Comments on: My Adventures in GPS

By: Todd W Gale

Todd W Gale — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:53:00 +0000

I am going to assume you are using Windows XP. The issue is the power settings on your network card and hard drive. Go to the device manager, either under Administrative Tools or System and take the check mark off of “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”. This will fix the problem. This is an inactivity timeout problem and the power is cut to the device, hense breaking the connection. Computer geekdom can sometimes work against you. Let me know how this works for you.

By: Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:26:00 +0000

I have a Garmin Nuvi 350 and I think it is absolutely wonderful. Never tried the unit you had, but I cannot recommend the Nuvi enough!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:52:00 +0000

I have never thought much of the Garmin’s. Fugly and limited IMO.I have been using Copilot for a couple years and found it be pretty good (on old IPAQ). The biggest problem is when the IPAQ piece of shit battery invariable drains all the way you have to get the software to phone home for reactivation or call in manually. It’s a big pain in the ass and the shorter of time and more lost you are the more sure you can be this will happen. I wish copilot would rethink that one. Getting data to the card is pretty easy, just select a bloc. With a 1 gig card I can stick all of CA and a good chunk of Mexico and Nevada.We also have a nice big screen GPS in our Toyota highlander hybrid, why it doesn’t support Bluetooth like the prius I don’t understand but other then that is has been very functional. My wife likes it a lot which in many ways is the ultimate acid test.I would buy a Tom Tom 910 today but the dam thing won’t work with the Treo 650 blue tooth for reasons I do not understand and Tom Tom refused to expand upon. Given that they sell separate software just for the Treo 650 I find this to be pretty ridiculous. The Tom Tom screens are way to small for the cost IMO but I generally feel that way about most of the GPS’s on the market. These are limited use fixed/semi mobile devices yet I can get a phone and software with the same size or even bigger screens for less money.The Pioneer z1 sounds amazing it has almost all the features I could want including the ability to learn from how you go and route along preferred ways, but it’s upwards of 2k, which is just nutty, so no go.I think about slapping a card in my tablet PC and duck taping it to the dash then I can have a big screen and everything else but I would surly die fiddling with it.At the end of the day I have played with and owned a good number of different GPS’s over the years. On long trips or driving around new areas or just finding things they can’t be beat if you are in a pinch. I love them but have a real love hate relationship with what you get for the money these days and when they don’t work but should it can be sheer hell. I like to think it’s getting better though and pretty soon we can have GPS in everything and tied into muni wifi or whatever for traffic and other types of updates without annoying service fee’s and tying up the cel line. Ah well, a boy can dream My biggest irritation is there is no way to submit corrections to the base data. There are only a couple of major data providers and they all seem to share the same mistakes (I’m sure this is from taking from the same county sources). There is never any way to get it fixed. My house is a block off. My families house is two off and around a corner my office doesn’t seem to exist at all and goes into the rang of address hell (the greatest weak area where the wife usually rights it off as a useless toy). Same thing google maps, streets and trips etc. Evyone just seems sure there data is fine instead of pox ridden and won’t let the great user communities fix it, and this has been true for years and years. So in short GPS companies are not very web 2.0 yet. -Griffon

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:06:00 +0000

I couldn’t be happier with the GPS units I have had. I don’t use them for GeoCasheing, just for getting around and they have yet to let me down. My current GPS unit is built into my Pioneer Z1.

By: adi

adi — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:48:00 +0000

I use a Bluetooth GPS mouse paired with my Treo and TomTom’s software and found that loading the maps onto even the memory card was miserable. You’re not allowed to do a straight copy operation, but rather must install the files, which results in a multi-hour process.I finally just loaded all of the maps I could onto the card so I would never have to deal with again… until the upgrades come out.I’ve never been subject to a major misrouting though – I’m very happy with the product other than the setup.

By: Mike Puchol

Mike Puchol — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:52:00 +0000

Interesting article – I have used Garmin’s software to upload maps to handheld receivers such as the 60CS, and always thought the process was ugly.If you want to see my bit of fun with a TomTom 500 navigator, check out this entry:http://tech.am/2006/06/02/tomtoms-hidden-all-terrain-mode/Regards,