I have added a search feature to RUNNINGMAP. Finally! Now you can search the over 10,000 stored routes by keyword. This feature is at a ver. 1 stage and we are working on making it better. Transparent to the user is a big upgrade to the database design which now promises to be much more scalable for the future. The analysis, design and implementation of the new database is what has been holding back the search feature. Bigger and better things to come!
RUNNINGMAP and I were mentioned in a recent InformationWeek article on maps in mashups. I think we are only seeing the beginning of geo-contextual data on the web.
RUNNINGMAP updates: elevation points sometimes get bad data returned from the web service. Clicking on the point will cause it to requery the database. Clicking the point will also cause the associated marker on the map to center in the map window. The perfomance of the application, particularily with long routes, has been significantly improved though code optimization.
The Adobe XD team developed the mother of all mashups: Amgen Tour of California Tour Tracker. I did not see it when it ran live so I do not know how successful or effective it was. It is an impressive achievement. Adobe presented it at the Wednesday keynote at the recent 360Flex conference. Now that I have had a closer look at the app I have two questions:
- How did they get around the Yahoo! Maps EULA where any GPS data must be at least 6 hours old?
- Was the design influenced by my runningmap site … in particular the transparent elevation chart overly? See the images below.
Tour Tracker elevation view:
Runningmap elevation view:
The Wednesday morning keynote started with a presentation from the XD team at Adobe. They are responsible for the Amben Tour of California site which is a mashup of live data (maps, location, video, commentary and other data) which is amazing. 3 people spent 6 weeks building this site using a concept of “Experience Design” where a “process of exploring means having an idea and testing it by building it”.
Ted Patrick also spoke at the keynote showing off some upcoming features of Flex 3 “Moxie”. It looks like Fireworks has found a home as a layout tool for Flex applications. Examples were shown: 1) ESRI map component for FLEX; 2) Farata Systems: FlexBI – flex business intelligence; 3) Flexlib; 4) Yahoo! as3 apis
Mike Chambers introduced Apollo in a session. Showed the basic api and built a Hello World app. Christian Cantrell talked more in depth about Apollo APIs. Ok I admit that I want to have his job. But he is far smarter than me … so how about a cubical beside him. Ely Greenfield gave what I thought was the best presentation of the conference with “Flex Custom Components”. Ely spent the session showing how he built a “cover flow” type graphic effect in Flex. He had the audience in the palm of his hand as he brought it all home with some stunning examples of a page flip concept at the end of the session.
The first session was part 2 of Yahoo! AS3 libraries. Alan Rabinovich talked about Upcoming.org. Scott Morgan showed a “communication kit” for using the existing Yahoo! Maps component in Flex 2 Builder. It uses ExternalInterface to facilitate communication between the two AVMs. This kit maps the entire api and addresses issues that other similar methods have run into: multiple map instances and dropped calls.
Everyone, including the Y! devs really want the AS3 version of Maps! but anyone I talk to says it is up to management to put the resources behindgetting it done. My sense is that the resources who would do this are already very busy with other stuff. Y! also showed off a way to conncect your Flex app with Y! Pipes … very cool. They announced that this week the pipes team are going to add a wide open crossdomain policy file to the server that Pipes runs on.
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Today was the first marathon day in San Jose for the 360Flex conference. The weather was very nice. I went to talks by Mark Anders (Adobe), Mike Downey (Adobe), Dan Patterson, Grant Skinner, and the Yahoo AS3 API team. They hinted that they are going to make an announcement tomorrow regarding Pipes and flash. In the evening there was a BBQ in the courtyard. eBay and Yahoo! made presentations regarding their recruitment needs. They are hiring Flash and Flex developers.
I have made a design change to the RUNNINGMAP site: the “banner” across the top. Last summer Michael Surtees told me I needed more colour. Then he said “you are going to ignore me aren’t you.” And I nodded my head more as a show of mock defiance than anything. I happened to agree (with his once again free advice) but there were so many other issues to deal with … I wanted to address it when I could do it right. So it took 8 months to add some green pixels. I also fussed over some other GUI details. Have a look:
