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  • Message Timezones

    From douray@VERT/ANSUN to Digital Man on Wed Apr 6 02:33:11 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: Digital Man to Martin Rayburn on Thu Mar 31 2022 15:34:48

    What if the time zone was derived from the location of the user's IP address?

    It's a possibility.

    This just so happens to coincide with a project I have been working on. I came across this HTML code that is supposed to display the visitors approximate location based on their IP address. However, whenever I use it, the result is always Roswell, NM (weird on many different levels...lol).

    Does anyone have any idea where I may be going wrong or what I can do to fix it? Below is the HTML code:

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no"/>
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/>
    <title>Geo Locate By IP</title>
    <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.4/jquery.min.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
    <div>Country: <span id="country"></span></div>
    <div>State: <span id="state"></span></div>
    <div>City: <span id="city"></span></div>
    <div>Latitude: <span id="latitude"></span></div>
    <div>Longitude: <span id="longitude"></span></div>
    <div>IP: <span id="ip"></span></div>
    <script>
    $.getJSON('https://geolocation-db.com/json/')
    .done (function(location) {
    $('#country').html(location.country_name);
    $('#state').html(location.state);
    $('#city').html(location.city);
    $('#latitude').html(location.latitude);
    $('#longitude').html(location.longitude);
    $('#ip').html(location.IPv4);
    });
    </script>
    </body>
    </html>

    ---
    � Synchronet � ANSUN - ansun.synchro.net
  • From echicken@VERT/ECBBS to douray on Wed Apr 6 12:42:46 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: douray to Digital Man on Wed Apr 06 2022 02:33:11

    approximate location based on their IP address. However, whenever I use it, the result is always Roswell, NM (weird on many different

    Does anyone have any idea where I may be going wrong or what I can do to fix it? Below is the HTML code:

    The code you shared is fine, nothing to fix. They really just think that you're in Roswell. They think I'm in Smiths Falls, Ontario, which is a lot closer to Ottawa than it is to Toronto, where I really am.

    These services are rarely very accurate. You can try some others, but you'll get similar results, or it'll be accurate for you but not somebody else.

    ---
    echicken
    electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
    ---
    � Synchronet � electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to douray on Wed Apr 6 18:57:22 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: douray to Digital Man on Wed Apr 06 2022 02:33 am

    Re: Message Timezones
    By: Digital Man to Martin Rayburn on Thu Mar 31 2022 15:34:48

    What if the time zone was derived from the location of the user's IP address?

    It's a possibility.

    This just so happens to coincide with a project I have been working on. I came across this HTML code that is supposed to display the visitors


    can you please post on the bottom
    ---
    � Synchronet � ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From douray@VERT/ANSUN to echicken on Wed Apr 6 22:12:25 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: echicken to douray on Wed Apr 06 2022 12:42:46

    The code you shared is fine, nothing to fix. They really just think that you're in Roswell. They think I'm in Smiths Falls, Ontario, which is a lot closer to Ottawa than it is to Toronto, where I really am.

    These services are rarely very accurate. You can try some others, but you'll get similar results, or it'll be accurate for you but not somebody else.

    Wow. I wonder why they even bother if it can't at least get you within a few miles of the actual location. I live nowhere near Roswell, NM, but that's where the geo-locate ip service thinks I am.

    ---
    � Synchronet � ANSUN - ansun.synchro.net
  • From douray@VERT/ANSUN to MRO on Wed Apr 6 22:13:47 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: MRO to douray on Wed Apr 06 2022 18:57:22

    What if the time zone was derived from the location of the user's IP address?

    It's a possibility.

    This just so happens to coincide with a project I have been working on.
    I came across this HTML code that is supposed to display the visitors


    can you please post on the bottom

    On the bottom of what? My comments were below (at the bottom) under the quotes.

    ---
    � Synchronet � ANSUN - ansun.synchro.net
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to douray on Wed Apr 6 22:40:15 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: douray to MRO on Wed Apr 06 2022 10:13 pm

    can you please post on the bottom

    On the bottom of what? My comments were below (at the bottom) under the quotes.


    oh sorry about that. my syncterm got borked because i resized it.
    i run an old version
    ---
    � Synchronet � ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From echicken@VERT/ECBBS to douray on Thu Apr 7 04:14:14 2022
    Re: Message Timezones
    By: douray to echicken on Wed Apr 06 2022 22:12:25

    Wow. I wonder why they even bother if it can't at least get you within a few miles of the actual location. I live nowhere near Roswell, NM, but that's where the geo-locate ip service thinks I am.

    For some purposes they're close enough often enough. You just can't trust them for anything important.

    I had a situation at work early in the pandemic where we just needed to know what country users were connecting from, and it didn't matter if we got it wrong once in a while. I used ipstack.com for that, and they seemed decent.

    ---
    echicken
    electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
    ---
    � Synchronet � electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Nightfox on Fri Apr 8 10:34:00 2022
    Re: Re: Message Timezones
    By: Nightfox to Digital Man on Fri Apr 01 2022 07:45 pm

    Re: Re: Message Timezones
    By: Digital Man to Ragnarok on Fri Apr 01 2022 05:56 pm

    dialup age was amazing...

    At the time, it was amazing. In hindsight or comparison to today's broadband Internet? Yeah, not so much... :-)

    True, not so much now, but I always thought it was pretty cool that the tech m to transfer computer data over them many years later.

    Nightfox


    Nto that much different than saving data to cassette tape or sending morse
    code

    ---
    � Synchronet � The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to douray on Fri Apr 8 09:45:38 2022
    On 4/6/22 00:33, douray wrote:
    This just so happens to coincide with a project I have been working
    on. I came across this HTML code that is supposed to display the
    visitors approximate location based on their IP address. However,
    whenever I use it, the result is always Roswell, NM (weird on many
    different levels...lol).

    Does anyone have any idea where I may be going wrong or what I can do
    to fix it? Below is the HTML code:

    GeoIP services generally suck... You might find better luck/accuracy
    with other services.

    https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/16965/ip-geolocation

    Maxmind has about the best results from my experience (about 5-6 years
    ago at this point), I would take a look at a few services.

    Since timezones are pretty big, likely best to use a preset based on
    geoip, but allow the user to override... set a cookie in their browser,
    and or attached to the user account and use that instead if set.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - [email protected]
    ---
    � Synchronet � Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to douray on Fri Apr 8 09:55:54 2022
    On 4/6/22 20:12, douray wrote:

    Wow. I wonder why they even bother if it can't at least get you
    within a few miles of the actual location. I live nowhere near
    Roswell, NM, but that's where the geo-locate ip service thinks I am.

    Mostly kickbacks/money... Paid services (fractions of a cent per lookup)
    will often perform much better, they often have data sharing deals with various ISPs as well to get more accurate info.

    If the user is mobile, and likely to authorize the use of their position (browsers ask), then you can use the Geolocation API combined with a
    mapping system like OpenStreetMap, Google Maps or Azure Maps etc to then translate the location (lat/lon) into a physical location. Down side,
    is at that point, the location info from the browser for a desktop
    device may then be less accurate.

    Why try? Usually for a better user experience, especially if you are
    serving a site in multiple languages. Although there's a preferred
    language interface in the browser as well (headers sent to server). It
    can also be used for marketing, tracking, diagnostics, etc.

    Used to work at a SaaS provider that quick verified likely validity from
    low information (email, ip(optional)) and had an RTT target in the teens
    of ms range. Lots of distributed special sauce on the backend.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - [email protected]
    ---
    � Synchronet � Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Moondog on Fri Apr 8 13:06:21 2022
    Re: Re: Message Timezones
    By: Moondog to Nightfox on Fri Apr 08 2022 10:34 am

    True, not so much now, but I always thought it was pretty cool that
    the tech m to transfer computer data over them many years later.

    Nto that much different than saving data to cassette tape or sending morse code

    Yep, that's true.

    Nightfox

    ---
    � Synchronet � Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com