NE Suggestions ?

jArgHA

Lads,
I'm doing a 3rd yr Comp Software project on an online flight booking system. An excellent example is implemented at:
http://www.virgin-atlantic.com
However, I've to come up with something NOVEL, something NOT SEEN B4, and I'm not talking about a free pizza when you book your flight online. For example I could implement an IP checker, after which the code chooses your nearest airport based on where you connect from (your IP). Thing is I don't think an IP address has the information on where a computer is geographically, only information on its network and node. And that was a lame idea.... If anyone has some useful idea(s) I would be very grateful.

Slán,
jAH

[This message has been edited by jArgHA (edited 11-04-2000).]

SantaHoe

I'd recon most ppl already know where their nearest airport is anyway...

But maybe a Cookie system of some sort where anyone who books a ticket online can return to their personalised page that'll automaticly show the status of their flight, delayed, postponed, any bonuses like frequent flyer points...blah blah... I dunno, but I think a cookie system would be usefull.

Or some links to usefull resources in that area (the destination), like B&B's, attractions... although indexing that much data would take years unless you use some sort of search engine.

How many other ppl have booked for the same flight... dunno, someone might find it usefull. But that sounds a bit hard to do.

That's all I can realy think of for now.
My head hurts...

jArgHA

Cheers Santa,
You might be onto something there with the Coookies Idea. Any other suggestions ?

SantaHoe

Well I haven't a clue what's already been done... But if I bought a ticket online, I'm pretty sure I'd like to know how long the flight would take, and other misc info like that.

I think it's a great idea trying to narrow down their location via IP, but I suppose you could just ask them to indicate their state/county from a drop-down list...
Especialy if you made it look like a standard part of the order form.
And have them wondering - "how the hell did they know that?!"

Where is the form/system aimed at? Europe-wide, the US or worldwide?

I think a page that gathers CC info should have a nice message at the bottom, "For security reasons - You'r IP has been logged as xxx.xx.xxx.xx"
Then after submit, goto a page with all the - "Thankyou for blah blah, Mr.xxxx"
"Your flight to (location)xxxxx has been booked for (date)xxxx"
"

---

"
"Total flight time xxxx"
"Estimated time of arrival: xxxxx"
"Carrier: xxxxx"
"your nearest airport: xxxx"
"Other Usefull resources: xxxx|xxxx|xxxx"

You could make the cookies readable to the main homepage that would welcome them, ask for feedback on your flight to xxxxx.
But ofcourse the frequency of visits to the site would probably be quite low, I'd say from between once a year to maybe once per month if the customer is making business flights. In which case you'd need to set the cookies to expire in about a year.


Just have a look at what's possible then tink about weather it's usefull.

Right, I've been ranting for a while now, so I'll finish up.
But let us know how you get on.

Hobbes

Some companies sometimes don't look for the cheapest fair. Think it's called "Lowest Logical Fair". Might want to add that.

Basically you have to stop over in at least 1 airport and not fly during peak periods.

Another thing to do is if your not the ticket seller you can get it to shopbot for the cheapest fair from various sites, also prehaps scan ticket bid sites (eg. http://www.skyauction.com ).

Beyond that, the usual. List a few prices, preferred carrier, link to airport/plane information (eg. type of plane, airport maps, etc), % on time. Store the users personal information (eg. Vegatarian? non-smoker).

As a general rule you shouldn't keep any personal information in a cookie. Your going to have to put it all server side.

I use online ticket systems all the time (very different here. Planes are more or less buses). The main thing which I would recommend is a shopbot.

Kali

problem: what if someone wants to book an internal flight in another country?
e.g. someone from london logs onto your site to book a flight from shannon to knock or something **** like that.
id reccomend PHP if you are using a cookie based session system, combined with phplib.

MiCr0

jArgHA on line 44 remove the -->
and stick it back up on the spec line..
was it line 8?

looks good btw

Karla

Wouldn't it be possible to get the english translation of the IP address and deduce an approximate location from there?

If you were doing just an Irish one it shouldn't be impossible right?

For instance take a look at http://web.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ Randals homepage and go down to the Personal Counter paragraph. You'll see the hostnames of the last five visitors.
Mine is actually empty at the moment which is pretty strange

Still though, you could map a list of hostnames or regexes that match them onto a list of places and that way you should be able to tell where someone is from.

Best to just ask them though

Hobbes

At a guess they pick up the code in the ip address. Eg. .com = US Commercial, .ie = Ireland.

jArgHA

Thanx a mill for all the help. I'll try to implement some of those ideas, dunno about Shopbot, writing code to scan another site could be very tricky.
Cheers,
jAH

See What I've Done So Far
http://www.csn.ul.ie/~odin

PS Does anyone know how XOOM get the information on the countries it's visitors are coming from seen in an example at:
http://counter.xoom.com/exampleofstats.html


[This message has been edited by jArgHA (edited 12-04-2000).]

regi

Its not really reliable though, is it? Eircom.net/Oceanfree.net etc...

MiCr0

if u where fealing very smart
you could do a traceroute on the ip and then take the output and do a parse though it and take out the last country if available.

mewso

Yeah Traceroute proggies can be quite precise about location:-
http://www.visualroute.com/demo.html

for example. There's also an alternative to traceroute with source here:-
ftp://ftp.bitwizard.nl/mtr/

M

[This message has been edited by musician (edited 13-04-2000).]

jArgHA

Kerria,
I am indeed 3rd yr Comp Eng, and am in pain.
Update : The Flight Booking System Idea Has Been Scrapped ! Must have new idea by tomorrow morning ! Aaarghhh can't come up with anything new and original, apparently that was one of the requirements which I forgot about. Evrything good's been done already.....

jAH

PS Kerria where u studying Comp Eng ?

Hobbes

Shopbot. Like http://www.bottomdollar.com/

It's the way of the future man.

Rather then a fixed shopbot make it so you can configure it to whatever you want. Eg. give list of sites to shop off, items to cover, site http parser configuration proggy.

Kerria

jArgHA
U 3rd year Comp Eng by any chance?
If so I feel your pain!

Kerria

I'm in UL.
As I believe you are too. Feilim right?
See if you can find out who I am !!
Ooooh the intrigue.

Hobbes

Brian Mc Grath? Or was someone else supposed to guess?

Kali

do a link validator and repairer.
i done it for my 3rd yr project
just a helluva lot of regexps and http calls.

it should parse a webpage and then for every link on that page check if it is correct or broken and if broken attempt to fix it using a repair algorithm of your own construction
(examiners like to hear the word algorithm)

Kerria

Ah Hobbes.
Damn profile. Forgot it had my real email addy.

jArgHA

Thanks for solving that mystery Hobbes,
Gone back to flight booking system, but our lecturer says do the GUI on paper. Wuhooo, off to buy some markers...

WhiteWashMan

thank god i dont understand a word of all that geeky coding stuff

i feel all dirty after reading all that....

Hobbes

Originally posted by Kerria:
Ah Hobbes.
Damn profile. Forgot it had my real email addy.

It might do, but I can't see it. I'm only a board moderator, not admin (and not a mod for this board).

Can you guess how I found out?

MiCr0

jArgHA
what did u go for in the end?

jArgHA

Flight Information System
Picks user's nearest airport by tracerouting IP address. Chooses this airport by deafult.
Gives user information on all airlines flying from a particular airport to a destination airport. Also gives user information on destination - buses, taxis, subway, and some basic stuff on the city.
Booking is not implemented at all, just links to the various airlines booking pages.

Slán,
jAH