How to find example app code for Appcelerator Cloud Services.
The path to ACS sample codes!
Nice implementation of real-time geotagged data.
Launch Tyler Sirens »
Tyler Sirens presents nearly-up-to-the-minute incident report data from Tyler Police Department. However, if it were just that it wouldn’t be much different from the Tyler Morning Telegraph’s Police Call Map. What Tyler Sirens adds is real-time updates. If…
RGraph Charts Library in Titanium Mobile
I wrote a sample app using RGraph library to build Android-compatible pie charts using Titanium Mobile. I’ve attempted to follow the Appcelerator-recommended CommonJS method, as well.
This was for a work prototype/mockup, so excuse the esoteric text labels and fake activity indicator.
I borrowed heavily from prior art, to include Aaron Saunder’s “Titanium Appcelerator Quickie: Google Charts and Appcelerator“ and Tim Poulson’s “RSS Reader”, an excellent CommonJS pattern example.
There’s almost certainly a way to replicate Aaron’s dynamic chart update feature in RGraph, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I renamed the RGraph library includes with a “.lib” extension to pre-empt any JSLint parse errors, but this may not be required.
Code:
“It’s irrelevant who owns the device or who pays for the plan,” said Palen. “It’s all about the device, as long as the data is secure and controlled … then that’s the big change and the answer becomes yes.
My take: the bring-your-own-device is already upon us, whether you realize it or not. Your staff is already using their personal devices to make their professional lives easier and better.
Pirate Hunter Mobile App
I recently had an opportunity to prototype my first “tactical” mobile app.
A few days ago, I saw mention of the new NATO Shipping Centre website, designed to provide a “link between NATO naval forces and the merchant shipping community.” In particular, the site publishes information regarding piracy in the regions of the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Sea.
I found this site especially interesting because it published actual geotagged data detailing piracy incidents, some only a few days old. In my experience, it’s unusual to find publicly-available information with this level of detail about security threats through military sources.
Although my prior experience with nautical operations consists only of a shopping trip to Old Navy, it still seems that such a data source would have value for either warships or commercial vessels. It’s exciting to see a military organization sharing “here’s where we’ve received reports of Bad Guys robbing and shooting” in a way that potentially enhances regional security.
So, I spent a few hours this weekend building a prototype of a native Android app to graphically display dynamic piracy reports pulled from the NATO Shipping Centre, along with a method to submit new reports. In it’s current form, the app contains the following features:
- Geolocated incidents color-coded as per the NATO Shipping Centre legend.
- Tapping an incident marker pin reveals additional details about the report
- Form page to collect an incident report for forwarding to the NATO Shipping Centre watchkeeper
- Data sources include Google Maps and the NATO Shipping Centre incident reports delivered by XML feed
Although not currently implemented, a production app could take advantage of the device features to enhance information sharing, such as using the GPS, camera, or video recording as part of the incident report. Additionally, it would be trivial to enable sharing incident reports further through email, SMS, or social media.
I’ve included a few advance screenshots below. Again, this is only a prototype, as it’s still very rough. I’ve not yet released it for distribution, but may do so at some point in the future depending on further progress and expressed interest.
Finally, I think it’s important to recognize the NATO Shipping Centre for deciding to publish this kind of data in an accessible way. The technical platform behind their public website makes me cringe a bit for a number of reasons, but I think what they are doing through exposing detailed security information is both largely unprecedented and innovative.
JFTC Handbook Android App
I’ve recently released the JFTC Handbook app, my second project on the Android Market. It’s for a fairly specific audience — the staff and families of the NATO Joint Forces Training Centre. I’ve essentially taken our handbook (available in PDF format from our public website) and converted it into a menu-driven Android app.
The app contains the following sections:
- Commander’s Welcome
- Emergency Information
- Introduction and Contacts
- JFTC Location and Organisation
- Legal Status of JFTC and Personnel
- Housing
- Hotels
- School and Kindergarten
- Home Day-Care/Housekeeping
- Polish Traffic Rules
- Bicyles/Pedestrians
- Petrol Stations
- Garages and Breakdown Service
- Parking
- Buses and Trams
- Taxis
- Medical Support
- Pharmacies
- Pets
- Banking/Post Office
- Flights
- Railway Connections
- Buses
- Ferry Connections
- Language
- Churches
- Utilities and Service
- Spending Time Out
- For Kids
- JFTC Clubs and Activities
Along with the handbook text chapters, I’ve added a few interesting dynamic features as well, including:
- One-touch dialing of important phone numbers
- One-touch navigation to key locations
- Links to related web resources
Depending on feedback, potential features for future releases include:
- iPhone version
- Geo-located points of interest
- Current events feed from mmbydgoszcz.pl.
- Interesting YouTube videos about Bydgoszcz
I’ve included a few screenshots of the app below.
The main menu.
Commander’s Welcome.
Emergency contact information and locations.
Introduction and Contacts.
Polish Traffic Laws.
Thanks to Agnieszka Kwas-Wilczewska for her efforts to support this project.
