New Project, PC XJ

[Thayer]

They do not want to fix that because of the accuracy of mapping. It doesnt snap to the nearest road. You can however change the distance of how far off route before it reroutes you. I changed mine to one mile off course and it works fine.

That's good it reroutes you now. The SA2003 just wouldn't. All it could do was route from address to address, so if you got lost and couldn't type in your current location's address, you were SOL. This made the thing useless when you got lost. Can you now navigate from a current GPS location to an address? More things that bugged me about SA 2003...

-had to run it off the cd, unless you did fancy stuff like mapping the disc image onto the harddrive
-when trying to pan the map with GPS enabled, the map would automatically snap back to the GPS location...this made looking around impossible unless you disabled the GPS...

I hope they fixed all of these problems in 2006. I just used iGuidance for my first trip (moving to new city for work) and it works well. None of the above problems, but it's a simple program, no printing maps or drawing your own roads like SA. I'll post my setup in a few days when I get my digital cam back from the movers.

 

[Gojeep]

Thanks mate. Thought there would have to be something out there. Spent today looking at Notebooks and was going to get a Acer as just want something cheap but heard too many problems with them. Looking at getting a Toshiba now with a 15.4 widescreen instead. They still have a serial port too.

 

[langer1]

Looking at getting a Toshiba now with a 15.4 widescreen instead. They still have a serial port too.

Dell is on sale for under $500.00

 

[Gojeep]

Dell is on sale for under $500.00

Looked at the Dell but found the cheap price only included a 90 day warrentee. The Toshiba came with 12 months and had the bigger screen so went with that one. Just booted it up a few minutes ago after getting home with it. Was going to buy a in car adpator for it and they wanted $100! No way should it be that much and even in USD that is still $74.

 

[langer1]

Looked at the Dell but found the cheap price only included a 90 day warrentee. The Toshiba came with 12 months and had the bigger screen so went with that one. Just booted it up a few minutes ago after getting home with it. Was going to buy a in car adpator for it and they wanted $100! No way should it be that much and even in USD that is still $74.

$74 not a bad price you will need one. You may save a little on eBay if the shipping don't kill you.

 

[IH8RDS]

Looked at the Dell but found the cheap price only included a 90 day warrentee. The Toshiba came with 12 months and had the bigger screen so went with that one. Just booted it up a few minutes ago after getting home with it. Was going to buy a in car adpator for it and they wanted $100! No way should it be that much and even in USD that is still $74.

Gojeep,
I just run an inverter. THat was $20. THen I have an extra plug for the cell phone.

 

[IH8RDS]

That's good it reroutes you now. The SA2003 just wouldn't. All it could do was route from address to address, so if you got lost and couldn't type in your current location's address, you were SOL. This made the thing useless when you got lost. Can you now navigate from a current GPS location to an address? More things that bugged me about SA 2003...

-had to run it off the cd, unless you did fancy stuff like mapping the disc image onto the harddrive
-when trying to pan the map with GPS enabled, the map would automatically snap back to the GPS location...this made looking around impossible unless you disabled the GPS...

I hope they fixed all of these problems in 2006. I just used iGuidance for my first trip (moving to new city for work) and it works well. None of the above problems, but it's a simple program, no printing maps or drawing your own roads like SA. I'll post my setup in a few days when I get my digital cam back from the movers.

I run the program from the hard drive on SA 2006 but the DVD (one disk) for the TOPO USA

You still have to disable the GPS when trying to pan or search

You can map directly from an address to another address in both SA 2006 and TOPO USA. I would solely run the TOPO program if it talked like SA 2006. That is something that I'm not ready to give up though. I can run both programs simultaneously. but that defeats the purpose.:shiver:

 

[casm]

Something that may be of interest to people looking to get intarweb connectivity in their XJ: the Kyocera KR1 EVDO router. Receives EVDO from your choice of PCMCIA cards plugged into it, and routes between both built-in 802.11G and a 4-port 10/100 ethernet switch. There's also a $50 rebate going on right now if you order the router/EVDO card bundle from them.

I'd personally like to see a version that supports EDGE (since I'm with T-Mobile) for around the same price, but this looks like a good solution overall. Power it up and run your devices to it over 802.11; you've even got the option of being able to take them with you a couple of hundred feet from the XJ and still have connectivity. Great for auto-retrieving maps or doing APRS work.

 

[Sting25]

I connect to my phones Internet through bluetooth...works great.
Verizon razor v3c and Toshiba m200 tablet. I also sync my phone with my outlook with Mobile Phonetools from avanquest software www.bvrp.com this uses bluetooth as well.

Down with wires!!!

 

[Gojeep]

Cheap in car power lead like this have enough amps?
http://cgi.ebay.com/IN-CAR-DC-POWER...ryZ11168QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Thayer]

Cheap in car power lead like this have enough amps?
http://cgi.ebay.com/IN-CAR-DC-POWER...ryZ11168QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Looks like it might work. Check the output specs on your laptop wall socket power supply. Mine says 19.5V at 3.3A for my Dell Latitude D400, so yours should be similar.

Gojeep,
I just run an inverter. THat was $20. THen I have an extra plug for the cell phone.

I use to do that, but the weirdness of it just bugged me. You're going from 12V DC to 110V AC to 19V DC (or whatever your laptop uses) with losses for each step. The total loss is probably relatively small, like 10%, but it still bugs me.

 

[IH8RDS]

I use to do that, but the weirdness of it just bugged me. You're going from 12V DC to 110V AC to 19V DC (or whatever your laptop uses) with losses for each step. The total loss is probably relatively small, like 10%, but it still bugs me.

The humming gets annoying to. I guess I just got used to it.

 

[JEONLYEP]

A good inverter will run so much more than your computer. Drill, grinder, sawzall, and according to some the most important thing at Cofest 04 a coffee pot.

 

[langer1]

A good inverter will run so much more than your computer. Drill, grinder, sawzall, and according to some the most important thing at Cofest 04 a coffee pot.

A word of caution with cheap inverters is there is so much noise and voltage spikes in the output that it could ruin your laptop.

 

[JEONLYEP]

A good inverter will run so much more than your computer. Drill, grinder, sawzall, and according to some the most important thing at Cofest 04 a coffee pot.

A word of caution with cheap inverters is there is so much noise and voltage spikes in the output that it could ruin your laptop.

 

[IH8RDS]

My mount came in today:loveu: I shood have it in by the weekend

 

[IH8RDS]

Put it in today. Its a little intrusive but definitely manageable

 

[Thayer]

Looks nice. I like your Garmin mount location too. Is that big black table part have a storage compartment inside?

 

[Gojeep]

Was just wondering about that too and why it is so thick? Can it be easily removed when not using it and then bend the pegs out of the way?

 

[langer1]

Looks nice. I like your Garmin mount location too. Is that big black table part have a storage compartment inside?

I think that a Panasonic moble docking station.