I’ve Been Thunderstruck

For those of you living in Arizona and New Mexico, and who own Garmin GPS receivers, I have created a mapset called Southwest Trails that you may find useful on your outdoor adventures.

Southwest Trails is a transparent map overlay that you can put on your map-enabled Garmin GPS receiver. This allows you to see, and follow, trails using whatever maps you normally would on your GPSr…be it topo maps, City Navigator, or any other sort of map that you have on your GPS. Using data provided by The Trails Co-Op, as well as my own data and user submitted data, I hope to build an extensive mapset of trails across the Southwest. This should help make your outdoor experiences more enjoyable, and more safe.

Using Southwest Trails on your Gamin GPSr extends your ability to have a fun, safe time in the wilderness. No longer are you contrained to adding a few trails or tracks to your GPSr, limited by the design of the device. Since Southwest Trails is a complete mapset, you simply load it with all the other maps you want to have on your device, and any trail in the mapset is available for your use at all times. Now, the only limitation is the number of trails that come with Southwest Trails! It’s my hope that Southwest Trails will enhance your wilderness enjoyment, and keep you safe on your travels.

Southwest Trails is available for both Windows and Mac users. The current version, v0.51a, is available for download at Outdoor Resources.

Here is a link to my 12 of 12 for May 2009. The subject this month is the Esmond Station train wreck of 1903 in Esmond, AZ.

Some of my Twitter pals showed me this today:

GPicSync automatically inserts location in your photos metadata so they can also be used with any ‘geocode aware’ application like Picasa/Google Earth, Flickr, loc.alize.us, etc.

Features:

• automatically geocode your photos (in the EXIF header)
• use a GPS tracklog in the GPX format or NMEA format (multiple selection possible)
• Support elevation data if present in the tracklog
• create a Google Earth KML file to directly visualize the geocoded photos and track in Google Earth
• create a Google Maps file to publish your pictures and track on the web (more)
• Automatically associate audio or video files in Google Earth and Google Maps
• create a Google Earth KMZ file (containing your geolocalized pictures and tracklog).
• add additional geonames and ‘geotagged’ metadata (for automatic tagging in Flickr for example) and create an automatic IPTC caption (more)
• manually write latitude/longitude in a picture EXIF or a selection of photos
• handy tools integrated (Time correction tool, EXIF reader, GPX inspector, rename pictures with date/location,)
• supports Jpeg pictures and main RAW files format (more)
• software available in English, French, German, Italian, traditional and simplified Chinese, Catalan, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese and Czech (see translations)

This looks pretty cool! The next time I’m out geocaching, or taking pictures in the wilderness, I plan on creating a track file with my GPSr, and then later merging them together. It’d be cool to come back to a location some years later and take a comparison picture.

I was thinking today about my Garmin 76CSx, and got to thinking about whether GPS receivers (often called GPSr), are more gadgets than real pieces of technology? As GPSr’s become more and more prevalent in the marketplace, they will mature to a point where we can do things wirelessly, accessing the Internet and getting data we need on the fly. Sooner or later something like the iGPS will debut, and we’ll have more GPS functionality in the palm of our hands than we ever thought possible before. At that point, is the GPSr just a cool gadget, or an honest-to-goodness piece of technology? I think my GPSr, in all it’s basic glory, is an amazing piece of technology that stands on it’s own with the basic functionality : showing me where I am on the earth. If you think about it, being able to know almost exactly where you are on the earth at any given time is pretty amazing. Couple that with something like Geocaching, and you get very cool technology helping you engage in a very interesting sport. It just blows my mind how cool it all is!

Comments?

Technorati Tags: technology,internet,gadgets,iGPS,GPS,caching,geocaching

It looks like Garmin listened to the complaints from the Colorado 400t early adopters, and made some crucial changes to the latest 2.40 version of its software. Here is a list of things they have changed/fixed/added:

• Improved acquisition time in certain circumstances.
• Improved power on time.
• Improved backlight support.
• Improved support for NiMH batteries.
• Improved Wherigo player.
• Added ability to show and review geocaches on the map.
• Added ability to log geocaches as found.
• Increased maximum geocache count to 2000.
• Added support for BlueChart currents.
• Added ability to view extended information for custom POI’s.
• Added ability for turn preview beep to reset the backlight timeout.
• Corrected map to display road labels.
• Corrected map to display small towns.
• Corrected map to not change orientation when beginning pan mode.
• Corrected metric nautical setting to display appropriate map scale.
• Support for Colorado Field Notes, at geocaching.com.

If Garmin continue in this very positive direction, I think they’ll have a hit on on their hands! Great work, Garmin, for listening to your customers!

On this Valentine’s Day, I whipped up a video to give you an idea of what Geocaching is really about.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Keep on caching!

Here are five reasons why I’m not rushing out to buy the new Garmin Colorado 400t.

1. No display of nearby caches on mapview. If you’re going after a cache, and watching the map while doing so, you have no idea if other caches are nearby.
2. Unable to mark caches as found. Makes no sense to me, but that’s the case.
3. Unable to edit existing caches. So, if you have a cache in the Colorado 400t that is the first waypoint for a multi-stage cache, there is no way to edit the listing for any additional waypoints. Makes doing puzzle caches and multi’s very difficult.
4. Unable to add a new cache in the field. Must be done through the use of gpx files, so there is no way to create a new cache with coordinates in the field.
5. Too expensive. At $550+, for the level of geocaching features on the unit, I’ll wait until version two.

I’ll be the first to admit there are some way cool features on the Colorado 400t, like the sweet display, the nice topo maps, and the ability to have the unit connect as a data device, enabling drag-and-drop. However, the fact that the unit seems to have taken a few steps back with respect to geocaching functionality makes it a no buy until they improve that very important aspect of the software.

Icenrye has posted Episode 29 of the Geocaching Videozine, and it’s a pretty darn good one! Done in his new wide screen format with a shorter episode, Icenrye presents and outstanding video review of the Garmin Colorado 400t done by DarrylW4 of Cache-A-Maniacs. The review is superbly done, and unfortunately ends with an accomplished geocacher taking his new GPSr back to REI for a refund. Why? Check out the videozine and find out!

There is an awesome review of the Garmin Colorado 400t done by xpunkx and Darrylw4 on Episode 44A of the Geocaching Podcast. Darryl has significant time on the Colorado 400t, and walks listeners through the good and the bad of the new unit. Unfortunately, despite all the cool new features it has, it sounds like it’s not quite there yet with respect to geocaching features. I’ll probably wait for v2 of the unit, and keep using my 76CSx…and maybe pick up a 60CS since I hear the prices are going down! If you are at all thinking of getting a Colorado 400t for use in geocaching, I highly recommend you give this podcast a listen.

Got this image from Paradice who took my Geocaching Podcast CD Travel Bug with him on a cruise to Asia. Pretty cool!