GeoNames Forum

There was a serious problem with the power supply in the datacenters. The commercial services and the website were affected for around 20 minutes.
The free services had troubles for a couple of hours.

Marc

David

GeoNames does net include a timeline. To do it properly I think a single feature code would not be sufficient. For instance you also want to know what feature code the historic entry was and the time would also be required.

For some French city names used during the French revolution we have added the alternate names with a pseudo language code that includes the year of it's use.

Best

Marc

The daylight saving time rules are rather complex and not topic of the GeoNames project. Most applications and programming environments use the "tz database":
http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm
In java for instance this information is already included in the standard edition, try to find how to access the tz database from your favourite programming environment.

Marc

Dmitry has translated the METAR codes into Russian.

clouds.null = n/a
clouds.SKC = ясно
clouds.CLR = ясно
clouds.FEW = легкая облачность
clouds.SCT = рассеянные облака
clouds.BKN = разорванная облачность
clouds.OVC = облачно
clouds.VV = вертикальная видимость

condition.null=n/a
condition.DZ=небольшой дождь
condition.RA=дождь
condition.SN=снег
condition.SG=снежные иглы
condition.IC=ледяные кристаллы
condition.PL=ледяные зерна
condition.GR=град
condition.GS=слабый град/снежные зерна
condition.UP=неизвестные осадки
condition.BR=дымка
condition.FG=туман
condition.FU=дым
condition.VA=вулканический пепел
condition.SA=песок
condition.HZ=мгла
condition.PY=водяная пыль
condition.DU=пыль
condition.SQ=шквал
condition.SS=песчаная буря
condition.DS=пыльная буря
condition.PO=пыльные/песчаные вихри
condition.FC=воронка из облаков
condition.+FC=торнадо

condition.-=слабый
condition.+=сильный
condition.VC=около:

condition.MI=мелкий
condition.BC=лоскуты
condition.SH=ливни
condition.PR=частичный
condition.TS=гроза
condition.BL=ветрено
condition.DR=заносы
condition.FZ=обледенение

Improving the METAR parser or finding another one is on the todo list:
http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/25.page

Would you like to help out?

Marc

What prevents you from helping to add missing data?
http://www.geonames.org/manual.html

Marc

Thanks for sharing this tip with us.

Marc

I only see iMob 1.0 calls in the log files, no 1.1 calls.

Marc

Please feel free to correct errors. The automatic country detection is just a default value that you can easily change.

Marc

If it is so easy why don' t you do it?

Marc

I can confirm that both ws5.geonames.org and ws.geonames.org are degrading right now and the traffic by the iMob application is increasing steadily. It seems the kids in the US are getting up now and many of them have not yet upgraded to the newest release without the call to GeoNames. Let's hope they do it soon.

Marc

The call to geonames has been removed from the iMob application and we have brought back the domain ws.geonames.org.

Sorry for all the troubles.

Marc

The imob developers have confirmed that the service will be removed from the new version that is waiting for approval by apple. I assume they mean version 1.02, but I have not yet got a confirmation.

Dario: yes it is possible to get a separate subdomain for the commercial web services.

Best

Marc

Thanks Dmitry. I have set Moskovskaya Oblast’ back to 47:

http://www.geonames.org/524925/moskovskaya-oblast.html

Cheers

Marc

Guy Mugrabi and Igal Greenberg have translated the METAR condition codes into Hebrew.

clouds.null = n/a
clouds.SKC = שמיים צלולים
clouds.CLR = שמיים צלולים
clouds.FEW = מעט עננים
clouds.SCT = עננים פזורים
clouds.BKN = שברי עננים
clouds.OVC = מעונן
clouds.VV = ראות

condition.null=n/a
condition.DZ=טפטוף
condition.RA=גשם
condition.SN=שלג
condition.SG=גרגירי שלג
condition.IC=גבישי קרח
condition.PL=טסיות קרח
condition.GR=ברד
condition.GS=ברד קטן/טסיות שלג
condition.UP=משקע לא ידוע
condition.BR=ערפל רטוב
condition.FG=ערפל
condition.FU=עשן
condition.VA=אפר וולקני
condition.SA=חול
condition.HZ=אובך
condition.PY=רסס
condition.DU=סופת אבק
condition.SQ=סערה פתאומית
condition.SS=סופת חול
condition.DS=סופת אבק
condition.PO=סחרחרות אבק
condition.FC=ענני ארובה
condition.+FC=עמוד מים/טורנדו

condition.-=חלש
condition.+=חזק
condition.VC=באיזור

condition.MI=רדוד
condition.BC=חלקות
condition.SH=גשמים
condition.PR=חלקי
condition.TS=סופת רעמים
condition.BL=נושבת
condition.DR=נסחף
condition.FZ=קופא

Thanks, I have changed it.
I thought we had changed it a long time ago. At least Chennai was changed.

Best

Marc

Another iphone application using the commercial services have realized that they were having a call to the ws.geonames.org domain in their code and disabling the domain stopped their application. As a quick and dirty stopgap solution we have had to point the domain to any server for a couple of hours. The server causing the troubles was the best solution without causing damage to someone not involved.
Sorry about all this confusion.

Marc

The first I have tried was to block the requests with the user agent, but this did not make a difference. There were simply too many requests.
Don't forget the server is usually very busy answering valid requests and has not enough spare power for hundreds or thousands of additional requests per second, even if most of them should just be rejected.

Marc

Hi Elena

A service that filters the towns on the server side is not yet available. To a certain degree you could get a list of n towns and filter out the largest yourself. (this will only work for a limited radius)

Best

Marc

Hi Kurush

The geoname tables are mainly using fips codes whereas the postal code tables are using iso codes. The idea is to use iso codes in both tables.
I have started to map them. The information available so far is on the country admin div page:
http://www.geonames.org/US/administrative-division-united-states.html

Marc