CEO for EnGraph software
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Yahoo Live launched last night. It is basically a social network of webcams. They talk more about it on their blog. Once I saw it on digg this morning, I configured my "live" in about 20 seconds. It automatically pickup my webcam and started broadcasting. My page is here, I doubt I'll keep it up, but it's fun to play with and it fits perfectly with my exhibitionism :) They allow you embed your webcam, so I'm going to try that here: Technorati tags: Yahoo Live, Where's Tim ......
I finally fixed the Get History issue that hasn't been working on Where's Tim for a while now. Apparently, the Google Maps API doesn't like it when you call removeOverlay with an uninitialized parameter. http://timhibbard.com/where... Technorati tags: Where's Tim, Google Maps API, removeOverlay ......
Kyle Archer is headed to New Jersey today to swoon our future clients at the COST Expo 2007 tradeshow. He took our Where's Tim phone, so you can view his current GPS location on Google Maps in real time (updates automatically every 15 seconds). You can view his location here. Or download the Where's Tim task tray alerter. It's ClickOnce, so it's double cool. Bring home the bacon, Kyle! Technorati tags: Kyle Archer, EnGraph, New Jersey, Where's Tim, GPS, Google Maps, COST Expo ......
I just made it to Philly (despite running late this morning and checking in 32 minutes before my flight) and met up with Kyle. He has been on a EnGraph crusade as of late, visiting six clients in the last two weeks. He writes more about it on his blog. We are visiting a client in Salem, NJ this week, adding new GPS units to their system and troubleshooting some existing units. Matt Strausz is joining us on Tuesday to help with the installation. It should be a good week. I'm looking forward to some ......
Dru was kind enough to tag me on how I could be a better developer. I think that in addition to being a better developer, I also need to deliver better applications. We all have different reasons for our geeky ways, and mine is to create applications that save people time. So here is my list: Start giving more talks - I really enjoy giving my talks on Ajax.net and Real time GPS implications, but I'm not an expert on AJAX and most people find my opinions on GPS to be a bit "abrasive". I need to isolate ......
The Google Maps API blog talks about adding driving directions to their API. This is something that I am excited about adding to Where's Tim. I've had directions to me on my real time GPS site for a while (see the post here), but I've always just shelled out a url to maps.google.com. Now I can retain the users of that feature on my site and not have to send them away (hoping that they will come back). This is also big for the mashup "industry" as well. Visually understanding where an object resides ......
I've finally made it! Google Suggest will recommend "Tim Hibbard" after typing "tim hib" and will recommend "Where's Tim Hibbard" after typing "wheres ti". :) Technorati tags: Google Suggest, Narcissistic ......
I've thought about posting this for a while now and responses to my architecture post by Dave and Dru have got me thinking about it again. I avoid open source frameworks or libraries in our production desktop applications. I don't have a problem with third party when it comes to web applications or internal apps. I use AjaxPro and skmRSS on Where's Tim and my home site. I use Indy.Sockets all the time in our internal apps. Where's Tim is just for fun though and if it goes down, it's not that big ......
As a display of how non-creative I am, I redesigned timhibbard.com this weekend. The new master page concept with ASP .NET 2.0 is really cool. Using a master page, I linked the Where's Tim API to show data from Where's Tim on the top of each page. Using AjaxPro and a little JavaScript, it updates every 15 seconds. Other than that, it's pretty boring :) Technorati tags: ASP .NET, C#, timhibbard.com, Where's Tim, Web design, AjaxPro ......
The guys over at NavXS have just released a new Windows Mobile client for their social geocoding network. Feel free to add me as a friend after you download the software. My user ID is tim@timhibbard.com and it is directly tied to data from Where's Tim. Technorati tags: NavXS, Social Geocoding, Where's Tim ......
Cursor on Target (CoT) is an effort by military and governmental branches, FFRDCs (federally funded research and development corporations) and private companies to standardize an electronic portable data format to define location based data. I am the biggest geo-geek that I know, so obviously I was very interested when they contacted me about implementing their format into Where's Tim. These guys have done a great job of making a simple schema (12 required fields) that is easy to implement. I blogged ......
Last night, I set up Matt Strausz of SmartStart up with Live Writer and Flickr4Writer. He has already started using it on his latest post about their Ignition Interlock device. Disclaimer - I built Matt's site a couple years ago (including the very cool "Find a shop" Google Map app) in exchange for links to Where's Tim, random car repairs and a case of beer :) Technorati tags: Matt Strausz, SmartStart of Kansas, Live Writer, Ignition Interlock ......
Where's Tim hasn't been getting much attention the last couple of months. A little bit here and there, but nothing like the Digg days of last summer. I've got several requests for information the last week or so though. Joab Jackson (who did a National Geographic story last October) is working on an article. Ronan Fitzgerald (who did an article in The Guardian) has been emailing me about the Social Geocoding studs NavXS. Davey Winder is also working on a mashup article. I'll post the links to these ......
The last year in the Pendleton & Sutton building has been good for EnGraph. It is our first office and I remember when we just moved in. However, we've added new members to the company (and are still looking for more), and an office in Kansas City just makes sense because all the developers but me live in the KC area. We just signed for a place on Strang Line Rd that used to be occupied by Kyle's brothers company, ASB. We move in on Monday and I'll be driving there everyday (which will make Where's ......
The Google Maps API blog talks about adding support for GeoRSS enabled feeds on Google Maps. That means you can take the Where's Tim Messaging Feed and view the last 50 message people sent me on Google Maps You can also take my location feed and view it on Google Maps. Since my location feed contains Yahoo Maps, clicking on the GIcon will show a Yahoo Map on the Google Map! Technorati tags: GeoRSS, Where's Tim, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps ......
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about the pain in my hands because of tendonitis. Since then, I've followed all directions from my doctor, took my medicine and even switched to using my left hand for the mouse. The pain only got worse, and it got to the point where my hands, wrists and forearms were throbbing. It hurt to drive, play with the dogs, use the remote control and my productivity with EnGraph was going down the tubes. Some days I would have to quit at 3 PM and just read a book. By the way, ......
Yesterday it was 74 degrees and sunny, and I went running wearing a short sleeve shirt. This morning, it was snowing on the drive to work. Hopefully, this is winter's last gasp of air and spring is right around the corner. Technorati tags: Weather, Lawrence Kansas, snow ......
Ken Hoetmer - who has his own Where's Tim - has started a new company called Spatial North. He talks more about it on his blog. Good luck Ken! Technorati tags: Ken Hoetmer, Spatial North, Where's Tim ......
My girlfriend got me a Sirius radio for Valentine's day. More specifically, a sportster 4 with pause, rewind and fast forward. I can set my favorite teams and it alerts me when they are playing. I can set favorite bands or songs and it will alert me when a station is playing it. It even has a built in FM modulator so I don't have to hard-wire it to my stereo. Plug and play, it just works! My Saturn is officially geeked out now. It already had the GeeksWithBlogs sticker, my TomTom and Where's Tim. ......
Yesterday, Jonathan Umscheid started full time with EnGraph. He's been working on a contract basis for us for a bit now and it's great to have him on board full time! Jonathan and David are doing some really cool things with our AutoCAD project and they really need to start blogging about it! We are still looking to fill a position for a .NET developer that will help Kyle and I on our transportation and GPS software (you might even get your own Where's Tim). Technorati tags: Jonathan Umscheid, David ......
Pete Cashmore, who writes a blog you should subscribe to if you care at all about web trends, wants you to insult his posts. And he is going to pay you $500 to do so. whoever leaves the most amusingly witty derogatory comment on specific Mashable posts between now and Friday, January 5th will win $500 paid by Paypal or check. Cursing isn’t allowed, but everything else is fair game. Here is a good post to start slamming. What a great promotion effort! Technorati tags: Pete Cashmore, Mashable ......
I originally started reading blogs to become more knowledgeable about technology. I've learned a lot, but somewhere along the line I picked up way too many subscriptions. Anytime somebody talked about something cool, I subscribed to them. Anytime somebody linked to Where's Tim, I subscribed to them. I find that my daily grind though FeedDemon brings me a lot of repeated posts and things that don't really interest me. I skim through all the feeds and rarely pick up anything that is worth the read ......
Carl is driving to Colorado and wants people to watch his progress with GPS and send him text messages. Click here to see him on a Google Map and click the icon on the map once you get there to send him a text message. Technorati tags: Where's Tim, GPS, Google Maps ......
Somebody from Sprint must have read my blog post about not being able to receive text messages from Where's Tim. Either that or somebody decided that we were not sending spam through our servers. Either way, I am now getting text messages people send me on Where's Tim. I also publish these messages in a GeoRSS enabled RSS feed. Since the feed does have GeoRSS, you can even view the last 100 messages on Where's Tim. Technorati tags: Where's Tim, GeoRSS, Sprint ......
Google Maps released a new version of their street maps this morning to users of their API. This adds city boundary shading and a bunch of new streets to Lawrence, KS. They have had this version on the maps.google.com page for a while and just pushed it out to the API. Check out Where's Tim for the changes. Technorati tags: Google Maps, Where's Tim, API, Lawrence Kansas ......
Most bloggers do some sort of self-gratuitous year-end post where they talk about all the great things they have blogged about over the last year. I tried to come up with a post like that, but I found that I only talk about Where's Tim. So instead, I thought I would pay homage to the greatest Director of Software Development that EnGraph has ever had - Kyle Archer. In no particular order, here are my top six posts from KJA this past year: EnGraph to attend n4a this summerMy Visual Studio Experience ......
Iain Martin (a student on the post graduate diploma in journalism at Cardiff University) wrote an article about the mainstreaming of geography and geotagging journalism. He talked briefly about Where's Tim and included some of my quotes on how GIS will impact various industries. He even mentioned Social Geocoding. Well, it was in a quote from me, but he still published it! He also spoke of Jerome Dobson and his concerns of loss of privacy. It's funny how we always get mentioned together in articles. ......
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about Sprint blocking my SMTP server from sending text messages to my cell phone from Where's Tim. After I changed the code to send messages people send me through a different mail server, it worked fine for a week or two. I noticed last week that they were not coming through again and sure enough, they blocked me again. I apologize to anybody that has sent me a text message on Where's Tim and I haven't replied. I still kind of get the messages via the RSS feed, but ......
The GIS folks at Kansas University have put the slide decks from GIS Day 2006 online. Hopefully they will have the videos posted soon. My slide deck (in pdf) is here. Here is my wrapup post for the day. Technorati tags: GIS Day, Kansas University ......
A couple French websites talked about Where's Tim today. After translating them to English, I was a bit surprised to read the negative/paranoid connotation of the comments. Maybe the intent was lost in translation, but one guy mentioned radio controlled missiles and burglary. Translations here, here and here to see comments. I have not been to France or hung out with anyone that has spent an extended time in France. That being said, I wonder if something about the French culture or government spawns ......
Google Maps works by asynchronously downloading tiles of map/satellite data as you navigate around the map. Lately, I've noticed that it has been rendering the wrong tiles in Where's Tim occasionally. I've only noticed this in FireFox though. Anybody else seeing this? Technorati tags: Google Maps, Where's Tim ......
I'm working on an article for a special personal tracking issue of a magazine. It's due next Monday and I would like some other people to look it over before I submit it. If you have some spare time this Thanksgiving weekend, send me an email and I'll send you a copy to proofread. Warning, it's mostly about Where's Tim and Social Geocoding, so if you're tired of reading about that on this blog, you're probably not going to want to read this :) Technorati tags: Writing, Where's Tim, Social Geocoding ......
When you send me a text message on Where's Tim, I just send an email to my cell phone at myphonenumber@messaging.spr... Turns out that Sprint didn't like that and block messages that came from my mail server. So I switched it to send through a different server. I wonder why they cared? I guess they saw a lot of traffic coming from the same SMTP server and assumed it was spam. [Update here] Technorati tags: Where's Tim, Sprint, SMS ......
You're going to be hearing a lot more about the Social Geocoding service, NavXS. It's MySpace meets Where's Tim. These guys do it right. They have a Windows Mobile client, a Java client, Google Maps interface and a rock solid permissions model. They also have a blog here. Technorati tags: NavXS, Social Geocoding, GPS, location sharing, Where's Tim ......
Matt Dunbar & Co. did a fantastic job putting together GIS day at Kansas University. My favorite part of the day was judging the student competition. Seven students gave ten minute presentations on unique uses of GIS. They showed everything from a geographic boundary of where grits are consumed (apparently South Carolina is the capital of all that is grits) to a traffic analysis of SW Douglas Country in Kansas. The winner was Lincoln Lewis. He showed how to make GIS data pretty using a suite ......
You heard it here first. Social Geocoding is a social network with a layer of location awareness. A million little Where's Tim's running around interacting with each other with "friends list" based permissions. NavXS, Dodgeball and Loopt are all examples. Come listen to my talk at KU tomorrow if you want to learn more. Technorati tags: Where's Tim, Social Geocoding, Social Networks, NavXS, Dodgeball, Loopt, Kansas University, GIS Day ......
Rachael King from Business Week writes about Where's Tim: Meet Tim Hibbard. It's 11:45 p.m. on a Wednesday night and Hibbard is currently near the intersection of Jacob and Ranch Streets in Lawrence, Kan. It's a cool 50 degrees outside. He's not moving around now, but he's traveled a total of 28.42 miles today. And no, I'm not stalking him. Very cool. She also talked with John Musser of ProgrammableWeb (THE place for web API's). He talks about the article on his blog. Technorati tags: Where's Tim, ......
I'm driving to Jonesboro, AR today to install ParaPlan for our newest client, EAAAA. I'll be driving through Clinton, MO. You might remember that we stopped there on our SC Code Camp trip. It's also Jeff Julian's hometown. Watch me here. Technorati tags: Where's Tim, EnGraph, South Carolina CodeCamp, Jonesboro, Clinton, Jeff Julian ......
Manish Lachwani from 411Sync sent me an email this morning about his new service that allows you to send a text message to 411Sync with a couple of lyrics from a song and they will send you a text back with the artist and title of the song. For example, send a text message to 415-676-8397 with "getlyric stranger flowers yet" and it will return 8:16 AM by 311. "getlyric should have done something but i've done it enough" to get Blue and Yellow by The Used. I can see being useful when listening to ......
In CNN's article about .NET 3.0 RTM, they quote Ben Noonan from Burton Snowboards: Now that our pages are enabled with Atlas, we've seen nearly double the traffic. That is a misleading statement. By nature, adding AJAX elements to your site is going to increase traffic. Every page that loads asynchronously (where the initial page load is just the structure and then the data loads in front of your eyes) is charging many more hits to the server. For example, on Where's Tim, I initially load the map ......
Tim from GPS Review revisits the idea of submitting a GPS tracklog to your insurance company to prove you are a good driver in exchange for better rates. This particular program is in the UK called "Pay as you Drive". David Starr talked about a similar program in Canada a couple months ago. I still think this is a good idea. In order for GPS to be profitable in the consumer market, the end person being tracked must be in full control. In both of these cases, participation is voluntary and the consumer ......
Kansas University (right here in Lawrence, KS) puts on a Geographic Information Systems day every year. A couple months ago, Matt Dunbar contacted me and asked if I would speak about personal tracking. My talk is titled "Big Brother is on MySpace. How GPS will change our everyday lives (in a good way)" After some shameless promotion of Where's Tim and EnGraph, I plan to talk about how real time GPS can add a new dimension to social networking sites like MySpace. I also plan to talk about enhancing ......
Heartland Developers Conference 2006 in Omaha was a huge success! Joe Olson, Phil Wolfe and everybody else involved did a great job getting everything put together. Day 1: Joe Stagner did the opening keynote on Federated Logic. Basically using data sources that live anywhere on the internet with ASMX web services. He even talked a little bit about GPS and web based mapping solutions. Something that is near and dear to my heart. Next, I went to Dave Donaldson's talk on Power Programming with Attributes. ......
We are looking for a .NET developer to join our team. This person will be helping Kyle with our transportation software and also working with me on our GPS software. You might even get your own Where's Tim! For more information about EnGraph or this position:See this pageTalk to me at the Kansas City .NET user group tonightSend me an emailChat with me on MSN Technorati tags: EnGraph, Career, Opportunity, Software Development ......
Kyle and I are sitting in the Philadelphia airport hoping that our flight doesn't get delayed again. So far, it's only been delayed an hour, but they are delaying and canceling flights left and right. I met a guy named Curt Walz who works for Sygma, a fast food distributor. He was telling me how they use RFID to tell the warehouse workers which items to pick for the order they are completing. The RFID reader actually mounts on the workers forearm and alerts them when they need to pick an item. I ......
Joab Jackson published an article in National Geographic that give a very basic introduction of GeoRSS and a couple examples of it's use. One of the examples was Where's Tim!! GeoRSS is a way to add geographic information to an RSS feed. Most generically, it is used to add a latitude / longitude point to an item. To add GeoRSS to your existing feed, add the namespace to your rss element like this: rss version="2.0" xmlns:georss="http://www.ge... xmlns:gml="http://www.openg... ......
David, Steve and everybody else involved did a great job in putting this event together and keeping the chaos at an organized level!! My talk on AJAXPro went really well. 25 or so people showed up and everybody seemed to understand the power of AJAXPro and several of them told me afterwards that they had projects that could use this technology right now. I've talked before about why AJAXPro is better than XMLHttpRequest. It also had advantages over ATLAS (Microsoft's AJAX library) in that AJAXPro ......
Kyle and I are at the airport getting ready to head to Salem. Tulsa TechFest 2006 was awesome. Lots of attendees and great sessions. They did a great job keeping everything organized. And to Chris Williams, my laptop acted up when I plugged into their projector too, so it had nothing to do with your projector, my laptop is just possesed. More details about TechFest later, I met some very interesting people. I've never actually gotten a GPS reading at takeoff or landing, but I'll keep trying. Technorati ......
This weekend, I'm heading to the Tulsa TechFest 2006 to give my AJAXPro talk. Sunday, Kyle and I are going to Salem, New Jersy to see one of our clients. The Heartland Developers Conference is coming up the week after that. I'm speaking at the Kansas University GIS day in November. I will be speaking in the same session as Dr. Jerome Dobson. I've heard that he is not a big fan of GPS, so that should be interesting. My talk is called "Big Brother is on MySpace. How GPS will change our everyday lives ......
Kyle and Carl are driving to Arkansas today for the Arkansas Public Transportation Conference. Watch them on Carl's Where's Tim.
Kyle has finally started using Visual Studio .net for one of our new products! He talks more about it here.
I noticed this weekend that viewing geocoded flickr pictures on Where's Tim wasn't working quite right. It would only grab one or two pictures and I know there is over a thousand geocoded pictures in Lawrence. The code looks fine and my geocoded pictures in flickr were still there. I ran my code through flickr's api explorer and it looks like their api is returning a limited result for some reason. Maybe there is a glitch somewhere ......
I did an interview with Sky News this morning. It was a bit odd because the idea was do a prerecorded interview over webcam, but we had technical difficulties getting their cameras to pick up my video and sound, so we did the video over the webcam and sound over the cell phone. On his end, he had to ask me the question and then plug his phone into the computer that was recording the interview. So he would be asking me questions and once I said something he liked, he would say "ok, repeat exactly ......
I added new functionality to the FeedMap wrapper service that generates GeoRSS. You can now use the query string url= to get blogs around a specific blog. So for example if you wanted to see the blogs around my blog, use this url: http://timhibbard.com/where... You can then view that data on a more visually stimulating platform, like Where's Tim. Here's the 10 feeds closest to Jeff: http://www.timhibbard.com/w... ......
Chandu Thota, a Microsoft MapPoint developer has a service called FeedMap. A lot of people have FeedMap badges on their blog that shows the blogs around their location. The one thing missing from this service is GeoRSS tags, so I took a look at his API and created an RSS feed with GeoRSS extensions. My service is driven by query strings. You can pass in a place, or a lat and a lon, and also an optional count like this: http://timhibbard.com/where... or this ......
GeoRSS is an extension of RSS that allows for geographic information to be associated with a blog post, an event, a gps location, a photograph or any other information where geographic information would help better describe the item. Several websites are recognizing the value of GeoRSS and are adding these extensions to their feeds. Most recently, Wordpress is using GeoRSS to add maps to their posts. One of the things that Jeff and I talked about on our roadtrip is adding GeoRSS tags to ESS. ESS, ......
We are hanging out at Chris Williams's coffee / game / wifi shop, Reality Check here in Greenville. Jeff, John and I are doing some last minute polishing up of our talks for tomorrow's CodeCamp. Dru and Joseph are getting ready to do a podcast with Chris. The Where's Tim / PodcastStudio.net mashup has been quite a success!! The guy that traded a red paper clip for a house sent me an email talking about how he liked the technology and wants to use GPS on his future adventures. Very cool!! I also did ......
Jeff, Dru, Joseph and I are just leaving Kansas City for the Code Camp in South Carolina. We just recorded a podcast at a Walmart and uploaded it. There is more CPU in this van than in most small offices. Podcast Feed Picture Feed We got a 16 hour trip ahead of us, so call us on my cell to keep us entertained - 785.550.1483. Welcome to Guardian readers ......
As I talked about earlier, we've add geocoded pictures from flickr to Where's Tim. With a flickr=true query string, you can see pictures taken in the area of my real time location. We've added a little UI under the map that will allow images to be turned on or off and also the ability to only map pictures that match a tag. Tag support is also supported by query string (flickrtags=), and the following url will map flickr pictures taken close to my location with the tag ppc6700: http://www.timhibbard.com/w... ......
In addition to passing a date as a query string to get history on Where's Tim, you can also pass the values "today" and "yesterday" to get the history for those days.
http://timhibbard.com/wherestim/?history=today
http://timhibbard.com/wherestim/?history=yesterday
You can now get historical data on Where's Tim through a url query string. So to get my history for yesterday, use this url: http://timhibbard.com/where... It also works with other query strings. Like if you wanted Carl's history for Sept 1, use this url: http://timhibbard.com/where... ......
It's not all the way done yet, but throw a flickr=true query string on Where's Tim and you can see what I'm working on.
Anybody want to help make the icons look not so cheap?
The video sharing site, YouTube, has some GeoInfo baked into their RSS feeds. It's not GeoRSS, but it's enough that you can pull data out it and lay it over Where's Tim (Zoom out) This GeoRSS stuff is really cool, but I need to take a break from it. I'm falling behind on much more important things ......
Adam Kimber sent me an email yesterday saying that he was inspired by Where's Tim and created his own real time GPS tracking website called Where's Adam. Very cool!! I can't wait to see what else he adds to it.
Today, Flickr released geocoding for photos on a Yahoo map. Hopefully, they will add GeoRSS tags to their RSS feeds so I can easily overlay pictures on Where's Tim (like I talked about earlier). As a side note. Jeff Croft and Matt Croydon have already geocoded their pictures, so Lawrence has way more geocoded pictures than any other city around. It shows that this little town has geek power :) Via TechCrunch ......
We released a new version of Where's Tim this morning that supports GeoRSS feeds. Use a georss query string with the url of the feed as the query string value like this: http://timhibbard.com/where... or you can create an xml file that contains information about GeoRSS feeds that looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <GeoRSSFeeds> <feed url="http://timhibbard... ......
Jeff, John, Joseph and I are all driving down to Chris William's Code Camp in South Carolina next month. Jeff and I were talking about the trip this morning. We are leaving Thursday (Sept 14) afternoon, which I'm glad because nothing is better than Nashville, TN at midnight :) We are trying to think of some ways to make the trip interesting for the GWB faithful. One idea was to take pictures and post them to flickr and create a feed that Where's Tim can understand so you can see our pictures along ......
EnGraph was nice enough to get me a framed dollar bill for my first sale of Where's Tim!! Thanks guys!
Those who read this blog know that over the last year, I've complained a lot about not being a true web developer and coming from the fat smart client world, some concepts I've ran into developing Where's Tim just don't make sense to me. I don't know if this is a sign that I'm starting to "think web" or not, but I was testing some new features in our GPS parsing engine and I typed in alert (javascript) instead of a messagebox.show. People that are learning a second language say that they know if ......
I get an email every couple of weeks from somebody that has found Where's Tim and wants me to help find their lost cell phone. I always reply nicely and tell them that it is not possible to track a random phone via GPS based on it's number or ESN. First of all, if it was that easy to track something, I would be out of a job. Second of all, it goes against everything we believe in as far as allowing the trackee (is that a word) to be in full control of who watches them and when. Thirdly, it shows ......
I get a lot of funny messages sent to me on Where's Tim. I keep them all and put them on this page. Sometimes, people have so much to say that their message exceeds the 160 character message limit for my phone. So I wrote a function that tells people how many characters until the end of the message. The countChar function takes a textbox object and a div object. The div object will display how many characters are left. function countChar(txtBox,messageDiv) { try { count = txtBox.value.length; if ......
The "get directions to Tim" on Where's Tim wasn't working quite right after I added the AJAXPro caching. That's fixed Sami has been driving all over Finland recently. Right now he is on the border of Finland and Sweden. You can watch him here. I've been able to do a lot of coding this last week. I added a bunch more functionality to our application updating framework that David will be using in his applications. Hey David, start blogging ......
Kyle says I need to stop complaining, but it's freakin hot in here. Apparently the AC is not working on our side of the building. Normally, I would just take my tagged laptop and go work from home, but I'm homeless :) I'm working with a potential client for a Where's Tim that will show a whole new market for real time GPS. It's going to be neat...stay tuned ......
Brady Davis, who has his own real time gps tracker here, is now syndicating his position on Where's Tim.The addition of Brady now makes the view all more interesting...well, if you're a GPS Google geek like me :)He also has an RSS feed, Google Earth KML file and even a mobile Where's Tim.I also need to thank Joey and Luci for their help this morning ......
Dru came up the other day and we looking at implementing caching into Where's Tim. Turns out, the AJAXPro library that I use already contains caching capabilities. So take an AJAX function like this: <AjaxPro.AjaxMethod()> _ Public Function GetYahooTraffic(ByVal xmlAddress As String) As Traffic() and then add a AjaxServerCache attribute to the function. The "300" is the number of seconds that the data should be cached. Like this: <AjaxPro.AjaxMethod(), AjaxPro.AjaxServerCache(300... _ ......
Clint Batman from ThinkGeo was nice enough to let me use their geocoding engine on Where's Tim. Their engine supports regular geocoding (enter an address and get latitude / longitude) and reverse geocoding (enter lat/long and get address). The API is easy to consume (3 functions) and the results are intuitive. So now when you are viewing Clint's real time location on Where's Tim , the extra stuff like city information, weather and Yahoo traffic will work ......
Dru Sellers is coming up to Lawrence today and Kyle and I are taking him to Pepperjax. After that, Dru is going to help me out with implementing some caching into Where's Tim. Hopefully that will help with the next Digg effect ......
Carl Kurt, president of EnGraph now maps his real time location on Where's Tim using a real time GPS phone. He also has an RSS feed for his location, and a Google Homepage widget.Now we have three people being tracked in Lawrence (Carl, Clint and myself). To watch us all at once, go to Where's Tim, select "All Available" from the "Select person to track" combo box and push "Track" click here ......
Mike Pegg blogs that the video from the Google Geo Developer day is now online. This was the one where I shipped him a phone so he could be tracked on Where's Tim. You can see where he talks about Where's Tim at about the 1:47 mark ......
Clint Batman from ThinkGeo (a GPS company in Lawrence) is now showing his real time location on Where's Tim His url is http://timhibbard.com/where... His location is also available via RSS ......
I blogged a couple weeks ago about how Google Maps announced support of KML (location information file for Google Earth), and that the KML files that Where's Tim generates where not loading correctly. Well, sometime between now and then Google fixed the bug and now you can see my current location that was meant to be viewed in Google Earth on Google Maps!! Ok, it's not that cool for Where's Tim since it already lives in Google Maps, but it has potential for other applications. The query string in ......
I am having lunch today with Clint Batman from ThinkGeo, another GPS company out of Lawrence. They have some additional hardware that might be useful for us and maybe we do some things on Where's Tim that he might find beneficial to his products. Plus the sweet salsa at La Familia can't be beat ......
I'm heading up to Kansas City this morning to meet with Jeff and John. They are going to show me Team Foundation Server. I need to decide if we are going to switch to TFS or stick with Vault before I can start using what I learned from Raymond Lewallan on continuous integration. Watch me on Where's Tim. Or if you feel like using a super beta MapPoint ClickOnce app, try this one ......
In my last post, I talked about wanting to add GeoRSS tags to the RSS feed of the text messages people send me on Where's Tim. The first thing I need is to find out the users location based on their IP. So I wrote a class that communicates with the hostip.info API to generate a object that contains location data based on that ip. The article with the code is here: http://geekswithblogs.net/t... ......
Like Lance talked about yesterday, I added GeoRSS tags to my Where's Tim Location feed. Essentially, all I needed to do was reference the GeoRSS namespaces: xmlns:georss="http://www.ge... xmlns:gml="http://www.openg... and add the georss:point tag By adding that one little tag, I was then able to drop that RSS feed on top of mapufacture and get this. And Lance was able to mashup the RSS feed using RSSBus with a Yahoo local search and find the closest pizza place to me, and also ......
We are working on something pretty cool...stay tuned.
Yesterday, Google announced KML support in Google Maps. KML is a markup language like XML that defines data to be shown on a map. I use KML on Where's Tim to show my current location inside of Google Earth, so I was very excited...until I tried it. My KML file is an .aspx page that returns a content type of "application/vnd.google-ear... so when you click on it...it opens in Google Earth. So I put the address of my .aspx in the query string as instructed by Google and I got a "could not ......
Mike Pegg is "live blogging" his experiences at the Where 2.0 conference. He posted a bit ago about getting ready to talk at Google Geo Developer Day His location is also available on Where's Tim. It's pretty cool to see the little icon right at the Googleplex ......
Mike Pegg is driving around San Francisco getting ready for the Where 2.0 conference. He has one of the EnGraph Nextel's and you can watch him on Where's Tim!! We also created a Google Homepage widget that shows his location. Click here to add it to your google homepage ......
Digg wins. I need to implement the caching stuff I learned from Raymond Lewallen last weekend into Where's Tim
Thanks Frank :)
Mike Pegg is heading out to San Jose for the Where 2.0 conference next week. He sent me an email this morning telling me he was going to give a talk on Where's Tim! Very exciting!! We got to talking and I suggested that he take our spare Nextel and show his current location on Where's Tim. He agreed, so I headed to the UPS store to overnight it to him. I went ahead and left the phone on, hoping that we might catch the phone in transit. So for the next week or so, you can watch Mike Pegg on Where's ......
Steve Walker was at my AJAX.NET talk at Wichita Code Camp. This is what he said: ...One thing that I thought was interesting about the presentation was Tim showing us how his company uses Google Maps and GPS to track items around the world in real time. In a VERY small amount of code, we were able to see where Tim was at and where he had been on his drive over this morning... Thanks Steve. People are starting to use the Where's Tim API for interesting things. One guy mashed up Where's Tim data with ......
Clint Batman from ThinkGeo gave a great demo of his GPS software at the May Mixer at the Lawrence Regional Technology Center last night. They have a web based tracking system built in .NET similar to Where's Tim. They have some features that we don't, and they have a few things that they do better than us. We also have some features that they don't, like RSS feeds, mobile version, ASMX interface to our data, and WeatherBug integration. Hey Clint, give me a call sometime and we can sit down and see ......
Nicholas Carlson called me the other day to talk about Where's Tim and Google technology. He was nice enough to write an article on InternetNews.com about it yesterday. He also gave Dave Rheingold from ShakinDave.com a plug. [Where's Tim] [Google Maps] [EnGraph] [ShakinDave] ......
Watch Matt Strausz of SmartStart prevent drunk driving this weekend on Where's Tim If you get on his site, check out the Find Location page. They have some cool Google Maps on there (built by yours truly). [Where's Tim] [SmartStart] ......
I'm off to Pella, IA this weekend to see my family and attend Tulip Time!! Watch me drive one of the most boring stretches of interstate on Where's Tim
On Where's Tim, you can send a text message to my phone by clicking on my location icon and populating the fields. I've been getting some funny messages since the Digg effect. For your viewing pleasure, I syndicate these messages in an RSS Feed. My favorite was a guy from Spain that said "Where are you?" I respond to all messages if they populate the "from email" field. I've had some good conversations with these people. [Where's Tim] [EnGraph] ......
This weekend, we migrated Where's Tim to ASP.net 2.0 and Google Maps API v2. We also added some "Get directions" functionality to SmartStart of Kansas Find a location page. And we just got dugg! [Where's Tim] [EnGraph] [Google Maps] [GPS] ......
You can now view my GPS history for a date inside Google Earth.
Go to Where's Tim
Put a recent date in the Get History textbox and push "Go"
Once it loads, click "View History in Google Earth"
Thanks to Frank Taylor for the suggestion.
This is pretty cool technology. I got an email this morning from Frank Taylor and he said that the Google Earth integration we have on Where's Tim is cool, but not even close to what we could be doing. He suggested looking into Network Links. A Network Link is basically a .kml file that points to another .kml file and tells it how often to update. So I created a .aspx page that dynamically creates a .kml file based on data from the web service. And then created another .aspx page that generates a ......
Yahoo Map Image released new maps the other day. We use them on Where's Tim when we need a static map image. Check out the new maps on the location RSS feed and Where's Tim Mobile. [Where's Tim] [EnGraph] ......
I constantly and shamelessly plug EnGraph and Where's Tim as much as I can :) Since timhibbard dot com slash wherestim dot aspx is not easy to remember and easily misspelled, we bought FollowTim.com. Eventually we will host everything there, but for now it just redirects to http://timhibbard.com/where... [Where's Tim] [EnGraph] ......
Google Maps Mania reports about a guy that uses a camera mounted on his glasses and sends the feed to his website. Cool idea, I've been wanted to do something like that on Where's Tim and our newest client, LiveWave, does mobile streaming video over EVDO. Maybe they will hook me up!! Speaking of LiveWave, their RoverCam GPS site has been exciting the last couple of days. One of the guys put the phone on his boat and has been cruising all over the bay. [Where's Tim] [LiveWave] ......
Kyle Archer has been bugging me to put something on Where's Tim that says what city and state I'm in. So I started messing with it, and thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be cool if a user could click on a link and it would give them population and other information about the city I'm in". So I started looking for a website that offered that. I ran across City-Data.com and they offer an extensive data snapshot of a city. And their url format is easy to manipulate. So, now on Where's Tim, you will see ......
Matt Croydon blogged yesterday about Where's Tim. He got a new bluetooth GPS device. Turns out he is from Lawrence and is a programmer for LJWorld.com. He did the whatchamacallit thing a couple weeks ago as well as some other Google Map integration. I posted a comment on his blog that we should do lunch sometime. Maybe we can get them to create a Google Map of all the technology companies in Lawrence (there is two just in this building). [Google Maps] [Where's Tim] [Lawrence, KS] ......
LiveWave is rocking with their new real time GPS web solution modeled after Where's Tim. It was pretty cool to watch them drive all over Newport, RI yesterday and I now know how other people feel when they watch me! These guys have been great to work with and we are working on some cool ways to integrate their existing camera feeds with the new GPS data and Google Maps. Stay tuned, we are going to be bringing some neat stuff. Kyle talks about it too. [EnGraph] [GPS] [AVL] [Google Maps] [Where's Tim] ......
Like I talked about yesterday, We are building a real time GPS web solution for Smiths Detection. The pieces are starting to come together, but the GPS data still points to my current location since their Cloudberry account is not completely set up. The web site is at maps.livewave.net, check it out and watch for more changes this weekend. [EnGraph] [Where's Tim] [GPS] [AVL] [Google Maps] ......
We just received a purchase order for a web based real time GPS system using Google Maps. It's exciting for me to see all the work we've put into Where's Tim starting to materialize into $$$. We have a couple other companies that are interested too, so hopefully we'll have a bunch of Where's Tim popping up on the internet :) Check back this weekend for a url. [EnGraph] [Where's Tim] [GPS] [AVL] [Google Maps] ......
I started migrating Where's Tim to the v2 of Google Maps this weekend. They have provided good documentation so it wasn't too hard, even though I still think that I should not have to rewrite code because the vendor releases a new API. I understand rewriting code to get more functionality, but not to avoid my application breaking. Anyways, it works just about the same. The only problem I having is, I have a couple divs that are at an absolute position that display my current speed and mileage for ......
I found another podcast that talked about Where's Tim. Apparently, I'm a "nerd with no life"!! It's by WeBeGeeky.com (which is down right now) and the mp3 is here (9 min, Where's Tim mentioned about 1:45 in). [GPS] [Where's Tim] [EnGraph] ......
It looks like MapQuest is trying to compete in the mapping market again. I'll be keeping their mobile page on my radar. And I'm also thinking about making a MapQuest version of Where's Tim for the OpenAPI Developers Challenge. [MapQuest] [Mapping] [Where's Tim] ......
Google has an API for their personalized homepage, and of course it is really easy to consume. It is an XML file with a place for HTML / Javascript. I created a striped down version of Where's Tim using their API. To install this module on your homepage, click here. Google provided a method for asynchronously downloading data, _IG_FetchContent (which I talked about the other day). To consume this method, you provide the datasource and the function you wish to call after the data is downloaded: function ......
Well, like I said yesterday, I was pretty nervous for my interview with Good Morning Kansas on ABC 49 in Topeka. Kyle was nice enough to go along and we got there around 5:45 AM. Heidi greeted us at the door and said that she had been watching on Where's Tim and already knew I was here!! We went over some basic stuff about the site and she explained that I would be going into the studio around 6:00 and get familiar with the set and the anchors. We went in the studio and she introduced me to Blake ......
KTKA 49 is interviewing me tomorrow for the Good Morning Kansas show. They found Where's Tim a couple weeks ago and talked about it here (warning, uses quicktime, fix here), and they want to do a follow up interview. So if anybody in the Topeka / Lawrence area wants to check it out, it is supposed to be on around 6:15 AM (Sunflower cable channel 12) or so. I was pretty nervous for the podcaststudio.net interview, and I am REALLY nervous for this thing. I've never been on TV, and it's live, yeah...I'm ......
I made it to New Jersey tonight, after the standard flight delay out of KCI. Check out the Get History feature on Where's Tim for today (03/19/06), it's pretty cool to see the jump from Kansas City to Philadelphia. I'll be working with our clients in Salem trying to resolve some .NET remoting issues. We have a really neat GPS system in place here. The data is downloaded wireless from the vehicles and then we use .NET remoting to transmit the data back to headquarters. I think we have some port forwarding ......
We added a daily mileage calculator to Where's Tim. I don't really like how it's set up visually. I've never been very good at UI design, so I'm looking at other examples on Mapki to find something that looks good that I can use as an example. We also added a GetMileage function (that takes a date parameter) to the Where's Tim Web Service. And added mileage to Where's Tim Mobile. If anybody has any ideas how to make the mileage look better, please let me know. Or better yet, get on the Where's Tim ......
I cannot get over this killer UI. The functionality is cool too, but the fact that it places an IM like client on top of the page is awesome. You can try it with other sites too. Here it is on Where's Tim.
We added some stuff to Where's Tim today. We trimmed out some of the redundant information that the Where's Tim webservice was returning on the GetTimsHistory call. We added my speed to the Dump History to XML file. When I am actually moving, we use a green icon to indicate my current position. When I am idle, the icon is the default red one. I messed with using different color polylines to indicate my speed on the Get History function, but it was too slow because I had to create individual polylines ......
Where's Tim surpassed one million hits for this month!! Thanks to MashupFeed.com, Emily Chang, WeatherBug, BBC, Scoble and all the other nice people that have talked about us ......
Well, not really, but Matt did take my nextel today so you could watch him on Where's Tim, as he is going to talk to people about the bill his company (Smart Start of Kansas) is working on getting passed. He blogged about the bill here. And gave reasons why Kansas needs better laws here ......
Google came out with new PageRank ratings recently, and gave Where's Tim an 8!! I'm excited, unfortunately the site is acting funky right now. Sometimes a mashup becomes a mixup when one of the pieces stops working quite right :) We'll get it right again shortly. UPDATE3: Ok...we are not an 8 *anymore*. Back to a 5. Strange, for a couple hours we were an 8. I wonder what happened. UPDATE2: Back up UPDATE: Talked with Marc Bernard over at Cloudberry, they are having a service outage out there...should ......
We added two new rss feeds for Where's Tim -The text messages people send me - More info -The "Get directions to Tim" requests - More info Eventually, we will also put this data on the site, but for now we have temp pages for the text messaging and directions. We still have the news feed, my location feed and cool people that linked here feed. We will always keep our Where's Tim rss page up to date with new rss information ......
Much thanks to the BBC for throwing Where's Tim a plug!!
Apparently, Where's Tim is a marvellous, entertaining and pointless application :)
The University of Michigan bus system is now online using GPS and Google Maps. Very coolFinally a GPS Google Mashup that is not "most stupid", maybe Christer will get a hold of this and update his list :) via ProgrammableWeb ......
Where's Tim is acting weird today as webhost4life is moving us to a new server.
Emily Chang lists Where's Tim on her eHub list of cool web 2.0 applications. She sent me a text message on Where's Tim to tell me we had been listed :)
Of course, if you subscribed to the Who linked to Where's Tim RSS feed you would have already known that!!
Where's Tim now has RSS feeds! You can get feeds for: -When my location changes -Who was kind enough to link to Where's Tim -News and development changes The location feed can also be customized via query strings. For example this url: http://www.timhibbard.com/w... will create an RSS feed that will have a map embedded in it that is 500 pixels tall, 311 pixels wide and a zoom level of 9. You can also go to this page, and a form will ......
On Where's Tim, you can now see where I was on a specific date. Entering a date in this box: will get you this: Clear History = Removes the history overlay Export History to XML = Generates an XML document with the lat/long data Disable Auto Update = Temporarily disables the Auto Update feature so you can move the map around and browse my previous locations without the map recentering itself Note that the history function doesn't work that great in Firefox. And that getting dates with a lot of data ......
Apparently, Ostfold University offers a class called Location Aware Systems. In that class the students were asked to find Google Maps mashups that fit in the following categories: Most useful Most impressive Least useful Best commercial potential Most original Most stupid Also, I am guessing that the professor is making the students blog about it, because these Location Aware Systems blogs have been popping up all over the place. I think it's great that they are learning about Google Maps and even ......
Christers Edvartsen is taking a class called Location Aware Systems. One of his assignments was to find Google Maps mashups in the following categories:Most usefulMost impressiveMost originalBest commercial potentialLeast usefulMost stupidGuess what won Most stupid?I would rather have been in the Best commercial potential list, but I'll settle for any plug :) ......
Using the WeatherBug API, you can now see my current weather conditions on Where's Tim. The API was easy to use and I also include the data in the Where's Tim Webservice. Calling GetTimsWeather returns an object that contains: Current Temp (.Temp) Todays Rainfall (.Rain) Current Windspeed (.Wind) Wind Direction (.WindDirection) My current zipcode (.ZipCode) URL with more info (.WebLink) Thanks to the My class in VS 2005, you can get my current temperature with one line of code: MsgBox(My.WebServices.EnGra... ......
My girlfriend, Chelsea and I are going on vacation tomorrow (depending on the hangover magnitude) for a week in South Carolina. Watch us get lost on Where's Tim.
I talked earlier about integrating WeatherBug data into Where's Tim. Chris Sloop has been a lot of help and was even nice enough to include Where's Tim on the WeatherBug's API example page. He requested that I share some code, so here it is:Basically, to consume WeatherBug's API, I:1) Make a call to the Where's Tim webservice2) Parse the zipcode out of the .Place property of the GPSData structure3) Pass the zipcode into a function that builds the REST url4) Load the url into a System.Data.DataSet ......
Mike Pegg from
Google Maps Mania is going to be on NPR's All Things Considered today. Maybe he will give
Where's Tim a plug :)
He talks about it here.
You can see where I currently am, but also now where I have been with the new cookie crumb feature on Where's Tim. It uses the standard large red icon to show my current location and the little blue icons (like on Google Ride Finder) to show where I have been. As my location changes, GPS cookie crumbs will be left behind. At anytime the crumbs can be cleared by pushing "Clear GPS Cookie Crumbs". Note that crumbs will only be left if my location actually changes ......
Kyle complained that sending me a message on Where's Tim didn't always work, that sometimes the InfoWindow would close before he could push send. This was because every 30 seconds an AJAX call was made that would check for my current location. Looking through the Google Maps documentation, I found the infowindowopen and infowindowclose events. So I created a boolean variable that is checked before my current position is refreshed and set that boolean to true on the infowindowopen event and false ......
In the PodcastStudio.net session the other night, I told Jeff and John that I have never had problems with Google Maps, or any Google API. Well, I think I might have found something. I was redesigning the layout for Where's Tim, because, well, I'm an awful UI designer. And I was putting everything into a 2x4 table and I set the left column width at 25% and the right column width at 74%. The upper right hand cell contains the div tag that eventually becomes the Google Map and I set the width of that ......
I had a great time talking with Jeff and John the other night. As I listened to the podcast, I noticed a few things that I should clarify. Lat/Long = Latitude & Longitude, and x and y way of locating a geographic point on a map. For example, the Lat/Long of Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, KS is -95.25438, 38.954069. We used the AJAX.net library by Michael Schwarz. It is very easy to use and had wanted to talk more about it, but we ran out of time. All you do is modify your web.config, register your ......
I just finished talking with Jeff and John from PodcastStudio.net. We had a great talk about Where's Tim, GPS technology moving forward, consumer adaptation, the negative misconceptions of GPS, how the web is opening up with API's and web services, and good old fashioned geek stuff in general. Jeff talked a little about it earlier. He might have it up tonight, so make sure to subscribe to their feed. Technorati Tags: Google Maps, Where's Tim, ASMX, AJAX, Podcast ......
Last week, Scoble asked if we would port Where's Tim over to Windows Local Live. This morning, Chandu Thota (MapPoint all-star) sent me an email letting me know to contact him if I need any help working with WLL. Hey Chandu, I also have a ClickOnce version of Where's Tim in the works using MapPoint that I will probably need some help/guidance on too.I'm excited to work with their new API...I need to work on sending vehicle manifests and receiving messages from vehicles for Sean before I go on vacation ......
Robert Scoble talks about Where's Tim. He suggests that I integrate with Local Live. I'd like to do that. I played with Virtual Earth a bit and the Google API was easier (and looked better). But I'll give it another try and see what they have improved.
You can now integrate my current location data into your own applications using the Where's Tim web service. The GetTimsLocation function returns a GPSData structure: GPSData -Lat -Lon -Speed (in MPH) -Since (last active reading - date format) -Place (reverse geocoded location - string) Thanks to the new My class in VS2005, my current speed can be displayed with one line of code: MsgBox(My.WebServices.EnGra... The SendTimAnEmail function accepts 3 parameters (From, ......
Pictures of the t-shirts that Kyle made for the EnGraph christmas party. Good stuff. Thanks, Kyle ......
Chelsea and I are going to fight the snow and head off to Iowa this morning to see my family. You can watch us on Where's Tim
Based on a request from one of my .NET heros, Jon Box, we put together an article about Where's Tim, the technologies that we used to create it, the various functions, some source code and the future of GPS. The article is here. Technorati Tags: GPS, Where'sTim, AVL, Google Maps ......
Just got back from the EnGraph Christmas party. Kyle made some fantastic Where's Tim shirts. Pictures on the way. Paisano's was delicious, of course. It's nice to sit down with everybody and talk about all the things we have accomplished over the year. As a developer, it's easy to get stuck in the daily grind. We work really hard and create some cool products and it is very nice to work for a company that appreciates all that we do ......
Diggnation, a podcast that dicusses items dug on digg.com, talked about Where's Tim on their latest podcast.
The .mp3 can be downloaded here.
Thanks for the plug :)
I'm listening right now to Rick OShea's radio show in Ireland. He just talked about Where's Tim on the air and also mentioned it in his blog. You can listen along on radio station's real player stream Hey Rick, thanks for the plug. And to answer your question of “Why would anybody ever want to do that”...I'm working on an article that might explain that. Stay tuned ......
The messaging and get directions to Tim on Where's Tim now works properly on Safari thanks to some javascript changes I made here and here.
The messaging feature of Where's Tim was not working in FireFox and Safari. I changed my javascript code from: var msg = document.getElementById(... frm = document.getElementById(... To: var msg = document.getElementById(... frm = document.getElementById(... That seemed to be the fix for Firefox. I admire you web developers, this ......
The get directions to Tim feature on Where's Tim wasn't working quite right in Firefox and Safari. I changed my javascript code from: Window.Navigate(url); To: Window.Location=url; And that fixed it in Firefox, I haven't had a chance to test on Safari yet ......
MilitantPlatypus linked to Where's Tim today. He says As of this post, he is currently golfing...at 1:00 PM...on a WednesdayI was actually at Carl's house having a marketing meeting. We are looking EnGraph's core products and spinoff products and deciding where to shift our focus to. Of course I think we should focus on GPS Control Room and Web based GPS applications like Where's Tim, but I am a bit partial :) I actually had a guy send me a message via Where's Tim. He said: Hi tim I wanna make one, ......
John has added a tag for the most popular mashups on ProgrammableWeb. He even has Where's Tim on it!
He talks about it on his blog post here.
I'm headed back to San Angelo, Tx Sunday morning. This time it's just me and I'm driving. You can watch me travel through Big 12 south country on Where's Tim (send me a message if I look lost, I probably am!). Our Window's CE messaging application is done and we've worked with Cloudberry to get them more GPS data for less money (every byte counts when you're spending $0.66 / KB). It's going to be a good week. And I'm really looking forward to that club sandwich from Zentner's Daughter ......
Kyle's response to the new Get Directions to Tim feature: cool, but not enough. He wants to be able to enter an address and have it generate a route. That makes sense. A business AVL application would use addresses rather than lat/long. I'll see what I can do. I'm starting to run out of screen space on Where's Tim, I wish I was a better UI designer...ugh. I've always wanted to learn how to do those "virtual" windows that appear on a webpage. You know, like those annoying ads and request for surveys, ......
Kyle asked for it, so now on Where's Tim, you can get directions, and distance from anywhere to my current location. Push the "Get Directions to Tim" button, a dialog box will instruct you to select a location on the map, you click on the map where you currently are (you can still drag and zoom the map), and using AJAX, it will generate a Google map with driving directions and mileage from where you selected to my current location. Like I was talking about before, we want Where's Tim to resemble ......
Using Yahoo's REST Map Image API, and EnGraph GPS components, I was able to create Where's Tim Mobile. I've only tested it on my new Samsung A-940, please let me know how it looks on different devices.http://www.timhibba... Technorati Tags: REST, GPS, AVL, EnGraph, Where's Tim, Mobile Development ......
The RSS feed for Where's Tim wasn't working quite right. It's back now.
http://www.timhibbard.com/wherestim.xml
Also, if you need a quick and dirty Windows application to create RSS feeds, check out RSS Builder. It is an open source program and he is looking for developers to help him out.
So Kyle and I were talking about Where's Tim, and we decided we need to make it more of a replication of a business Automatic Vehicle Locating (AVL) solution. So when we are talking to potential clients about what EnGraph can provide them, we use this page as an example. One of the things that every AVL product needs is messaging. So we added a feature where you can click the icon and in the info window is a place to enter your return address and message. Using AJAX, the message is sent to my cell ......
I'm trying to get Google Maps and Yahoo Maps to play well together with Where's Tim. Not quite there yet, but getting close.http://www.timhibbard... Trying to work in URL query strings too:http://www.timhibbard.c... Technorati Tags: Yahoo Maps, Google Maps, Where's Tim ......
Mike Williams built a tutorial on how to use the nice tabbed info windows on Google Maps like they have on Google Local. He also started a discussion in this Google Group. It looks a bit complicated for a non-web guy like me, but eventually I want to work these into Where's Tim. Technorati Tags: Google Maps, Where's Tim ......
Ontario Emperor writes a nice article about EnGraph AVL software, Cloudberry and Where's Tim. He also "followed" me back from San Angelo here and here :) ......
Kyle Archer and I are off to San Angelo, Texas this morning...watch us here.
My roommate Evan (you may remember him from here) took my Nextel this afternoon to go look at a new car, I was watching him on Where's Tim and I about died laughing when I saw him miss his turn, pull a quick maneuver and head in the right direction. Next week, Kyle and I are going down to San Angelo, Texas to deliver our EnGraph GPS solution. Sean is going to get a kick out of watching his 30+ vehicles drive around western Texas. Their region covers over 16,000 square miles. Our ParaPlan software ......
This is cool. Somebody needs to do something like this for the Kansas City/Lawrence area. Maybe integrate it with Where's Tim, people could truly see where I am :) Maybe I'll do that next month, after we deploy our satellite based Automatic Vehicle Locator down in Texas ......
I got an email today from somebody that wants the source code for the "Fly to with Google Earth" function on Where's Tim. Essential, I created a base XML file, used an XMLNodeList to parse and change the base XML file, saved the base XML as a KML file, and used a Response.Redirect to launch the url with the KML file. Here is the base XML file that I used. Note that the file HAS to be saved with the .xml extension. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <kml xmlns="http://earth.go... ......
I don't know much about XML standards, so maybe Jeff can help me out with this. I think there should be a location based standard that RSS aggregators and future websites (like Where's Tim) can consume. There would only need to be a few items needed.- Title of location- latitude- longitude- Time stamp- Web linkPeople could syndicate their current location, companies could syndicate their store locations. Cell phone companies could have a standard data format for their location based services. As ......
Where's Tim has been getting a lot of attention lately. And as I watched Matt drive around the other day, I realized there is something very interesting about seeing him move across the map. When it comes to business applications, knowledge is money. Our ParaPlan Pro application supports geocoding, which means we can transform a street address to a latitude and longitude. So for each of our client's trips, the software knows when that person was supposed to be picked up, and the exact lat/lon coordinates ......
Matt Strausz took my Nextel for the day to do some work for Smart Start. Follow him here.
Pete Cashmore wants me to go to Lake Alvamar this afternoon. I'll talk to Kyle and see if he will let me out of the office.
Mike Pegg was nice enough to mention Where's Tim in his Google Maps Mania blog. Check his site for the latest cool Google Map mashups, or better yet, subscribe here. Technorati Tags: GPS, Google Maps ......
So Kyle says to me, "I guess its pretty cool to see your location on a Google Map, and that's neat that it uses AJAX to populate the map so I don't have to see a nasty page refresh to see if your location has changed, but what I really want is to have it just automatically give me a new map when your location changes..."So using a simple setInterval javascript function and a variable that is populated on the onkeyup event of a textbox, we made it happen. Just enter the number of seconds you wish ......
Here is some javascript code that we use on Where's Tim. It will only recenter the map if the new point is out of the map view. We use this code on the AJAX refresh button. map.clearOverlays(); var pointA = new GPoint(-95, 38); var bounds = map.getBoundsLatLng(); if ((pointA.x > bounds.maxX) || (pointA.x bounds.maxY) || (pointA.y //only executes if pointA is out of the bounds of the map { map.centerAtLatLng(pointA); } var markerA = new GMarker(pointA); GEvent.addListener(markerA, "click", function() ......
I took the function that creates the .kml file for Where's Tim and wrapped it in a web service. Contact me for access. If you just want to test it, use “test“/“t... for username/password. Syntax: Dim WS As New KMLCreatorWebService.Mappin... InputStructure As New KMLCreator.KMLInfoInputStru... = “This is a test“InputStructure.D... = “Automatically generated“InputStruct... = 38.945InputStructure.Lon = -94.568InputStructure.UserName ......
Inspired by what Rob did with geotagging Flickr, I built something similar with Where's Tim that I talked about yesterday. You can click the “Fly To With Google Earth” button and it will generate a .kml file that will open inside of Google Earth. It wasn't that hard to generate. I used a XmlDocument to load the core .kml file (I actually renamed the base.kml file to base.xml because XmlDocument will not load a file that doesn't end in .xml) I then use a XmlNodeList to find the specific ......
Using EnGraph's GPSParser, Air-Trak's Cloudberry AVL data and Google Maps, I built a web page that shows my real time location. It took a little over an hour to put together. That shows the ease of EnGraph GPS Management tools and Google Maps. Here's the page - www.timhibbard.com/wheresti... ......