ZEDRAY

Three cool things about our weekend trip to Lisbon…

The Landing
The airport is so deep inside the city, that on landing the pilot may as well be driving a tour bus (if you look to your right you can see the Santuário do Cristo Rei, next is the Praça do Comérciothe headquarters of several Portuguese government ministries…).

Elétrico em Lisboa (Electric Trams)
Feeling like an old amusement part ride, the historic 28E (electric, not the regular 28 bus) will take you through winding streets, up and down hills and past the main tourist sites in the Lisbon old town.

Old Town Apartment
Enjoy getting lost as you walk along narrow winding streets, full of tiny shops and hidden family run restaurants.  Try and work out where the hills are on the map, and which set of steps take you where you want to go.  I suggest you either ask for directions of warm up that GPS!

I have a bit of time off between finishing job A and starting job B, made up of a combination of unused leave, unpaid overtime and a slightly delayed starting date (see Gardening leave).

It turns out my Krankenversichern (German private medical insurance provider) will let me be off work (unemployed) for up to 4 weeks as long as they get paid every quarter (not sure of the details, so ask them yourself before quitting).

So its June, and my Düsseldorf appartment lacks a garden.  Looks like I will be forced to improvise…

verb
1. Having an unreserved seat, laptop computer and a 2h30m connection on Deutsche Bahn.
2. Time to sit down, collect my thoughts and write down some of the things that I’ve had running through my head over the past week.

Its official, I will now be presenting at the JAX08 Conference with a presentation entitled:

Where am I? Location Based Services
Location Based Services stellen einen der großen Benefits mobiler Devices dar, der weit über die Bestimmung der eigenen Position hinausgeht. Im Java-ME-Umfeld werden derartige Services u.a. mittels Location API (JSR 179) realisierbar. Die Session zeigt die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen Java-ME-basierter Location Based Services und führt sowohl in die theoretischen Grundlagen als auch in die praktische Verwendung der Location API ein. Darüber hinaus wird anhand einer auf der Androids-Plattform basierenden Beispielanwendung eine Alternative zum klassischen LBS-Ansatz aufgezeigt. (click)

I will be co-presenting with my CEO - Lars Roewekamp of OpenKnowledge GMBH.

A very exciting time to be in mobile development and location based services in general.
I will also slip in something on Snowball and demo a few Android proofs of concept applications.

A new year and a good opportunity to look at all the mobile related stuff in my portfolio since:

2004

• EdiMap (MSc Edinburgh University)
  Tourist map of Edinburgh, with downloadable POI.
• NotPacMan (Self training)
  The familiar PacMan game.

2006 (Starting at OpenKnowledge)

• 
  Barometer, Horoskop and Lovecheck (AirMotion)
  Fun and games, and a lot of device testing.
• MiniMove (BMW via BBDO)
  Rotate the BMW mini on your mobile.

2007

• 
  MobileAct (Sony Ericsson via AirMotion)
  Weekly magazine content to go with the Channel 4 series.
• 
  MiniMove China (BMW via BBDO China)
  Rotate the BMW mini on your mobile in Chinese.
• 
  
  Mitch&Co Blackbox (Tchibo via MINICK)
  Explore the latest Mitch&Co fashon range on either male of female models.
• NowHere (Burda Wireless)
  Photograph where you are and upload as a NowHere POI.

2008…

• Ads by a [big mobile network operator]*
  Important stuff
• Google Android
  Self training on the new mobile OS from Google
• Snowball - The Mobile Location Based Search API
  My world beating business idea.

* To comply with my company’s code of conduct for blogs, I have removed all references to customers and projects currently in progress.

January
Feburary
March

A great little guide to getting married in Germany click

I’m working in Düsseldorf for a few months, so we took in some of the city.

Silvia has a great eye for photos.

Culture shock is a term used to describe the discomfort and disorientation that accompanies a transition from a familiar culture or environment to an unfamiliar one. Living in a foreign country is often an exciting and educational experience, but there are inevitably bumps in the road. Several factors affect your ability to cope. For instance, you’ll probably be without the familiar support networks that friends and family provide. You’ll likely be dealing with an unfamiliar language, food and customs. And, not surprisingly, you’ll find yourself an outsider more often than not. It’s also common to lose the sense of belonging—and even the sense of your own competency—that you took for granted in your native country. Being alienated can exert a considerable strain on even the hardiest of souls…. click

The world has moved on since our last visit to my parent’s holiday house in Spain. Google maps now cover the area with quite detailed mapping, although it seems it was a bit cloudy that day. The apartment is one of the white roofed buildings close to the motorway. Just about everything you see is a new development that has sprung up in the past 5 years, talk about an unsustainable housing boom.

Ryanair will be flying to Murcia airport from Bremen from May 2007. Murcia airport turns out to be Santiago de la Ribera Airport (about 44km out guys), but seems to be a bit closer for us. Just looking at the map I make it about 20-30km away from the house. I can’t use Goggles except root planning feature as this super new Spanish development doesn’t include street names, maybe this is a Spanish thing? I will be sure to pre-program the GPS device with the correct coordinates for the house before I fly.

Maybe if we brought some road signs with us, we could name the roads ourselves? Hmm… go left of Zedray Street, turn right at the Chinese’s restaurant and its number 14 Mark-is-the-greatest lane.