[blu] gpsdrive

[Kent Borg]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 01:57:17PM -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> The man page says not to use it for navigation. 

The man page is understandably reluctant to take responsibility for
people being stupid.  My Magellan has a similar disclaimer on every
power on.

> What about mapping software?

It has a facility for fairly automatically downloading maps from
Expedia (I think it is).

I have used GPS Drive a little but it requires I prop my notebook
where I can see it and run the wires (the the GPS and notebook power),
so it is necessarily cumbersome.  

It looks a lot like a program that acreted over time.  There are a lot
of aspects that are confusing, I think I have found a bug or two (but
it is confusing enough it is hard to be sure), and there are
incomplete aspects (e.g., managing downloaded maps).

A big screen with detailed maps is way cool, but in many ways my very
limited, tiny screen, bottom-of-the-market Magellan hanging from the
windshield works much better.

I intend to play with it more, but with the dedicated device I
actually know it will be available for use.  (Favorite use: When I
feel the urge to explore "let's turn here...now let's turn here" I
know I will be able to find my way back by following the recorded
track.)

-kb