[purplepalace]

Problem:
When looking for cell phone service there currently is no good way to determine if where you are going to use the phone has good signal. The best you can do is invite your friend with the same carrier over to your house and work and look at their bars. You could look at the carrier maps, but they are unreliable.

Solution
I developed an app that will help settle it once and for all. It's currently written for the Storm and it collects signal strength information along with GPS information. This data (not automatically uploaded) can then be emailed to me and I have offline processing/analyzing on the data. The processed data is then overlayed on top of google maps. I'm hoping there are some of you out there that is willing to help me gather some data. I'm having a hard time finding a place for the jad, so I will have to email it out until I can find a place for it.

Check out the proccessed data on this website:

Blips Alpha

[Testingchip]

Ill help. [email protected]

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[purplepalace]

cool thanks. I will email you the alx and cod file. Until I can get the jar/jad somewhere you'll need to use the desktop manager to install. Hope it's not too much trouble.

[Testingchip]

It will have to wait till the jad files up or my pc is fixed.
Hopefully it won't be long because this sounds very useful.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[purplepalace]

ok i should be able to find a place tomorrow.

[Testingchip]

I remember seeing somewhere on here someone was offering free ota during september. I think it was in the storm themes. I'll try to find it.

[purplepalace]

ok got some space now for the jad:
BB jads

Again a few more notes:
The SW uses the media card to store the files, I don't have it automatically doing this so you'll need to create it by hand. ( I will fix this). If you forget this step it may lock up the aplication.

To do this:
Applications -> Media -> Explore -> Media Card -> Select New Folder:
name the folder "blips"


Click on the icon and watch it gather data.
Its best to use when driving in a car or constantly moving. It will not record new data points if you are not moving. When you are finished recording and want to send the file to me be sure to close the application or hit the back button. This will cause the output file to be finalized so you can email it out.

[treefrog20012003]

I'm in in this one. I don't travel a lot but hopefully the data I get will help.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[purplepalace]

Ok thanks. The jad and cod are out there. Let me know how the install goes. PS. If you have an ATT sim card you can gather ATT data as well. (Obviously only one at a time).

[Jim1348]

This sounds similar to Navizon. The intent with that is to help navigating by using GPS, wifi, and cell tower locating.

[purplepalace]

It's similar to Navigon in that it uses GPS, but the goal is not to do any help with navigating. The purpose is to accurately map out cellular signal strength across the country to see specifically where each carrier has good coverage and where they are lacking.

[Trooper]

I will help to and I am in Los Angeles near LAX. So it should be helpful.

[krazykid6911]

Where do we email the file to?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[purplepalace]

Send the to: [email protected]

[krazykid6911]

Sent a few files. how long untill I see my lines in the map?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[purplepalace]

Just uploaded it. Looks like you got some good service over there in the boston area.

Curious, would you be opposed to an automatic upload feature? I was contemplating if people's privacy if people didn't want it uploaded automatically.

[CrackBurglar]

is it 5.0 OS compatible?

[purplepalace]

I'm not sure if it's compatible or not. Did some applications stop working when moving to 5.0? Give it a shot and let me know how it goes..

[brentoli]

It works on the Storm 5.0.0.230

Is there a way to auto upload it, and not having any personal identification to go with it? I checked the logs before I sent them to you, and I was happy with the information that you got.

I would be fine with that, also if you could set it up to auto run in the background after we back out of the program?

Maybe send your top contrubuters of the month a car charger as a reward! :P

[purplepalace]

Nice, glad to hear it works. Yeah I was thinking about the auto upload thing. I originally didn't put it in there because I thought people would be scared of it with the privacy and such. So left it as manual email for now. I'm working on the auto uploader...

[brentoli]

Awesome, I don't know if you would need to have that associated with a pin when it uploads? If you did, I might ensure that you separate the PINs from the data. Just to leave peoples mind at a little ease. It didn't seem to use too much battery today, I don't have meterberry so I am not sure numbers, but I wasn't dead at the end of my hour stroll across the county testing it out. If you would work out a way to run in the background that would be awesome. Thanks for this product, I hope more people come on board!

[sivarter]

just put it on my fone, so tomorrow i can test it.

[purplepalace]

Awesome, I don't know if you would need to have that associated with a pin when it uploads? If you did, I might ensure that you separate the PINs from the data. Just to leave peoples mind at a little ease. It didn't seem to use too much battery today, I don't have meterberry so I am not sure numbers, but I wasn't dead at the end of my hour stroll across the county testing it out. If you would work out a way to run in the background that would be awesome. Thanks for this product, I hope more people come on board!

I does work in the background, just hit the red end button and it will still be running in the background. Just remember that it doesn't write out the file until you switch back to the app and hit the back button.

I'm planning on changing this so that it writes out every 'x' blips.

[brentoli]

I does work in the background, just hit the red end button and it will still be running in the background. Just remember that it doesn't write out the file until you switch back to the app and hit the back button.

I'm planning on changing this so that it writes out every 'x' blips.

Awesome! Thanks. I kept hitting the back button.

[krazykid6911]

This is awesome and i hope more people jump onboard as well.

I wouldnt mind having an option upon exiting out to Email File & exit or just exit. Also, i think it might be a good idea to have the option of changing how ofter it records a "blip" to acomodate certain areas of slow travel and dead spots ie a tunnel or something or the downtown area of boston.

Would there be any way to seperate the data by OS Version? That way if a lot of people jump on board and you have duplicate data from the same area, we could finally answer the question of what OS has the best radio. We could even do it by device with enough users.

/end brainstorm


Ok enough with my random Ideas