SpotWalla - Help

About SpotWalla

Spot can mean many things, but in this context spot is defined as "a place, locality or position on a map." A walla is defined as "one employed in a particular occupation or activity."¹ SpotWalla is a system that you employ to manage your personal location data in a secure environment.

SpotWalla allows you to share where you've been and where you're going with no one or with the world. That means you have control over the degree to which your personal and private location information is visible. This degree of security is achieved in a number of ways. First and foremost, secure zones allow you to define regions in which no locations should be displayed. You can setup secure zones for your home, your place of work, Grandma's house or any other location. Other security settings control your degree of exposure in trips, location pages...

SpotWalla users share their location information via trips, location pages and device location widgets. Trips can be viewed directly and/or embedded into your blog or a forum post. Location pages allow multiple users to share their last known location on a single page. And the device location widgets allow users to share their last known location on a single page. Easily integrated into a blog or forum post or in an email.

Each of these topics and more is accessible in the help menu bar above. In the FAQ you'll find answers to some of the more common questions.

¹ This definition found on Dictionary.com.

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The Blog and Tweet Wallas

There are a number of ways to stay on top of what's happening at SpotWalla. Nothing happens at SpotWalla without a post to the BlogWalla and a tweet to the TweetWalla. We will post system upgrade notices and provide general, infrequent updates on the blog and tweet the blog links on Twitter. Following the BlogWalla and/or TweetWalla is recommended.

BlogWalla at

TweetWalla

Another excellent way to stay on top of things is by joining the SpotWalla Google Group. This group is an excellent way to provide feedback and get input from SpotWalla users and support. The group operates primarily as an email list, but you may also choose to not receive email and browse the group like most forums.

Subscribe to SpotWalla Google Group

Email:

Visit this group

And you may always send an email to the Support Walla.

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Supporting Technologies

SpotWalla is built upon, powered by and supports the following communities and technologies...

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Recommended System Requirements

You can use SpotWalla from any system with internet connectivity and a compatible web browser. However, you may be surprised to find out that SpotWalla relies on your computer's processor and other resources to render process the data required to render a map in the trip viewer or location page or any other map. This is because the underlying technology (JavaScript) employed to render maps runs on the client and "the client" is your machine. Having said that... faster is better than slower.

SpotWalla recommends the following:

System - The most significant system-related resource SpotWalla uses is your processor. The faster the processor, the quicker your web browser will render maps and other pages. A 2GHz or better processor should do the trick. Additionally, a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768 is recommended. Bigger is way better.
Internet Connection - SpotWalla itself doesn't send a lot of data to your computer, but it does rely upon Google for maps and Yahoo! for some user-interface componentry. The bigger the pipe to the internet, the faster your machine can download maps from Google and componentry from Yahoo. A DSL or better internet connection is recommended.
Web Browser - We strive to support the major browsers on the market today. SpotWalla should work on Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari and Chrome. These are the browsers we use to test the system. SpotWalla recommends FireFox (Get FireFox) and Chrome (Get Chrome). These two browsers are consistently the best performers when it comes to rendering webpages.
Mobile Smart Phones - Most of today's high-end smartphones are capable of using SpotWalla. While we don't have a mobile interface specifically, we have successfully used SpotWalla on both Motorola Droid and Apple iPhone mobile devices. Other devices may work as well, but it's impratical if not impossible for us to test them all.

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Making a Donation

SpotWalla does not currently charge for its services, but a lot of SpotWalla users have inquired about how they can help support the effort. If you're compelled to make a donation, please enter a donation amount below and click the Paypal image or the Donate button.

Currently, Paypal.com is the only way to make a donation. Donations are voluntary and not required to use any SpotWalla services. Please don't go over board and send your life savings. All donations will be used to support the ongoing infrastructure costs of SpotWalla.com.

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User Agreement

Click this link to read the SpotWalla User Agreement.

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