Their code is written in PHP and Java respectively, two languages I’m not particularly comfortable in. Translating from their source code, I’ve produced a ruby version and packaged it as a very simple gem. It lacks real documentation or elegant error handling, but it’s easy to figure out.

Use it like this to locate your phone:

$ sudo gem install mattb-findmyiphone --source http://gems.github.com

>> require 'rubygems' ; require 'findmyiphone'
>> i = FindMyIphone.new(username,password)
>> i.locateMe
=> {"status"=>1, "latitude"=>51.546544, "time"=>"8:06 AM", "date"=>"July 23, 2009", "accuracy"=>162.957953, "isLocationAvailable"=>true, "isRecent"=>true, "isLocateFinished"=>true, "statusString"=>"locate status available", "isAccurate"=>false, "isOldLocationResult"=>true, "longitude"=>-0.05744}

And to send a message:

>> i.sendMessage("Unimportant message")
=> {"status"=>1, "time"=>"8:17 AM", "date"=>"July 23, 2009", "unacknowledgedMessagePending"=>true, "statusString"=>"message sent"}

Finally, if you look in the examples directory you’ll find a short script that uses the location data to update Fire Eagle via its API. Fill in the example YAML files with the appropriate credentials and it’ll do the rest.

Of course the code’s all open source and contributions via Github are very welcome.

This talk (based on a previous blog post here) goes into some detail about how I use HTTP, JSON and other web-oriented tech in my iPhone work.

The March 2008 US conference season is nearly upon us. I’m just on my way back from representing Dopplr at Social Graph Foo Camp (find out more by listening to the Citizen Garden Podcast I participated in after the camp), but I’ll be back here again in three weeks.

I’m spending a few days in New York, where I’ll be hosted by the lovely Chris Shiflett, and then it’s on down to San Diego for ETech. That’ll be swiftly followed by SXSW Interactive where I’ll be on a panel entitled “Creative Collaboration: Building Web Apps Together”, about working in multidisciplinary teams. Finally, a week in San Francisco decompressing and having a few meetings.

I’m particularly excited by the trip to ETech. The last two years have brought smart people together to talk mostly Web 2.0 topics, but this year looks significantly more awesome. Full of genuinely emerging technology, the lineup looks like one Matt Jones and Tony Stark would appreciate.

Some highlights for me include a talk from Google’s economics groups on Prediction Markets, Computing for Socio-economic Development, and the excitingly-titled Antigenic Cartography: Visualizing Viral Evolution for Influenza Vaccine Design. Hope I see you there.

I’m writing my proposal today – I’m planning on pulling the very loose ramble I presented at Barcamp London on messaging architectures into a proper talk. For 2008 I’m very excited about Erlang, XMPP, message brokers such as ActiveMQ and clientside messaging with Comet. The future’s asynchronous and highly concurrent.

I’m looking forward to the face-to-face conversations of the upcoming conference season. Working on Dopplr didn’t leave much time for writing in 2007, and that’s not going to change in the near future. Right now my online tech output is most confined to tiny fragments of ideas on Twitter and random pictures on Flickr (Nokia N810 unboxing; Jawbone unboxing).

If you’ve taken the first steps in tinkering with an Arduino or similar kit, why not take it up a gear and sign up for the Hardcore Hardware Hacking Weekend in London on July 21st and 22nd? Massimo Banzi, co-creator of Arduino, will be teaching advanced hardware skills and I’ll be there to explain how to plug it all into software and the internet. I’m especially looking forward to hearing from guest speaker Moritz Waldemeyer. Places are limited and going fast.

The theme this year was ‘The Ubiquitous Web’. HTTP isn’t just for computers any more, and I’m particularly interested in how developers like me can learn to make their own network-connected objects in the real world. To spread the word, I gave a lightning talk on my experiences with the Arduino hardware hacking boards and other toys from tinker.it.

I put the slides on SlideShare.

Here’s the result.

Thanks to camping, the code is compact – only 105 98 lines including templates:

If you want to run it yourself, you’ll also need stemmable.rb.

Jeremy Rayner was kind enough to upload some videos that he took from the evening’s talks. Here is my two minutes:

The work went down pretty well and I had a lot of productive conversations afterwards. In particular, Ben Laurie from Google has since donated some excellent mathematical data for us to use. The project is finished for now and deserves a full writeup. Until that’s done, here are some screenshots of the final state of the system:

I’ve grabbed a little MP3 segment, which you should be able to listen to here (duration 01:58):

I’m very proud to be known as a “rogue BBC employee.”

I’m an experienced developer in most of the languages and systems you’d expect from more than ten years of work in the industry: Ruby (and Rails), Python, Java, Perl, Unix, databases, web servers and so forth. These days I spend as much time consulting on the design and modelling of systems as I do writing code for them. I write about my personal experiments in technology here on hackdiary, and it’s always a good reflection of my interests at any given time.

Before I went freelance, I spent several years working at the Press Association and the BBC. There’s a lot more about that period in my CV.

Notable freelance projects

The Venice Project

I consulted on the data model for programmes in this new social TV platform from the founders of Skype and Kazaa.

Nature publishing group

I created a system in Second Life for importing 3D models from real-world data created by the European Molecular Biology Lab.

I also developed a number of patches to Movabletype and modules for Ruby on Rails to enhance Nature’s ability to publish over XML/RPC and Atom Publishing Protocol in their internal editorial systems.

Ruby on Rails training

Edd Dumbill and I developed a two-day Ruby on Rails quickstart training programme which we taught at the XTech 2006 conference and at the BBC.

BBC Programme Catalogue

Using Ruby on Rails, I was the developer and information architect on the first public experimental prototype of the BBC Programme Catalogue. The site exposes the database of the BBC’s enormous archive to the internet via a search engine and web APIs.

Thinglink

Consulting on the technical architecture and implications of Thinglink, the free product code for creative work.

Mobbu

In just 5 days, built a prototype of a mobile application for local government in Ruby on Rails.