[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Leenen:
General Trackme issues, offline add-ons

Hi Luis,

I’ve been quietly following the threads on Trackme and the server-side, played around with both, and I can only say one thing: GREAT PEACE OF WORK! Your work, and all contributions via the threads, show how a really living community works and what a piece of art this results in! Compliments and thanks for this.

I do have some (minor) things to share:

The automatically generated tripname (Auto_[date][time]): could you make the prefix ‘Auto’ configurable? For longer periods I travel daily to exactly the same location and these trips have to be accounted for. For administrative purposes it would be nice to configure this prefix to a more meaningfull abbreviation. (BTW: I know I can also rename afterwards, but this option seems better)

Also for the tripname: could you adjust the format of the date part to include a leading zero for the day when <10? Sorting in external applications on this field will be correct then.

The option to show ‘buddies’ nearby seems a bit odd to me. How do I specify who my buddies are (as opposed to all Trackme users, with all respect)? My local server solution is: I insert a ‘fake’ user/trip for my friends and ‘buddies’ (clients) with their GEO locations filled in (based on their address of course). For a local/private solution that's fine. For a public solution, this would require a separate 'buddies' table and an 'add to my buddies' functionality, i.e. based on (exchanged) ID.

In this perspective it is unnecessary to specify only the buddy’s ID; a name is more meaningfull then.

To enable offline developments (and point 3 above), I created a Vbscript application to automatically maintain all Outlook/Exchange Contacts to store latitude/longitude values in the user fields (1 – 4 for both home and business addresses). The script obtains those values from Google (API key needed, freely available from Google), by using the Windows port of the Unix command ‘wget’ (also freely available) and supplying the full address to Google. The script intercepts the results and stores the latitude and longitude values in the Contacts folder.

For reporting purposes I use an Excel worksheet to retrieve dynamically all relevant data from the Trackme database and the Outlook/Exchange Contacts folder, and to make various calculations (I.e. what closest friend/business is nearest to my start and destination points). This is where the ‘fake’ Trackme users are handy, as I cannot expect all my ‘buddies’ to become Trackme users (and register on my Trackme site), so I do that myself with a single trip record.

One handy application for the above: in the Netherlands the tax office requires a detailed trip administration when you drive a (lease) car solely for business purposes (to circumvent you paying a lot of tax for your vehicle). For every trip you make, just turn on Trackme, and automation will do the rest :)!

If there is any interest in the above, I will gladly make them available. Minor changes are necessary though (API key, Outlook/Exchange top-level folder name, …) for which I will have to make a short write-up.

Keep up the good work!

John Leenen