New Test Computer

Well it's kind of old, it's a desktop, and it's not even a cool color, but the first GoRoam test computer just arrived in the mail. It's one of those iMac computers with the processor inside the monitor and even though I thought I'd never own a Mac, I am excited to have it so I can test GoRoam for all you Mac users.

As soon as it arrived, I fired it up, got it on the internet, and discovered a few things:

1. Microsoft stopped making Internet Explorer for the Mac at version 5.2. Who knew? Certainly not me. So I guess that means GoRoam will never work in IE on a Mac. Good to know.
2. GoRoam does have some problems in Firefox on the Mac, so I'll have to look into it more closely to see what it will take to fix them. I'll post more information on this when I have it.
3. GoRoam seems to work to a certain extent in Safari, so maybe I'll decide to support Safari in future versions. We'll see.

With this new-old computer in my posession, Mac users can expect some fixes soon.

Version 0.2.1

Well it's only been a week since I launched GoRoam, and I've already fixed some things. This is a minor new version, including the following changes:

1. Cursors for the toolbar tools.
2. A tool to clear the line from the map and start over.
3. Zoom in when finding a location.
4. Double-click on the map to re-center and zoom in one level.
5. Highlighting of the distance box when the distance toolbar button is clicked.
6. Better instructions on how to use the tools.

Next, I'm going to work on undo/redo functionality. As always, if you have comments, great ideas, or bugs to report, feel free to contact us.

Welcome to the GoRoam Blog

Hello everyone. This is the first post on the GoRoam blog, where I'll be keeping track of feature additions, bug fixes, and version launches for my site GoRoam. For more information about GoRoam, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page and the About Us page.

Well, it's taken me a long time to get to this point, but I'm finally launching GoRoam. I started working on this site roughly 1.5 years ago with two other guys. Since then, my partners have left the team in order to pursue an around-the-world sailing trip (and I say, good for them - I wish I could do the same), the name of the site has changed, and so too has the general approach. Instead of launching a fully-formed application, I'm going to start small and build up from the base of the current version of GoRoam. This first version is a simple distance calculator. I run a lot and often wonder exactly how far I've gone (I keep track of my runs in a running log); GoRoam is an easy was for me to map out a route and see how far I went. That's the entirety of the site right now. But I'm planning on adding an unending list of features:

1. Logging in to the site to save and share routes.
2. Adding text, images, and video at any point along the route.
3. Importing and exporting the data from/into common data formats.
4. Etc, etc, etc.

To give you an idea of the later stages, GoRoam will be something that makes it easy for you to document a road trip in its entirety: where (on a map) you went, when you were there, what you saw while you were there (in images and video), and what you thought about it (in text). It also may turn into something where you can map out a route you did (on a road trip or a run or a bike ride or a sailing trip or a ski adventure or a ... you get the idea), share it with a community of others in your area (Crested Butte mountain bikers, for example), log when you do that route, and see how other people have done that route. Whatever it becomes, the focus will always be on pinning information to a location on a map.

GoRoam is something that I think a lot of people will find useful. As such, I fully intend to keep it free to use, for anyone who wants to use it. I would also like to keep it free of advertisements and will do so unless it becomes too much of a drain on my funds.

Right now, this project is something that I devote a lot of time to, but it's not my full-time job; maybe some day in the future I will be able to work on GoRoam full time. While GoRoam remains a side project, I can definitely use the help of the general public. If you like the site, please tell your friends about it. Any time you find something wrong with the site, email me about it. And if you have great ideas about what I should add to the site, I would love to hear them.

So please use and enjoy GoRoam. I'll continue working on it, adding gradual improvements, and I'll post all changes to the site on this blog.

Ryan Martin

ryan@goro.am

Version 0.2

This is the first version of GoRoam. It includes:

1. Creating lines on the map.
2. Deleteing points from the lines.
3. Keeping track of line distances.
4. Finding locations on the map.
5. A draggable zoom box.