GPSLogger - a Free BlackBerry App to Track your Movement

Hopefully, you all know the story of Hansel and Gretel recorded by the Brothers Grimm. They were to be abandoned in the woods and their trail of breadcrumbs had been eaten by woodland creatures (jerks). Of course, everything had worked out in the end. If this fairy tale were to take place in the present, we may have seen a much different twist to this story. Perhaps they could have had their hands on a GPS-enabled BlackBerry device, bypass the Witch's house entirely and contacted the local authorities.

Okay, maybe not the best modern take on the tale, but there is a method to my madness! A few months back, Matthias (EMAC1.com) dropped word in the CrackBerry Forums of another ‘Donationware' app that he has concocted. An application that grants access to GPS functionalities, without having to go online. GPSLogger is a free application that essentially enables you to help you get where you are going and track where you have been. The application will also help you remember places that you have visited; perhaps a new hang out or a location of a movie set you accidently stumbled upon. Now, hopefully you don't get lost on the way to the rest of the review.

About GPSLogger

I mentioned earlier, that GPSLogger is another application created by Matthias Marquardt. You may remember his previous application I reviewed in the past; it goes by the name BBFileScout. As with BBFileScout, GPSLogger is a "Donationware" application, so make sure you show Matthias some love. For this review, we are looking at version 0.6.0 of the application, which will require 129.5KB of space. I tested the application on my Bold, but Matthias says it will work on BlackBerry Devices running OS 4.2.1 or higher, and was specifically tested on the 8100, 8310, 8800, 8820, 8900, 9000, 9500 and 9530.

The first screen you come across, which is the General Settings menu, may seem a bit confusing at first. The application sticks to pure functionality, so you won't find any focus on esthetics. The appearance can be slightly modified to suit your preferences. Options including font size, units of measurement (Metric, Imperial or Nautical) and the colour scheme for the applications NightMode. Initially, you view the data in black on a white background. NightMode saves your eyes, by switching to a black background and have the information display in either yellow, red, green or blue.

I liked the fact that GPSLogger offers a variety of ‘views' to search through, depending on the information you require. The different view modes include:

Path - a 2 dimensional view of your path so far.

Elevation - over time, this view will show your current altitude; using WGS 84 (WGS 84 is the latest revision of the World Geodetic System). This WGS is a mathematical representation of the 3D Earth.

Speed - during the tracking period, this view will display any changes in your speed.

GPS - This view will show your heading, speed as well as your longitude or latitude.

Timing - Here, you can keep track of the elapsed time and current speed.

Compass - I love this view. For those who are running OS 4.6 or higher, you can get access to a working compass.

Direction - If you have a destination entered into the application, this view will display an arrow or line that will point you in the right direction.

The header of each view screen will show you your Lat and Long, Altitude, the number of Satellites and Velocity. I kept the update interval at the default 5 seconds as I found it gave me a fairly accurate readout. GPSLogger allows you to use trackball or keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the interval positions. I was quite surprised at some of the results I found during the review. What started out as a simple family outing became a fascinating set of results. To see the elevation variation or changes in velocity or even the compass moving was amazing. You are also able to zoom in and out to get a more detailed look at the information.

Now, I don't recommend this while driving, but you can add notes as you go. If you happen to find a quaint little shop or another place of interest on your path, you can make a note in the log for future reference. Unfortunately, these notes are only recorded on your current view. I couldn't see the notes I made in the Elevation View when I switched to Path View. You can also pause the application at each location and choose to add the Location information for future use. Perhaps you want to load it as a destination for a later trip. This function is also known as the Guide Me Home function. The Location Manager has an option where you can manually enter in a location, hellllooo Geocaching! Besides positions, you can record paths taken.

GPSLogger also utilizes Waypoint files.

GPX - AKA GPS eXchange Format contains specific geocaching data (Long/Lat, Timestamp, etc)

KML - stands for Keyhole Modeling Language. Originally used for Google Earth, this format is used to display map info, movement, etc.

You are able to export your paths to GPX/KML and send via email or load the files into GoogleEarth. These file formats can also be imported into GPSLogger.

Next time your Boss/Parents/Significant Other asks "where are you?", you can copy your current location to the clipboard and then send it to them via SMS or email. Once you get a handle on the settings, the application is fairly easy to manage. GPSLogger offers a wide variety of keyboard shortcuts while you are in various view screens. If you haven't used your GPS enabled BlackBerry device to its fullest potential, GPSLogger is a great way to explore the built in functionality.

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Alienware Area-51 m15x and m17x - Maybe The Most Powerful Laptops

Finally Alienware company has officially released two new models of its laptops - Area-51 m15x and m17x, calling them “the most powerful laptops from all that have ever existed”.

The figure in the title of the models corresponds to the display’s diagonals (15.4″ and 17″), and most of the technical specifications are similar.

Both laptops will be equipped with the processor Core 2 Duo Extreme, graphics card NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX, 667 MHz DDR2, writing Blu-ray drive (in the model m17x) or typewriter DVD-drive (in m15x). One of the significant differences in the 15-inch model will be two hard drives, but m17x model - three (optional).

Their keyboards LED backlight is very beautiful, the colors of which can be installed on request. The prices on the novelties are still unknown. And unfortunately we don’t know about the time of their appearance on the market.

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Pre E3 – SONY vs MICROSOFT

Will Sony Throw the Fight?

At E3 we are about to see what, to console gaming, is the battle of the decade. I find it amazing because I was around in the 80s when gaming first took off and had anyone told me that Sony and Microsoft were going to be the two dominant gaming companies in 20 years I would have thought them on drugs. Back then Atari was predominant and unbeatable. In the 90’s Nintendo grew up and seemed unstoppable easily rolling over a number of upstarts headed by Sega what was a US industry was being fought over by Japanese vendors. Then Sony rose up and schooled Nintendo and, with the exception of hand held game systems, Nintendo started to follow the Atari game platform into the history books. Not to leave well enough alone Sony recently brought out their award winning PSP hand held game system and Nintendo’s last bastion began to crumble.

But, coming up behind Sony, was Microsoft as US Company which had shown an incredible ability to take on much larger companies and win by understanding how the game was played better then their competitors.

Growing much faster than either Sony or Nintendo and passing both in sales numbers (though Sony remains ahead in installed base) Microsoft’s Xbox, using off the shelf PC components and a better developer’s tool set became a real contender.

Xbox Strategy

Part of what made the Xbox special was its ability to look beyond gaming and apply the power of networking before the others could do so effectively. First embracing community, then voice the Xbox became a way to game differently and most felt playing against real people was vastly more entertaining then playing against a machine.

Expanding on this some games allowed the rudimentary ability to play against virtual people. In a racing game, for instance, you could play against a recording of someone not on line by racing against their virtual image. You could also race against your own virtual image learning from your mistakes to improve your overall score. While this has yet to translate into more complex game types it continues to point the way to in interesting future where players can play against each other asynchronously.

Microsoft envisioned a system that could also move beyond gaming by becoming a link back to their PC based Media Center Edition computer. By loading a disk and using a remote an Xbox with this accessory set could display pictures, video, play digital music, or time shift TV programs making it vastly more useful then just a game system. In fact, given that Media Extenders, which only did these things, were more expensive the Xbox was actually a better value. However, it was also kind of a kludge in that you constantly had to plug in components to transform the unit between functions, something consumers didn’t particularly find attractive.

Sony’s Stumble

Sony had the advantage going into this race. They had a massive lead, much like Nintendo and Atari did, they had a good product and they had an extensive game library. In addition many think Sony is the best Consumer Electronics Company in the world. What Sony isn’t is a company that plays well with others or even plays well with itself.

Early on it became clear that the Play Station was different. It didn’t look like other Sony products it didn’t work with other Sony products and while there was an opportunity to link it with its PC products the two Sony divisions clearly hated each other making such a link nearly impossible. Sony didn’t seem to have developer tools as a competence and didn’t partner well to create market leading tools making their games difficult, time consuming, and very expensive to create (something Microsoft leveraged heavily).

The PSP is a perfect example of what is an almost winner. It plays games incredibly well, and is clearly better then the Nintendo Game Boy, but had they emulated Apple with Music, pictures and Movies it could have schooled Apple as well and they clearly missed that opportunity. This leaves the door open for Microsoft, or some other vendor, to eventually take this market from them if they don’t fix this oversight quickly. They have a new CEO, but the head of the Play Station unit has been anything but tractable so, as amazing as it may seem, Sony is a long shot to holding even the hand held market as a result.

In short, Sony the company can stand against Microsoft, the Play Station unit, by itself, can’t. It is interesting to note that Sony seems to own the outcome and whether it is the curse of the gaming market, or just the curse of competing with Microsoft, for now the outcome seems preordained.

Playstation 3 vs. Xbox 360

It is too early to talk about the details of either product but to hold Sony will have to showcase a system that showcases the power of Sony. It will need to work with other Sony gear and dovetail in some clear way with their PSP hand held gaming system where Microsoft currently doesn’t challenge. We already know that Sony has not matched Microsoft with development tools but as long as the product remains in contention for the lead developers won’t really have any choice but develop for both, if Sony slips however the rules change and developers will abandon, at an ever increasing rate, the platform. Given that, like the iPod does for Apple, Playstation is carrying much of Sony, this may be a life or death fight for them.

This clearly is not a life or death fight for Microsoft. They will have to take it to the next level, embedding the features that were add-ons to the old Xbox and advancing them significantly. Design will be important; this device must look good in the living room and be forward looking so it continued to look current throughout its life, something the Playstation 2 did and the original Xbox didn’t. It should also leverage more standards so it could easily be extended over its life, something that was difficult to do with the original product due to its unique USB socket. Finally it needs to take the collaborative gaming experience to the next level because this was one of the Xbox key advantages and one they can’t give back to Sony.

Predicting the Winner

Unless Nintendo makes an unprecedented recovery they are out of the race but, of the three vendors, they have the most to lose and don’t want to become another Sega. Sometimes people do their best work when their back is against the wall so don’t count them out entirely. Still, this fight now appears to be between Sony and Microsoft. Microsoft has a history of focusing on the goal and rolling over any competitor in its way, Sony has a history of coming up with great products hamstrung by hard to use Sony proprietary technology and internal squabbles. It really isn’t that hard to pick the most likely winner.

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