Norfolk News

Help

Answers to some common questions...

What is this thing?

It's an online local newspaper for any major town or city in the world - Norfolk, United States in this case.

How do I find my town's paper?

Simply type the name of your town or city into the search box, or use the map on the left to locate yourself. Click on a location on the map to zoom in and re-centre it, or use the + and - buttons to zoom in and out.

Will it remember my location if I come back?

Yes, the site sets a cookie on your browser which stores your longitude and latitude. No other information is stored.

Why did you do it?

I was bored. I had a lot of coastline data sat on my hard drive that I wanted to do something with, so I wrote a little clickable world map in PHP, and it grew out of that.

Where does the data come from?

The data and content on this site come from a number of sources. These include:

Local Content
Google
Moreover.com
BBC Travel
Yahoo
Feedster
Amazon.com

Weather Data
NOAA.gov
Weatherpixie.com

Geographic Data
NOAA.gov
USGS.gov
CIA.gov

Did you write this all yourself?

In the main, yes, however parts of the back-end code are based on:

NetGeo
PHP Weather
NuSoap
PIA - PHP Interface To Amazon
SOAP_Google

How many cities / pages are there on this site?

There are currently 3217 towns & cities in the database, which means there's about 32170 unique pages in total.

My newspaper is showing some very weird articles and links. What's wrong?

If you live in a place with a common name, or very obscure name, the system may have trouble finding suitable news items to serve. I'm working on improving the intelligence of the content gathering all the time though.

My town isn't on the map. Can you make me a newspaper?

If you live in a large town that isn't listed, I may be able to add it to the database if you can provide me with the name, precise longitude & latitude, population and country information.

Why is it so slow?

The site retrieves content from a wide range of sources. We do not have all the content stored in a huge local database. When you first request a particular 'newspaper', several requests are sent out to various other sites for the information. Once we have that information, however, it is cached locally. If you reload the page, it should appear much quicker.

Can I advertise on the site?

Yes, you can. Click here to read about geographically targeted advertising options.

Can I link to you or put my local headlines on my own web site?

Yes, you can. See our linking page to find out how.

I've got a really cool idea on how you can improve this. Will you do it?

Possibly. Mail me and let me know your idea.

This is really good, can I help out with it?

The best way to help with the site would be to help me pay my rent! If you like this site and use it regularly, then you can donate something via PayPal or get me something useful from my Amazon Wishlist.

Cool, thanks! So how do I contact you?

Email me at dom@dynamite.co.uk. However, please note that news-local.net is NOT a newspaper publisher and does not publish stories or press releases or know how to contact your long lost aunt. I cannot answer specific local queries.