If you’re new to developing Facebook applications with Rails then here’s a tip for you. You’ll need to install the RFacebook gem for starters: gem install rfacebook. If you read any of the online tutorials you’ll read that you need to run the rake facebook:setup task to create the facebook.yml file. You may end up seeing the following error message:

Don’t know how to build task ‘facebook:setup’

If so, you’ll need to install the rfacebook plugin using script/plugin install svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/rfacebook/plugins/rfacebook_on_rails. After you install the plugin then rake facebook:setup should run perfectly and create your default facebook.yml file.

We recently put together a video at Ublip demonstrating how to install our simple vehicle fleet tracking product. The video details one of a few different options for powering the device. This one covers our cigarette lighter install and we should have an OBD video available soon. Some of the things you can do with Ublip’s GPS tracking product is:

- Know where a vehicle is at all times
- Know where a vehicle has been
- Generate reports of where a vehicle has stopped
- Generate reports of where a vehicle has entered or exited a predetermined zone
- Consume a GeoRSS feed to integrate a vehicle’s location with you own application or website

Using the Ublip fleet tracking app is even easier than the install. Check out a real demo here and here’s the video:

One of my pet projects at Ublip is focusing on building an online community centered around M2M. If you’re interested in learning more about the M2M industry then I encourage you to check out www.m2mforums.com. The site is in its infancy, but there’s already a strong community of knowledgeable experts talking about all different aspects of M2M. If you’re not familiar with the industry let me explain the overall problem. Right now there are so many areas of fragmentation that starts with sensors and embedded devices, wireless networks and protocols, middleware software, database, and ultimately web applications. There are so many different implementations and suggested standards in each of these area it will make your head spin.

The goal of M2MForums is to create a community where this information can be shared across different areas of the value chain. Since I’m a guy that is heavily involved with Web development I may be able to  provide suggestions and best practices to an embedded guy work on an implementation. This is a two way street and there are so many areas and nitty-gritty details to understand. I could ramble on and on, but please feel free to join and I look forward to seeing you over there!