out, it identifies a unique visit.

PID.3_PatientIdInternalId identifies the unique patient
PID.18_PatientAccountNumber identifies the unique visit