[gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an unnamed location in a city

  • From: "Mary Ellen Earls" <meearls@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 11:33:59 -0700

I did a virtual route from my Cincinnati Apartment to my Sister's house in Chicago and it was pretty neat. Yes, I set my home as a POI andthe gps works flawlessly. I especially love that it is so accurate about poi's.
I remember back in version 2 with the magellan 310 and you'd hear about the poi's but you had usually passed them by then.
Mary Ellen Earls
----- Original Message ----- From: "David" <shotgun@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 10:28 PM
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an unnamed location in a city



Hey rob, I agree that it takes forever to search for a city within a state, especially if the city is not close by. In exploring your search, I started In San Francisco because I knew you wanted to start outside of Oakland, but they are right next door so I didn't encounter that problem.

In future releases it would be nice to be able to search for a city, as you suggest, or even a state, without having to know street names or addresses.

I think that seeing a difference of mileage to various areas is common. Recently I did a route from South Bend Indiana to Cincinnati because we are going to be traveling that route this summer. There were two ways to travel that were recommended to me by friends, but the GPS chose a third way, which was about fifty miles longer than Map Quest. It also chooses a longer and more circuitous, but perhaps much more scenic, route through the mountains from where I live to Prescott Arizona, but it would get you there. I think that while playing with maps and longer routes is fun, the true usefulness is in short routes. It is designed primarily for walking and does a heck of a job in that regard.

I believe that the true accuracy is in marking way points and POIS. For example, I can stand in front of my house and if I check the address, it will tell me I'm two blocks away. This was true with version 3.3 and is true with 3.5, and I don't realistically expect it to change. I think it's in the inaccuracy of the maps and there isn't much that can be done about it. However, once I made my home a POI, it works flawlessly by telling me I am home when I reach my driveway.

A couple of days ago I was traveling and stayed in one of those motels with outside entrances. I found that by marking my building and my room, I could travel quite flawlessly around the complex with little orientation.

Dave

taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!

----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Gentell" <rggeneral@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 8:08 PM
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an unnamed location in a city



Thanks Dave for the tip.  The issue I have with searching for a city as
a POI is that It becomes less practical when the city is more than 15 or
20 miles away because of the time it takes the software to perform the
POI search.  From experience I know that the gps software can quickly
verify that a city exists in the database almost instantaneously even
hundreds of miles away.  This is why I wish there was a way to use Space
S, specify a city and then perhaps have the option of pressing Space V
to set my virtual position whereby skipping the prompts for street name
and number.

I've also noticed some anomalies with approximate distances to POI
cities in which the distance reported to a city is incorrect by a
significant amount (in one case I recently saw the POI distance was more
than 20 miles short of the actual distance from my virtual position).

-----Original Message-----
From: gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 12:28 PM
To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an unnamed
location in a city


I am sorry, press space and the letter F as in foxtrot. Then select city as the category you are looking for. Once it finds Oakland you can do the space and F again and continue your search. I apologize for the typo, or perhaps gap in thinking.

Dave

taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!

----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Gentell" <rggeneral@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 12:07 PM
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an unnamed


location in a city


Dave,

This is precisely what I'd like to do but it doesn't seem to work as
you described.  You wrote:

"Once in California in virtual mode, you can press space and S and
look under cities for Oakland and make that your virtual location by
pressing V ...".

While in Virtual mode and pressing Space s, entering Oakland as the
city and pressing Enter, I'm prompted for the street name.  This is
where I'd like to effectively abort the normal procedure and set my
virtual position within some unspecified location within that city.  I

tried pressing Space V which I believe you had implied. An error tone

is sounded when I press Space V at this point because the software
needs me to specify a street name. Am I missing something?

Thanks Cheng for your descriptive step-by-step instructions.  This is
more or less what I have been doing and I'd like to simply cut down on

the number of steps.  I like your method of choosing "cent" as a
street name because I'd imagine that most cities have at least one
street called Central or Center.

-----Original Message-----
From: gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 9:48 AM
To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an
unnamed location in a city


There is always more than one way to skin a cat, sorry cat lovers.

Once in California in virtual mode, you can press space and S and look

under cities for Oakland and make that your virtual location by
pressing V, that
way you don't need to choose any streets.  I don't know how GPS
decides
where to place you in Oakland, or any other city for that matter, but
in

this case it got you real close to your desired destination. If you press space plus S again and search under the Buss Railway category you will find Jack London Square, Bart station, 0.87 miles. . Make that your
virtual

location and you can then search for restaurants or anything else you want.

Dave

taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cheng Hock Kua" <adaptive@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 8:28 PM
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Setting your virtual position to an
unnamed

location in a city


Hi Rob

I took your challenge from Singapore and did this:


Have the four maps for California loaded,

Use the search address command with space-s

Choose California

Since you wanted Oakland
choose Oakland

Choose street name by entering
cent
since you were suggesting the center of the city

and three street options came up

Choose Center St.

Since you did not have an address
choose the default cross street at address 0


At this point, choose v for virtual instead of destination.

Next, set yourself in the virtual mode with the v command

Now you are at the position on Center St.

Use the space-f command to search within 0 miles to 10 miles or use
any arbitrary distance.

I chose 10 miles since I suspect I should be around the city center
and want to look for the railway station.

Choose the bus/rail category

I then chose the search string by typing
jack

since you suggested Jack London in your e-mail.

Jack London Square Bart Station, Alice Street, Oakland CA94607 was
found within less than 2 miles away from my virtual position.

At this point of interest prompt, I re-set my virtual position with
space-v so that I would virtually be at the rail station

and I was brought to the virtual position of the railway station.


Now that I am "virtually at the Jack London Station", I can do another search for Restaurants with the space-f command. remember to

start at
the
0-miles to 1-mile radius so that you can find the nearest restaurant.
238
restaurants showed up!


Enjoy yourself touring around Jack London Square Station before you arrive.

Regards
Cheng Hock

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Gentell" <rggeneral@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 2:09 PM
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Setting your virtual position to an unnamed
location in a city


Question: Is there a way of setting your virtual position by somehow

specifying the city without having to first set your virtual
position

to a street name and a street number or cross street when you don't
know the name of a nearby street in order that you can locate a POI?

For example, perhaps you know ahead of time which train stop you'll
be getting off at (such as Jack London Square in Oakland CA or Grand

Central Station in New York), but you haven't got a clue what part
of

town the station is in and you simply want to locate a nearby
restaurant ahead of time because you're starved.  I'm looking for a
quick way to tell the GPS software that my virtual position is
somewhere in a particular city such as Oakland, CA so that I can
then

perform a POI search for a railway/bus containing "Jack London".
Then, I can reset my virtual position to that railway stop and then
search out restaurants from that location.  It would be convenient
to

be able to skip the necessity to specify a street name and street
number or cross street when using the Set address command.  Wouldn't

it be nice if after issuing the Set Address command and specifying a

state and city that one could then choose "Center of Town" as your
virtual position, and start exploring from there?

Any ideas or comments are appreciated.  Thanks.











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