Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with lookup

How can I quickly match one of 150 million names to a code?

bottlebrushtree — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:10:55 -0800

I have up to 150 million product names, I need to match each of them to 1 or more codes. How can I do this very quickly and with little infrastructure requirements? Basically, up to 100,000 names will be checked against the master list of 150 million to see if they are on that specific list (they may not be). If they are on that list, the system will return one or more codes back. While I'm sure I can use a database for this activity, I'd love to hear other suggestions for alternatives such as a specific disk backed HashMap or other similar technology. A Java based or solution with Java bindings would be preferred. The system could possible dedicate up to 1GB of Ram in a transient fashion to this lookup (though much less would be preferred).

The names and mappings to code are relatively static, changing once a month at their maximum. I can pre-generate a digested format if that is required for the library to work.

A name is a string up to 255 characters, a code is a Java Int.

This would need to run on a single system running 64 bit Java JDK 1.5.0 and I'd rather that the solution use in process communication instead of network communication.

A solution using a single digested custom data file and a single Java jar library would be very nice.

Thank in advance.

Looking for good reverse lookup databases by street/mailing address?

gudrun — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:01:56 -0800

Are there any reputable paid reverse lookup services if you only have a street/mailing address? I am trying to get an associated name of the resident of an address, and preferably also a phone number, but I have come up dry on the free online sites. The address is in the U.S. and there is a very good reason. The full and sad background is that UPS screwed up and pulled an old address out of their database for my husband's brother. I screwed up (bad case of the flu is my excuse) by not noticing that till the Christmas package was already delivered to the incorrect address (UPS tracking says they left it by the door Jan 2, 2009).

Now the package is (presumably) at an address in Santa Cruz, California (unless it got stolen when UPS left it outside), but I don't know who currently lives there, I just have the address, so I have not been able to contact them to ask if they have the package. I live in Virginia so I can't just go and knock on the door and ask about this package (and brother-in-law won't try due to the embarrassment factor). I put in a delivery pickup request with UPS, so UPS has tried to go to the house and pick up the package to redeliver to the correct address, but I presume the residents work or are at school during the day, as no one is home when UPS stops by, so UPS has been unable to get the package, or even confirm whether or not these people actually have it.

If all else fails, I am going to send a letter to that address through the mail, and then if I get no response to that I will have to assume the package is lost or stolen (or the people there are enjoying my brother-in-law's presents ... sigh) and I will have to start replacing the gifts at my own expense.

Listing .org domains

chexov — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:37:25 -0800

Is there a way to find organisations that have registered an .org domain within certain geographical boundary (country, region, town)?

Logo/Symbol Lookup

TuxHeDoh — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:31:31 -0800

A while ago, years, i seem to recall a webpage that would allow you to search for the meaning of particular graphic symbols or logos. There are at least 2 that I'd like to try to find out what they mean. One is on a bumper sticker and it looks like an A with a V superimposed over it, in a circle. This is in Cincinnati area. The other is crudely reproduced from memory here. The more I look at it, it looks like a religious symbol. 2 questions: 1. What are these Symbols? 2. Is there a site that would allow me to identify other random symbols/iconography on my own?

How to run a query in Excel 2007?

desjardins — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:20:39 -0800

How do I group values by a variable in Excel 2007? Essentially, I want to run a query. I have a table with columns like city, state, population, average income, average house price. This table is constantly being updated and amended, with the new info tacked on at the end. So for example, I might have (all numbers completely pulled out of my ass):

Milwaukee, WI, 600000, 40000, 150000
Bozeman, MT, 30000, 25000, 100000
Chicago, IL, 2000000, 60000, 200000
Madison, WI, 100000, 50000, 125000
Springfield, IL, 100000, 40000, 100000

I need to group the cities by state and calculate stuff like total population, average income and house price by state. So I want to end up with

WI, 700000, 45000, 137500
IL, 2100000, 50000, 150000

I'm familiar with Access but I can't use that for this project because the end user only has access to Excel (2007). I understand SQL (mostly), but I don't know if it can be used in Excel and if it can, I don't know where to put it. I don't know any other code well enough. Please, if you have some magic line of code that will work, tell me exactly where to put it, because I won't know.

How do I find the nearest large city from an IP address?

Maia — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:55:35 -0800

Any reputable and inexpensive services that provide mapping from an IP address to the nearest large city? I need to do this in bulk, so I can't just look up the location from one IP address and figure out the nearest big city. Any suggestions on sites that provide this service?

How can I access public records?

mcarthey — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 06:50:25 -0800

When I'm looking for information on an old friend or doing a reverse phone lookup, it seems that the only places that have the information are sites like Intelius or US Search. Of course, we have to pay for the 'public records'. I'd like to know if it's possible to access these public records in another way without paying for them? It seems logical, but I haven't found an easy way to locate the information. Thanks!

Excel help.

brent — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:12:18 -0800

Excel question: I'm looking to pull a months and years worth of spreadsheet information to a summary report. The days work is saved as reportxxxxxx (month/day/year) Rather than opening all files, I would like excel to look up the information on the summary and extract a time or comment column from the day's reportxxxxxx. All reports are stored in a common folder but some are missing. At some points during the past two years, new information has been added and some deleted, making a specific cell lookup pulling incorrect information. Suggestions welcome.

Where to lookup symtoms of illness?

captainzero — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 08:57:39 -0800

What is the best place to lookup up symptoms of illness? I have a friend that needs to try to figure out what is wrong and doctors aren't helping.

How do I discover all of the domain names registered to a given party?

NinjaPirate — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 04:51:01 -0800

How do I discover all of the domain names registered to a given party? Not "who owns this domain?" but "what domains does this party own?" Recently the MD of our company discovered that a domain name very closely related to our own was registered by a direct competitor and pointed at their site. What I'd like to know is whether there is a method of finding out what other underhanded domains have been registered by this competitor.
The MD suspects very strongly that this is not be the only misleading domain registered by the specific competition and I would like to save some legwork checking a couple of hundred variations.

Online tools, shell scripts, code snippets - do you have a solution?

How can one find out information about a person based on their address and license plate number?

gokart4xmas — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 20:03:53 -0800

A friend needs some help finding out more information on someone based on their address and license plate number. I know there are a lot of sites out there that claim to sell such info, but are any of them legit? Any suggestions on where to find this info for free? I remember from a similar previous question that this information is getting harder to come by due to some changes in the law. Also, for you law students out there, I have full Westlaw access, and there seems to be a db for looking up DMV info, but it asks you to affirm that you're using it for approved ends. Have any of you ever used this db?

Besides their location, can you find anything else about a person based on their IP address?

adrober — Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:17:50 -0800

Besides their location, can you find anything else about a person based on their IP address? [Like, for example, if you suspect a friend of joke spamming your website and you want to prove it's them?]