Global post code/city/state/province/country selection

Lossed wrote:
> Oh, and further to that, what's the best free way to gleam the users
> location from their IP addy? GeoLocator.cfc? Other? I'm thinking that
> would be a good starting point when the user first encounters the
> address form; have it automagically select guestimate country/state/city.

geoLocator won't get you below country level (and while some other systems do,
the accuracy drops off pretty dramatically). it's main purpose (in the cf world
anyway) is to get you locale. btw the geoLocator db is getting some new data soon.

you also might have a look at the maxmind system, i've never used it but i think
some adobe folks have. stay away from the db technique though.

Oh, and further to that, what's the best free way to gleam the users
location from their IP addy? GeoLocator.cfc? Other? I'm thinking that
would be a good starting point when the user first encounters the
address form; have it automagically select guestimate country/state/city.

Lossed wrote:
> Is there a best-practise approach for a global application needing to
> let users input their addresses?
>
> Are there any free MySQL DB's that have this info available?
> I'm thinking of maybe three ways to go about this and maybe there are
> more but I just don't know what's going to result in the most accurate
> data and easiest mechanism for users to input their address info.
>
> 1: AJAX calls populating relevant selects onChange
> 2: Non-JS clients doing a round trip to the server and back instead
> (possibly multiple times if need be)
> 3: If there is no way to get a free DB set up for both steps 1 and 2 to
> reference, is there a free webservice instead (although this could be
> slow/unreliable unless someone knows of an outstanding service they
> could recommend).
>
> Perhaps there are better ways?
>
> Hopefully many developers have come across this before and settled on
> the best way to achieve this and are willing to share their experiences
> and advice.
>
> Thanks.