Have been playing around with My Tracks for Google Android this weekend. It’s an application that tracks your location on a map (e.g. during a bike tour or a day of skiing down the slopes or whatever else you can think of) and monitors real time statistics like time, distance, speed and elevation. I didn’t log the whole thing, because I was already on low battery when I left the house, but this should give you a pretty good idea of how it works. Here are the two links to view the route: [ Google Maps | Google Earth ]. FYI, I had my Nexus One almost the whole time in my pocket. For that I’m pretty surprised with the resulting accuracy of my track.
My Tracks doesn’t support adding pictures, yet, but you can easily do that with Google’s My Maps Editor for Android. And other than playing around with new mobile technology all day long I was also able to enjoy another beautiful “winter” day in Barcelona (see pictures below).
What was supposed to be a business meeting started totally innocent at 11am in a cafe in the Barri Gotic, continued with beers at the beach at 1pm, delicious sea food at 3pm in a nice restaurant at the waterfront and some long drinks in the late afternoon with a gorgeous view down on Barcelona and the Mediterranean sea. Returned back to the office at 7pm. Drunk. Not much work done. But I had definitely a great time and good talks. The best moments in life are those that happen spontaneously. Thanks guys for providing such an exceptional work environment.
Whoever was wondering what I did the last months in Barcelona besides kiteboarding, playing beach volleyball and jumping around in the mountains, here is the answer. After 2.5 months of hard work, long office hours and sometimes even weekends behind two big computer screens we are finally ready to release the first version of bliquofor Google Android today.
The app is available for free on the Android Market and there is no charge for using it or making reservations. Actually you will even get discounts if you book via bliquo. For iPhone users there’s also version available in the App Store. For now the application is only out in the Spanish market, but there might be more countries coming in early 2010 as well as new exciting features. Stay tuned!
Download it to your Android or iPhone, test it and let me know what you think
English
bliquo is your search engine for urban leisure: restaurants, cafes, bars, nightclubs… and thousands of offers and discounts.
Find a place, make a reservation and save money in just a few clicks. It is the fastest and easiest way to decide what to do and where to go.
FIND the best places in town to go eating, having some drinks, hanging out…
BOOK A TABLE at your favorite restaurant and take advantage of huge discounts and offers. More than 3.000 restaurants just in Spain.
BENEFIT from OFFERS in the form of digital coupons and flyers: 2 for 1 bars, special menus, big discounts…Forget about paper coupons and the hassle of keeping them in your wallet. From now on simply collect and use offer coupons directly with bliquo.
DISCOVER the closest Japanese where to have dinner, the opening hours of the bar with the best beers in the area, the pictures of the coolest party places… and let us guide you there.
FILTER according to your preferences: pizza houses, vegetarians, tapas, karaoke, pubs with live music, gay and lesbian discotheques…
RATE the places you have been to, leave your opinion about them and check others’ reviews.
REMEMBER easily all those places you don’t want to forget bookmarking them for a quick access.
SEARCH for that place you heard about by just typing its name.
After living for two and a half years in California, Maui and Scotland I decided to stay some time longer in Europe before taking off to another tropical adventure again. But the big question was “where”? Since it’s all about Social Media, Social Graphs and Social Everthing nowadays I decided to reach out to my Social Network with the hope to get some qualified responses. And I got a lot. From my question “What are the best places to live in Europe?” I got pretty much two clear results:
Even though I love Berlin and might live there one day this wasn’t an option for me right now. Just because of the fact that I’m German by origin, I’d rather prefer to experience other cultures. I’ve never been to Barcelona before, but I’m definitely attracted by the Spanish culture. In pretty much any possible way So I packed my car, invited my friend Natalie from Los Angeles to jump on board as well and immersed into a 3 month journey through Europe with one final destination: Barcelona.
I had some expectations when I moved here: sun, beaches and kiteboarding combined with delicious food, good wine and the easy-going Spanish lifestyle. So far Barcelona has exceeded my expectations by all means. The vibe of the city is incredible. I’ve made so many great new friends already and magical things have happened to me. The first 8 weeks have been difficult. My wallet was stolen on the third day, I wasn’t able to find a job (meaning one, which I’d have enjoyed doing), I had to move a couple of times within a few weeks and I was running out of money. But in the end I have been rewarded more than generous for dragging myself through this path of full of obstacles.
I met some of the smartest and most good-natured people during a short intermezzo at Linqia, a start-up in the Social Media world, which I believe will be hugely successful in the near future. And finally I was able to join ExperienceOn, another start-up working on Bliquo, which is a really interesting mobile application (currently for the iPhone and Google Android) and BeFogg, with the mission to reinvent the way you travel. And once again I’ve been proven right about my belief in how much more value it has not to work (primarily) for money, but instead to work with passion, for gaining great experiences and having a lot of fun.
This is a quick step-by-step guide for those who are in the process of moving to Barcelona. If you’re struggling with the authorities or if you have any other problems getting your new life organized, because you don’t speak much Spanish or Catalan then this information might be very helpful. I’ve had a hard time going through this myself. But I finally managed to get everything organized, thanks to great friends and other helpful people.
If you have any additional information or other experiences please let me know in the comments or send me an e-mail. Also, the process described here is for EU citizens. It might be slightly different for people coming from non EU member states.
So I packed my car, invited my friend Natalie from Los Angeles to jump on board as well and immersed into a 3 month journey through Europe with one final destination: Barcelona.
