UPDATE 01/21/09:
Okay, okay. A lot of you seem to like the site…I’m going to bring it back. Moving back to MySQL though. Stay tuned.
Well, it was a fun while it lasted. Unfortunately, I’ve decided to close the doors of MoosTrax permanently.
It started with BlackBerryTracker.com, which I had set up in Fall of 2007, to provide a site to track BlackBerry GPS-enabled devices. Prior to starting the site I had got my first BlackBerry, the 8800, and also my first GPS enabled phone. I decided to to learn a little J2ME and BlackBerry device programming, while trying out the GPS functionality of the phone. The end product of this was BlackBerryTracker which was relatively well received by the community and I believe provided a good service to a lot of people. The site grew to just over 10,000 people in the following year.
After this, I decided to redesign the site, use a new database system(CouchDB), and choose a new, less specific name(MoosTrax). I was very happy with the new site, and especially the database, CouchDB, because of its less relational nature and document-oriented architecture(and who doesn’t love map/reduce).
Unfortunately, with CouchDB came extremely large database sizes. So large, in fact, that my 80GB hard drive became quickly filled. It filled so fast that I couldn’t even compact it, or make it smaller. My only option at this point was to move the 80GB database to another, remote server, compact it, delete it from the server, and replace it with the smaller copy. This proved to be more work than it was worth, and my interests in MoosTrax had been declining, so I have now decided to end it all here.
I thank everyone who helped me in testing BlackBerryTracker/MoosTrax and those who supported the progress of the site!
It was a great run and I hope to begin working a new project that will hopefully serve a new community.
Bah… I appreciate the effort put forth. It is a shame though. This was the only app I found that allowed my and ONLY me to know where my berry was. All the other apps I found were for social tracking. I don’t want the world to know where I am, I just want to know where my berry is if I lose it or some schlep walks off with it. Any ideas for an alternative app?
The app was coming along nicely – I’m going to miss it
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Most of the other apps will only report your position to others if you share your link or publish your location on facebook or some such. If you don’t give out that info no one should know where to look.
The most stable “free” one I’ve found so far is instamapper (.com), and if you are looking for a pay one accutracking (.com) seems to be a reasonably priced one, and they will let you go month – month if you want to. Instamapper seems to stay running in the background only if you push the red “end call” key when it is running, and for me it causes an error if you exit other than using the “exit” menu command, but it’s one of the few where the writers are still actively working on it. Nothing against Chris at all, but there seems to be a trend in the free blackberry tracking world to get the app so far along and then move on to something else – mologogo is one that appears to be frozen in time, nav4all is still deciding how they are going to do it, and those were the only other promising looking ones out there. MoosTrax was off to an awesome start!
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Sorry to see you go moostrax.
Mr. Moos, any chance you could publish or distribute the code as an open-source project? That would be great! I’d be willing to setup hosting.
Sorry to see you go, I just found this site and from reading the hundreds of good reviews you were getting I wanted to try it out.
I’m with Craig on his post of an open source project and would gladly contribute programming or hosting services.
I would definitely open source the code. I don’t mind hosting it…and if the source is available..maybe there will be better tracking options out there for all of you. Stay tuned
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Once the code is open source, maybe a “isolated” install could be done that would allow the Moostrax client to connect to a defined “server”. The server software could be installed on any laptop/server as an running application.
Sorry to see such an interesting idea end…
Let me understand – you had 10,000 users and a service that people were just getting to understand and you shut it down because your 80 Gb hard drive was full? Why not charge? Even at $5 a month per user that’s $50k a month. Are you on crack?
Consider how valuable this is to companies with roaming sales forces who want to know what they do all day. You have a gold mine here.
Unless, you got a call from someone with a 202 area code making “suggestions”…
Write me if you want to know how to make this make money.
A
sorry to see you go.
I had tried to start using the application again when I noticed both sites down. It’s a wonderful app, that no others can currently match. Please don’t let the frustration of a database make your decisions for you. Stick with proven databases, and in my opinion, everything was fine the way it was.
There is very big potential for the application if that is they way you want to take it.
Example
I work for a wireless cellular provider, and though not limited to just a single provider, people lose their blackberry’s all the time and that alone is stress enough for the customer after agreeing to a 3yr commitment to get their new BB Bold and having to pay upwards to 600 dollars for a new one.
Business’ and Corporations can see this application as an asset to their blackberry inventory if one be misplaced or stolen. BES has an option to push an application OTA to the device and have it automatically start.
Cellular providers if not host the application as a service, Track and Trace department, if implimented properly with proper agreements, could use tracking methods to find the location of a misplaced/stolen blackberry.
Your application can have significant use and benefit not only to the casual user, but business and corporations alike.
If not currently implimented to future proof your application and service, I personally find the following a great asset to all:
Application to automatically start when the device starts up, and or when cell tower connectivity has been established; much like windows live messenger for mobile. (application rules/permission need be set by user of course).
and if the webpage, after signing in could somehow be displayed in xml format or some other format where an offline program can aggregate the information. This option I think would benefit business and corporations as they could integrate it into their current solution. This option could offload your database storage concerns as track/location information would be stored locally. I suppose in a way, your site then, would be acting like a location proxy server.
That actually sounds half decent just thinking about it. Java is cross platform capable. So, you could develop a Java-based “thin” client for computer.
J2ME device Location Server Thin Client
That takes the load off your data base would it not? Since the thin client is requesting the location of the handheld, the Location Server issues a “where are you” to the application on the device, which the device sends a “i am here” reply, which gets forwarded to the thin client. The thin client then could be set to send the request in intervals (similar to the way the j2me software currently does) so that real-time tracking can be established. This means virtually NO space required for the server.
Alternatly, a person could log into the server and send the same request and see the results displayed, however, the information of that session is retained in the local cache and expires as any webpage would. Now you have a dual purpose tracking server and you benefit by not incurring space constraints, since the only requirment is login credentials and api key.
Please GPL this or something man. Throw it out into the community so it may stay alive! We’d be happy to take it on & give you cred!
moostrax was definately the best and most accurate gps solution there was when considering “free” gps tracking solutions. Definately will miss moostrax. Thanks for your service while it lasted.
For those looking for a new service, i can recommend http://www.instamapper.com. I would rank it second best after moostrax.
Check out this website: http://brentmeganowen.tripod.com/blackberry.htm for lots of GPS information for blackberry.
I 100% agree with dude, your insane for not commercializing this and putting a small charge on this much needed app. Think of the good that this could do for such things as like Moms and Dads. Alot of parents now give their children phones now and this would be a great tool for making sure your kids are where they say they are making sure they’re safe. Tracking things like kidnappings or stolen purses etc… the list never ends. This includes cheaters as well to see where your spouse is, simply put if you’re worried about any of these enough then you would be willing to pay for the service.
Instamapper is nice aside from the fact it has to be consciously started, and there\’s no way I\’ve found to put it in the background (nicely) other than app switching.
Moostrax was nice since it sat almost hidden away in a menu and just \”ran.\” (I used it rarely since I only found out about it recently so I\’m foggy on the validity of this, though I\’m fairly certain.)
Cheers mate. Best with your endeavours.
My company was going to use this for vehicle logistics so that we could take advantage of idle time when drivers are sitting and waiting to pick up a patient to have that driver run errands for other customers, deliver prescriptions, etc rather than sitting around reading a book or something. They have since decided to bail to Nextel because Nextel says they can do it now – but I am still pushing for this app because I know the whole nextel thing is going to fall apart in their faces and they’ll be back crying for help….
Incidentally, there is a super-secret beta version of instamapper out now that has auto-start available. I found out about it last night and grabbed it and played with it – seemed to run OK but still crashes my BB when I exit the app – MoosTrax never crashed my BB at all… If you want to go looking for the 1.6 beta the link is almost at the end of the first page of the “BlackBerry Storm” thread in their forums.
Bro! I will provide you a laptop and external hard drive to get this started again. I am a college graduate in this economy and it’s hard. Plus I have Army funding to start a business. Hit me up crogers74@sprint.blackberry.net. I am using Loopt right now, hit me up mannn. I am in michigan and this could be a blessing for both of us and make our children set for life!!!
Chuck
No to sound like an “ASS” but why not “pass the torch”. i mean you were providing such a tremendous “free” support to all those Blackberry users out there and I am pretty certain that somewhere out there someone is willing to carry on your work. Now (no offense ) you sound selfish; that being the case I have not forgotten that this was a public service provided; an so I rest on this final thought. Make your code open sourc and “we’ll see what happens” XD