Ken in Regina
-
Posts
525 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Ken in Regina
-
-
One that always makes me smile is 'just above eye level'. Mainly because my geocache partner is my 9 year old 48 inch tall son. I read him the clue, then say 'just above my head' because I know he will start looking around my belly button height.
Unless the cache owner is closer to your son's height.
...ken...
-
Thanks very much, i have been looking at this one, i was under the impression that the TOPO maps cost money, i stand corrected.
You were right, sort of. Garmin's official topo map product costs money. However, Lee has also pointed you to a source of free topo maps. There are loads of free maps available for Garmin devices as well as a great selection of commercial products.
...ken...
-
The Venture HC (Legend HCx is a different unit) has the same performance and functions as the Vista.
The Venture HC does not have a slot for a memory card. This will drive you nuts if you want to load topos because the internal memory for loading maps is really small. I tried one for half an hour and sent it back as soon as I found out how restrictive this was for me.
The Venture HC does not have the electronic compass and barometer. If you want a compass that will work even when you are standing still, you need the Vista.
The Legend HCx is in between. It has the memory card slot but it does not have the electronic compass and barometer.
...ken...
-
No, I didn't miss it.
But people have recently reported that Garmin wouldn't sell just another unlock code and required the users to purchase another DVD. YMMV.
I have not seen those reports. Based on my personal experience I wouldn't put much stock in them in any case. It sounds like someone just didn't get the right customer service rep. I'm not aware of any such policy change at Garmin.
I think the last really annoying map policy change was when they stopped allowing two FREE unlock codes. I wouldn't be surprised if that hasn't simply morphed into a myth-understanding that you can't buy multiple unlock codes.
For the record, I just checked on MyGarmin and I still have the option to "Unlock Additional GARMIN Unit" beside all of my registered maps.
...ken...
-
DVD versions of City Navigator North America after v8 only come with a single unlock code.
Perhaps you missed the part where I said:
If you got the maps on DVD you can buy a second unlock code for the second unit.or the other part where I said:
...(and $75 if it's still the same price as last time I bought one)....ken...
-
No, you might not need to buy another copy of the maps.
The eTrexes don't come with preloaded maps so you have added them yourself in some way.
If you got the maps on DVD you can buy a second unlock code for the second unit. You just need the serial number of the second unit (and $75 if it's still the same price as last time I bought one). You can get the second unlock code by phoning Garmin's customer service, by going through your MyGarmin account or by using the Manage Maps feature in Mapsource.
If you bought the SD card version of the maps or the download version you will have to buy another copy because you cannot copy them.
...ken...
-
With both WAAS and EGNOS, you have to be operating long enough for the GPS to download the correction data. The data is transmitted continuously in one long stream that repeats. The transmission is relatively slow and there is no error correction so if there is an error in the received data your GPS has to wait until the next time it comes around.
The correction data is only relevant for "current" conditions so if the GPS has been off for a time (say, a few days), it has to completely acquire new correction data.
As has already been stated, the further from the equator you are, the more difficulty your GPS receiver may have acquiring the correction data. Therefore, the longer it may take to get the "differential" (eg. corrected) lock for any of the satellites. (The "D" stands for "differential".)
...ken...
-
Just one thing to clarify from Parknet's comments. The performance of the eTrex Legend C will not be comparable to the Venture HC or Vista HCx or Legend HCx. The newer high sensitivity receiver technology in the "H" models is far superior. From the various discussions I've seen, the performance of the eTrex "H" models is quite comparable to the PN-40.
There are functional differences related to geocaching. The PN-40 seems to have more features devoted to paperless caching than the eTrex models. It looks like a great geocaching device if you live and cache in the United States. Outside the US, not so much. No maps worth talking about.
If you just want a cheap eTrex H model to use in conjunction with the iPhone, eg. let the eTrex do the GPS work and the iPhone handle the storage and display of the cache info, the Venture HC would be a good choice. It's inexpensive and you can load caches to it from Geocaching.com (so you would load the caches twice, once to the iPhone and once to the eTrex). The Venture does not allow you to load the full description/hints of the cache information and it doesn't have a memory card slot so you can't load very much map data if you want maps on it.
The eTrexes with an "x" in the model type have great battery life. My eTrex Legend HCx is rated at 22 hours on a pair of alkalines. I got 24 hours out of my first set of alkalines. I get around 16 hours hours out of NiMH rechargables. That's on the golf course where I have it on continuously for four to five hours at a pop.
I need to mention that I have not had my hands on a PN-40 so I am only going on performance reports in here. I can say that my eTrex Legend HCx will hold a lock in some pretty awful conditions so I feel from the various comments in here that they are very similar in performance.
...ken...
-
The point is and has been, as bad an idea technically as some folks think it is, it was likely a business decision to go with readily available rasterized data that didn't need conversion before it could be sold as a product. DeLorme did it and packaged it into one box with nothing furher needed. No third party software, no gleaning the Internet for imagery.
I don't know whose point you think that is.
The point is: No conversion from raster to vector is necessary. As has already been pointed out multiple times in this thread, the proper vector databases already exist in Canada and are freely accessable.
It's that fact that makes DeLorme's efforts, in this very specific case, look rather half-hearted.
As far as the business decision, do you have inside information that the rest of us are not privy to? If not, it's nothing but unsubstantiated speculation (more commonly known as a strawman, or maybe a smelly old red herring).
Now, if what you are saying is that DeLorme simply decided to cheap out rather than doing a decent map product in order to try to cheat some bucks out of the unwary, that's probably an even worse criticism of their effort than any of the rest of us have made. All we've done is point out that the product could have been better. We never accused them of greed. We have no inside information so we've avoided making any comments on their motivation.
...ken...
-
Here's a question for everyone ... If the imagery in GE is copyright material and re-using is illegal, why does GE have a "Save Image" command built into the program? Wouldn't using that "built-in" command be in violation of the license agreement?
JetSkier
You would have to read Google's terms of use for that product to answer your own question.
Without using a lot of imagination it's not hard to think of a variety of things you could do with "save image" that would fit "fair use" in any reasonable Terms Of Use. Only a read of Google's terms of use for Google Earth will tell you specifically about that product.
As an example, given that you can look at that image via Google Earth any time you please, it's not unreasonable to assume the terms of use might allow you to save an image to look at offline or perhaps combine with some text and print out in, say, a trip planning document, for your own personal use only.
...ken...
-
That's an excellent example of trying to vectorize textures ... badly. On the left it's obvious it's trees. On the right it looks like humpy bumpy terrain.
Are such vectorized maps as your example on the right readily available? The only vector maps I've seen just show relevant stuff so you don't have to worry about confusing trees with lumpy terrain. Even the vectorized topos I've seen make no attempt to include ground cover except as a colour to distinguish areas that are normally treed from areas that aren't.
...ken...
-
I worked near Saskabush one year. Sometime in October they stop saying "minus" in the weather forecast as it is "assumed" (need frozen emoticon)
Well, that would be right now. The awful stuff hit here on the 8th and it doesn't look like it's going to change much in the next few days.
But you guys got it earlier than we did so....
...ken...
-
Regedit
Only useful if you know what to mess with ... and how to avoid messing up.
Download and run Windows Installer Cleanup Utility and delete the Mapsource installations from the list of installed applications. Much safer than monkeying with the registry editor if you're not sure what to hack.
That should remove the entries that are messing with the Mapsource installer. A restart before trying to install again might be in order.
Once you're done, or if that isn't enough to get the installer working, get a good registry cleaner utility. I use the free version of Windows SystemCare. It has a lot of other stuff, too, but it has an excellent registry cleaner in it. It should clean out the offending registry entries. Suggest that you do a restart after running it to clean out bad installation stuff, before you do any further installation activity.
EDIT: I should warn anyone who has never used a really good registry cleaner that if you decide to run SystemCare's registry cleaner you will be astonished at how many entries it will offer to remove the first time you run it.
I had used the old RegClean utility for years and thought it was pretty good. The first time I ran the SystemCare registry cleaner it offered to remove over 15,000 (yep, fifteen thousand!) entries. I took a look through the list it was offering to remove (you have complete control over what it removes or if it removes anything, so don't panic) I discovered just what a crappy job Windows and various applications do of cleaning up after themselves. The majority were "most recently used" type entries that were no longer relevant. After cleaning all that junk out of there there was a noticable difference in system performance.
...ken...
-
Fortunately, there are dozens of screenshots of that very benefit shown (even though many are likely TOU violations) and described in this very thread.
You raise a good point about terms of use, Robert. It's probably worth clarifying.
1. Using Google Earth and Google Maps images is almost certainly a violation of Google's terms of use and the map providers' copyrights. Scanning images from commercial maps (paper or onscreen) might be a violation of copyright (check the fine print). Posting screenshots here which contain those images is almost certainly a violation of Geocaching.com's terms of use.
2. Using images that have been made publicly and freely available and using Google's calibration function to calibrate them for use in your handheld is fine. Posting screenshots of those efforts here is also okay.
Is that about right?
...ken...
-
install the version Mapsource you want use...then install it a second time
rws is right. It's surprising how often that works.
...ken...
-
If it has to be georeferenced in Google Earth I will be interested in how accurate it is as people actually make tracks on them in the wild.
Any experiences in reality yet?
...ken...
-
It's possible that the potential sales numbers aren't interesting to them yet. Just a guess.
DeLorme Street Atlas USA actually contains a really good world basemap. Most users don't even know it's there because they've never tried to scroll the map outside the US. It's a basemap so outside North America it only contains city names and major highways, no street grids. But that's exactly what you expect from a basemap.
...ken...
-
I like Tilley hats for a variety of reasons. I have three of them. Each has a "secret" pocket in the top of the hat, accessed from a velcro enclosure inside the hat. My external antenna fits in there nicely. It seems to really like to be there. Not only is it the best possible view of the sky but the antenna seems to think my head is a pretty good ground plane.
...ken...
-
What I don't get is if you don't have a DeLorme why would you even read this thread?
Because I want one? And I keep hoping they'll eventually get the mapping thing right.
...ken...
-
You can get the official Garmin microSD card maps for Italy/Greece from a number of Canadian suppliers. Try GPS City or GPS Central. Both have toll free phone numbers and are very helpful.
Here's an example for your information:
http://www.gpscity.ca/garmin-city-navigato...reece-card.html
...ken...
-
To do route simulation on your Legend HCx or Vista HCx:
- go to the main menu and select Satellite or use the upper right button to cycle to the satellite screen.
- Press the menu button and select "Use With GPS Off".
- Create your route or select a saved one and press Navigate.
- You will be offered the option to run in Demo mode to simulate your route.
You're right about the user interface on the eTrexes being somewhat less than intuitive
but I haven't found anything so far that a Nuvi can do that my Legend HCx can't. .... Well, it doesn't do voice guidance but for my purposes a beep and a quick look at the onscreen guidance is just fine....ken...
-
But these were not good enough, a bad decision by DeLorme to offer them - a something that is worse than nothing.
You make it sound like this is happening in a vacuum. 'Tain't so. It's happening in a highly competitive marketplace.
If there were no alternatives out there, something would be better than nothing. For sure.
But in a competitive marketplace you can't ever do "something is better than nothing". You gotta do "something at least as good as what's already out there".
If DeLorme is going to be taken seriously they for sure gotta do at least as good as a university student in his spare time, never mind the big guns at Navteq and DMTI.
...ken...
-
I was looking at the Legend HCx which has a rated battery life of 25 hours.
Then I compared it to the Venture HC, and it only has a rated battery life of 14 hours.
Why is there such a big difference? Is it all because of the memory differences? The venture is on-board while the legend is the micro sd.
Memory can't be the issue. The Legend HCx has at least as much internal memory as the Venture HC, maybe more. I can't hazard a guess where the difference is but it's not the amount of internal memory.
...ken...
-
I apologize. I misspoke about your attacks on DeLorme.
I should have said your backhanded swipes at DeLorme users when they don't want to agree with you.
I've never seen Red90 do that. He simply reacts with annoyance when you choose to ignore the fact that DeLorme's mapping in Canada isn't the same, and isn't nearly as good, as it is for the continental US. And he echoes the annoyance many of us in Canada have that, for that reason, we can't make use of such a versatile tool as the PNs.
When it comes to DeLorme's mapping, the glass IS half empty if you don't live or operate in the American lower 48. That's a simple fact. And a perpetual frustration. Especially when some DeLorme evangelists choose to ignore it.
Frankly, it would be less annoying if you all would just say, "Nyah, nyah, nyah ... We've got it and you can't have it!!" It would be much easier to deal with.
Back to the subject at hand, providing raster maps for Canada when the vector data is freely available is just salt in the wounds, especially when you understand how much mapping expertise exists inside DeLorme. As Red90 said, when a university student can build a complete set of vector topos for all of Canada, including up to date road data ... from FREE government sources ... using amateur-developed tools ... in his spare time ... for FREE download, it's really really hard not to be insulted by DeLorme's half-hearted effort.
...ken...
but I haven't found anything so far that a Nuvi can do that my Legend HCx can't. .... Well, it doesn't do voice guidance but for my purposes a beep and a quick look at the onscreen guidance is just fine.
Not one more $$ to GARMIN!
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
Well, I'm an "IT guy". I don't say anyone deserves to have anything bad happen to them. However, it's predictable and I think that's probably what was meant.
Nobody expects their toaster or their TV to last forever, so it seems reasonable to expect eventual failure of a computer, too. Perhaps it's their surprising reliability that lulls people.
...ken...