The ADSZHU blog

iPhone, as a Business Handheld

2009-10-10T18:42:00.004+01:00

Being a SAP consultant, I do need to be available regardless of location or time. Having a reliable mobile phone is a MUST in this industry, but there is much more to have, today.
My email is pushed to my handy each second, as well as calendar entries and contacts. If it were not enough, I do receive my Skype notifications in a similar manner, too. Should a client of mine want me to look at his/her screen for instant assistance, it's OK, the built-in VPN app let's me enter any local network, and RDP or VNC is brings any remote desktop to my screen. In the meantime, I can chat to the client via GSM, of course. I can even accept invitations for Webex conferences - screens come through the Internet, while voice is transmitted via GSM. But enough from accessibility. Using the map application, I can search for nearby ATMs, pharmacies, or whatever business - no matter where I am. And if all these still could not fulfill the requirements, I can still share the internet connection of my phone with my laptop so that I work on from my desktop... and keep on using my phone as if it was not in use at all

Case study - 3D Globe in HTML5

2009-08-26T13:54:00.007+01:00

HTML5 brought some exciting new tools for web developers. To me, the most appealing ones are the canvas tag, and the geolocation API. With canvas, you can create graphics rendered right in the browser, just like with SVG, but in a standard HTML environment.I have played around with this new tag and created a demo to display geographical coordinates on a 3D sphere. Have a look: http://adszhu.googlepages.com/canvasglobe.html

CANVAS - a piece of Apple for your browser

2009-08-19T09:44:00.010+01:00

I used to wonder why there is still no support for Adobe Flash on iPhone... However, since OS3 is capable to run HTML5 code, this is not that painful anymore. The new standard of HTML contains, among others, a new tag, namely the "canvas". Using this, you can create incredible graphics, even in 3D. The demo above is just one great example. Just move the mouse over the pics and enjoy the animation! I can't wait to read the introduction of the new release of my favorite web apps utilizing HTML5, eg Picasa, Google Earth, etc. Even Google Maps might get much more efficient, since we don't need to download map tile images anymore - the browser might draw it itself!

HTML5 and the GeoWeb

2009-08-09T10:30:00.005+01:00

HTML5 is here, merely supported by all popular browsers, including mobile ones like the Safari on iPhone. This new standard is a huge step toward turning the web into the ultimate platform. Complex applications that needed native code for each operating system can now be replaced with platform-independent web applications. Just think of Google Earth - you can really have it in your browser.

Considering my favorit area of web development, the GeoWeb (meaning social web apps with geospatial contents), what are the benefits of HTML5? Let me mention only two of them

1 - The "canvas" tag lets you manipulate vector images from scripts. Have a look at this example

2 - The geolocation API lets you reach GPS data right from the browser. My favorite web application of this kind is the Latitude from Google. The image in the top left shows a screenshot of Latitude running in the browser of an iPhone

So, now we can create even vector-map applications with GPS support simply in HTML!

Handling oversized spreadsheets

2009-07-23T13:27:00.003+01:00

Oh yeah, those log files with hundreds of thousands lines... Apart from the latest Excel release from MS, you can't handle them at all. Being an SAP consultant, I face this problem frequently. With no MS Office on my notebook, I had to find a work around to open and edit log files longer than 65536 lines. Instead of MS Office, I use OpenOffice 3.0, which is available for Linux, too. The solution is easy, but you should keep in mind some small tricks listed below:

Create an OpenOffice Base database, set it's type to "text database". You will need to select a folder containing the oversized log files as texts. This database will not read data from the text files, but create a reference to them as virtual tables
Create another OpenOffice Base database, this time with standard type
Drag and drop the virtual table from the text-type database to the standard one. This will take a while, depending on the size of data in the text file. To my Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM, 300k lines in a single column took around 1 minute to copy. Do not change anything at this step (eg the name of the column in the standard table); to me this led to endless calculations
Once you have the data in the standard table, save the database. Now you can edit eg the column name. It is recommended to add a simple name (no spaces, etc), otherwise you queries might fail later...
Create a query to remove unnecessary data - maybe you get the net record count under 65536, so that you can swith to a spreadsheet manager, namely OpenOffice Calc. Save the database containing both the data and the query
Drag and drop the query into the upper left cell (A1) of an empty worksheet in OpenOffice Calc. This might a few minutes again
And, you are done: edit your data in the spreadsheet as you like!

Athena is back

2009-06-15T08:24:00.004+01:00

Campagnolo invites all to say hello to Athena, the youngest groupset equipped with 11-speed gearshift. The name Athena is not new at Campagnolo, earlier there was a predecessor positioned just below Chorus. Being a believer of Campy, I am waiting for hearing more about the latest reicarnation of the legendary racing equipment provider. Pricewise there are not too much info available, however, most likely a Bianchi T-Cube with the new Athena will be available far cheaper than € 4000

Route Planning with Elevation Profile

2009-05-17T10:24:00.009+01:00

Did you know, that you can even calculate the elevation profile when planning a route with Google Maps? Isn't it at least as important for a cyclist, as the length of the route? I was surprised to see the elevation graph of a bike trip along the Adriatic seeside, having almost the same amount of total ascent like crossing Switzerland from Bodensee to Zermatt, through some of the highest mountain passes of the Alps...

So, how to get the elevation profile of a route? Today, Google does not provide an integrated solution. However, the information basis is public, called SRTM. We just need some further free web services to complete our latitude and longitude data with altitude values. Let's see the step-by-step guide:

Plan the route with Google Maps
Export the route to a KML file by copying the URL of the plan using the Link option, than pasting it into the cool and free http://www.nearby.org.uk/multi-to-kml.php
Copmlete the KML with altitude data by uploading the KML generated in step 2 into www.gpsvisualizer.com/map?output_googleearth
Save the new KML that already holds altitude values for each waypoint of the route

You can visualize the elevation either at gpsvisualizer's, or at www.everytrail.com.

But, how accurate is this SRTM model? Actually, I did a test. I took a GPS track log already containing altitude data, then I let gpsvisualizer.com

overwrite the altitude with data from SRTM. The total elevation of the original file was 1270m, while the one profiled by SRTM shows 1370m.

The difference is less than 8%. That's fair, I believe. See both diagrams above

Social tracklogging with iPhone 3G

2009-01-11T19:37:00.004+01:00

The ability to create and share GPS tracklogs has finally arived to iPhone 3G.

The Trails app is avaliable in the iTunes App Store. It will trace your movements in a smart way: you can interrupt the recording anytime, and resume the tracklog when moving on. Finished your trip? Upload the log directly to everytrail.com or bikely.com, or send it in email to whomever you like. You can even take geotagged photos with the standard Camera app, upload them to Flickr.com via email right from your divece, and import them to everytrail.com to illustrate landscape along your way. And it is still not all! You can even browse tracks at everytrail.com, download and use them instantly!

The sample below shows my favourite jogging lap.

Péterhalmi futás

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

All your mail in one place

2008-12-19T14:29:00.002+01:00

Did you know that Gmail is capable to integrate several mail accounts? Most of us have separate company and private mail addresses, and usually we need to check them at the same time.

With gmail, you can reach every mail server via POP and SMTP. Apart from having all your mail in one place, you can also benefit from the great accessibility provided by Gmail, eg. the traditional webmail interface, mobile webmail for WAP browsers distributed with cellphones, IMAP and POP protocols for desktop and mobile mail clients, etc. You can even send mail from your integrated mail accounts via any of the above mentioned interfaces of Gmail.

For details, check out the Settings / Accounts tab

The funniest iPhone app ever

2008-12-17T20:11:00.004+01:00

It is the first application that I could not reject. While it definitely will not earn money for you or save your life, it is extra ordinary amusing, and delivers high quality every second of usage.
So what is it all about? This app turns your iPhone into a 4-wholed Ocarina. You just blow the air into the mic, and hold 1, 2, 3 or 4 fingers on the virtual wholes displayed on the screen. And that's not all! While you play, your location is determined, and the songs are streamed out to the Internet. Others might listen to your song and see where You played it... Incredible!

Android vs iPhone OS - vol 2

2008-11-26T19:14:00.002+01:00

In my last post I was to say that the strongest argument for Android is the total integration with the user's Google Account. Whatever you save on your phone, either an appointment or a contact, is immediately synched with Google Calendar or Gmail. That is extraordinary useful. People may invite you for appointments, and you will promptly be notified. Should you enter an appointment on your handheld, those you authorized to see your Google Calendar will instatly see the new event...
Though not officially, but the same thing works for iPhone, too. There is a free webservice by nuevasync that takes your Google accounts and streams your data as a MS Exchange server does. And this kind of service is already supported by iPhone.
I must say that this feature is my favourite one...

Android vs iPhone

2008-09-23T18:38:00.003+01:00

For those of You not yet purchased an iPhone, I recommend to think twice. Android is here, the first device running on it is just announced by T-mobile.

But how does it compare to iPhone? First of all, iPhone is a complete package of SW and HW, optimized for the best sinergy. Android is "just" an operating system that many HW supplier will apply. So the HW and SW are not bound together that tightly. On the other hand, Android provides total integration to the Google world, meaning the mail, calendar and contact data are the very same like on the web, they are kept in synchrone with the web servers. Though such functionality could easily be established on the iPhone, too, it is just not yet done.

So let's wait for the first test results...

Google Maps for Outdoors

2008-09-23T17:20:00.002+01:00

Ever longed for Google Maps in your packet when far from home?

Wish You could search for a suitable GPS tracklog published by someone else... In fact, these are all onhand since the latest (silent, as usual) upgrade to Google Maps for Mobile (GMM). Now you can display user contents with routes (so called lineStrings) and folder structures, as well. There are sites providing complete networks of hiking trails in kml format. Just search for the URL of the kml in GMM, and follow the line with your GPS-enabled cellular phone.

Pls note that all this is only available in v2.2.0, on J2ME platform, currently.

Give it a try here

The mobile geo-blogger, for iPhone

2008-08-07T12:57:00.003+01:00

You might have seen a previous post on this blog, describing a work-flow, how to let Google maps show your photos and the pace they were taken. It is fun to have such a "geo-blog", it lets your readers follow your movements along with photos, all posted by You on the go.
That was just a few initial setup steps, while posting itself is practically not more than sending an email with a photo attached. In the message body you needed to either specify a place name like "Murau, Austria", or put down the exact coordinates using the geo microformat, eg: geo:lat=47.123 geo:lon=19.123. This is an universal method, you can use it from almost all cellphones able to handle emails.
Fortunately, there are some new deviced capable to geocode the pictures you take. This means that each picture gets and EXIF attribute containing the exact coordinates determined by the device. With such gadgets You needn't specify the location anymore, your picture already contains it. Just do not forget to attach the photo to your mail :)
Now, let's see how to set up such a geo-blog.
First, subscribe for a Flickr account at www.flickr.com. In your profile, enable the server import location info from the EXIF attribute of the photos. Also here, check out the email address that receives photos and puts them in your gallery.
And it is almost done! Send a test image to your gallery via email, and visit it on the web. Copy the geofeed URL, and use it as a search criteria in Google maps. Take the URL of the search results of Google maps: this is the link to your geo-blog!
Have fun, happy geo-blogging!
Ps.: in case of iPhone 3G, there is a known issue that the mail app cuts off the EXIF from the pics. Until it gets fixed, use airme.com indeed

The incredible first Everesters

2008-08-05T14:13:00.003+01:00

I have just found this photo in the gallery of National Geographic. Of course, it became my new background image immediately. It is so much motivating to look at the faces of these extraordinary people, standing on the snow at the base camp of Everest, back in 1924, wearing baize coats and weave trousers, with no doubt in their eyes, ready to try the ascent again and again, until they succeed... Sometimes I even say hello to them when they appear on my screen
Andrew Irvine, George Leigh Mallory - they story is widely known. But have you heard about Edward Felix Norton or Theodore Howard Somervell?
After two unsuccessful trials in 1921 and 1922, Charles Granville Bruce organized the third expedition, but finally he could not participate, since he got malaria while hunting for tigers in India. Norton took over the leadership, and together with Mallory, Irvine, Somervell, and some more great climbers they returned to the North-ridge of Everest.
From the summit camp, the first trial begun with Norton and Somervell, whose throat was so much ill that he could hardly breath. They made a traverse across the North-face and climbed along the Great Culoire - the recent name of which is Messner-culoire. At about 8500 meters over the sealevel, higher then anyone sofar, Somervell's throat allowed no more steps, he sat down to let Norton finish the job. Unfortunately, it was too dangerous to climb alone, so from approximately 8580 meters Norton decided to turn back. On the way down Somervell was so sick that he nearly lost control, but suddenly he could cough up the phlegm and suddenly he felt much better. If only it happened before leaving for the summit... Next day Mallory and Irvine set out, along the ridge, using Oxygen. After a couple of hours they disappeared, and it is still not calrified wether they managed to summit or not. Mallory's body was found in 1999, but not his camera
Anyway, the altitude Norton and Somervell achieved has not been reached for 29 years, and both of them returned home successfully, and lived a great life after the great adventure. From alpinistic point if view, the last 300 meters of elevation does not count too much, and considering that they climbed without oxygen, wearing very poor clothes, their performance is simply incredible

The long-long silence...

2008-07-24T12:44:00.009+01:00

After a couple of months of break, a new post is being posted!
So, what's up, what took so long?? Actually, the reason is WEB2.0, nothing else. I also happened to be touched by the new winds, and started creating my very first web applications, instead of publishing another articles around the scope of my interest. Before introducing these rather simple apps, I must confess that WEB2.0 is marvelous... No platform is more universal than the Internet itself. Any browser (running on any OS) that supports the latest WEB standard will handle the web applications seamlessly. OK, some plug-ins might be necessary to download, but the apps will take care of it as well. So, let's see the new stuff!
1. You are here
This is a mapplet, a private layer for Google maps, available under the My maps tab. Mapplets can be created and published by anyone. Typically, personal collection of geo-info is stored in a mapplet, like a hiking route, favorite places, etc. But mapplets are able to handle dynamic data, too. The "You are here" mapplet is one of these dynamic ones, showing your current location based on the available wifi signals. The calculation itself is performed by the Loki plug-in, get it at http://loki.com (pls note that Firefox3 is not yet supported, but is soon to come).
Should you have a break at a café in a foreign city - check out your location, and go on by discovering the nearby sights and other standard features of Google maps!
Get the mapplet here
2. People-finder
Now that we are able to handle the actual location of the user, why not go social with it? People-finder not only detects the location, but registers it on a server, and shows it to those You authorize to. All this is performed using the Google accounts and its settings, so You needn't register at another site or service. Log into People-finder with your gmail credentials, and check out the latest registered position of your friends, along with the info when they reported their location at last. You can share your position log by sharing your primary Google calendar.
Once logged in, you can start an instant conversation right from People-finder, or even a VoIP call! The map, the list and the calendar tabs are linked together - click an item in any of the frames, and the corresponding items in the other two frames are highlighted as well.
Yes, your position is stored in your calendar, currently. I am working on changing it for Yahoo's Fire eagle service. Find the application here

3. Alpine webcams and weather in 3D
It is an even smaller update here, I just added a couple of further peaks (Triglav and Everest) to the list, and applied the brand-new Google Earth plug-in. Hit the Earth button in the top right corner to switch to 3D immediately. Finally, there is a chat panel here to share your comments instantly with me, whenever I am logged in. The link is unchanged

Map mashups on iPhone

2008-01-01T15:11:00.000+01:00

Ever wished a GPS solution that handles dynamic and/or user-created contents, too? Apparently, iPhone is the gear. Yahoo has just published the new interface of Pipes, the xml manipulator optimized for iPhone. Y! Pipes is designed to organize xml sources (like news feeds, kml files, etc). Once the xml includes geographic info, You can switch to the Map application on iPhone to show and handle data as placemarks. The most appealing opportunity of this new feature - to me - is the ability to reach dynamic and/or user created contents to navigate to or from. Want to see the location of Your Google Calendar items on the map on your iPhone? Just put the RSS feed of your calendar into a Y! Pipe. Do you have your holiday plans in a kml file? Drop it into a pipe and go!

Hopfully the iPhone soon gets GPS support...

The Mobile Geoblogger

2007-07-14T15:15:00.000+01:00

Every time when having fun somewhere far from home, I got the feeling that I should somehow tell the world what, where and how makes us feel so good. Just a few words like "Just reached the top, the panorama is incredible", or "Greetings from the Tour Eiffel, the sun is just setting over Paris", and maybe a photo for illustration.
Is it only my abberation?? Sure not...
Until now, I used to use my PDA to publish short articles on my blog - the one You are just reading. That was pretty good, apart from describing the location, which was not too smart. Could I embed my posts in a Google Map? From today, YES!
No special equipment or software is needed, just something that You can send an email with - either your cell phone or a PDA like I do. Some cool free webservices do the rest. Have a look at the posts of this blog, embedded in Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://ws.geonames.org/rssToGeoRSS?feedUrl=http://adszhu.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

A brief summary how it operates:
You are at a fantastic place, and decide to let the visitors of your blog or homepage know where it is and how it looks. You take photo with your cellphone, and send it as an email to your blog account, describing the place where You took it. Your mail immediately appears in your blogspace as a new post. At the same time, the RSS feed of your blog gets automatically updated by the blog server.
A visitor happens to surf to your site, and finds a link like the one above. This link opens the well known Google Maps site, and tries to display the RSS of your blog, including the new post, too. But how does it get the coordinates to display on the map? There is a great, free webservice at geonames.org that reads RSS feeds, parse the location names in it and converts the RSS to GEORSS. Since the link refers to Your RSS not directly, but via this geonames service, it now has the necessary geospatial info to put it on a map. Naturally, mobile Google Maps clients are able to display Your blog post, too...

Piz Bernina webcam and weather

2007-06-28T14:29:00.000+01:00

The Alpine Weather and Webcam page has just been completed with Piz Bernina, the highest peak of the East Alps.

Don't miss to check it before leaving :)

A:L:P - the summit log update

2007-06-27T19:20:00.000+01:00

The A:L:P summit log (the diary of our climbing and infobase of the mountains we have been to) has just gone through a general upgrade. From now, each place has a topographical map overlay, a GPS-tracklog, some POIs (mostly the peaks and the bivouac places), a photo gallery (except for the oldest ones) and hints in a few words.
Currently far the following peaks and routes are included:

Kreuzspitze, Saykogel, Similaun, Wildes Mannle, Wildspitze (Tirol, Austria)
Dufourspitze (Monte Rosa, Switzerland)
Mont Blanc, the 3-Mont-Blanc route
Piz Popena (Cristallo-group, Italy)
Dent du Géant (Mont Blanc)
Grossglockner, South normal route (Austria)
Schneeberg, Gamsgartlgrat route (Rax, Austria)

Check out the new layout and contents at My Places.

Pls. note that the cycling section has been temporarily removed; it is under construction, and going to get a separate room soon

Cycling routes near Budapest, Hungary

2007-06-20T12:17:00.000+01:00

Looking for a cycling route near Budapest? Have a look at my favourites! Follow the link "Cycling" at My Places. All these itineraries refer to roads with fine surface, suitable for road race cyclists. The Isaszeg round is an easy one with moderate traffic. Dobogokő is the village that has the highest location in Hungary. The route there follows a public road with a long but not that steep elevation. The Pilis transverse is something extraordinary; it leads mostly on forest roads of very good quality but with low to zero traffic. It is easy to loose direction, don't forget your GPS...

Czech sights at My Places

2007-05-29T10:54:00.000+01:00

Back from Czech Republic, I have posted our pics taken in Cesky Krumlov, Ceske Budejovice and Trebon. Each of these small towns are worth a couple of hours, and once You are there, do not skip a walk our cycle journey in the Sumava National Park.

On My Places, the "Czech Republic" link has been completed with the now visited cities, while the "Trekking paths" link contains a GPS-tracklog and a georeferred map tile of our walk in the Sumava forest

Jordan pics and map on My Places

2007-05-25T09:12:00.000+01:00

Yes, we have been there, back in 2003. For Central European people like us (my wife and me), Middle East is a mysterious area, basically deviating from the places we are used to. Check out the map of Jordan, see our pictures taken there

Corsica link alive!

2007-05-23T21:50:00.000+01:00

Exactly one month since the last post, I am glad to announce that the My Places portal is updated again! Having scanned some dozens of old slides, now the Corsica link is alive, showing map-based infobase and a photo gallery of our trip on this marvellous island. Give it a try now!

What's next? The A:L:P summit log is being reconstructed to give the reader even more useful info. Parallely, the file size is to be reduced so that browsing becomes faster. To be announced soon...

My Alps on Google Maps

2007-04-24T17:54:00.000+01:00

Finally, Google Maps can find my shared contents, among others the ALP summit log! I have been waiting for the crawler of Google to index my kml files so that the info I have published is now available to anyone on the Internet! You can give it a try by querying for e.g. "Dent du Géant near Italy" - this is an incredible peak among Europe's 4000-ers, near Mont Blanc. Don't forget to chose "See results from the web" at the bottom of the search result tab - this is the gate to the user contents. My kml files with climbing info (including topos, track logs, detailed map overlays, recommendations, etc) are on the list, too!

For the uninitiated, You can create and publish your location-related stuff using the My Maps tab of Google Maps