Seedillume

All touchscreen smartphones have a maximum battery life of 1 hour or so when heavily using the GPS and data. It's the dirty little secret that ALL manufacturers hide when advertising the functionality of their devices. As other people have suggested, a battery extender would be a wise choice. The best battery extenders have the same form factor as a case. This helps tremendously with usability. In fact, you will just think you have a case an nothing else. Monoprice.com has great prices on these battery extenders.

I guess Geocaching skills will play a bigger part in obtaining our goal! Read More

A few weeks ago, I went to REI to gets some hands on experience with the Oregon. I subsequently fell in love with it. The touch screen, navigation, and even typing was a breeze to use. Well, I saw one flaw. The 3D driving mode map was so slow that it would be almost useless while driving. The salesman told me that the Garmin representative was in the store a few days prior. He stated to REI that the Colorado will probably just going to be discontinued due to all of the problems. I'll admit that I never bought one because of all of the flaws, albeit software & hardware, that have been posted in these forums. Of course, I didn't play with the Oregon enough to see any real flaws. So, I think the Colorado will end up being the black eye in Garmin's reputation. P.S. Too bad a unit that has seen so many flaws and problems had to be named Colorado. When I hear "Colorado" I generally think of outdoor ruggedness. When I hear Oregon, I think of a small frilly device that won't last. I think Garmin should have switched the names on the devices. Well, we'll have to see if the Oregon turns out to be any good.

Is there one that you are wanting to sell that would be of use to me??? The guy I bought the update disc from sent no code and I noticed that they are still selling them on ebay. BEWARE!!! pcplus is the name I see what the problem is now. I am sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, my maps have already been unlocked to my unit which I still use. If I come across someone selling theirs, I will pass them on to you.

I have City Select 7 and an update DVD to City Navigator 8. Both were installed on my computer. I have also unlocked both. I still have the original coupon code that came with City Select 7. After reformatting my computer, I installed the City Navigator 8 Update DVD just fine. I have to manually go into the CD and click the install/setup exe. If you have this version, it should install fine for you. Hopefully, the update DVD that you bought has an coupon/unused unlock code.

Hmm. A 'like-new' GPS, with maps (and DVDs) for two GPS', and a case. Seems like a deal. That second unlock code itself is worth $100 or more just because Garmin is making people buy a second map for their extra GPS. Too bad I don't need a second GPS.

My guess is Vista. Try running the software in compatibility mode.

Out of the box, MetroGuide will not do autorouting. One would have to perform the hack that fratermus linked to in order to get MetroGuide to perform autorouting.

Yeah, I didn't think that it would work with Mapsource. Using Mapsource on a computer to make routes, waypoint, etc, and scouting areas is a HUGE benefit.

I download that program often. I have never had to enter a name or email address.

I agree. I think they are programmed with the unit's serial number. This way the preprogrammed card can only work with that particular unit. Also, I don't know if the preprogrammed card would work with Mapsource on a computer.

By default, the old topo was never really installed onto the computer. All of the maps were kept on the CD which required the user to insert a CD everytime they wanted to use it. During the "installation", it put about 2mb of files into the Mapsource directory on the hard drive. In the end, I wouldn't worry about removing it. 2 megabytes is not a lot of information at all. In contrast, when I do look in my Add/Remove Programs, I do see 'Mapsource - US Topo v3.02' as a selection.

Yes, you are correct. However, since the documentation for City Navigator V8 and previous versions state that two unlock codes can be obtained for two devices, they might be legally bound to give a second unlock code for people owning those older maps. For sure, City Navigator 2008 (v9) will have this new policy. One person stated that they bought several GPSrs for their family. It would have almost double their cost of maps if they could only unlock one device. I am sure others are in the same boat. Read More!

Most things you would want to know about batteries can be found at Battery University. Here are a couple of quotes:

Yes, it works. At least I have done it numerous times with S&T 2005 and 2006. You can import an excel sheet without converting it to tab delimited, csv, etc. However, there are a few catches. One, the format of the cells all have to be the same. If the cell's format has never been changed, then they must all be the same. No worries. Next, column headings. The columns must have a heading in order for S&T to know which column contains Street Address, City, zipcode, etc. Once you make sure all of this is correctly formatted and organized, then it will work. BTW, would you know if MapSource can import from Excel?

You can become a Premium Member and run a Pocket Query. Install GSAK or Easy GPS on the laptop. Import the PQ into one of those programs. This way, you will have data from all of the caches in the Pocket Query (up to 500 for each PQ).

Yeah, just keep in mind that only a few people in this thread actually ordered a GPSr from them. One of them "seem" to be trolling. However, their problems all seem to be the same.

"But with this one, I can find your heart."

Yeah, what he/she/it said.

Humm... the new maps may become somewhat usable, but as they are now most caches worth their salt will be the only thing shown on the map. A red star on a green background doesn't tell anyone much. Unless these are simply for the urban cacher, the scale should be increased so that some roads show up so they are useful is seeing approximately where the cache is in relation to something else. Include perhaps double or maybe even triple the area. Almost all my caches are the only detail on the map. If we need more information we can look for it, but these maps should be scaled so they can be good for sorting out what to do and what to skip. With a dial-up connection and Yahoo maps, might as well count players in remote areas like ours out. There's no detail in Yahoo maps. And the slow server is now the mega-slow server, so planning a day of caching takes longer than most people have for play, even when they're retired. Even though the old maps had some flaws, at least it was easy to figure out where one might look on a hard-copy map to pin-point the route that would be logical. With yahoo maps, we can't even tell what city or county to look in. You also count out all dial-up players who once were able to see the Gallery now and then. It was slow, but do-able. Some day broadband will be available in our area. Right now it's not! Boy do I hate that word "upgrade"!!!!!! .. faster ... slower who cares if the data is worthless. If the Yahoo maps were accurate and covered an area of maybe 4 square miles instead of one square K then I might see your point but Bahb has it right. These maps make trip planning impossible while on geocaching.com. We will have to go off site to get area maps, print them, then back here to do our planning. Cumbersome compared to the good system that existed a few hours ago. Yes, the new maps are quite useless. Hopefully everything will pan out nicely.

And the side effect for all of this is having the users pay for a seperate copy of each map on their GPSrs.

I was just about to post somethng very similiar. It does seem to take about 2 years or so for streets to get into a NavTeq map for GPS. Thomas Guide (bought by Rand McNally around '99) adds street with the next printing. I guess more work has to be done for it to be in a GPS map. My Aunts street is not completed in City Navigator, but in her new Hummer and Cadillac, it's in there.

Different rechargeable batteries are not only different physical sizes, but they are also different volts. I use Duracell NiMH 2400mAh batteries (1.2V) in my 76CSx. They fit fine. However, when I first got the unit, it was very hard to charnge the batteries. Now, they are considerably easier to change. BTW, I have 3 clips and one spring too.

The Limited User Account in XP is so severly restricted, that it has never fully worked. Mix it with apps that are not written with multi/restrictive users in mind, and you get a horrible experience.

When I enter in data with the 76, my hand doesn't obscur the screen.