trc.me
trc.me (pronounced "track me") is a tool for crowdsourcing the geolocation of objects. Or, in English, it's a tool for tracking your stuff.
How It Works
There are three steps:
- Tag it: Create a new tag using trc.me by filling out a quick and simple form. When you are done, you will be able to print the tag. The important part of the tag will be a URL, which looks like "trc.me/234567". Mark your object with that URL, or print out the tag and attach it to the object.
- Flag it: When you find a trc.me tag, go to that web address using a PC or a phone to flag its location, and earn trc.me points and sometimes prizes.
- Track it: Log in to see where your stuff has been flagged.
Cool things to tag are things you lend or give away, like books and CDs; things that travel, like shoes, or cash; things that you want to flag in cool place, like a backpack; or your own products, so people can see how popular your brand is! trc.me also provides an excellent way to find out more about your customers, where they are, how they use your product, and what they think about it.
(The square barcode on a tag is its URL written as a barcode. Modern phones with applications like Google Goggles allow users to go straight to the URL without typing it in.)
Get stuff
Flagging a code can score you trc.me points. The owner of a code can also allow you to redeem points for other things, like cellphone airtime, or discount vouchers. trc.me points vary according to the trc.me points rules.
trc.me points rules
- Flagging your own code scores no points.
- The further a flag is from its code's previous flag, the more points you get. Scale is logarithmic.
- 20th, 30th, 40th, etc. or 200th, 300th, 400th, etc. flags score bonus points.
- 10th, 100th, 1000th, etc. flags score big bonus points.
- If you are caught flagging codes falsely, your account will be suspended, and your points will be revoked.
- By default, you only earn points the first time you flag a code.
Installation
Requirements
Django database requirements
subhub Installation
Setup a cron job that will process pending subscriptions and distribute failed notifications:
# Process subscriptions every 3 hours 0 */3 * * * user /path/to/manage.py subhub_maintenance --subscribe # Distribute notifications every 15 minutes */15 * * * * user /path/to/manage.py subhub_maintenance --distribute
HTTP Basic Authentication for API
The API allows HTTP Basic authentication. This requires a couple of .htaccess files and FCGI scripts. e.g.
/var/www/hosts/trc.me/.htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ trc_me.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]
/var/www/hosts/trc.me/trc_me.fcgi:
#!/usr/bin/env python import sys, os sys.path.insert(0, "/path/to/virtenv/lib/python2.5") sys.path.insert(1, "/path/to/virtenv/lib/python2.5/site-packages") sys.path.insert(2, "/path/to/src/trc_me/src") os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = "trc_me.settings" from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi runfastcgi(method="threaded", daemonize="false")
/var/www/hosts/trc.me/api/.htaccess:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "trc.me API"
AuthBasicProvider wsgi
WSGIAuthUserScript /path/to/src/trc_me/src/trc_me/wsgi/auth.wsgi
Require valid-user
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ../trc_me.fcgi/api/$1 [QSA,L]
The WSGI script provided in src/trc_me/wsgi/auth.wsgi will need the path in the following line
sys.path.append('/path/to/src/trc_me/src')
to be changed to suit the deployment environment.