A cool Unit converter.

[Grewal]

Checkout this cool unit converter gadget with auto complete text box
that I just submitted to Google. It understands input as mathematical
expression involving any combination of units (i.e. m/s^2 to km/hour^2
etc.) so virtually any custom unit conversion can be done in a user
friendly text box.

I will appreciate any feedback from the community.


Gadget location on Google:
http://www.google.com/ig/add?module.../DynamicUnitConvertor/Gadget/GadgetGoogle.xml



Gadget location on my website is:
http://www.mycoolaids.com/Module/UnitConv/DynamicUnitConvertor/DynamicUnitConverter.aspx


and
http://www.mycoolaids.com/Module/UnitConv/SimpleUC/SimpleUC.aspx


The web site is still in kind of developing mode. I want to create a
users supported website where units and the units related information
can be added/deleted/edited by authorized users. As you would see, I
have tried to tie any user input back to the given unit information
page where more reference information (Wikipedia etc) can be found.
(Note: not all the unit information pages have been populated with
reference information yet!)

 

[GregS]

Checkout this cool unit converter gadget with auto complete text box
that I just submitted to Google. It understands input as mathematical
expression involving any combination of units (i.e. m/s^2 to km/hour^2
etc.) so virtually any custom unit conversion can be done in a user
friendly text box.

I will appreciate any feedback from the community.


Gadget location on Google:
http://www.google.com/ig/add?moduleurl=http://www.myunitconverter.com/Module/Un
itConv/DynamicUnitConvertor/Gadget/GadgetGoogle.xml



Gadget location on my website is:
http://www.mycoolaids.com/Module/UnitConv/DynamicUnitConvertor/DynamicUnitConve
rter.aspx


and
http://www.mycoolaids.com/Module/UnitConv/SimpleUC/SimpleUC.aspx

Funny, when I hear Unit, I think of the Unit program I was using in DOS many
years ago. This was distributed by Minco.

greg

 

[Jim Land]

Checkout this cool unit converter gadget with auto complete text box
that I just submitted to Google. It understands input as mathematical
expression involving any combination of units (i.e. m/s^2 to km/hour^2
etc.) so virtually any custom unit conversion can be done in a user
friendly text box.

I will appreciate any feedback from the community.

http://www.mycoolaids.com/Module/UnitConv/DynamicUnitConvertor/DynamicU

nitConverter.aspx

A few suggestions for user-friendliness:
1. allow plural of unit, e.g., "liter" or "liters"
2. allow variations of unit, e.g., "cubic centimeters", "cc", "ml", in
addition to "cm^3"
2. format answer numbers with commas, e.g., 1,000,000 instead of 1000000

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Checkout this cool unit converter gadget with auto complete text box
that I just submitted to Google. It understands input as mathematical
expression involving any combination of units (i.e. m/s^2 to km/hour^2
etc.) so virtually any custom unit conversion can be done in a user
friendly text box.

Type the following expressions into your Google search box:

1 gallon to litres
1 imperial gallon to litres
1 imperial gallon to gallon
1 cubits to hands
1 usd in pound sterling
1 usd in gbp
1 us dollar in british pounds
1 usd per gallon in euro per litre
furlong per fortnight in cm/minute
parsecs per year in kilometres/microsecond
pound furlongs per fortnight squared in piconewtons
speed of light in feet per nanosecond
(speed of light)/(speed of sound)
half a litre in teaspoons
kilowatt second in btu
gram times (speed of light squared) in gigawatt days

- Franc Zabkar

 

[t.hoehler]

Type the following expressions into your Google search box:

1 gallon to litres
1 imperial gallon to litres
1 imperial gallon to gallon
1 cubits to hands
1 usd in pound sterling
1 usd in gbp
1 us dollar in british pounds
1 usd per gallon in euro per litre
furlong per fortnight in cm/minute
parsecs per year in kilometres/microsecond
pound furlongs per fortnight squared in piconewtons
speed of light in feet per nanosecond
(speed of light)/(speed of sound)
half a litre in teaspoons
kilowatt second in btu
gram times (speed of light squared) in gigawatt days

- Franc Zabkar

LOL! I needed a good laugh!
Regards,
Tom

 

[Grewal]

On 14 Feb 2007 07:58:57 -0800, "Grewal" <[email protected]>
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Type the following expressions into your Google search box:

1 gallon to litres
1 imperial gallon to litres
1 imperial gallon to gallon
1 cubits to hands
1 usd in pound sterling
1 usd in gbp
1 us dollar in british pounds
1 usd per gallon in euro per litre
furlong per fortnight in cm/minute
parsecs per year in kilometres/microsecond
pound furlongs per fortnight squared in piconewtons
speed of light in feet per nanosecond
(speed of light)/(speed of sound)
half a litre in teaspoons
kilowatt second in btu
gram times (speed of light squared) in gigawatt days

- Franc Zabkar

Trust me, a lot many people other then you know that Google search box
can be used as a unit converter. In addition, there are many other
online tools available for the internet too. You appear to be a smart
person who knows what they have put in for conversion and understands
the output. Many like me, often get confused thinking if the
conversion was infect what I intended to do; for example
- Was conversion done using pound as weight or pound as a mass?
- Did I really mean to use Canadian Gallon or U.K Gallon or imperial
one, Btu international or Btu mean etc.?
This is a small attempt to address these types of issues. Any
conversion that you makes through this tool, provides you the
definition of the unit being converted down to base SI units (See
Conversion Type: ) and possibly a link to the reference information
regarding the unit too! On the back end, I also want to create/
maintain a database of units that can act as a good source of
reference for the users. Any body who wants to contribute, can help
populating the database!

If the Google search box is sufficient to you, Good for you! I hope
you made these comments after checking out the gadget!

Grewal

 

[Grewal]

"Grewal" <[email protected]> wrote innews:[email protected]:

A few suggestions for user-friendliness:
1. allow plural of unit, e.g., "liter" or "liters"
2. allow variations of unit, e.g., "cubic centimeters", "cc", "ml", in
addition to "cm^3"
2. format answer numbers with commas, e.g., 1,000,000 instead of 1000000

Thanks for the input.

1. Usually, the recommendation is not to use plurals (see rule # 6
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html) . For certain common
units like liter, I will add this.
2. I will also add the other variations as long as it does not cause
conflicts in the naming (Example min for minute Or for micro inch
etc.)
3. That is easy. I will get it done this weekend!

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Trust me, a lot many people other then you know that Google search box
can be used as a unit converter.

IME this Google feature is relatively unknown.

As for your conversion utility, my very first observation is that it
is US-centric.

Try the following:

30 metre to ft
1 litre to pints

The following produce syntax errors:

1 tonne to pounds
1 tonne in pounds

These also produce errors:

1 btu to kwh
1 knot to mph

With respect, I think your converter has a long way to go before it
can even come close to the utility of Google's.

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Grewal]

As for your conversion utility, my very first observation is that it

is US-centric.

Thanks for your criticism, you sure brought up some good points. Even
though I included English/imperial units in the program but I sure
forgot to consider the different spellings used (So far I found only
two, litre & metre!).

As I mentioned in the beginning of this thread, the website is still
in the developing mode. All I have done so far is to create a
mechanism by which unit addition/deletion or editing can be done
easily without doing any re-coding under the hood. Then I picked
bunch of most commonly used units (including English) and put it on
the web to see the response from the community. The idea behind this
is that If I can a good number of users hooked up, the unit database
will be populated itself to become a more comprehensive resource.

Units can be added here http://www.mycoolaids.com/Module/UnitConv/UnitSubmission/SubmitUnit.aspx

Regarding your queries below, most of them didn't work as I didn't
include the unit name plurals it (A user earlier in the thread has
already suggested it). So I updated the program to understand the
plurals for commonly used units (I don't want all the unit plurals to
be included as they reduce the effectiveness of auto complete
feature.)

So all of following are now accepted by the program as good inputs.

30 metre to ft
1 litre to pints
tonne to pounds
1 knot to mph

Following require some changes (auto complete feature helps rectifying
it)
1 tonne in pounds => use " to " instead of " in " as I have
reserved " in " as unit name for inch. This is just a syntax
preference that I picked.

1 btu to kwh => use kWh instead. (W is the SI symbol for watt )

With respect, I think your converter has a long way to go before it
can even come close to the utility of Google's.

I don't disagree with this! I don't put this up against Google (I
would be daydreaming otherwise) that is jack of all trade. Google
search box is a Calculator, currency converter, unit converter,
Permutation /combination solver ......... .and what not!

mine is just a simple converter created with an approach to simplify
the conversion by instantly providing a reference to unit definition
being used in conversion.

Even queries that you provided above contain at least two units with
more then one definition. You may know what you intended to solve but
many out there don't! Those folks are what I am looking for as user
base for this gadget.

pint >> US dry pint, US liquid pint or Imperial pint ;
pound >> pound troy or apothecary, or pound avoirdupois;

Grewal.