Where is Ed?

After a rather lengthy hiatus, I'm back to blogging once again.  I was awakened from my reverie by an old friend who noted that a few folks had wondered if I was still alive and kicking.  Not to worry, I'm still busy with SQL Server Spatial.  But back to the central question: Where is Ed? 

One of the things I've been up to is working with my colleague Olivier on a little project, not coincidentally named "Where is Ed?" or WiE, for short.  The goal of WiE started simply enough - build an application using off-the-shelf Microsoft technology to track my location, anywhere in the World (well, at least when I was visible to the GPS satellite constellation and had WiE tracking turned on in my Windows Mobile-equipped phone).

I won't go into a lot of detail about WiE since Olivier has written extensively about it on his blog and has created a CodePlex site from which the underlying code can be downloaded.  The basic architecture is as follows:

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The public face to WiE is presented at the site: https://www.wiecommunity.com.

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You might note the references to George Curious and Thomas Engine in the list of Friends.  These are test users, inspired by Olivier's children's interests ;-).

When either Olivier or I are active, you can observe our location and a trace of our route:

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Please bear in mind that this project is a work in progress, with numerous minor details still being worked out.  If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.

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