j-walk.co.za :: blog

Chiang Mai on j-walk.co.za

2009-08-16T07:29:00.002+02:00

Yesterday, Chiang Mai made a quiet appearance on j-walk.co.za. Additionally, the interface was tweaked in a few places, particularly aimed at making mobile pages a bit more user friendly.

Stickers with barcodes will go up around Chiang Mai in the coming few weeks.

A short lived scare

2009-08-13T04:18:00.003+02:00

J-walk uses the tr.im API to create short URLs on the fly. (An API is a way for websites to easily talk to each other.) Last Sunday, tr.im announced they were shutting their doors, which would have meant changing some of the underlying j-walk code.
This is, in itself, not too much of an issue. What's worse is that already published short URLs would have stood the chance of no longer working.

Luckily, the global response to tr.im's demise was overwhelming enough for those behind tr.im, nambu, to reconsider. Tr.im will stay online. Yeah!

Try before you buy

2009-04-18T21:22:00.003+02:00

While celebrating the new year in Thailand, which is a veritable water fest, my phone, a useful duo-sim Samsung D880, died, probably because of water seeping into the body. Even though I had the phone nicely protected in a sealable plastic bag.

While my phone is in the shop, I figured I needed either a permanent or a temporary replacement. Chinese knock off brands sell duo-sim phones for as little as the equivalent of 50 euros, while cheap brand name phones go for as little as 20. But then it struck me, why not get the cheapest camera phone with bar code reader support?

More expensive Nokia phones come with a homegrown bar code reader pre-installed, but I wasn't ready to fork out several hundred euros. And, if I was going to spend real money, I wanted a duo-sim phone anyway. Or an iPhone.

Beetagg claims to support the Nokia 1680, probably the cheapest brand name camera phone on the market, which was going here for 40 euros. A fair deal.
But, no, though the Beetagg installer recognized the phone, the application, once installed, could not access the camera.

A day later, I went back to the shop, explaining my problem. Now, try doing that in Thai, about a product no one here has ever heard of.
However, friendly guys and gals all around, we ended up trying another model, the Nokia 5000, also supposedly supported by Beetagg (as well as UpCode). But, here, too, the applications couldn't access the camera.

Yet another model later, the Nokia 3110classic, our trials were met with success, Beetagg installs and runs smoothly. It runs in snapshot mode, which is not as nice realtime mode, but it works. And at 70 euros, it's still not too bad a deal.

So, try before you buy. Phones that are claimed to be supported clearly don't always work.

One QR reader finder to rule them all

2009-03-26T22:00:00.001+02:00

WIth so many QR readers for so many cellphones, visit tigtags to find the one which is right for you.

Google upgraded its maps

2009-02-22T21:36:00.001+02:00

It seems that Google just upgraded the maps for Johannesburg. Now with lots of nice detail.

Flickr pictures included

2009-02-17T11:48:00.002+02:00

~~Now, markers are shown on the map highlighting the most recently uploaded Flickr pictures for the area.~~

Showing markers on the map slowed the site down too much and required reloads every time the map was panned or zoomed. So, now, the most popular photos from Flick which have been geotagged within your current viewing window and have been tagged with "Johannesburg" are shown at the bottom of the map.

About J-walk

2009-02-12T21:35:00.003+02:00

J-Walk is a multi-level interactive tour of Johannesburg, which incorporates a walking tour, mobile phone tour and online tour of the city. J-Walk bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds, with the objective of making locally relevant information accessible from a single repository.

Multi-level refers to the fact that the tour will be available through multiple channels and platforms:

Walking tour,
Interactive mobile phone based tour using 3G technologies,
Interactive online tour using state of the art mapping tools.

The tour will provide participants with an eclectic mix of information on physical locations in the downtown Johannesburg area. These will include:

Gentrification areas,
Architectural sites,
Art and cultural landmarks,
Historical venues,
Local communities resources.

The importance of walking in Johannesburg cannot be overstated. Walking in downtown Johannesburg is strongly linked to class, race, crime, fear and paranoia. This interactive tour attempts to address these challenges, whilst getting people thinking and contributing to a conversation related to the politics of public space in the city.

J-walk will be on show at the Johannesburg Art Fair Special Project - Art for Online Spaces. Said event, which will run from 3 to 5 April 2009 at the Sandton convention center in Johannesburg.

J-walk was dreamt up by Babak Fakhamzadeh, a traveling web guru, and Ismail Farouk, an urban geographer and artist.
Previously, Ismail and Babak worked together on Soweto uprisings . com, for which they won the prestigious Highway Africa new media award in 2007.

What to look for on the streets

2009-02-11T13:07:00.001+02:00

So you're walking around town, looking for 2D bar codes. You're wondering, what is it I'm looking for? Well, posters or stickers like the one below.

Where to get a bar code reader

2009-02-11T09:26:00.001+02:00

J-walk.co.za uses two dimensional bar codes to aid you to obtain information on a particular location in the city, on your mobile phone. There are quite a few bar code readers on the market and depending on your phone, you might have to shop around to find a reader which works for you.
Keep in mind that, at least, you need a cellphone with a camera and internet access.

Here's a list of cellphone based bar code readers:

If we missed any, let us know.