schwiiz.org

This last month I’ve been learning how to develop software for the iPhone.  It’s been a lot of fun but stressful at the same time.  I’m close to finishing my first application, which is a tool to update maps from the road on MapMyTour.com.  I have the basic features working, and I’m now looking for beta testers.  If you have an iPhone and would like to help, then please write me an e-mail and I’ll get back to you.

On previous bike tours I’ve wanted to keep friends and family informed on my progress by updating a Google Map. It’s an easy thing to do, but updates only happen as often as I have internet access. The silly thing is, my mobile phone has a web browser, but I don’t know of any website for updating a map that is compatible with a mobile phone. That is, until now.

Map My Tour is the name of a new website that I’ve created. Updating a map is as simple as visiting the add waypoint page with your phone (see picture), copying the coordinates from your GPS, and submitting. The map is immediately updated. Have a look at a sample map from a bike ride last week, and feel free to create an account.

This will be a fun way to keep people updated on the progress of my tours. It now looks certain that I’ll get the extra leave from work so that I can go cycling through France this June. It’s time to start relearning French!

Google Maps is amazing. You’ve likely seen the feature that lets you retrieve driving directions by simply typing in a start and end location. It got better. Sometime last year a feature was added that allows you to drag the route around to force it through particular locations. The map is instantly updated as you do this. Amazing! Even better, Google Maps has an “avoid highways” feature, which is perfect for us cyclists. This works great with the GMapToGPX bookmarklet, which quickly converts a Google map to a GPX file that can be imported into a GPS. Too easy!