GPS Passion

Angelina’s coordinates

Hi There! Great to have you here. You may want to subscribe to our GPS Passion RSS feed.
To keep in touch you could follow us on Twitter: gpspassionnet too!
Please, come back soon! - DutchClick

Tattoos are very okay – if you like them. To be honest they can be real pieces of art, I think.

Mrs Jolie, the world famous actress, is in tattooing too, we know that for year now. But quite new to me was the tattoo with the coordinates of the birth places of her four adopted children, over the old tattoo of a dragon and before that with the name of her ex Billy Bob Thronton. (But hey, that’s for the gossip magazines. ;-D )

This is love and respect to the birth places of these children. I don’t think it is beautifull, but I really like the idea, and not only because it is related to gps and mapping. ;-)

My Source: GPS Lodge

Built in GPS or not?

The decision-making process when buying a GPS device is an interesting one. What should I choose? Do I want to have a built in GPS or am I going for seperate devices?

When you need the GPS for only one task, it might be the best idea to have a device that is fully commited to the task: navigation for instance. In that case a pda or a pnd with a built in GPS will do the job perfectly.

If you are a player, like me, you need to think a little further. What do I want to do with it now, but of course what are coming possibilities.
Wired solutions are always (okay, most of the time) only suited for certain devices that have that one connector.

The newest generations of wireless bluetooth (BT) gps devices are quite strong. These are the ones I like.
For the rougher field work I would use a handheld GPS like the Magellan Sportrak or eXplorist, or Garmin eTrex or 60-series.

Your choices will be:

• pnd – a device dedicated to navigation only;
• wired – a wired gps receiver is mostly for one (family of) device(s) only;
• wireless – a bluetooth gps receiver that connects to most other device that supports bluetooth, like smartphones;
• handhelds – the devices specialy designed for outdoor use and geocaching;
• pda w/gps – all-in-one device for navigation and calender, tasks, contacts and more.

If you have ideas, questions or remarks, just contact me!

I was triggered by this post.

On the move with CacheMate

I have been using CacheMate (Palm version!) and it’s acompanying navigation software CacheNav for a little more than 3 years now. Brian Smith did a nice job I must say.

As a starting geocacher I was looking for software that could help me to have all information I wanted in my Palm instead of carrying piles of printed sheets around that were old the following day. The Netherlands is not a very big country as you might know, but it is stuffed ( and I mean really stuffed) with geocaches, the west of the country (the South Wing of the Randstad) in particular.

The program comes with cmconvert that converts the gpx-files you get from geocaching.com to a Palm database used by CacheMate. From then you can carry all information: cache description, but also logs from others that were there before you and (still coded, but with one button decoding build in!) hints and a page to write down your own logging.

For only 8 US$ you are ready to go on your way. With, or without a handheld GPS, because CacheNav can show you the way too! With a cable or bluetooth connected gps connected to your Palm. Try it if you are into Palm OS!

There has been Pocket PC (PPC) version for almost a year now. (I have tried, but never liked PPC.)

(Brian, I did borrow you animated gif, without asking. I hope you don’t mind ;-) )

Spread the word

I have been at the birthday of my foster brother twice, last saturday. Strange enough a part of the conversations went into the direction of gps and geocaching fast: Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Most people have never heard about the game geocaching. On the Dutch forum of geocaching.nl, there is a tread about whether geocaching is a sport or a game.

To me it is very clear, just like fishing or pigeon racing (that’s where the animals do the work), that geocaching is NOT a sport. I am sure I will be execrated for that by some, but what is the sport about it. There is no official competition and no independent arbitrator or jury and there is no way you can loose…

So to me geocaching is a game, BUT a great game!