Final word on phone GPS

After one success with the Sanyo Pro-200, I began to feel confident that a phone based GPS would work. However, the following day, we used it again and I didn't quite follow its directions, so it had to recalculate the route. Unfortunately it was far too slow at recalculating the route to be useful. It had to upload the GPS information to the server, recalculate the route and then send it back to the phone. By the time the phone got the information, I was in a different place and it had to recalculate again. Stopping the car and letting it figure out where we were got things going again.

I'm used to the GPS unit in my wife's Honda CR-V and it's extremely fast at recalculating its route. I've also used Garmin and TomTom units and been pleased. Before my next trip that I have to rent a car, I'm definitely buying a Garmin nüvi (the new ones look pretty cool) to save me a lot of frustration.

Smartphone GPS Followup

After our disaster with a smartphone based GPS yesterday, I was given another phone to try, this time not a smartphone, but a Sanyo Pro-200. We used the Sprint Navigation service and we were quite pleased with it. It gave us directions and spoke the turns. I took another look at the Treo 800w and found the issue; I was using Google Maps's navigation instead of the Sprint Navigation (which was available on the 800w). However, Sprint Navigation has a monthly fee and still won't work when you don't have data coverage. So while my initial review was a bit harsh, I still think I want to get a Garmin nüvi as it doesn't require a data connection, has a larger screen, and just works.

Lovely HP Scanner

My dad has some random HP Photosmart scanner and keeps running into problems with it and ReceiptWallet. His messages imply that it is an issue with ReceiptWallet and that very well may be the case. I looked at his ReceiptWallet log today and saw:

               XResolution: 200.0000
               YResolution: 200.0000
        imageInfo:
                ImageWidth: 616
               ImageLength: 1528
           SamplesPerPixel: 3
             BitsPerSample: 5605
              BitsPerPixel: 16815
                    Planar: 0
                 PixelType: 2
               Compression: 0
got the image info 0...
setupMemXfer.MaxBufSize: 16777216
setupMemXfer.Preferred: 1048576
bytesPerRow: 0
Getting image via memory based transfer...
totalMaxDestBytes : 0
rc: 1
Got image via memory based transfer: 1

This means that the scanner says that it has 16815 bits per pixel! Most scanners do 24 bits per pixel. His scanner must be so advanced that it can capture color 800 times better than the average scanner! OK, so the scanner reported an error and somehow ReceiptWallet didn't properly handle this (I think I fixed this). The better question is why oh why do HP scanners report bogus information? It seems like the HP scanners are the ones that randomly screw up scans the most. I worked on an issue last week with a different HP scanner doing something similar. Did I mention that the scanner logs debug message to the Console? This is very bad form in a shipping app. ReceiptWallet's debugging information is turned on via a hidden switch and logs it to its own file to make it easier to troubleshoot. I'm hoping that someday the drivers get better.

Smartphone Based GPS

This week I'm in Minneapolis for a client and I had requested a GPS unit for the rental car as I have no idea where I am and don't like being lost. Unfortunately Enterprise didn't have any units, so we were stuck with paper (I say we because my wife and son came along for the trip). My client loaned me a Treo 800w as a GPS unit as it has real GPS in it. I'm not sure if Windows Mobile was what I don't like about it or that its GPS routing seemed to really suck. Since it doesn't have all the maps loaded, it had to make a network connection to get the maps; for some reason, it seems to fail to connect despite having a full EVDO signal. Then when it did load the data, it didn't reroute or announce the turns basically making it useless. My wife was operating the unit while I was driving and I have threatened to run over the unit because of how useless it is. It's possible we were doing something wrong (I played with it and wasn't impressed; I don't think familiarity with Windows Mobile would have helped).

Will the iPhone 3G GPS be any better for navigation? Well, it won't have all the maps pre-loaded and who knows if it will announce turns. We'll have to wait and see. I might be spoiled as the GPS in my wife's CRV is great, but I expect a lot from these devices.

Next time I travel and have to rent a car, I'm definitely buying a GPS unit. I hesitated earlier this year and buying a unit, but I might just get one next week. I can't even put a price tag on being lost in a strange place!