Blog entries about GPS

I’m on a quick trip and I had a long drive yesterday with only a short distance traveled because of rain, a couple of car accidents  and incredible traffic in Connecticut and New Jersey.  I can’t imagine anyone traveling like this on a daily basis but I am sure it was just a fluke of weather and Friday traffic.  The end result was that had to stop much before my anticipated destination to get something to eat before it was too late. 

Continuing with my review of great software included with the Best of Everything Software Package, today I'd like to discuss BeeLineGPS.

Pocket PCs are not cheap - so protecting your investment is vital. When your Pocket PC has built-in GPS and you enjoy hiking or geocaching, the chances of exposing your device to mother nature and other hazards greatly increases. That's where cases from Innopocket come in handy.

I'm down in Southern California this week for some training. As any good geocacher does I scoured the surrounding areas for caches so my evenings can be spent out and about hunting for "treasure" rather than sitting in front of the TV in my hotel room.

I was quickly approaching my 200th find and wanted to do something special. It dawned on me that the author of my favorite Pocket PC geocaching application (BeeLineGPS) lives down in SoCal so I decided to contact him and see if he was up for a "night cache"!

Family IT, the previously unknown Pocket PC developer, has just released a full-world map / GPS application covering all countries.

Another screenshot here showing the main country selector.

Availability, compatibility

The developers don’t seem to have a homepage of their own; currently, the only source you can download their app from is Handango. I encountered no problems running it – except for it being TOTALLY incompatible (there is not even a scrollbar to scroll) with devices working in Landscape mode.

It’s priced at $14.95. The trial can only be started five times.

TeleType 20 Channel SiRF III GPS Receiver

Last year when I wrote my Geocaching article for Pocket PC magazine I mentioned that the GPS receiver I was using was the TeleType 16 Channel Bluetooth GPS receiver. Several people who read the article went out and bought their own TeleType GPS receiver. Between the time of my writing the article and the time it went to print TeleType released an upgraded receiver – the Sirf III - 20 Channel-Bluetooth GPS. In addition to the 20 channels this unit has the new SiRFstar III chip set. When I found out they had the new SiRF III receiver I was very jealous!

The wonderful folks at TeleType were kind enough to send me a unit to review. If I had to sum up my thoughts on this receiver with one word it would have to be, “WOW!”

Last week while on our family vacation I was using Mapopolis extensively to find and navigate to the various places we were visiting. One of our trips was to The Mystery Spot, located in the mountains near Santa Cruz. On the way to our destination we came around a turn and noticed a motorcycle down in the other lane and the driver laying off the side of the road. We were the first upon the accident scene so I pulled over and immediately called 911 (emergency) while we ran over to see if the driver was OK.

Last week we packed up our trailer and headed South of San Jose, CA, for a short family vacation. Our goal was to visit some interesting sites like The Mystery Spot, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and the Winchester Mystery House.

While out and about I ran into a couple of Pocket PC users and being the techno geek that I am I asked about their setups.

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23291

The latest installment in my series of articles on Geocaching will deal with the topic of paperless caching. Most people who geocache today use handheld GPS receivers like Garmin and Magellan. Most of these units let you download multiple waypoints, but they contain just the basic information (coordinates and maybe a short description). What many people do is print out the geocache information page for the caches they wish to find.

Not only is this a waste of paper, it is a hassle to print and carry all of this around with you - especially when you are out looking for many caches. The solution to this is paperless caching using your Pocket PC.