Waiting in the airport for the first leg of my outbound flight to sunny (no really, long sun) Scandinavia. I’ll be abroad for 2 weeks getting as much Viking culture and Fjords as I can.

I’m trying out a new project, Location, based on crschmidt’s work with cellphone/python uploading of location, but taken several steps further. I can mark/log locations as I travel, store their waypoints, some tag info, pictures, etc. Interested parties can track my progress, or, in the future, write up logs of towns/cities for other travels (similar to OpenGuides, but more geolocation oriented).

There are several mechanisms at work. I can run a python script on my phone which I enter my current location. This in turn is uploaded to my server and stored, along with the cell node information, time, log entry, etc. I can also employ the use of a basic html/php page to make new waypoints and log entries.

These entries are then plotted on a Googlemap using a dynamically generated XML document of the all locations, locations in a region, by tag, or just for a single location. Images are stored and reference via Flickr (since it is cheap storage, easily marked/uploaded, and already thumbnails). PHP binds this all together and MySQL serves as the data store.

I’m still working on some ideas with it, including making notes that will later automatically show up on my cellphone (e.g. walk into a bar, get a message to myself/friend that says “Try their IPA!”) Also want to make this accessible via SMS for those without python on their phones.

Give it a try here.