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MS Streets and Trips Maps


Guest servman

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Guest servman

For those of you who use Microsoft Streets and Trips you are invited to download my map import file which contains all known Geocaches in Canada along with links to their pages at geocaching.com

 

The file can be found at: http://ian.kenetic.com/Geocaching

 

I update the file regularly so check back every now and then for the updates.

 

Ian

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Guest servman

This is the method I use to find caches these days. It's so much easier to look at a map instead of going onto the site and seeing that a cache is 22 miles south west of me. The map lets me know exactly where it is.

 

Then, just for fun, after I've found a cache I change it's icon to a happy face (or sad face if I didn't find it) so I know that I've found it with a single glance.

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Guest mrgigabyte

quote:
It's so much easier to look at a map instead of going onto the site and seeing that a cache is 22 miles south west of me.

 

What's wrong with using the map page on the geocaching.com web site?

 

http://www.geocaching.com/map/canada.asp

 

Just zoom in on the area you want then click identify to view the cache details. If you have logged in, any caches you have found are indicate by a found icon. Why reinvent the wheel?

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Originally posted by mrgigabyte:

What's wrong with using the map page on the geocaching.com web site?

 

I'm gonna jump in here. (Since I introduced Servman to MS S+T and importing the GC files).

 

The "map" on the GC site is fine if your away from home and want to get a really general idea of where a cache is. To be fair the links to online maping sites on each GC page are useful too, BUT there is alot to be said for the detailed level of roads and suroundings that you get on an app like MSST.

 

I can zoom into Toronto and see EXACLTY where a GC is, right down to the roads and streets. For out of town GCs I can even get driving directions if I want.

 

Don't knock it till you've tried it. MSST is an excellent atlas program for Canada. (I hate to say that MS did a good job but in this case ;-) )

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Guest mrgigabyte

quote:
MSST is an excellent atlas program for Canada

 

Useless to me, As I do not live in the centre of the Universe (Totonto). Also, I have already forked of $200 for Garmins mapsource for CA. This is worse than useless.

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I'll add my vote for MSST (and my same thoughts about MS icon_wink.gif

 

I use it a lot for work, for example I had a call in Burnaby a while back to a Hydro office. I typed in the address, saw it on the map and then got a list of all hotels within a 5km radius, clicked on a Holiday Inn and the phone number popped up, called and had a reservation in under a minute.

 

It's given me street level maps with driving directions for towns the size of Prince Rupert & smaller.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't have hotel listings for cities other than Greater Van, TO and Montreal.

 

Best 60$ of the companys money I ever spent.

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I'll add my vote for MSST (and my same thoughts about MS icon_wink.gif

 

I use it a lot for work, for example I had a call in Burnaby a while back to a Hydro office. I typed in the address, saw it on the map and then got a list of all hotels within a 5km radius, clicked on a Holiday Inn and the phone number popped up, called and had a reservation in under a minute.

 

It's given me street level maps with driving directions for towns the size of Prince Rupert & smaller.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't have hotel listings for cities other than Greater Van, TO and Montreal.

 

Best 60$ of the companys money I ever spent.

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Guest servman

Thank you for your kind words. The file has been updated on teh website with caches current up to Jan 12.

 

http://ian.kenetic.com

 

BTW. This will be my last post on the subject so as to avoid cluttering up the forums with my junk posts. From now on you may opt-in for update notification by e-mail on my site.

 

Thanks for listening,

 

Ian

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Guest reastick

quote:
Originally posted by servman:

BTW. This will be my last post on the subject so as to avoid cluttering up the forums with my junk posts.


 

Ian,

 

I have Microsoft MapPoint. It doesn't seem to be able to read the .est file you have on your web site, but it can read Excel files in the same format. Would it be possible for you to make the Excel file of all the geocaches available?

 

TIA

Rob.

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Guest reastick

quote:
Originally posted by reastick:

Would it be possible for you to make the Excel file of all the geocaches available?


 

Nevermind. I figured out the secret myself. (Not much of a secret either. [ icon_smile.gif])

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Guest reastick

quote:
Originally posted by reastick:

Would it be possible for you to make the Excel file of all the geocaches available?


 

Nevermind. I figured out the secret myself. (Not much of a secret either. [ icon_smile.gif])

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Hi

 

If anyone else using S&T with a GPS plugged into it thinks that the 15 sec refresh rate is to slow, read this post:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000376.html

 

I just did and it works great.

 

Warning! if you aren't confident editing a binary exe file, it isn't for you (and even then, make a backup)

 

Warning #2, it is for S&T 2001, I know 2002 won't work under 95 (whereas 2001 will) so streets.exe is likely different and this hack will likely not work exactly as written. You could search for the same sequence of bytes and if we're lucky, it will be the same code.

 

Have Fun!

Gord

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My 2-bits worth -- I've been using S&T for some time (and yes, they do seem to actually know that there is life north of the 49th parallel) - and had been doing some messing with geobuddy to save downloaded geocaches and import them into S&T -- but this is GREAT! Thanks for not only putting the effort into doing this, but for posting on the web for others...

(A question though - is there a 'trick' to getting this data from the geocaching web site? are you just downloading the .loc files? using perl scripts? or ... ... ...)

Bruce

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Guest servman

Just downloading the .loc files for now... it's a little cumbersome but it's the best I've been able to put together so far.

 

BTW - I'm no longer distributing .EST files. I now just post my RAW excel files which can be used for several other programs as well.

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Guest thibaug

quote:
Originally posted by servman:

Just downloading the .loc files for now... it's a little cumbersome but it's the best I've been able to put together so far.


 

Thanks for putting the file together! I had dismissed S&T as just another MS product, but the 2002 version with the Pushpin sets makes it very usable for Geocaching. As far as Canadian detail in the maps, I can honestly say that I'm impressed. I'm not sure what the previous post about the centre of the universe was about, but for a product that's not specifically Canadian, it has a lot of details. It's definitely worth a look.

 

On the same note, I've been talking to the guy who makes GeoBuddy and he just added a S&T export type to his program. I just tried it and it works like a charm. It should make the maintenance of the file a little easier. Even the links are included! icon_biggrin.gif

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Guest thibaug

quote:
Originally posted by servman:

Just downloading the .loc files for now... it's a little cumbersome but it's the best I've been able to put together so far.


 

Thanks for putting the file together! I had dismissed S&T as just another MS product, but the 2002 version with the Pushpin sets makes it very usable for Geocaching. As far as Canadian detail in the maps, I can honestly say that I'm impressed. I'm not sure what the previous post about the centre of the universe was about, but for a product that's not specifically Canadian, it has a lot of details. It's definitely worth a look.

 

On the same note, I've been talking to the guy who makes GeoBuddy and he just added a S&T export type to his program. I just tried it and it works like a charm. It should make the maintenance of the file a little easier. Even the links are included! icon_biggrin.gif

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Guest Alotta

Just bought S&T. Of course I was like I'm sure must of us, and checked to find my own place first on the map, guess what, my house address doesn't exists, neither do my neighbours.

 

Guess I will have to inform the bank that I want a rebate for all of those mortgage payments I have been paying for a non-existence address. icon_wink.gif

 

Other than that it looks like a neat program.

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Guest Alotta

Just bought S&T. Of course I was like I'm sure must of us, and checked to find my own place first on the map, guess what, my house address doesn't exists, neither do my neighbours.

 

Guess I will have to inform the bank that I want a rebate for all of those mortgage payments I have been paying for a non-existence address. icon_wink.gif

 

Other than that it looks like a neat program.

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Guest mrcpu

quote:
Originally posted by Austin & Alotta:

Just bought S&T. Of course I was like I'm sure must of us, and checked to find my own place first on the map, guess what, my house address doesn't exists, neither do my neighbours.

 

Guess I will have to inform the bank that I want a rebate for all of those mortgage payments I have been paying for a non-existence address. icon_wink.gif

 

Other than that it looks like a neat program.


 

What street do you live on?!?! Were you able to browse for it or just couldn't find it from the find toolbar?

 

One trick I found is to make sure that your OS knows your in Canada. That way S+T defaults to Canada too.

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Guest mrcpu

quote:
Originally posted by Austin & Alotta:

Just bought S&T. Of course I was like I'm sure must of us, and checked to find my own place first on the map, guess what, my house address doesn't exists, neither do my neighbours.

 

Guess I will have to inform the bank that I want a rebate for all of those mortgage payments I have been paying for a non-existence address. icon_wink.gif

 

Other than that it looks like a neat program.


 

What street do you live on?!?! Were you able to browse for it or just couldn't find it from the find toolbar?

 

One trick I found is to make sure that your OS knows your in Canada. That way S+T defaults to Canada too.

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Guest nodrog

If anyone is interested in MS Streets & Trips 2002, it was advertised in the Future Shop flyer on the weekend for $60 with a $20 rebate for a net price of $40.

 

I have been using it for a couple of weeks now (along with the download utility) and have been very impressed. The street detail for most Canadian cities seems very good and it has a lot of useful features. Really can't beat it for the price. (Gag - did I actually say that about a Microsoft product??)

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Guest Alotta
Originally posted by mrcpu:

What street do you live on?!?! Were you able to browse for it or just couldn't find it from the find toolbar?

 

Actually my street is there but only half of it, the other half where I reside is mistakenly named as the adjacent street.

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Guest Alotta
Originally posted by nodrog:

If anyone is interested in MS Streets & Trips 2002, it was advertised in the Future Shop flyer on the weekend for $60 with a $20 rebate for a net price of $40.

 

 

That's where I bought mine but it was a $15 rebate.

 

I also would like to thank Servman for his work. It makes planning our next caching outing much easier.

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Guest nodrog

quote:
Originally posted by MajBach:

Regarding downloading cache data into EasyGps: I have only been able to download caches from my browser one page at a time. Is there any way of combining multiple pages into one download or file so that I am not limited to uploading them into my GPS from EasyGPS 25 at a time?


 

Unfortunately not - one page (25 caches) at a time is all you can download into EasyGPS

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quote:
Originally posted by MajBach:

....Is there any way of combining multiple pages into one download or file so that I am not limited to uploading them into my GPS from EasyGPS 25 at a time?


Majbach each of the seperate downloads will create its own window identified by tabs across the bottom of the file titled 'untitled 1'in EasyGPS. Once all of the Caches you chose are in then click on 'window' on the menu bar and then click 'tile'. This will display all of the seperate windows, each one representing a download, on one screen. Now you can click and drag (or copy and paste) all into one window. Close all of them except your complete one and save it with the file name of your choice. Now you can download to your GPS all at once.

Hope this helps, Olar

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Guest MajBach

Now you can download to your GPS all at once.

Hope this helps, Olar

[/b]

 

Yes, it did. Park2 already suggested this in another thread, thank you both. Guess I was to busy out GeoCaching when I should have been reading the help files.

MajBach

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Thanks for the compilation. Prety nifty, especially with the ctrl clik on the pushpin that brings you right to the cache web page.

 

Now if only I could get my pushpins to export properly and configure an AvantGo Channel to get the web pages on my Pocket PC, I would have all the info handy in the field.

 

Ianic

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quote:
Originally posted by Ianic:

Thanks for the compilation. Prety nifty, especially with the ctrl clik on the pushpin that brings you right to the cache web page.

 

Now if only I could get my pushpins to export properly and configure an AvantGo Channel to get the web pages on my Pocket PC, I would have all the info handy in the field.

 

Ianic


 

Did you try the PocketPC add on? How is it?

 

Rob

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quote:
Originally posted by mrgigabyte:

quote:
_MSST is an excellent atlas program for Canada_

 

Useless to me, As I do not live in the centre of the Universe (Totonto). Also, I have already forked of $200 for Garmins mapsource for CA. This is worse than useless.


 

I just got a look at Mapsource at a buddies. What a piece of crap as far as desktop maping software goes! I guess I'm spoiled with MS Streets and Trips.

 

BTW I used MSST up near North Bay Ontario and it was just fine. Had better detail then Mapsource!

 

Rob

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quote:
Originally posted by Mr. Plow:

 

Avantgo support for web pages has been set up - check out http://pathetique.com/geocaching/

 


 

Those pages are unofficial, and might go away at any time. But anyone is welcome to use them while they're still around.

 

I've got an official invitation circulating in Southern Ontario: http://www.geocaching.com/track/track_detail.asp?ID=2806. If you find that Bug, you can get a personalized index set up that omits the caches you've already found or placed, so you always have a fresh list of 100 huntable caches.

 

I'm mapping all of my invitations on: http://www.pathetique.com/locate/blscearce-bugs.html. Unfortunately, the TIGER map service I'm using to draw the map doesn't show non-US locations, but you can see Palmable Geocaching #5 floating around up there.

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quote:
Originally posted by mrcpu:

 

Did you try the PocketPC add on? How is it?

 

Rob


 

Yes I tried it. Is nice if you want to display your position on a city map. But if you need navigation tools and topo maps it is of very limited use. Like Streets and Trips, all it does is display your position on the map.

 

Aside from that, my pushpins are useless because they are offset when I download them to my Pocket PC. I haven't figured out how to correct teh promblem.

 

Ianic

 

To infinity... and Beyond

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