Where You At?

Where You At? Wrap-up

2011-10-31T17:16:00.000-07:00

Where You At? has grown from a mind-seed to a mind-sprout. Getting an overview of your idea and how it will work in various aspects of technology and daily life is important, but implementation is a big part of it. If you had the best service for whatever problem you were solving, but had no way to share the fact that it exists with the public, it doesn't matter and cannot be used. Marketing is very important both in real life and on the web. Search Engine Optimization is becoming a full time job for a lot of people, and even teams of people. I enjoyed watching the product grow as I figured out new obstacles to pass over. When you are thinking about an idea, you don't often consider "Well will I use UDP or TCP?," but we had to, and it helped to develop the idea further and make it more realistic.

Where You At? obviously doesn't exist, but if it did or was going to, at least now I would have a roadmap to success!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I commented on the following blog posts:

1. Terry Li: http://baconflip.blogspot.com/2011/09/week-3-computer-forensics.html?showComment=1320105349990#c7682880032191996389
2. Kenny Kim: http://disasterisopportunity.blogspot.com/2011/10/week-7-foodon-goes-web-based.html?showComment=1320105869009#c763216948662628514
3. Chanaiah Maxwell: http://sowhatdoireallywannado.blogspot.com/2011/09/since-early-childhood-youve-always-been.html?showComment=1320106544454#c8614757110625433814

Networking

2011-10-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

As a web-service, Where You At?, of course, will have to utilize the most efficient forms of data transmission. This may not seem like a big deal for single users, but scalability is the most important thing to understand and implement in technology, hence Google's success with their nigh horizontal scaling.

The video streaming is the elephant in the room. How will WYA? efficiently get the information you need to your handset? How will it not soak up as much data as streaming from netflix? Well, in part, it will be the type of protocol used. Outside of file format compression, transferring video via UDP rather than TCP will make everything doable. TCP is a reliable connection, meaning that it uses error correction, whereas UDP doesn't. This reduces overhead and improves speed greatly. Also, since it is a stream, you won't need to rewind and play back in high quality what you are viewing, so the errors you see will be just short blips or pixellation on your screen, much like skype or other video conferencing software.

Security is also a very important and ever growing topic of concern. All access to WYA? will be encrypted and viewed over HTTPS. HTTP has become far to easy to hijack and any website you browse with any sensitive information, especially one pertaining to all of your partying habits, needs to be totally secure; HTTPS is the only proper route for sensitive information.

Operating Systems and Means of Use

2011-10-31T15:08:00.000-07:00

With more and more devices hitting the market, it is becoming more difficult than ever to go multi-plat. Where You At? looks to solve this in the following ways:

The Short-Term: Even though every device has various differences in how they operate and what they can operate, smartphones can connect to the internet and view data through a web browser. All of them. That being said, the 'mobile app' that Where You At? will use in the early stages of life will be mobile domain. This way, as long as you have the device you want, you can view WYA?. This prevents us from needing to come out with different app for RIM, Android, and iOS.

The Long-Term: While a mobile domain may seem easy enough, any legitimate company with a mobile app will probably want to have a real mobile app for respective platforms. WYA will start out with an Android app as it has a vast majority in the marketplace. Eventually moving onto iOS we will see important things like who our userbase is, which userbase is most loyal (profitable), and other things of such nature.

The desktop version of the site will be able to be accessed by all platforms, Linux, Macintosh, or Windows.

Blogger Review

2011-10-31T13:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.pcgamingfan.com/

PC Gaming Fan is a blog written and updated by Adrian Werner. This blog is less opinionated that some other bloggers who write like it is their diary, yet is completely subjective in the sense that it reviews an art/entertainment medium: VideoGames.

Adrian's niche is PC Gaming. This is important because he has a niche! You have to have a niche. This allows the creator to focus directly and at great depth one certain 'thing' or even just an aspect of one 'thing.' As an avid PC gamer, I am constantly wow'ed by games I have never heard of before, let alone games i've played for comparison. It's a good place to start because it has all the info I will really need, though can look for other opinions as well, but at least I will have something to look for.

It is hard to explain to those who are not glorious master-race PC Gamers and not dirty console peasants how and why Adrian is so effective. PC Gaming Fan is able to take care of a lot more information based on computer gaming than say IGN or GameStop because they cover such a broad range of gaming, again, because it is his niche. This blog was also created without the prejudices of gaming industry news informants because he started out making no money with it. As you read, you will find that his reporting increases in quality, not popular choice.

PC Gaming Fan is influential in the mind of those who have followed him for a decent amount of time, and is someone we can trust when we read "this game is a killer app," that it will indeed suck up all of our study time. He operates within his niche and does so spectacularly. Generalized gaming websites can't compete with him and being a one-man-show, the reader builds a sort of relationship with the writer, keeping nerds like me coming back.

Bits n' Bytes

2011-10-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

While difficult to set and select a standard of what file formats will be used and why, due to the fact that this doesn't exist, I will do my best to provide an overview of what Where You At? can skimp on (for performance) and what will suck up your data usage (because it's pretty).

As mentioned above: data usage.

This is a huge deal. If nobody can use your app because it will cripple their data limits, nobody WILL use it. The mobile section of Where You At? is really what takes the biggest toll here. Any streaming will have to be done in an extremely lossy quality, especially if you are wandering around with a 3g connection trying to find your way to warmth, you don't want your data to just stop pushing it to your phone (let alone run out of bandwidth.) This won't be a big problem, however, as you won't notice your friend Jim's face being slightly distorted on a 4" screen anyway.

The rest of the interface will also have to be lightweight. This will also help increase speed. I am a fan of .png file formats for things like buttons or frames. In my web dev. experience they have always been snappy, were always supported, and looked identical to their enormous jpeg cousins.

As a note about the hosting setup for those throwing the party, not only will your streaming video or audio not be stored due to privacy concerns, but nothing will be stored except for user login and basic information because of pure volume of data. These streams are too large and (hopefully) too prevalent to be stored anywhere permanently.

I/O and Peripherals

2011-10-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

Being the multi-platform device, both in operating system and device used, there will be various forms of interaction with the application. Merging the user experience from the phone to the computer and vice versa used to be much more difficult than it is now. Users will be able to turn off their computer, leave their dorm/apartment, and log into their account on their phone or tablet device to pick up where they left off at their desk.

The phone application will be primarily touchscreen based. Even for smartphones that have keyboards built in, usability in such a sense will be limited to searching keywords or logging in. The rest needs to be highly intuitive with large, easy to understand buttons for the user to find and press on their touchscreen. Large and easy to use buttons are necessary cold weather. Nobody likes texting in Syracuse in the middle of winter. Nobody.

The desktop/laptop version of the site will be much more keyboard oriented. Desktop users will need to input more data than phone users as the group hosting the party is required to set up the invitations/stream here, rather than on a phone (at least until more reliable networking exists.)

For phones that are capable there will also be the option to scan a qr code that will be generated for the host user that you can easily scan and 'check in' at the party with your phone to notify the website of your attendance, and your friends as well.

Accessibility and Hardware

2011-09-23T09:27:00.001-07:00

With any media and location based service comes the question of hardware. How will Where You At? be accessed, and will the event-finders and event-holders use it in the same way?

With ever increasing network speeds and mobile devices entering ubiquity, a mobile app or at least mobile browser is not optional, it is a necessity. At this time, live streaming video and audio via an android/iOS device is possible, but not the best solution. Battery life is far too short for any lengthy get together, and the 3/4G connection I have, and my friends have seen, it is too spotty for any sort of reliability.

Event hosts will have to create and manage their events from a desktop or laptop over a web interface that is multiplatform (possibly java) to maximize potential, even for those who love obscure flavors of Linux. The hardware needed will be nothing more than a simple desktop/laptop with an active internet connection with a broadband upload speed, at least over 1 megabit.

Event-goers on the other hand, will have more opportunities to access this information on their mobile device. An app or mobile webpage will allow for location based services and filters, as mentioned in the previous post. Security here goes as far as locking your phone down. No matter what software security you have in place, if your hardware is not locked down, anyone will almost always be able to get the information they are looking for. There will, of course, be an interface for those looking to browse events from home, but the focus will be a mobile app to access the event information on the go.

What is "Where you at?"

2011-09-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

If you are in college, chances are you have received a text or phone call reading "where you at?" If you aren't one of the 'privileged few' who always know what is going on, it can be tiresome or annoying trying to always find out what's up, and you may not always find out about the real rager that went down just a couple houses away. Where You At? aims to remedy this solution through social networking and our ever advancing technology.

How can we further connect with one another before, during, and after events with the all powerful Facebook looming overhead? Facebook is great with it's event planning and you can get a guesstimate of how many people will be attending or not. What Facebook's event planner doesn't achieve is a live, up to the minute interaction between random local users (if you broadcast publicly) or of a subset of local users like "Greek only," "no Greek," or "Off Campus" for example.

There will be various forms of communication between the host and the public audience. The idea is that any college student hosting an event will be able to safely and effectively broadcast their event, live via a webcam or phone. A temporary posting of an event will display information such as location, age restrictions, cover fees (and prices of alcohol inside if applicable), and if the party has a theme or not. A "wall-like" feature will also be present for any attendees who are so inclined to comment.

Where You At? is a website that will be designed for college students only, requiring a valid .edu email to join. Like the old days of Facebook, the exclusivity within the site will help to keep old people (from complaining and knowing the address to call in), potential employers, and parents off of the website and act as an almost built in privacy standard. It will also help to stop spamming and set the bar for the quality of use on the site. There will be extensive security options to maintain privacy, covered in a later post.