Tim Hibbard

All about Where's Tim Hibbard

New! Check out the new ClickOnce Where's Tim Tasktray alerter!

  http://timhibbard.com/wherestim/

When I tell people that I keep a GPS enabled Nextel phone in my car and anybody, at anytime can see my current position, they always ask, “Well, aren’t you worried about that?”  I always say, “No, one day everybody will use their current location to assist them in their everyday lives.”  While most people aren’t as comfortable with this level of transparency, I believe the social and business benefits of real time location based services will change the world, and the company that I work for, EnGraph (http://www.engraph.com/), is putting a lot of time and research into this area.

Where's Tim is an ASP.net page using Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/), EnGraph GPS Parser (http://www.engraph.com/gps.html), and AJAX.net (http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/csharpsample/default.aspx).  One of EnGraph's main focuses is Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) systems, and the original goal of Where's Tim (besides using Google's awesome map API) was to simulate the functionality of our business AVL solutions as a quick way to show potential customers what we can provide.

Some of the features are:

Auto Refresh:
Using the AJAX.net library, it will get my current position, change the location of the icon on the map, and recenter the map if the icon goes outside the bounds of the map.  Since this is done asynchronously, the experience is seamless to the user.  The interval between map refreshes can be set using Auto Refresh.  The default interval is 30 seconds.  The idea behind AJAX is simple.  You have one .NET function and two javascript functions.

.NET Function
Public Class AJAXDemo
   Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
      Ajax.Utility.RegisterTypeForAjax(GetType(AJAXDemo))
   End Sub
  
   _
   Public Function GetDotNetTime() As String
      Return Now.ToString
   End FunctionEnd Class

Javascript:
function getTime(){
   AJAXDemo.GetDotNetTime(getTime_callback);
}

function getTime_callback(response){
   var av = response.value;
   alert(av);
}

The AJAX code in Where's Tim is a bit more complicated, but it is based on this simple concept.

Messaging:
Clicking on my location icon brings up an openInfoWindowHtml window.  In that window, a user can see what street address I am closest to, my speed, the last recorded reading time, and a place to enter a message to send to me.  An optional return email address text box is there, and a message text box.  Once the message is entered, clicking "Send" will send the message to my phone.  This is also all done asynchronously with AJAX.net and a green Sent! message is displayed in the window upon success.  The message goes through the Where's Tim Webservice and the code looks like this:

Fly To With Google Earth:
Google Earth is one of those programs that is starting to change the world.  It's biggest exposure (unfortunately) was during all the hurricanes when news stations would use it to show places that had been impacted.  Google Earth understands a type of XML called KML.  I found one of these files, picked it apart and figured out what to change to make it work in this application.  On Where's Tim, there is a button called "Fly To With Google Earth".  Clicking this button will take a base XML file, use an XMLNodeList to parse and change the base XML file, save the base XML as a KML file, and use a Response.Redirect to launch the url with the KML file  When the user pushes "Open," Google Earth will open and "Fly To" my current location using my picture as an icon. 

Here is the base XML file that I used. Note that the file HAS to be saved with the .xml extension.
Private Function GenerateKML(ByVal lat As Double, ByVal lon As Double) As String
    Dim xDoc As New System.Xml.XmlDocument

    'Change this url to where you saved your base XML doc
    xDoc.Load("http://www.timhibbard.com/kml/base.xml")
    Dim nowticks As String = Now.Ticks.ToString

    'creates a new unique name to save
    Dim tmpFileName As String = Server.MapPath("kml\") & nowticks & ".xml"

    'replaces the longitude tag with the lon parameter
    Dim MyNode As System.Xml.XmlNodeList = xDoc.GetElementsByTagName("longitude")
    MyNode.Item(0).InnerText = lon.ToString

    'replaces the latitude tag with the lon parameter
    MyNode = xDoc.GetElementsByTagName("latitude")
    MyNode.Item(0).InnerText = lat.ToString

    'replaces the coordinates tag with actual data
    MyNode = xDoc.GetElementsByTagName("coordinates")
    MyNode.Item(0).InnerText = lon.ToString & ", " & lat.ToString & ", 0"

    'saves the file as an XML document
    xDoc.Save(tmpFileName)
    Dim actualFileName As String = tmp.TrimEnd(".xml".ToCharArray) & ".kml"

    'renames the file as a KML file that Google Earth can understand
    Rename(tmpFileName, actualFileName)

    Return "http://www.timhibbard.com/kml/" & nowticks & ".kml"

Get Directions To Tim:

This is a feature that my boss, Kyle Archer (http://kylejarcher.blogspot.com), requested.  He wanted to be able to click on the map and find out how far away he was from me.  I took it a step further and provided directions to my current location.  Clicking the "Get Directions To Tim" button prompts the user to select their current position on the map (the map can still be moved around and the zoom level can be changed).  When the user has selected their location, Where's Tim will asynchronously generate a Google Maps URL with directions to my location.  The URL is then launched in the web browser.  This is also done with AJAX.net.

var lstner;

function getdirections()
{
   alert("Click on your location on the map");
   lstner = GEvent.addListener(map, 'click', function(overlay, point){
      document.getElementById("btnGetDirections").value = "Working...";
      document.getElementById("btnGetDirections").disabled = true;
      var x = point.x;
      var y = point.y;
      wherestim.GetDirectionsURL(y,x, getdirections_callback);
      });
}

function getdirections_callback(response)
{
   var av = response.value;
   document.getElementById("btnGetDirections").value = "Get Directions to Tim";
   document.getElementById("btnGetDirections").disabled = false;
   GEvent.removeListener(lstner);
   //window.navigate(av); wasn't working on firefox
   window.location=av;
}

RSS:
We have several different RSS Feeds.

My current location feed. You can customize it here. 
Where's Tim news.
Text messages people send me. My favorite feed...just look at these :)
Get Directions to me log
List of the nice people that have linked to Where's Tim.

Where's Tim Mobile:

 
    Tim Hibbard's real time location
    Location of Tim Hibbard, Software Architect for EnGraph
    Tim Hibbard
   
      Replace Me later
      Replace Me later
      3000
      60
      0
   
    1
   

_
Public Function SendTimATextMessage(ByVal From As String, ByVal Message As String) As Boolean
    Try
        Dim MyAddress As String = "mailto:785550143@messaging.sprintpcs.com"
        If Message = "" Then
            Message = "no message"
        End If
        If From = "" Then
            From = "no@email.com"
        End If

        Dim MM As New System.Net.Mail.MailMessage(From, MyAddress, "no", Message)
        Dim Sender As New Net.Mail.SmtpClient
        Sender.Credentials = New Net.NetworkCredential("tim@timhibbard", "mypassword")
        Sender.Host = "mail.timhibbard.com"
        Sender.Send(MM)

        Return True
    Catch ex As Exception
        Return False
    End Try
End Function

Print | posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 9:07 AM |