My Garmin is logging my every move.

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A while ago while researching a new toy, my Garmin Nuvi 200, I found a neat way to get my model, and several others, to log the route you followed. It’s a slight hassle but works fairly nicely, see instructions below. but the other day I was searching through my Garmin and happened upon a file by the name of “Current.gpx” with a second file “1.gpx” in an archive folder. Both were gpx files so I quickly imported them into Google Maps to take a look.

Now after I’d had a look, I went and looked for the same files on my Dad’s GPS, a Garmin nuvi 350, and found the same files. His files just contained a marker with each of his favourites which then popped up all over Google Earth, mine however contained a very detailed history of every journey I had ever made while my Garmin was on. On one side I thought this was pretty cool, on the other hand I wondered how many people out there are selling there GPSs with thousands of kilometres of driving history sitting on them. It’s quite fun to actually look at the routes. In Google Earth you can select each “route” or section of time while your Garmin was online, so each journey say. Then you can generate a cool altitude, speed vs time graph, and follow it around your route.

After thinking about it a bit and checking out my archive file, it seems that it only activated this “feature” after I used the hacked method to get it to log my single route, so I don’t think it’s anything for people to worry about, perhaps just to keep in mind.

To activate the custom tracking method, you must have locked signal and be looking at the map. Click “Menu”, then “Tools”, then “Where am I?”. Click once on the writing under “Nearest Address” then twice on the text under “My Location” then once again on the text under “Nearest Address”. This should bring up another menu with the options “Start Playback” and “Start Recording”. Click start recording. Two things you will notice. The screenshot button automatically turns itself on (you can turn it off in the menu if you want) and there is a large stop button at the top of the screen. Click that when you want to stop recording your moves. You may notice that there is a timer, it doesn’t tick every second, so if you’re unsure whether it’s working or not, you just have to wait a bit till it ticks over, often jumping several seconds at a time.

To get your data you need to plug your GPS into a PC and go on to the Garmin nuvi drive. Open the Garmin folder and then the Logs folder. Here you will find dated folders with all your logs. The gps.bin file is the one that contains your data.

To convert this into something a bit more usable you are going to need to download a program called Nutrak. This program will generate a GPX file for you which can be opened with Google Earth and various other programs.

Note: I believe by recording your moves once, it activates the automatic recording of every journey you ever take, ever.
Note2: I managed to find the post where I originally discovered this, he also gives nice pictured instructions, you can check it out here. Fairly old hack.

Micro USB… Really?

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I got a new phone today, yay! Cellphone contract ended last month, and wanted to switch from MTN to Vodacom but was going to end up being such a mission that I just gave up and am going to stick it out with MTN for another 24months. The upside of this is my new (although it’s a relatively old phone) Nokia E63. Basically the big brother of my previous Nokia E51.

Now the point of this. USB mini is a great port, it has been used on practically everything electronic, it’s great, I love it, so why have Nokia decided to stick silly little flimsy USB-Micro ports on their new phones? A cable I do not own, and will now wait a bit before buying. I’m probably just being illogical, or not thinking this through, but I just find it annoying, and why can’t everyone just use the same cable?

Then I remembered having read a few years ago that all the big Cellphone Manufacturers had gotten together and decided to unify the chargers they use on their cellphones. According to this article, this is supposed to be done by 2012. That’s great! Then I read on to see that they have chosen the USB-Micro plug as the weapon of choice for charging all cellphones from then on. Sigh. But I guess yay for unity.

In any case, I thought great! My phone has a USB-micro port, that obviously means that Nokia have gotten over their fear of allowing their cellphones to charge via USB and I’ll be able to charge my phone via USB. Borrowing a cable from a friend proved that my faith in Nokia was unnecessary as they have once again disappointed.

I don’t have much to say, seeing as I have set it up almost exactly as a larger clone of my previous phone, based on the same Symbian OS. It may just be in my mind, but it does seem to react slightly faster. I do however feel that their ability to have more than one “Home Screen” is the biggest waste of time ever. They’ve also put the asterisk, zero and hash keys on the right hand side of the what would normally be a standard numpad, a bit frustrating, but seeing as I am starting for the first time with a QWERTY keypad on a cellphone, I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

For the moment I’m downloading new Firmware for it, so we’ll see how that goes.

’tis the Season

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Well after a rather successful examination period the holidays were upon me. I spent several weeks waiting to hear on work with the company I had worked with in July, but they were unable to take me on at the time, instead I’ve been working for Escape Gauges in Parow for the last week and a half. I’ll work up to Christmas and then do another 2 weeks in January.

Today however is a beautiful public holiday, beautiful in the sense that it’s a nice break, not in the weather, which is fairly miserable, but I will just use it as an excuse to sit all day and play on my PS3 :) and I will validate this having woken up at 6 this morning and done a nice cycle round the area.

So a few more days work, a friend’s 21st next week and then Christmas. In total I have bought 0 presents so far, but never fear, a plan will be made, to some extent. After Christmas I’m off with my siblings, girlfriend and some others for a 5 day hike in the Witelskloof which I’m looking forward to. Will post some pictures and a “review” when I get back. I’m wanting to take my GPS with to track the route, and how far, how long it takes us etc. I just need to figure out some way to keep the GPS charged each day, will probably look around for some kind of solar powered thing. The other problem is the water factor. The hike apparently requires a fair amount of getting wet, our backpacks as well, but we’ll see.

So I’ll be there till new year’s eve. Probably going to end up in Hermanus for that, then spend a day or two in Betty’s Bay with family, before coming back to work. Then it’s two weeks of work and two weeks of holiday before classes start again.
Included in those last two weeks is a trip to East London and hopefully me getting my code 14 driver’s licence, if all goes as planned. I also have to move into my new house for the year before class starts, but all in good time.

For now I’m going to enjoy my day off and the build up and festivities to Christmas.

I dislike movies in 3D

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I don’t like 3D movies, I don’t like the hype, I don’t like effect, I don’t like the way I have to wear glasses and the way it hurts my eyes.

I can often be right against popculture, sometimes it would seem just on principal. I’ve never been a fan of the iPod, I feel there are “better” products out there, but I have come to accept that it is a good product. I just don’t see the same happening with 3D, not for a while

I’ve only watched two movies in 3D, Avatar (which I’ve also watched in normal mode) and then tonight the joy of Jackass 3D. Perhaps not the best set of movies to base my opinions on, but none the less. I do still intend to give 3D one more chance in the form of an entirely animated movie, but for now these are what I base my opinion on.

It’s been tried before, and I won’t deny that every now and then the effect is pretty cool, but I don’t think it warrants the increased ticket price, or the hype. Sure when somethign comes flying towards you out the screen, and you hear someoen shriek, it’s pretty funny, entertaining (which is why we’re there) but I like being able to see a movie. Not just the main character, or what someone wanted me to see in 3D, I want to be able to see the entire picture.

It’s a huge screen they’ve given us, and to force us to focus on one small piece of the screen isn’t ideal. After having watched a 3D movie, my eyes genuinely hurt, and I’m not the only one I’ve heard complain about this.

In any case, I think it’s time that peopel stop trying to make their money by claiming 3D, shaft the concept for another 10 years until someone else has developed a new, hopefully better, system.