Zext

One of my recent PHP projects had the requirement to filter out inappropriate language from user submitted content. After thinking about the problem briefly, I decided that I didn’t want to be writing the filter myself but, rather, find a third party service that could filter my text for me. By doing this, I eliminated the need to create and maintain a bad-word list, as well as saved the CPU cycles required to actually preform the search-and-replacement (Although, arguably, remote API calls are more expensive anyways).

Translink is the local public transit provider for beautiful Vancouver, Canada. The system consists of Buses, Boats and Trains. Translink released an Iphone app some time ago that allows the lookup of bus information. Michael Weisman was kind enough to write about the “hidden” api that is used by the Iphone app to preform AJAX calls.

The British Columbia Lottery Corporation has an unpublished API that they use to pull data down for the flash application on their home page. The Zext PHP API exposes functionality to query the most resent winning numbers from the BCLC website, as well as retrieve current jackpot estimates for the main lotteries in this province.