I spend a lot of time surfing the net. Okay, I spend way too much time surfing the net. During my surfing, I come across mention of interesting art shows to see and places to visit, particularly in New York City. Problem is, I don't go to NYC very often or anywhere else for that matter. When I do, I've forgotten all about the way cool places I read about.
Sure, I could make a list, but then I'd have to remember to take the list with me, remember to look at it, figure out if the cool place is nearby. Then I'd have to do maintenance on this list, deleting places I've seen or crossing out shows that are no longer running. Way too much work for a lazy programmer like me.
Technology to the rescue! My idea is to write a system that will 1) capture the data for cool places, 2) store and maintain the data, and 3) alert me when I get near the cool place/event. Here's how it's going to work:
Step 1: I'm surfing the net and I see mention of A Cool Place. I highlight the appropriate section of text, right-click and select "Save this Cool Place". That action sends the text to the appengine app, the one you're looking at right now.
Step 2: This app parses the data, figuring out the what, where, time, etc. of the cool place or event (parsing free form text is going to be by far the hardest part of all of this) and stores that data in the Google cloud. Alternatively, you can enter something manually (we have that part working already!).
Step 3: Now, we need a way to be notified when we're near the place/event. Enter Android, Google's operating system for cellphones. As soon as I get my hands on a real device running Android, I'm going to write an application that downloads the cool place/event list on a hourly/daily/weekly basis. As I travel around, The Android app will monitor my location with respect to the places on the list. When I get within a predetermined distance from the area, the Android device informs me!
Cool, huh?
This has other applications as well. One variant will be to inform me when I'm close to a business that sells something on my list: think groceries. I'm headed down to te hardware store when I come within a mile of the A&P. My device will inform me that I need to pick up milk and cookies at the A&P. I can either preprogram the places I want it to know about or have it look them up via Google's map API.
Have any other ideas? Let me know!
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Faber
Glen Gardner, NJ
October 16, 2008