Tranquilli.org

PlaceTrack 2.0 now available in the App Store


This version uses the official Latitude API, can update your location and has some interesting new features: friends location through Foursquare and Facebook checkins, Street View, OAuth (2-step verification now works). It cannot display Latitude friends locations due to Latitude API limitations though.

PlaceTrack v1.7.2 is live

What’s New in this version:

• fixes a problem where PlaceTrack sits updating your location multiple times (under certain circumstances)
• fixes a problem where an empty blue map is displayed on application launch instead of current location
• minor cosmetic changes (toolbar, background, rounded corners for thumbnails, bigger map, shadows)

PlaceTrack v1.7 has been submitted for App Store approval (and Cydia)

What’s New in this version:

• new feature “Open history in…” allows third-party app integration (eg. Google Earth)
• twitter support (iOS5 only): tweet your location along with a map link and picture
• added “Pull Down to Refresh” intuitive way to refresh your friends location
• uses Oauth 2.0 for Facebook authentication (improves security)
• uses the new geocoding API if available (iOS5 only), improves reliability in resolving addresses to gps coordinates and viceversa
• addresses a cosmetic issue with appearance of place names in location history on map
• removed unnecessary permission requests for Facebook integration
• other (minor) bug fixes and improvements

PlaceTrack, my popular Google Latitude background updater, has been updated to version 1.6 and is already available from the App Store and Cydia.

This bugfix addresses a recent change in google server names which prevented past versions to login; everyone advised to upgrade!

App Store

taken on Sun, 15 May 2011 20:07:23pm (CEST)
[ ; @ @ ISO ]

CloudCopy wireless synchronizes pictures and videos from your iPhone to your Dropbox or Facebook account

Available from the App Store

FEATURES

• copy your camera roll (photo and videos, at the original full resolution) to the cloud. Dropbox and Facebook are currently supported
• background support: upload your videos or photos while you’re using other apps or when the phone is in standby mode. Optionally alerts you when it’s done!
• simple to use: you can sync all your camera roll content or pick which photos or videos to upload. CloudCopy remembers what is has uploaded and it won’t sync it again
• optionally excludes photos from being copied
• optionally adds location data (address and gps coordinates automatically embedded as you shot) as photo captions when uploading to facebook
• pics backed up to Dropbox are assigned a folder name based on month and year. root folder name can be configured: you can choose a public folder and share your photos and videos with your friends in real time!
• shows progress and thumbnails while uploading
• works with the standard iPhone Camera app and with any app that saves photos or videos to the Camera Roll

You need a Facebook or Dropbox account (free) to use this app!

(discussion and support page about this app)

Starting Jan 14th 00:00am CET for 24 hours you can install PlaceTrack 1.5 from the App Store at the special reduced price of $0.99 / €0.59 instead of the usual $1.99.

PlaceTrack is a full-featured background updater for Google Latitude. Learn more and download

How it compares with other clients:

✓ it works on older devices (3G) and older iOS (3.1.x) with background disabled
✓ battery usage is excellent: PlaceTrack uses SLC mode (Significant Location Change), NOT continuos background. PlaceTrack is suspended in the background most of the time and does not use cpu cycles
✓ it can save location history locally and can export kml files
✓ facebook/email/sms integration: you can post your location with a small map
✓ lots of configurable settings and options

PlaceTrack has been approved by Apple a few minutes ago. Download from the App Store

Sun Sep 12 09:17:01 CET UPDATE: It was the new guidelines that helped the App Review team finally approve this app.  An email I received a few hours ago from Apple stated that “[...] given the new guidelines published today, your application has been approved [...]“.

I’m very grateful for all the words of encouragement I’ve received in recent months from people longing for this app to be in the App Store. Unfortunately, PlaceTrack is only available on Cydia for the many who choose to jailbreak.

Regarding yesterday’s release of “app review guidelines” that some of you pointed me to read, I’m posting this quick note.

I’ve never removed PlaceTrack from the App Store submission queue

Apple didn’t reject it. If they did, we all would have known why! they simply delay the review process, keeping the app “In Review” for months without telling anything. Someone coined the term “Pocket Rejection” (“1. A Presidential power where he vetos a bill by leaving it unsigned until congress is out of session” , as defined by the Urban Dictionary ) .
I emailed app review team many many times and when I was lucky enough to get an answer, I just received a “we have no information to share with you at this time” reply.

I don’t think making those rules public (rules that most developers were already aware of!) is going to help PlaceTrack in any way.

Even though the app was not officially rejected and is still “In Review”, though, on thursday I submitted an appeal request, asking again why they’re keeping PlaceTrack “In Review” forever.

I’ll let you know if I ever get a reply.

Now that the iOS4 is no longer under NDA, I can finally release this personal development notes on iPhone iOS4 background/multitasking features. If you’re on a mobile device, use this link.

(PDF Download)

Send comments/suggestions/corrections to me by email (or leave a comment on SlideShare).

Sat Sep  11 18:06 CET UPDATE: PlaceTrack finally approved for the App Store ($1.99) !!!

Sat Aug  7 00:05 CET UPDATE: PlaceTrack is now available on Cydia ($1.99)

(discussion and support page about this app)

PlaceTrack is the long-awaited background Google Latitude updater for iPhone (soon available on the App Store!)

After weeks of testing with the new iOS4 background features, yesterday night I finally submitted this application to the App Store: if all goes well, I should have it approved by Apple in a couple of weeks, just in time for the iOS4 GM release to the general public on June 21st.

FEATURES

• keeps Google Latitude up-to-date with your exact location: install the app, authenticate, enable background, quit and forget about it!
• check out where your contacts are (thumbnails are shown on map or list view) once you confirm each other as friends
• optional location history and KML export: you may export past locations by email as a KML file and see them on a Google Map or using Google Earth
• Facebook support: update your Facebook wall with location data, a map and an optional text
• battery friendly background mode: the application suspends on exit and is woken up only when you move significantly (detected using cell towers signal); most of the time it just sleeps and the GPS hardware is powered off to preserve battery
• automatic relaunch: if the application gets killed for whatever reason (eg, after a power cycle) and background mode was enabled, the application is automatically relaunched in the background on the first location change event
• location by email: send your current postal mail address along with gps coordinates and a small street map and a “directions” link. If your receipient uses an iPhone, the “directions” link launches the Maps application (on desktops it opens the Google maps website with your current coordinates)
• fake location support: you can disable GPS usage completely and input a fake place name to be used as your location. When you enter a fake location, background mode is temporarily disabled
• uses the new OS4.0 multitasking features on supported phone models (3GS and up)
• security: your Google credentials are securely transmitted from your iPhone directly to Google and never sent to our or any third party servers
• a settings page lets you tune most configurable parameters (gps accuracy, timeouts, local notifications, etc.)
• your current location (address and gps coordinates) with altitude and speed (if available) are always displayed on the application main screen and included in Facebook status updates
• the application may send local notification on particular events (location changes, network failures, authentication errors): you can set a notification threshold for the error severity level or turn off notifications completely
• find your iPhone easily: keep the background mode enabled and locate your iPhone through Latitude in case it gets lost or stolen! The application still runs after a phone reboot or power cycle, and updates your iPhone location

mini-itx fanless home server and nas storage

In the process of upgrading my home network, I’ve just picked

- a new NAS, Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, with 1.5TB+1.5TB disks in x-raid configuration (netgear’s raid1 with dynamic exapansion); this is replacing my older Maxtor Shared Storage II

- a fanless CPU/Motherboard, Intel D510MO with Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processor, as my (always-on) mini-itx linux home server; it replaced an old (unstable) VIA C7+Jetway mobo

ReadyNAS Duo storage server

I use the ReadyNAS Duo to provide redundant/scalable storage to CIFS/AFP and NFS clients, for local/remote backups (rsync for Unix , Time Machine for Apple clients) and media streaming as well. Videos, music and pictures can be streamed to any uPnP/DLNA client on local net (an EVA2000 internet set-top box connected to the TV,  the iPhone…  a future Squeezebox) or iTunes clients (through FireFly straming server).

mini-itx case

The Home Server

The linux based home server will do its work as usual:

- development/testbed server, rsynced to a production VPS in the cloud, for personal hobby/projects
- Asterisk PBX for my voip phones
- OpenVPN endpoint for remote access to the home lan
- SSL tunneling for some home devices (e.g.. imap/ssl access from voip phone)
- mysql server
- monitoring (I’m going to try Zenoss) and usage statistics (mrtg, webalizer)

Dec 02 2009 UPDATE: this is now freely available on the App Store
Dec 04 2009 UPDATE: It’s 4th on the top free applications for the travel category (Italian App Store)
Dec 17 2009 UPDATE: updated version (1.1) now available (includes georeferenced webcams and Last.fm events)

Main application screen

Lately I spent some time learning how to write iPhone applications.
Having been an avid C programmer for so many years it wasn’t difficult to start writing code in Objective-C (a powerful yet simple OOP language based on C);
a good book and the standard Apple docs that come with the SDK did the rest for the Cocoa touch API and the iPhone SDK in general

Finally, a couple of hours ago I managed to submit a first application to the App Store; nothing original but it still can handle maps, gps data, tables and scroll views, images, graphical transitions, REST API calls and results parsing for different webservices (yr.no weather data, geonames, flickr, panoramio, bing, yahoo search, google maps, upcoming.org) mostly through asynchronous network calls. Almost 7K lines of code.

I’m  releasing a new Facebook application: PostInjector.

PostInjector can post your Flickr images collected by the SuckRSS engine to your Facebook profile or page, along with a thumbnail and relevant Exif data (focal length, exposure, metering mode, gps coordinates, etc). A link to a map and a reverse geocoded place name are provided for georeferenced images, as usual.
The application uses the new Open Stream API and has already been whitelisted by Facebook.

More about SuckRSS
PostInjector Facebook application

This is a quick post just to let you know a thing related to my SuckRSS software. From now on, the “HTML generation” module will retrieve EXIF data and automatically add information on some of the camera settings (exposure, aperture, metering mode, gps position and altitude, etc) for ‘educational’ purposes.
I’ve reprocessed some of the past postings.