ZAT – notes on Z to A Travel

I’m attending OSCON (the Open Source Convention) this week and having a great time. I actually went there yesterday without my laptop!

I’ve been trying to find out more about programming tools. So far, I’ve mainly been using just a text editor (Smultron) to write code and print statements for debugging. I feel like I’m back in the 60’s! Anyway, there are two companies selling programming environments that support PHP, JavaScript, and so on: Zend and ActiveState. Both environments cost money, unfortunately, so I need to do some research before getting one. So I start asking around at the conference to people who are writing projects in PHP “what tools are you using to write and debug PHP?” The bizarre thing is that most people I ask are using, you guessed it, text editors (mainly emacs and vim) and print statements. I even asked one of the people who works one of those that sells a programming environment, and he even admitted that he uses emacs and print statements.

What gives?

–wm

• PHP 5 and MySQL on the server.
• JavaScript and AJAX on the browser.
• Trying to use only a small amount of CSS, keeping the style simple.
• No framework. I did some prototyping using CakePHP, but dumped it and now writing directly in PHP.
• Google Maps and geocoder.

I’m doing my development on a MacBook Pro (with a lovely 30 inch Cinema Display). Hosting is on Dreamhost, but I’m looking forward to when I need to move to a dedicated server.

ZAT is a name I came up with for a company I started in the mid-90s. That company made Java-based authoring tools for building Web applications, so it was only natural that we used a Javanese/Malaysian word for the name of the company. The word “zat” means “that in which a thing’s special potency lies”. Interestingly, zat also has meanings in several other languages, including Punjabi, Slovak, and (a rather funny meaning in) Dutch.

We had a lot of fun with the name zat, coming up with a number of regretably bad puns.

We eventually sold the company, but I managed to hang onto the name and domain for zat. Only years later, when I decided to build a travel-related site, did I realize that (all along) ZAT was actually an acronym that stood for “Z to A Travel”.

–wm

ZAT is:

• a mashup of social bookmarking and AJAX-based mapping for travel information
• a spatial search engine for travelers
• a site for finding and sharing travel information.

There is much travel-related information on the web, and most travelers use the web extensively. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find information that is relevant to travel. For example, if you want to find a Hilton Hotel in France, you might try to use a normal search engine to search for “Paris Hilton”. Even simple questions like “what are the most interesting sights in Oregon” or “where is a good place to eat between New York and Boston” are difficult to answer.

I’m building ZAT because I would like a site that helps travelers find good travel information. Unlike most travel sites, ZAT itself does not try to contain content, but instead is used to organize existing travel content on the web. ZAT is like a search engine, except ZAT is visual, using maps and spatial relationships to find information. This information can include traditional travel sites, blogs, photos, or anything anyone wants to submit to ZAT.

ZAT lets users rate places, so you can ask questions like “the most popular inexpensive hotels in San Francisco”. Users can also leave comments about places.

ZAT is about sharing information. You can create a list of your favorite places. Or you can use ZAT to share a trip with your friends and family. ZAT is especially designed to encourage sharing of specialized travel information. For example, a group of people can share information about scuba diving. Another group can share information on the best places to take toddlers. ZAT can be tailored to each traveler’s needs and wants.

–wm

Home page: http://leler.com
About me: http://leler.com/wm
Resume: http://leler.com/wm/resume.html

This week I attended the Webvisions conference. The first session I attended reminded me that I really need to keep a blog on the construction of ZAT, so here it is. I had an earlier blog on the design of ZAT, but kinda forgot about it. Let’s see if I can do better this time.

–wm

p.s. I moved the posts from the old blog into this blog (they are all in the month of May).