http://notkeepingitreal.com/articles/2006/06/26/rails-by-the-waypoints-doug-fales en-us 40 <ul> <li>I went about integrating a <span class="caps">GPS</span> and a Digital Camera to create a new kind of website. It would combines pictures, <span class="caps">GPS</span> tracks and user notes. The result was <a href="http://walkingboss.com">walkingboss</a>.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Mashup definition from wikipedia: A mashup is a website or web application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new web application.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Maps are mad hot. People are enchanted by them. That&#8217;s why every second web developer has written a mashup involving the google maps api.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>The impetus for the site was that I was going to run an ultra-marathon, and since I was pretty sure I wasn&#8217;t going to run a fricking ultra-marathon again, I wanted to preserve the memory somehow.</li> </ul> <h3>Mad simple steps to use the site</h3> <ul> <li>Go on a trek with your <span class="caps">GPS</span></li> <li>Snap some photos</li> <li>Upload your <span class="caps">GPS</span> log and timestamped photos to the site and you&#8217;ve got an integrated track.</li> </ul> <h3>Lessons Learned</h3> <ul> <li>This web 2.0 isn&#8217;t all that bad after all</li> <li>There&#8217;s mad free api&#8217;s out there: search, maps, photos, movies, music</li> <li>Rails is a great glue for these things (and he claims to have written about glue before the linux journal article).</li> </ul> <ul> <li>On an unrelated note: when dude arrived at the conference, he realized that the <a href="http://facebook.railsconf.com">railsconf facebook</a> didn&#8217;t have an api. He then informed us that apparently now <a href="http://facebook.guod.net">it does</a>. <em>It&#8217;s pretty unreasonable to be able to throw that together in about a day. Rock on man.</em></li> </ul> <ul> <li>Called out <a href="http://paulgraham.com">Paul Graham</a> and nasty little problems, which are the ones that you don&#8217;t learn anything from. Luckily rails helps you avoid the nasty little problems and keep the momentum going.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Check out <a href="http://walkingboss.com">http://walkingboss.com</a> to get into the beta!</li> </ul> <p><em>Dude seems mad genuine. Much love.</em></p> Mon, 26 Jun 2006 02:44:00 -0600 urn:uuid:4fb866dd-42f8-4a90-a7b7-bc12dc9dd34f Kevin http://notkeepingitreal.com/articles/2006/06/26/rails-by-the-waypoints-doug-fales Railsconf http://notkeepingitreal.com/articles/trackback/23