oli studholme's dashboard

oli studholme replied on December 09, 2009 11:33 to the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

Dunno, never met him, but am hoping to. I note that he’s checked into both spots he’s made, but I’m running at 7 successful checkins of the 13 spots I’ve made via http://gowalla.com/spots#context=created (which incorrectly reports I’ve made 17 in the top right). I also notice a guy in Nara has made two spots, one of which he never checked in to.

There’s no Edge or free Wifi over here—as an indication of Wifi fail it’s news here that Google is sponsoring a 30min/device/day free wifi in three café chains during December :/

I haven’t had these problems with other apps that use location, eg local restaurant review apps. Not jailbroken, latest OS3.1 and Gowalla 1.3. No idea what Baseband refers to.

A comment on the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

Thanks—I’ll check using that the next time I’m stuck on “Loading...” – oli studholme, on December 09, 2009 09:07

A comment on the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

@Irene no problem, but currently afaik I’m the only person using Gowalla in my city, and I’ve only been able to found a single spot so far here (although I’ve founded several in other places). I suspect my problem is different than the one you are discussing
PS I’m assuming you don’t believe that successfully accessing the “Nearby Spots” menu or trying to create a spot are “intense” use – oli studholme, on December 09, 2009 08:07

A comment on the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

@Irene @joescales Your comments don’t seem to be related to “General problems creating spots”. I’d appreciate it if you could start a new topic... – oli studholme, on December 09, 2009 02:02

oli studholme replied on December 07, 2009 23:32 to the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

I’ve also seen the Shenanigans page occasionally, but my most common outcomes after selecting “Spots” are being stuck on “Loading...” until my iPhone goes to sleep, getting a Google world map (ie showing all countries) with a pin conveniently placed in Japan, or “Loading...” being replaced by a blank screen (despite me knowing there’s a spot I created within a kilometer). In this last state, going back to Spots then into Nearby Spots doesn’t trigger a reload. Also if I get the world map the only thing I can do is quit the map.

Note that this is all after Gowalla’s passport page has successfully obtained the current location’s address, normally within a couple of seconds, and with 2-3 bars of GPS signal.

I get spotty coverage in Tokyo, where once it kicks in I’m fine as long as I don’t close the app (eg GPS position on map updates while on train, corresponding nearby spots list updates), but I’ve yet to successfully make & check into a spot in Osaka. You’re not using data of the geolocation of wifi towers to help determine user position are you? That might explain why I feel like I’m off the grid here, as it’s possible you don’t have that data for Japan.

Correction: I’ve successfully founded one spot (and failed to check in two subsequent times), and made 3 others, none of which I’ve then been able to see in Gowalla to actually y’know check in to. Also I just found there’s another Gowalla user in my city—that’s two of us! And he works near my station! :O

oli studholme marked one of Brian Bailey's replies in Gowalla as useful. Brian Bailey replied to the question "Duplicate spots for deletion".

oli studholme replied on December 03, 2009 14:59 to the question "Duplicate spots for deletion" in Gowalla:

It’s a 5 hour drive away, so no chance of doing that anytime soon :/
Aah well, it was worth a shot.

I really hope this unreliable spot creation/checkin problem I’ve got resolves itself soon.

oli studholme replied on December 01, 2009 15:13 to the question "Duplicate spots for deletion" in Gowalla:

Woah, I completely missed the edit/delete buttons—thanks for that

Here’s hoping a Gowalla staff member can help me become a founder :D

oli studholme asked a question in Gowalla on December 01, 2009 14:13:

Duplicate spots for deletion

I had trouble creating a spot (app hung on Loading), and ended up creating duplicates:
http://gowalla.com/spots/148145
http://gowalla.com/spots/148152 * this one should be kept
http://gowalla.com/spots/148159
http://gowalla.com/spots/148153

Additionally due to the problems creating a spot I was never actually able to check in, drop something and become a founder—if you can do that for me as well I’d be much obliged :)

oli studholme replied on December 01, 2009 14:02 to the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

Followup:

I tried to create this spot:
http://gowalla.com/spots/151663

I was above ground, Gowalla app showed 3 bars (max) GPS signal, iPhone had 5 bars (max) signal, Map app and Gowalla location accurate to within 10m (I was beside exit 12, west of the Gowalla pin).

After adding spot details and pressing “Create spot” I waited 2 minutes (120 sec felt like a long time) on the “Loading” spinner before assuming the spot had been created but this hadn’t been communicated to my app (server overloaded? this was ~6pm local time). I restarted Gowalla and tried to find the spot under “Nearby spots” to check in. Again I waited 2+ minutes on a spinner, but nothing came up.

My expectation is that spots should create/be listed within about 10 sec—longer than this and I’d expect some kind of progress indication.

As an aside, it’d be good if the Spots menu options had text when there are no results, eg “Nothing found within 30km”, as the blank list looks broken.

I wonder who is gonna claim all these spots I’m making :D

A comment on the problem "[New Spot Creation] Category Resets Data" in Gowalla:

yep—1.3.0 for me – oli studholme, on December 01, 2009 02:53

oli studholme marked one of Brian Bailey's replies in Gowalla as useful. Brian Bailey replied to the question "General problems creating spots".

oli studholme replied on December 01, 2009 02:52 to the question "General problems creating spots" in Gowalla:

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, I guessed that my experience is not the norm, and I also suspect my iPhone (thinking to do a reset/restore atm).

I am using version 1.3.0

Maps on iPhone is generally good. The next time this happens I’ll also try checking in Maps to see if the location is quickly and accurately found. I assume at least one inaccurate/slow creation was due to being on a stationary train at the time (although Maps generally works inside a car for me).

I don’t have Wifi turned on, but I’m assuming that without a network connection this won’t make any difference, and there are no open networks in Japan :/

It seems the spot where I got stuck on loading was successfully created (search http://gowalla.com/spots/ for "matsue"—4 times! woops :) but the app never got the confirmation and I never had a chance to check in and claim it. Foiled again!

Thanks again

peace - oli

oli studholme asked a question in Gowalla on November 30, 2009 07:53:

General problems creating spots

I’ve had a bunch of trouble creating spots. Generally it just means it takes a long time (5+ min) to make a spot, a couple of times I’ve not been able to make the spot at all due to one or more of the problems below:

* Selecting category resets “Create Spot” screen (see http://getsatisfaction.com/gowalla/to... )
* After entering location and pressing the final “Create Spot” button, I got stuck on “Loading” for 5+ minutes (also tried restarting iPhone, but had the same problem)
* After pushing the final “create spot” button the position on the map shouldn’t change—it’d taken me so long to make the spot that I was leaving, and the map was still updating while waiting for the spot to create. I wasn’t sure if the incorrect position would be recorded so cancelled.
* GPS sometimes takes minutes to find the spot, or is inaccurate (blame iPhone)

oli studholme replied on November 30, 2009 07:41 to the problem "[New Spot Creation] Category Resets Data" in Gowalla:

I also have this intermittently, and have also begun selecting the category first. It’s happened about 3 times in 8 attempts

oli studholme started following the problem "[New Spot Creation] Category Resets Data" in Gowalla.

oli studholme replied on November 30, 2009 07:36 to the question "New category suggestions" in Gowalla:

Architecture > Place of Worship needs “Shrine” for Japan

oli studholme marked one of Bryan Mason's replies in typekit as useful. Bryan Mason replied to the problem "Feedback from first-time use".

oli studholme reported a problem in typekit on October 15, 2009 06:18:

Feedback from first-time use

Here’s some first-time use feedback using the free plan. I’m guessing you already know about all of these, but here they are:

* Fonts not listed alphabetically :-? Random isn’t the most ... useful sort order ;-)
* No way to tell a single font from a font family in list view (or even if there’s bold/italic)
* Some font families are displayed as individual fonts in list view eg Tenby, M+
* No way to swap between, overlay or side-by-side compare fonts
* Opening multiple tabs to compare fonts is foiled by font about text, meaning the fonts aren’t in the same place across tabs. Please move this text under the font until side-by-side comparisons are possible.
* message above Publish button in kit editor should only appear after changes have been made (until it’s manually closed). I thought publishing hadn’t been successful and tried again.
* A listing by popularity would be *really* useful, especially if it respected style/tag sorts
* A “related fonts” or “this works well when paired with” info panel would rock. But you already know that :)

Edit: A few more comments:

* Search would be nice (less relevant if fonts are listed alphabetically)
* I’d really like to see what language(s) fonts support, and to have the ability to filter by this in the same way as by style/tag. It appears M+ fonts are the only personal fonts that support Japanese. As an example of what I’m talking about, check out the language support listing here: http://klim.co.nz/karbon_charset.php

Thanks for your time

oli studholme started following the idea "slideshare as iPhone-app" in SlideShare.