Dual XGPS300, GPS and Cradle for iPod Touch Part II

Now that I have had the chance to work with the Dual GPS Cradle for about a month, I have learned several important lessons and uses.

The most important functions and constraints are:

1. It works as a GPS while I still can use my Touch to play music on it. You need to start playing the music prior to starting a gps application, but the music will continue to play in background while the cradle makes the Touch act like a GPS.
   
2. The GPS does supply data to applications that are written for the iPhone GPS chip. I have used the GPS function with several different applications wrote for the iPhone and they all seem to work very well. The GPS of the cradle is very sensitive and generally work within a single floor building.
   
3. When I have used the iPod Touch with my wireless internet card it has done a nice job of loading maps quickly as I am moving, I have used it with Google Earth as I was driving, once my speed increases beyond about 30 miles per hour, the map had trouble displaying information quickly enough to keep me on the map. But when I was walking across the Purdue campus (where my daughter attends) to attend a football game it did a very good job of keeping my position visible on the screen. The one problem is that the Touch will go into sleep mode. This does not occur when utilizing the GPS software that comes with the Cradle; it does not go into sleep mode.
   
4. The GPS switch on the back of the cradle is important. If you leave the switch in the GPS position the cradle battery will discharge relatively rapidly and when the cradle battery is discharged the GPS will not function. Therefore, it is important when using in the field to move the switch to the off position when not using as a GPS.
   
5. It does a good job with ESRI application as well as other free apps. I have at this time not purchased any applications, but have downloaded several free applications.
   
6. I used the Cradle GPS and compared it to my notebook GPS on a recent trip to Washington DC and would say they compared very similar. They both indicated my turns, distances and speed. While the routes varied slightly, they both gave the same speeds and distance to turns. The Cradle GPS also brought up graphics (on some exits) of what the exit looked like, I just wish it would have brought the graph up a little sooner (less than a tenth of a mile) and had a very limited set of exits that it displayed.

Dual XGPS300, GPS and Cradle for iPod Touch

This article will discuss the usage of a Dual XGPS300 Cradle (retails for around $200) to convert an iPod Touch into a GPS. The cradle contains a battery which can be used to charge the iPod Touch, a GPS receiver, as well as windshield mount and car charger. When the GPS is plugged into the cradle initially it will download two software applications to utilize the GPS functions (if connected to broadband). One application shows only your current coordinates (GPS Cradle) to thousandth of a degree while the other shows your position on a map (NavAtlas). When the software is running it turns off the sleep mode of your iPod Touch so it displays the map continuously. The GPS functions also work with typical iPod Touch function such as touch screen, zooming and automatic screen rotation. The cradle is a true GPS not using any type WiFi or phone method to determine position instead it use the GPS constellation of satellites.

According to Dual (http://www.gpscradle.dualav/com/how) that any program that request GPS functions will work the cradle. Apps designed for the iPhone should work successfully with the cradle and while the apps that are free with the Cradle have limitations it has links to numerous apps to use, some are free and others have a cost associated with them. This includes geocaching ($7.99 - $9.99) Hiking ($4.99 - $7.99), Biking (free - $2.99), food (free), golf (free - $9.99). A future post will discuss these other software.

The cradle makes the iPod Touch function like most commercial car GPS units. It has a feature which assumes that it is in a car and you should be on a road, so once you have left the road it still tries to keep you on the road for several 100 feet. For example as I was driving across the parking lot it wanted to keep me on the road initially until I got several hundred feet away from the road. Therefore, it does not have as much function as a GPS that is made for trails or hunting because of this limitation within the software. But as a car GPS it has very good maps with lots of Points of Interest (POI) and you can control which ones are displayed. You can also route trips using the features built into the software, which will display turns, distances and time to destination. It will give verbal information either through the external speakers of the cradle or by connecting into your car radio auxiliary jack. When connect to the car radio, the radio must be in the auxiliary position to hear the voice commands. The trip routing was very good and compared to other GPS's that I use with computer software. You do have the limitation of the size of the iPod Touch screen.

A feature that other car GPS cannot do is play music, you can play music on the iPod Touch while using the GPS functions and both worked just as they did individually. Since all the maps are loaded on the Touch when the app is installed it takes up about 35% of my 8GB Touch. I do this same operation (playing music and GPS) with my Netbook and USB GPS using Delorme Street Maps and car power inverter. While the map is smaller than with my Netbook (similar size to most car GPS units), it is touch sensitive and is mounted directly on my windshield something I cannot do with my Netbook.

The cradle also comes with a windshield mount that stayed fixed to my windshield over some fairly bumpy roads; the mount contains a holder for the iPod Touch GPS with clip to make sure it keeps good connections as well as a patch cable to connect to the car radio and a power connector for the car's auxiliary power connector.

The only real disadvantage of this GPS is that it does not function well as a trail GPS with the software that comes with it. The cost is reasonable if you already have an iPod Touch, but if you are purchasing the iPod and cradle only for GPS usage it is expensive.

New Presentations

Three new presentations have been prepared for the KCTCS New Horizon Conference.

Using high end software remotely nh

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Gis Across Curriculum nh

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What’s New in Web 2.0 NH

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Cities Moved in the Chile Earthquake

An interesting fact due in large part to GPS technology is the determination that several cities moved during the recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile. The city of Concepcion, Chile near the epicenter of the earthquake has moved at least 10 feet. The capital of Chile, Santiago, moved about 11 inches. Both of these movements were to the west. Therefore, the maps on a handheld GPS might be inaccurate. To learn more about this go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35780643/ns/technology_and_science-science/ and for a dynamic map of the area visit our map located at http://216.69.2.32/chilean_earthquake

Microsoft Live Sync

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How many times have you left home only to realize that data that you needed was back on your home computer and you cannot access it directly or you want to share a file with an out of town colleague only to realize the file size is larger than your email limitations or that you and your colleague both updated the file and the files are not synchronized.

Potential solutions might be found in cloud computing by the use of online application that stores information in the 'cloud'. For example if the application software is online such as Google Documents then you can write your document online and share it with colleagues or access it yourself through the web on any computer. But if the files are your not typical applications like spreadsheets, word processing files, etc. then the cloud computing might not solve the problem.

For our application we will be looking at geospatial files (geodatabase) that will be generated by one team of researchers in Illinois and another team in Kentucky that uses a Flex map server located in Kentucky. So when the geodatabase is edited by Illinois team and saved it will automatically port to the Flex map server and will be displayed when the map is accessed via of the Internet. This collaboration should be seamless to the user and the researcher, since each team will be updating files in local folders, but will be synchronized in the background. The solution that the team will utilize is Microsoft Live Sync. http://sync.live.com

The test that we have run has three different users accessing the same file folder that contained over 2000 files and multiple gigs of information, one of the users has three different computers connected to the sync folder; one on an on campus computer a pc, another on campus computer which is a mac, and the third is an off campus computer. Therefore, five different computers have a common synchronization with one folder; any changes made to any of the five local folders will result in a change on all five computers. One of the computers used in the test has the folder on an external harddrive. The Live Sync will also work on single users personal folded, in addition once the sync program is running on the remote computer of one user, it can be browsed and files accessed via the web.

What happens if multiple people access the same folder? Since the folders and files are saved on each local computer and there is no interconnection between the files, there is no locking of the file, as would occur on a single computer or a server. Therefore, if two people open the same file at the same time, they both can modify the file, when the file is saved a synchronization will occur on all computers, so the first saved file will be synchronized and then when the second file is saved it will not have the information from the first user since that file was open when the save occurred. So when the second user saves the file, it will overwrite the work of the first user and those edits will be lost on all computers once the synchronization occurs. There are server solutions that will keep the files synchronized or lock other user out of the files, but this solution is free, easy to install and ports through firewalls.

Microsoft Live Sync seems to be a powerful free tool for three uses, synchronization of personal files, sharing files among colleagues and the ability to browser your own personal remote computer passing through firewalls. The limitations are the ability to do simultaneous editing of common files. It does not appear to have any size limitations on the amount of data that will be passed between individuals. The initial synchronization does take some time depending on the size of the file folder.

WolframAlpha

A friend recently made me aware of the following application which might be of use to you in your work. It is called WolframAlpha and can be located at http://www.wolframalpha.com/.

It is a computational engine that appears to be very powerful. It uses the mathematic form. The image below is one of their examples.
I typed in fall 100 m and I got this:
Ss I explore this engine in more details I will write additional information. This is a partial list of what claims it can do:

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.

Netbook Computers with Terminal Server 2008

As I stated in my last posting we have purchased three Netbook computers to be used for evaluation of capacity and also to use at professional meetings and in the field with GIS. One of the areas that we have done a fair amount of work recently has been in the area of 'Cloud Computing'. We have used applications both on an on campus Terminal Server and also in the public cloud. Cloud computing is the use of application resources that are not resident on your own computer. For those of old enough this is how we got started in computing that the application ran on the main frame computer and we used a 'dumb' terminal (I actually used punch cards also). I recently tested an Acer Aspire One Netbook using our terminal server. I ran three different applications from the server, ESRI ArcInfo, Microsoft Word and OpenOffice Writer. I was very impressed at the speed the applications performed on the Netbook computer; performance was similar to my quad core desktop computer. The Netbook computer was connected wirelessly to the college network and my desktop computer is connected by an Ethernet Cable.

On the very large graphic operation of creating a map, I used resources on my data server as well as my ArcGIS Server and the operations ran very smoothly once they opened, which took a few seconds. I did some querying and zooming of the data sets and they ran very quickly. When I ran the two word processors, they both operated just as if they were on my desktop. While I might not want to sit and work on a 10 or 11 inch screen for an extended period of time, I found they worked very nicely with the terminal server.

We are going to test the Netbook Computer in the next few days with a larger monitor and external wireless keyboard and see how they function as a desktop computer. We are interested in seeing if a Netbook along with an application server (terminal server) can replace the desktop for many faculty. Another test will be utilizing a USB GPS and mapping software to determine the response time and view ability of the maps in a car.

Is a Netbook Right for YOU

We have gone through multiple ages of bigger is better, faster is good. Laptops constantly got bigger and bigger screens and the weight increased also, plus the power supplies increased in weight to power the machine. What was once a portable device now has the power of a desktop and approaches the weight of one. Now I am still a big fan of the tablet PC and have used one since they first appeared on the market, this summer I began to experiment with Netbooks.

A Netbook is a light weight small PC. There are many brands out on the market. I have experimented with three different ones. They in general are built around the Intel Atom chip. The chip comes in three speeds, N270 - 1.60 GHz, N280 – 1.66 GHz and N540 1.86 GHz. Most Netbooks come with one 1 GB of RAM (you can find 2 GB versions) and a harddrive in the 160 GB range. They do not have a DVD/CD drive built in, but have in general lots of USB ports. Most run on the XP Home Basic operating system, but a few run on Vista home. Google is planning on having an OS out before the end of the year for the Netbooks. Most have a 10.1 inch screen; I have an Acer with an 11.1 inch screen. Most weigh in at around 2.5 to 3 pounds and have a reasonable battery life approaching 3 hrs. They have built in Wi-Fi.

So in the day of 3GB Quad core processors (or faster) and 8 GB of RAM with a 22 inch screen desktop or laptop with a 17 inch screen what is the purpose of the Netbook.

First it is light weight, something my shoulder appreciates. I have loaded a full version of Office and it functions just fine, so therefore emailing is no problem nor is document creation. Over the past weekend I spent a lot of time surfing the net and it did a wonderful job, still have to get use to the touch pads.

My only concern is the size and closeness of the keys on the keyboard, which vary between the three models which I have experimented on. I have not tried to load any of my larger production applications.

I think for what most people use a computer for, email, document creation and web searches these are great little portable machines. I would not want to look at the small screen all day, but for a trip or a meeting I think they do an outstanding job. The price in general is between $299 and $399.

Ky Learning Depot New Horizons

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Ky Learning Depot New Horizons

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Using Geospatial Technology (Gis) In Multiple

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Using Geospatial Technology (Gis) In Multiple

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Using Web 2

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Using Web 2

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Adobe Reader Security Issue

One of my colleagues just sent me information about a security issue with Adobe Reader.

 

According to this post on the Adobe site (http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html) there is a serious vulnerability in Acrobat Reader, the software used to open and read PDFs. Adobe is aware of it but is not planning on releasing a patch until mid-March.

 

My colleague suggests that you try another reader program such as Foxit Reader @ http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Wii as a Smart Board

One of my workshop partcipants Gregory Puccetti showed me this video recently. I have not yet purchased this set-up but plan to do so shortly and will write about my experience using in the near future.



http://www.ted.com

http://www.wiimoteproject.com/index.php

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Winter 2009 ICT Educator Conference

The Nation and Mid-Pacific ICT Centers will be having there annual Winter conference in San Francisco, CA on January 8-9, 2009. For more information goto ICTCenter.org. This should be a great conference.

Jon Burgess is an Education Development Executive at Apple will be speaking on Millennial learning as the Keynote address.

There still time to submit a paper (till 12/5/2009) to this conference also.

Presentation: New Free Web 2.0 Developments

This is a presentation that is being presented at the Convergence Conference in Somerset, KY at the Center for Rural Development.

New Free Web 2.0 Developments 97

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Presentation: GIS Across Curriculum

This is a presentation that I am doing at the Convergence Conference in Somerset, KY at the Center for Rural Development.

GIS Across Curriculum 97

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Intellipodcast

Intellipodcast is a site that allows you to post podcasts. The site has an RSS feed for you to follow your favorites. It also gives you the ability to embed the podcast into a blog like the one I have done below.

Ustream

This blog makes use of a live video stream using a service known as ustream - http://ustream.tv. Whenever I am broad casting on the vince's video channel it will be visible at this location. http://ustream.tv/channel/vince's-video. The service is free, but does have ads so be careful.