While having lunch with one of my brothers, we discussed the best way to find places that served Guinness. I had read about Beer Menus, but I figure it will be a while before something like this comes to town. So, I decided to make my own map. Google Maps work OK. How can I get the push pins populated? I assumed I could hook some sort of GPS module up to my iPhone. Then I could have a button on the phone that would send GPS coordinates to a remote server when I pressed a button on the phone. However, I don’t really want to pay the fees for SMS messages. Geotagging of photos is becoming more popular. After reading about yet another geotagging device (the Sellgino GS-200), I decided that pictures of each place could be really cool as well. I could just take a picture of each place with the iPhone while carrying the geotagger around with me. At some point, I could offload the pictures, sync them with GPS info matching the EXIF data, and push each bar up to a map. In theory the software would be easier to write when used in batch mode like this as well. I could just write a simple client that runs on a local machine. OK, so I don’t end up with a Guinness button, but I might end up with something easier to build, which always improves the chances that this will get done. In addition, I can leave myself with another challenge to finish the tighter integration at some later date.
May 272008