Re: GPS Software Solution?

JamesM wrote:
<snip>
Well, to reply to my own post, I've got my hands on MS Streets & Trips
2008 last night and played around with it. It generally looks to be a
good product for planning routes. I did create routes with 60 and 100
stops. You can click 'optimize' and it will calculate the fastest or
shortest route. I don't know about integrating it with a stand-alone
GPS, but it looks like a very useful product


I have S&T 2007 but have never used it for navigation. It has good data
and is good for finding places and addresses.

But I consider it to be a severely deficient software. It has no
abilities for track display and recording. It also has little or no
ability to exchange data with other navigation applications outside of a
couple of things on the Windows desktop. It is really just a bit of
Micro$oft "fluff" for the most part, not at all serious navigation
software. It looks like M$ did not smell enough money in that software
market to mount a serious software development effort.

If I were a trucker I'd probably use a laptop if I had a engine cover or
dash that provided a flat, nearly horizontal area to set it while in
use. I'd consider making a mount if necessary and would provide some
non-skid and maybe bungee cords or Velcro to keep it in place.

For a laptop application, as a thoroughly addicted Garmin user, I'd
probably just use the City Navigator North America (CNNA)software I
already own. That would give me something I know and also open the door
for me to have route and waypoint databases that could be used with my
other GPS receivers (2610, 2620, and 76Cx).

With CNNA installed on the laptop and the free Garmin Route software
installed, the data in the MapSource install of CNNA is used for
navigation. nRoute has enough configuration options

With nRoute installed you have all the same Preferences settings and
choices that are seen in MapSource. You can use those to make the
vehicle type and road type choices that keep you, for the most part, on
the kinds of roads that are suitable for trucks. I'd plan routes in
advance and also use a trucker's road atlas to try to keep me from
winding up in a cul-de-sac or looking at a low bridge with miles of
backing up to get out.

If there is a downside to using MapSource and nRoute as I describe it,
it is that you have to have an input from a Garmin GPS receiver. That
is because Garmin stupidly and selfishly wrote the application to use
only the Garmin proprietary NMEA sentences. I guess I'd invest in a
GPS-18 USB receiver to have something that was easily removed and
repositioned from one truck to another.

nRoute has good track recording, review, and editing capabilities.
Never underestimate the value of track data for reconstructing details
of a trip later. They also let you drive without trying to take or keep
notes about times, places, speeds, fuel stops, etc. You'll have all the
track data for later review and can figure it all out later if you need to.

Another thing I like about using the laptop for a truck is the ability
to take the laptop into motels or restaurants and use it with wireless
connections for email and for route planning.

If there is a better software available for truckers that would give you
better info and control for safe and trouble free truck routing, I'd
consider using it. But if that software did not give me all the same
capabilities I was getting from the MapSource/nRoute combo, I'd probably
take the routes planned in the other software and move them over into
nRoute for the actual driving.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)
.

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