Roseyland

I’m a GPS nerd. I love knowing my exact location and the exact time. You know, cause it’s really important… for stuff. This is the main reason that I just had to upgrade to the iPhone 3G. Now I have a GPS device with me at all times, Woo Hoo! This will be useful if I ever get lost in the wilderness of St. Louis, or if I ever need to target a cruise missile. Of course targeting a cruise missile to the exact location of my iPhone may not be the brightest idea, but it would be damn cool.

I found an iPhone application called GPS Tracker by InstaMapper. This application lets you make GPS tracks with your iPhone. It uploads your GPS tracks to the InstaMapper service, which will then create a map of your current and past locations as well as your speed and heading if you are moving. Then you can provide someone a link to the map so that they can track you, or you can even embed the map on your blog. You can also create a KML file, which I used to make the picture below.

This is everywhere I went today. I had lunch at San Sai, then I went to MetroTarget, then Ted Drew’s, and then I just drove around so that the track would be more interesting. Click on the image below for a larger version. You can also download the KMZ file (to view in Google Earth) of my track here.

The only complaint I have with the GPS tracker application is that it seems to stop working if you turn off the iPhone’s screen. This is annoying, because the LCD eats up the battery and you don’t really need to see the screen if you are just making a track. Also, the application doesn’t run in the background, so if you are making a track, you can’t do anything else on your iPhone. This of course is Apple’s fault, and it doesn’t really bother me that much. I’m thinking about driving back to Nebraska in a few weeks, and I think I’ll set up a map so that my friends and family can see my current speed, heading, and location as I drive across Missouri. You have no idea how much this excites me