[thelist] Best Practices for building a zip/postal code based dealer locator

[l a u r a *^* l y n c h]

At 07:50 PM 9/26/01, you wrote:
>If anyone has any boxed solutions
>they can recommend that would also be great.

Give <http://www.zipcodelocaters.com> a try -- I just used them for a site 
I'm building for an organization of automotive recyclers (no affiliation 
other than that). All you've gotta do is build your own database & save it 
out as tab or comma delimited (extensive instructions on the site). Then 
you get walked through the building process. Best part is you can try it 
out and change it around before you buy -- and it's pretty cheap (mine was 
less than US$150). Then you can modify it even further once you've got it, 
including adding HTML and so on. It's Perl, but thanks to the great 
instructions (geez, I sound like a commercial -- I swear I have no 
affiliation with these guys whatsoever) I was able to fiddle my way around 
in it even though I have absolutely no Perl experience. (If you want to see 
my implementation of it, go see 
<http://www.cyberwhirled.com/aranj/site/about/find_main.shtml>. The only 
drawback I found was that I was unable to use my SSI for the nav on the 
results page, although that could very well be a lack of skill on my part.)

HTH,

l a u r a *^* l y n c h
design doyen @ cyberwhirled
http://www.cyberwhirled.com
ICQ: 1797450 AIM: cyberminkie

PS - Whups! I just saw that you're looking for CA and not US -- doesn't 
look like they support that currently, but you might want to drop them a 
note and see if they can recommend someone or would be willing to work 
something out for you.