Want to help map the oil spill? Here’s how to do it with the Verizon Droid Incredible

Eyewitness volunteer reporters with camera- and GPS-enabled phones needed to help map the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

A call has gone out for people in the area of the Gulf of Mexico with camera- and GPS-enabled phones to help out with mapping. Relevant Twitter user names are @oilreport, @epiccolorado and @kate30_cu.

Disclaimer

When I tested this, the process was dead simple on the Verizon Droid Incredible using the built-in Twitter client, called ‘Peep’. The  following setup instructions are for the Incredible. It’s the only phone I have and the only Android device I’ve tested. Other phones will have different procedures and settings. For the record, the Android Firmware version is 2.1-update1. If you have another phone with GPS and camera and would like to contribute instructions, please do so in the comments! But please, no flames – I’ll delete them!

Setting up location

First, go to ‘Settings’ and select ‘Wireless & networks’. Check the ‘Wi-Fi’ option and connect to any available Wi-Fi networks. Next, go back to ‘Settings’ and select ‘Location’. Check the ‘Use wireless networks’ option. Check the ‘Use GPS satellites’ option. Select the ‘LOCATION ON’ radio button.

You will get a warning message telling you that you are sharing your location. Since we’re setting up to do field work, you want to do this, so say, ‘OK’. Just remember to turn it off when you’re hanging out with your friends later. Finally, go back to ‘Settings’ and select ‘Privacy’. Check the ‘Use My Location’ option. You’ll get another warning – select ‘Agree’.

Setting up the Camera application to tag photos

Start up the ‘Camera’ application. If you’re holding the device in  ‘landscape’ orientation, pull the menu tab on the left to the right. At the bottom of the menu, you’ll see two gears. That’s the ‘Settings’ menu. There are a number of settings, but the two you want to be sure you have are time stamping and geo-tagging. Make sure the ‘Geo-tag photos’ and ‘Time stamp’ options are set (green check-mark is present). If they are set, the pictures you take will have ‘meta-data’ with the time they were taken and the GPS location.

Setting up the Peep Twitter client

The Verizon Droid Incredible comes with an HTC Twitter client called ‘Peep’ built in. You’ll need to set it up if you haven’t already. Go to the ‘Setup’ menu. Use the ‘Skip’ button to skip to the ‘Set up social networks’ screen. Press the ‘Twitter’ entry.

Enter your user name and password and press the ‘Sign in’ button. Then exit with the ‘Back’ button. Start up ‘Peep’ from the menu. Press the ‘Menu’ button and select ‘More’. Select ‘Settings’. You’ve already set the ‘Account Settings’. Under ‘General Settings’, make sure ‘Use screen names’ is checked.

Under ‘Send and receive’, choose the number of tweets you want to download on a refresh. Make sure ‘Update on launch’ is checked. Select the ‘Update frequency’ you want. The default is every hour, but I usually set it to every 30 minutes.

Next, you’ll need to go to ‘Services’. First, select a photo host. I haven’t tried all of them, but the two options available with Peep are Twitgoo and Twitpic. I have a Twitpic account, so that’s the one I use. For quality, I select ‘High quality’. Turn ‘Auto GPS Fix’ on. I use the default URL shortener, ‘is.gd’.

Finally, set the ‘Notification settings’. I use the defaults, but I set the ‘Notification sound’ off and ‘Notification vibrate’ on. Exit out of ‘Settings’ and you should be ready to post pictures from Peep with locations.

Posting pictures with location

To post from Peep, first go into ‘Menu’ and select ‘Update location’. When I do this from home, it usually gets my exact street address. Again, if you’re sensitive about telling people where you live, don’t try this at home! Go into ‘Menu’ again and select ‘New Tweet’. You’ll see an on-screen keyboard. Above that is a camera icon, a globe with four compass points, and a button marked ‘Update’.

First, press the ‘Camera’ icon. You’ll get a choice of ‘From camera’ or ‘From album’. I picked ‘From camera’. When you press the ‘Done’ button, the picture is uploaded to your photo hosting service automatically and a link to it is inserted in the tweet.

Now, press the ‘Globe’ icon. You’ll get a ‘Post your location’ menu. It gives your latitude and longitude, accuracy (mine was 24 meters via GPS). You can ‘Update GPS Now’, which redoes the GPS fix. If you do this, you’ll need to press the ‘Globe’ icon again to get the menu back.

The other two options are ‘Insert Maplink’, which puts a link to a Google Map into the tweet, and ‘Insert Location Name’, which inserts the location. Again, if you use either of these options, you’ll need to press the ‘Globe’ icon again to get the menu back for any others.

Now, you can add any text you want to the tweet. When I did this, I inserted the street address and ended up with 52 characters left. You should be fine with just the map link. Once you’ve composed the rest of the text for the tweet, press ‘Update’ and Peep will send the tweet out!

Yes, it really is that simple with the Droid Incredible! For ‘citizen journalists’ and volunteer workers, this seems to me to be the device of choice, at least where Verizon coverage is available. Again, if you want to contribute setup instructions for other devices, please feel free to post them here.