With the rise of smartphone and their ability to provide location-based applications using this information have become widespread. One of the original applications of this information was the Layar application which is available on a variety of Apple, Android and Nokia hand held devices.

Layar Logo

The Layar application is available in the relevant “app stores” and has 1500 active Layars available. A Layar is a set of interactive points that can be viewed through their Augmented Reality Browser. When the hand held device is held up the points can be clearly seen together with any relevant information such as distance etc.

In the top right-hand corner you can see mini radar that shows all the events and club-meets that are happening within the distance that you specified when the layar was started. If you want to find events in a different range than this can be changed at any point by pressing the menu button and selecting Layar settings.

The Just Customz Event Layar

At Just Customz we are always looking for new ways to bring cutting edge technology to the Hot Rod, Lowrider and Modified car scene and have now published our own interactive Layar. We have added the most popular modified car events that are available in US, UK, Canada and Australia to our events system which instantly make them available through the Layar application.

If you have an iPhone, Android or Nokia smart phone then simply viisit the relevant “app-store” and download the Layar application. Once it has downloaded and has been installed you are ready to go! Next click on the search icon at the top of the screen and type “justcustomz” and click on the magnifying glass button. Next you will see the Just Customz Layar returned and you are ready to use it.

Layar displaying events that are near you

To fire it up click on the arrow button and you will be shown a slider control that allows you to set the distance that you are willing to travel to go to an event. You can just click the “Apply” button here and accept the default value.

So that is it! You can now see the events that are happening new you by scanning the horizon you will see gray and red circle that indicate the direction of the event from where you are standing.

In the top-right corner you can see a mini radar that shows all of the events and club meetings that are happening within your chosen distance. As you turn around you’ll see that the radar display changes and as points come into view they are at the top of the radar. If you wish to change the distance that you are willing to travel this can be done at any point by pressing the menu button and selecting “settings”.

Layar Application showing extra buttons

The power of the Layar application comes with the contextual features that are available. If you tap on one of the points that appear you will see the menus shown in the image.

More Details

If you now tap on the “More Details” button at the bottom of the screen you will be shown a page with all the information for that event such as address, cost, contact numbers etc.

Take Me There

Most phones have Google Maps installed as standard which offers a myriad location-based features such as getting directions etc. If you now tap the take me there button you’ll be instantly taken to the location in the Google Maps application on your phone where you can then get directions to the event.

Important: Although we take care to ensure the accuracy of the event information we do urge you to confirm that it is the correct address before setting off though as we cannot accept responsibility for any inaccuracies.

Missing Events?

We have taken great care in trying to ensure that we have covered the majority of events around the world but I am sure we have missed some. If you know of a fantastic event that isn’t shown then please let us know through the main Just Customz website and we’ll add it straight away!

Integrate with us

If you have a website and would like access to the event data then we’re always looking for ways to serve the modified car community and would love to make the data freely available to third-parties. If you would like to integrate with us then please get in touch!

The Just Customz website now has a section dedicated to Free Wallpaper. The wallpaper images are downloadable in a variety of sizes directly to your computer. Below are some examples;

1966 Chevelle SS Muscle car

1960 Dodge Charger Muscle car

We have now modified the members section to allow them to upload a picture of themselves together with some information. A good example can be seen for Kate in the lowrider models gallery.

The Just Customz website has always aimed to become a one-stop resource for the global car customising community and this has now become a step closer with the launch of their own web directory. The site attracts thousands of car enthusiasts every day and the addition of the new niche directory has been very popular. The directory lists everything from magazines to those difficult to find parts, accessories and services

The directory is broken down into an easy to navigate hierarchical structure starting with similar all-encompassing sites, like Just Customz, and filtering down to those difficult to find niche directories such as custom car insurance etc.

If you are a supplier of an automotive related service, facility or store you may be asking yourself why you should become part of this directory. There are two big advantages to becoming part of the directory which are:

a. Access to a huge volume of potential daily traffic that will be consumers of the service that you provide.

b. Many of the main search engine algorithms use inbound links as a measure of popularity and directly affect the positioning of a site in the search results.

If you read around the subject of link building, particularly with regard to directories, you’ll see that human edited and moderated directories often (not always) rate more highly than many of the free link farms that are available. You’ll also read that the more specific a directory is then the higher its value from a search engine perspective. It is important that your site is submitted to the correct sub-directory to gain the optimum benefits of the inclusion. This is because each sub-category is very specific and targeted at a very particular sub-set of keywords.

I have finally updated the directory on the site now. It now behaves in the same way as all the on the web and accepts both non-reciprocal and reciprocal links. The directory is broken down into a hierarchy of categories that each have a topic relevant to the car customising community and will hopefully be of use to my visitors.

Today I have increase the caching on the index pages to reduce the load on the server and improve the user experience.

I have now finished adding the new navigation trail at the top of each gallery page. This should improve the way a user moves around the site.

I have been chatting to some guys on Flickr about their pictures and they have agreed to let me show some of their pictures on my site. There are some fantastic rides out there and it is great to be able to show them.

I have also been in contact with Kate Stone and she has been happy to show some of her pictures in my new Lowrider Girls section.

I have been thinking about whether my site would benefit from a models section for some time now. I decided to bite the bullet and add a Lowrider Girls page here. I have also added a section into the members pages to allow people to upload images etc if they want. It could be good for aspiring models.

I also had my first article published on ezines which I feel pretty good about. I think I may write some more soon.

I have been experimenting with a new upload process over the last couple of days which has now gone live this morning.

The old upload process was a bit confusing whereas this method is quick smooth and allows pictures to be easily added or deleted from gallery pages.