My latest Flash based location app is called Find Me and is basically a mash up using Google Maps API, the GMap Flash component and a geo-ip script that tweets your location on Twitter.

Take a look at it here. Please note that is in beta at the moment. You will also need a Twitter account set up which can be done here.

To tweet your location simply enter your username and password and click on the green tick. When the app loads click on the little transmit icon at the bottom right.

Your information is stored on a cookie on your local machine and is not saved anywhere on my server. If you like just enter some random text and save the settings to overwrite your details.

The process involves a php script which geo-locates a users position based on their IP address. This should be noted that it isn’t 100% accurate as it relies on the IP of either the host machine, router or ISP. When I try this with BT it locates me in London even though I am in Birmingham.

The script outputs a latitude and longitude which I then use to place a marker on the GMap component. Look at this post for more info.

Finally by clicking on the marker the user can see the position aswell as the name and even more info by clicking on a link.

When I have had a play around with the Fire eagle API, I will add support for the Fire Eagle service. If you don’t know what Fire eagle is it basically allows you to update your location and then share that with other web services and apps. This is definitely going to be big business in the future with devices like the iPhone 3G and Nokia N95 having the ability to update your location automatically.

I would really like to build an app that would periodically update your status from an iPhone to Fire eagle, however i’m not too sure I would want people tracking me all the time!!

Not that I mean to show off or anything, but I was in Web Designer Mag again this month.

This time they were featuring my Locator panel extension for the GMap component. The extension is a search engine for latitude and longitude co-ordinates that can be entered into the GMap component as points on a map.

To read about it, take a look at the original post here.

Take a read of Web Designer Mag for loads of Flash, Dreamweaver and Photoshop goodness, plus subscribe to my RSS feed to stay updated on my future Flash work.

Once I removed the script everything seemed to work just fine!

Hopefully we won’t see any more errors popping up!!

I’m on Advanced Flash Components!!

My two GMap enabled mash-ups have been posted on the AFC website.

AFC make the GMap component and lots of other fantastic ones. Give them a try for your next project

The Locator Panel has now been updated to v1.2. The update improves the functionality of the Map, in terms of being controlled by the keyboard and mouse. It also improves feedback when a connection is lost or cannot be found.

You can download the panel from here.

Hot on the heels of my Flash/GoogleMaps mashup comes this extension for Flash. This was created as an easy way to add points to the GMap component and is great if your not planning on making your map dynamic but instead want to add static points.

‘Locator’ is pretty much a slimmed down version of the mashup packaged into an extension. It allows you to enter a location into the search field and see the Latitude and Longitude aswell as its position on a map. This is still in beta mode but is available for download.

Creating the extension was pretty simple, after following a tutorial by Lee Brimelow over at gotoAndLearn.com. The idea is that you create the extension as a normal swf file. You then use an mxi file (xml with a different extension) along with Adobe Extension manager to package it.

You can see my mxi file below if you want to use it as a template:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<macromedia-extension

  name="Locator"

  version="1.0"

  type="flashpanel"

  requires-restart="true">

 <author name="Leon Barrett" />

 <products>

   <product name="Flash" version="8" primary="true" />

 </products>

 <description>

 <![CDATA[

A tool to find the Latitude and Longitude of a location, using the GoogleMaps Geocode service.
Use this with the GMaps component to add points to your maps easily

 ]]>

 </description>

 <ui-access>

 <![CDATA[

 Access the Location panel by selecting 'Window > Other Panels > Movie Setup'.

 ]]>

 </ui-access>

<license-agreement>

 <![CDATA[

 ]]>

 </license-agreement>

 <files>

 <file source="Locator.swf" destination="$flash/WindowSWF" />

 </files>

</macromedia-extension>

Download the extension here. Like I said this is still in beta so don’t sue me if it crashes your machine!!