GPS Workshop

A half day GPS workshop is being help on September 18^th on the Southwest Campus of Jefferson and on September 25^th on the Downtown Campus of Jefferson. The material for the workshop is posted at http://techcenter.jefferson.kctcs.edu/RS/topics/GPS/Pages/default.aspx which is part of an online remote sensing course and the slides are posted at http://techcenter.jefferson.kctcs.edu/presentation/Vince/091809/Pages/default.aspx. Additional information about the workshop can be obtained by contacting me directly.

A Netbook as your GPS

Netbook computers while they may have a small screen as a computer they have a very large screen as a GPS. I recently load Delorme Street Map software onto my Netbook, connected a Delorme USB GPS and drove to an out of town meeting. This particular Netbook has a battery life of approximately 3 hours. So therefore I did not plug in an inverter into my power port in my car since the trip was about an hour away.

There are definitely cheaper GPS units with a much smaller screen, but for the screen size and the fact it is a computer also, it did a great job as my GPS.

To load the software onto the netbook I used an external CD/DVD USB player (a must for software loads, unless your software is online).

Netbooks computers cost between $300 and $400 in general. You can get the software and GPS bundled at a price between $70 and $100 http://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10091. An inverter will be approximately $30 for a small one to power your netbook.

So for between $400 and $530 you can have a really nice GPS and a netbook computer which you can use in the car (did not include price of the media drive).

I am finding Netbook computers are really useful for meetings and they certainly are light weight; they can also serve as your navigational aide. The combination is a little large for geocaching, but it easy to upgrade your software for your GPS.