Tag: travel

A further update on the previous post.

Just found out that Firefox 3.1b1 has in-built geolocation functionality. You can check it out also with v3 using the Geode plugin. With 3.1b1 and brightkite [now defunct] you can use “Guess my location” – it might work, but using WiFi it’s likely to be a bit hit and miss. Otherwise there’s a Loki plugin that will work with other browsers (ie Flock). For more information go to Mozilla.

Then there’s blogloc [now defunct]- an application that takes your location from FireEagle and provides two kinds of map – static (safer) and a live Google Map of your location to paste on your website. So this is where blogloc (static badge) thinks I am.

Once a geographer, always a geographer at heart.

Some of my friends and colleagues know I’ve been using brightkite to record my location, usually from my BlackBerry, but occasionally from the web. I used to feed brightkite direct into twitter so that any posts or pictures would also get referenced to fellow twitterers, but aware that this can also be an annoyance, I’ve chosen to chnage the default so that I just update my location in twitter, and just send a message saying where I am, then it’s up to anyone to see where I am and what I’m up to.

I’ve been doing this for quite a while, doing it manually using the mobile web interface on brightkite, waiting for the GPS on the BB to feed brightkite to make it that little bit easier for me. Hasn’t happened yet, but Fire Eagle [now defunct] has landed and EagleFeed [now defunct] has emerged which makes the business of “publishing your location” that little bit easier.

What’s new is that using EagleFeed, my location can be fed out to any blog, or website, or anything that accepts an RSS, or Atom feed. This enables mashups and other location related material to be incorporated in pages – I know I’ll find a use for this someday, probably linked to photography.