Google API on Lin's Blog

Using ClientLogin to Get Access to a Google Account

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:49:46 +0000

Google offers many APIs that make it easy for you to access its services. For example, the Google Contacts API requires you to get permission before you can use it. In this post, I’ll cover ClientLogin, which I personally think is the simplest way to get permission. It works in a simple way: you send your account name and password to Google over http, and Google sends back a string of data that includes an authorization token. With that token, you can access Google’s various services (such as Contacts, Calendar, Notebook, and so on).

[Google API] Generating QR Codes with the Google Chart API, with PHP Example Code

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:25:20 +0000

In this post, I’ll show you how to make QR codes with the Google Chart API. A QR code is the two-dimensional barcode that’s very popular right now. Generating a 2D barcode used to be a hassle, but with the Google Chart API, you can quickly generate a QR code from just a URL. I originally planned to write a post dedicated to the Google Chart API, but I decided to split it up instead~ (I also happened to come across the site Shadow’s Tech Database, which introduces it, and I couldn’t resist writing about it~)

Google Weather API - Get a Full Week of Weather Data

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:48:56 +0000

Google Weather API is something I discovered today. I wanted to add a weather lookup feature to the Plurk bot I've been developing recently, so I searched online for ways to get weather data. My original plan was to read the Central Weather Bureau's web pages and parse the data there. But then I found that both Google and Yahoo offer weather APIs. I preferred the Google Weather API, because it returns XML, which is easier to parse. Yahoo, on the other hand, returns HTML... Also, the Google Weather API lets you specify a city name directly. For example, if I want the weather for Taipei City, I just pass "Taipei" to the API. Yahoo's weather API isn't that simple, though. You have to enter a city code, which means I'd need to look up the code for the city I want before I could use Yahoo's API.