My break with Delorme came when they created a nice little yellow brick and bundled it with yet another new version of TOPO USA. On this version, you could split the screen in two, one of which could be a 3D perspective view of the terrain ahead of your track.
Ok, so my ancestor would have been a little bored with a 3D perspective view of a flat ocean . . . I lived and worked in California! Our hills are higher than the mountains of Kansas. I mean, they call the hills around my home, the coastal mountain range. I avoid Southern California when I can, but when the Santa Ana's come and blow the car exhaust out to sea, you can watch the sun set in a glorious reds and yellows, turn around and see the snow caped summit of Mount Baldy.
Oh yeah, I'm told that Kansas doesn't even have hills. . .
A GPS Datalogger, this tiny yellow brick from Delorme promised to wirelessly, through Bluetooth, connect with my computer(s) and allow me to transfer tracks to my laptop.
By this time I'd framed the chart that Popular Science put out explaining what Bluetooth was, how it worked, what it promised. Some guys pin up centerfolds from that pajama clad mansion guy down in Southern California, us techies in Silicon Valley frame radio frequency charts (as long as they are in full glorious color, without the airbrush nonsense).
WOW! that would be cool. I was going to buy the latest TOPO USA software (only $99 bundled with the yellow brick thingee).
But what's this? it doesn't come in the DVD version? Why would I want to buy a pack of 7 CDs and upload each one to my hard drive?
At least that is what I would have thought if I'd noticed that the letters 'DVD' weren't on the package. Every other version I'd purchased (for full price - Delorme doesn't do upgrades like normal software companies) was all the maps on a single DVD.
Not only did I have to pay an additional $79 to get the DVD -
I couldn't get the brick to work.
Alright, that's not entirely true. It worked exactly once. But I was so amazed at the promise of bluetooth, I had every bluetooth device I could buy at Fry's Electronics talking to both my desktop and my laptop through my $199 logitech bluetooth keyboard and mouse radio . . . But as soon as I went wild transferring files wirelessly between the computers, the yellow brick refused to give up it's track data. It had transfered the GPS track from work to home and back. But wouldn't give anything else up.
Calls to Delorme's 800 number were echoed by calls to my doctor's office for more blood pressure medicine.
The yellow brick was probably going nuts wondering why it's been stuck in the bottom of my desk drawer. Hopefully the batteries died before it stopped tracking the same 12 inch movement of the drawer being opened and closed. I just wish that data track was being beamed back to the Delorme headquarters. It would have served them right.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Funny Yellow Boxes and cyclonic wind events
Delorme came out with these funny yellow boxes. The first one used four AAA batteries and was nice and flat but kind of big in retrospect. It had a cord with a serial connector on it. I bought it as soon as it hit the shelves.
They bundled it with a new version of TOPO USA, and I was frustrated the first time I tried to use it. You had to pick the model number from a drop down box in the software, but the model number of the unit wasn't one of the options. So the calls to the 800 number were made and the answer came back to just ignore it and use the 'default' option.
Thank God I thought when they came out with another version. This one used a USB connection and was this stubby (yellow) thing on the end of another cable. It kind of looked like a yellow wart. It was also bundled with a new version of my favorite Software Package. But the software didn't have a 'USB' connection option.
A year later, a 'Bluetooth' version came out. You didn't have to use a cable, and it was still yellow, but it had a docking/charging station. I thought it very cool, but passed it up. I didn't want to go through the 800 number fiasco again. The yellow wart on the cord was ok, I didn't need to charge it up or add batteries. I was driving around with a laptop propped up on the passenger seat, a power converter humming along on the floor to power the laptop, what was another cable?
I drove from coast to coast, happy as a clam, the TOPO USA map scrolling along on the passenger seat as I passed well to the North of Kansas City. Iowa turned out to be not so flat after all. In the west the aerospace companies mounted aircraft on pylons. My jaw dropped as I drove past a farm implement company with a complete Tractor and enormous plow thing mounted 3o feet off the ground on a hillside.
Imagine that.
I was mystified as I stopped at Rest Stops along the interstate that had TV screens tuned to the National Weather Service in the window of the rest rooms. I thought - those farmers! they really take mother nature seriously. It made sense when I experienced a 'cyclonic winds event' west of Des Moines. At first I didn't know what that meant. It was raining harder than a squall at sea. Cars were pulling over to the side of the road. I couldn't figure it out. Where I come from motorists don't slow down for anything. Not rain, not fog. They pull over during earthquakes only because driving through an earthquake on the freeway feels exactly like a flat tire.
Coming from the 'duck and cover' generation, when I heard that annoying emergency radio interrupt, and it was NOT followed by 'this is a test of the emergency notification system' I thought the Cold War had just gotten hot. If instead of useing the 'cyclonic winds' phrase, someone started yelling 'look out for the Tornado!" it would have made a lot more sense to me. I pulled over, anyway, figuring I'm not from around here, so maybe they know something I didn't.
When the funnel cloud ripped by . . . there was a lot I didn't know. The GPS unit came in real handy, and those TV screens made perfect sense.
They bundled it with a new version of TOPO USA, and I was frustrated the first time I tried to use it. You had to pick the model number from a drop down box in the software, but the model number of the unit wasn't one of the options. So the calls to the 800 number were made and the answer came back to just ignore it and use the 'default' option.
Thank God I thought when they came out with another version. This one used a USB connection and was this stubby (yellow) thing on the end of another cable. It kind of looked like a yellow wart. It was also bundled with a new version of my favorite Software Package. But the software didn't have a 'USB' connection option.
A year later, a 'Bluetooth' version came out. You didn't have to use a cable, and it was still yellow, but it had a docking/charging station. I thought it very cool, but passed it up. I didn't want to go through the 800 number fiasco again. The yellow wart on the cord was ok, I didn't need to charge it up or add batteries. I was driving around with a laptop propped up on the passenger seat, a power converter humming along on the floor to power the laptop, what was another cable?
I drove from coast to coast, happy as a clam, the TOPO USA map scrolling along on the passenger seat as I passed well to the North of Kansas City. Iowa turned out to be not so flat after all. In the west the aerospace companies mounted aircraft on pylons. My jaw dropped as I drove past a farm implement company with a complete Tractor and enormous plow thing mounted 3o feet off the ground on a hillside.
Imagine that.
I was mystified as I stopped at Rest Stops along the interstate that had TV screens tuned to the National Weather Service in the window of the rest rooms. I thought - those farmers! they really take mother nature seriously. It made sense when I experienced a 'cyclonic winds event' west of Des Moines. At first I didn't know what that meant. It was raining harder than a squall at sea. Cars were pulling over to the side of the road. I couldn't figure it out. Where I come from motorists don't slow down for anything. Not rain, not fog. They pull over during earthquakes only because driving through an earthquake on the freeway feels exactly like a flat tire.
Coming from the 'duck and cover' generation, when I heard that annoying emergency radio interrupt, and it was NOT followed by 'this is a test of the emergency notification system' I thought the Cold War had just gotten hot. If instead of useing the 'cyclonic winds' phrase, someone started yelling 'look out for the Tornado!" it would have made a lot more sense to me. I pulled over, anyway, figuring I'm not from around here, so maybe they know something I didn't.
When the funnel cloud ripped by . . . there was a lot I didn't know. The GPS unit came in real handy, and those TV screens made perfect sense.
Close Enough for Government Work- NOT!
I work near a major international airport. This means that it is easier to get on an airplane and travel cross country than it is to fight traffic and travel to a different part of my metropolitan area.
So I'm not in Kansas, although I've been there. They don't have the kind of traffic in Kansas that we have here closer to a salty ocean. I've even used various Garmin GPS products while visiting Kansas City (or while getting lost there). Avis will rent you one! But they lock it so that you can't play with it while driving. Even if you happen to be sitting in the passenger seat.
I've lost track of the GPS and mapping products I now own. My addiction to mapping dates back to March 9, 1500. Eight years earlier someone else went West and thought he'd reached India. But back then an ancestor of mine left a coastal city on the south-westernmost region of Europe, and while he didn't actually get lost, on April 22, he kind of bumped into a continent. Lucklily he didn't claim that it was India. His mentor had proven that to get to the real India, you go south, then turn left. Seems my ancester had headed west to avoid light air, after leaving the Cape Verde Islands, saw a mountain on the horizon, and the following day landed on the coast to check it out. Eventually my family got a little embarrassed by this and other oddities and changed the family name. But that's another story.
So when DeLorme introduced the TOPO USA product I quickly snatched it up. Pushing my paper charts aside, I loaded it onto my laptop and went exploring. I bought every new version of it. I worked down the street from Trimble Navigation for a while and positively drooled over the prospect of someone like me owning a GPS unit.
Another of my brothers (he changed his name to Bill) worked in a super secret military installation not too far from Trimble and became a GPS Satellite Repairman. Working underground in something called an 'Earth Station', he made a big deal out of being a cold warrior. I thought the whole thing kind of stupid, and he refused to talk about his classified work.
I mean, come on, what kind of idiot repairs orbiting satellites from underground in an EARTH STATION? You don't 'hide' an earth station underground and put it directly under a one block square blue cube then set up huge satellite dishes and claim it's a secret. I mean, the Russians weren't THAT stupid!
When the government came to talk to the rest of us about his background check for his security clearance we made jokes about our ancestor and the irony that 'Bill' would now be doing 'government work' on anything related to navigation.
'Close enough for government work' was a popular saying at the time.
That was a long time ago. Turns out that government work didn't produce a product accurate enough for private enterprise (they claimed they dumbed it down for the general public), so other companies came up with better mousetraps and now I can hold a GPS unit in the palm of my hand on the pitching deck of a small sailboat and navigate my way around a famously foggy bay.
Sweet!
So I'm not in Kansas, although I've been there. They don't have the kind of traffic in Kansas that we have here closer to a salty ocean. I've even used various Garmin GPS products while visiting Kansas City (or while getting lost there). Avis will rent you one! But they lock it so that you can't play with it while driving. Even if you happen to be sitting in the passenger seat.
I've lost track of the GPS and mapping products I now own. My addiction to mapping dates back to March 9, 1500. Eight years earlier someone else went West and thought he'd reached India. But back then an ancestor of mine left a coastal city on the south-westernmost region of Europe, and while he didn't actually get lost, on April 22, he kind of bumped into a continent. Lucklily he didn't claim that it was India. His mentor had proven that to get to the real India, you go south, then turn left. Seems my ancester had headed west to avoid light air, after leaving the Cape Verde Islands, saw a mountain on the horizon, and the following day landed on the coast to check it out. Eventually my family got a little embarrassed by this and other oddities and changed the family name. But that's another story.
So when DeLorme introduced the TOPO USA product I quickly snatched it up. Pushing my paper charts aside, I loaded it onto my laptop and went exploring. I bought every new version of it. I worked down the street from Trimble Navigation for a while and positively drooled over the prospect of someone like me owning a GPS unit.
Another of my brothers (he changed his name to Bill) worked in a super secret military installation not too far from Trimble and became a GPS Satellite Repairman. Working underground in something called an 'Earth Station', he made a big deal out of being a cold warrior. I thought the whole thing kind of stupid, and he refused to talk about his classified work.
I mean, come on, what kind of idiot repairs orbiting satellites from underground in an EARTH STATION? You don't 'hide' an earth station underground and put it directly under a one block square blue cube then set up huge satellite dishes and claim it's a secret. I mean, the Russians weren't THAT stupid!
When the government came to talk to the rest of us about his background check for his security clearance we made jokes about our ancestor and the irony that 'Bill' would now be doing 'government work' on anything related to navigation.
'Close enough for government work' was a popular saying at the time.
That was a long time ago. Turns out that government work didn't produce a product accurate enough for private enterprise (they claimed they dumbed it down for the general public), so other companies came up with better mousetraps and now I can hold a GPS unit in the palm of my hand on the pitching deck of a small sailboat and navigate my way around a famously foggy bay.
Sweet!
Not in Kansas Anymore
Just bought a Garmin Oregon 400t.
It was an extremely confusing and difficult experience.
Everyone I talked to suggested I call the 800 number and talk to their customer tech support line, but I hesitated. My twin brother, Captain John of Ayalasandbox.blogspot.com was sympathetic, even let me use his account to publish this blog, but . . .
Ever tried calling a tech support line? Don't you hate automated attendants. I'd rather go sailing without a GPS unit than talk to a machine, or . . .
And the Garmin Web Site? I spent a couple of useless hours trying to figure out if the Oregon 400t would be compatible with a marine chart. Sure, if I was fishing in Michigan, or Wisconsin, or even Minnesota . . . I could buy an SD card with an inland lake, THAT was clear. But if I'm a blue (salt) water sailor? Don't get me started!
The web site made it clear I could buy an Oregon 400c, but where do I go to get that? My local Best Buy didn't have that model, it was Thursday and I wanted to go sailing the next Sunday. And why did the tech specs say microSD card, but the map product I wanted was SD? Are there compatibility issues here?
After a very frustrating 24 hrs, I had 938 of my OCSC friends telling me to buy either MapSource, or Bluechart, whatever that was. They told me it worked great on their Garmin handhelds, you know, the ones where the unit is twice the size of the screens, the ones with buttons and attennas sticking out.
But hey, they all loved their Garmins, so what if I had to go to West Marine and shell out a bunch of money for maps . . .
So I did, and $139 later, I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Stay tuned as I relate my experience.
It was an extremely confusing and difficult experience.
Everyone I talked to suggested I call the 800 number and talk to their customer tech support line, but I hesitated. My twin brother, Captain John of Ayalasandbox.blogspot.com was sympathetic, even let me use his account to publish this blog, but . . .
Ever tried calling a tech support line? Don't you hate automated attendants. I'd rather go sailing without a GPS unit than talk to a machine, or . . .
And the Garmin Web Site? I spent a couple of useless hours trying to figure out if the Oregon 400t would be compatible with a marine chart. Sure, if I was fishing in Michigan, or Wisconsin, or even Minnesota . . . I could buy an SD card with an inland lake, THAT was clear. But if I'm a blue (salt) water sailor? Don't get me started!
The web site made it clear I could buy an Oregon 400c, but where do I go to get that? My local Best Buy didn't have that model, it was Thursday and I wanted to go sailing the next Sunday. And why did the tech specs say microSD card, but the map product I wanted was SD? Are there compatibility issues here?
After a very frustrating 24 hrs, I had 938 of my OCSC friends telling me to buy either MapSource, or Bluechart, whatever that was. They told me it worked great on their Garmin handhelds, you know, the ones where the unit is twice the size of the screens, the ones with buttons and attennas sticking out.
But hey, they all loved their Garmins, so what if I had to go to West Marine and shell out a bunch of money for maps . . .
So I did, and $139 later, I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Stay tuned as I relate my experience.
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