First Page    Prev. Page    Next Page    Last PagePage: 1/1

Sunday, Feb 11 2007

Where's Albert Box - Improvements

OK, I've placed myself dynamically on the map more precisely. I have 4-tier mechanism now:

1) First, the default method, I can control my location via SMS messaging, definiting my position (i.e. "in New York City", "in Seattle", etc.) This creates an RSS feed with my lat and long that I can read, parse and use to render my location via the Google Maps API.

2) Second, I can geo-locate myself based on where I am logged in online using a little client app. This isn't perfect, it uses the ISP provider location. It isn't as flexible as 1 because you have to be online, while 1 works from anywhere, you just need a cell phone.

3) If 1 and 2 fails I can geo-locate myself by hand (Google Earth or other) and save the value in a database table that gets looked up. More tedious, and same problems that 2 has.

4) If 1,2 and 3 fail, a hard-coded value places me in NYC near my home.

What's new is items 1 and 2, pretty cool. So easy to use. And pretty much instantaneous. You can also be fairly accurate ("at 35th Street and 5th ave in New York City" for example)

Sun

Got up early, around 8 am. Sunday feels so much longer. Talked to my parents and my brother and Alicia for a while, they are all doing good.

Been transferring my MP3 collection to a new drive these past few days. Takes me so long because the first 200 disks are old school CDs, and I have to go one by one. Almost done, though.

Got txts from Judit, I missed Katia's house warming party last night. Sounded like a lot of fun, but I needed a break this weekend. Also got an email from a Jen, an good old friend. Had not been in touch for a while, she seems to be doing OK, I think she's moving somewhere, maybe New Orleans.

Podcasts

Been listening to Harvard's David Malan podcasts on Computer Science - Understanding Computers and the Internet. Basic stuff very nicely explained in simple terms everybody can understand. He starts with hardware and moves to anything from multimedia to the Internet in a series of 14 Lectures. He does a great job.

Harvard


Sat night

Ran errands, stayed home most of the day. Pretty cold out. Staying in again tonight. Watched a couple movies my brother recorded for me over Christmas: Rocky Balboa and Pan's Labyrinth. The first one pretty weak, to be expected. The second one very odd, but I guess not bad. The mix of the 2 topics - Spanish Civil War and a fairy tale - is highly unusual and original.

First Page    Prev. Page    Next Page    Last PagePage: 1/1