User:Jgbreezer
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This user uses or has experience with a Holux M-241 and is quite willing to answer questions on it from OSM users. | |||
This user uses or has experience with a Nokia N95 and is quite willing to answer questions on it from OSM users. | |||
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English Software developer into open source and run Linux everywhere I can.
I only recently signed up (although known about OSM for a year or two) and got into contributing; attended my 1st mapping party Aug'08 for SW London. I was co-organiser for my second one after noticing an old home-town (Farnham, Surrey) was missing a lot. Who knows what the third one will be!
Links: [my website] . If you come across a jgbreezer elsewhere, its sure to be me, sometimes I go by/display-name of Breezer but it could be someone else.
Places/Contributions
Personal knowledge of Farnham(Surrey) (especially SW of town) and bits of Guildford, SW London zone 3-or-so (Balham/Tooting area), Colchester(Essex) and some of the outlying north-side villages, Farnborough(Hampshire) and Cove, and maybe vague memories of a few other south-east-england towns in Kent/Essex/Herts/Hants; mostly near the borders of each of these (funny how I've generally always lived pretty near a county border, blame my folks for most of that - and I mean just a few miles not in the way that everybody in the UK isn't that far from a county border).
Commute to London and am doing little updates for missing amenities when I feel spurts of inspiration as most of the roads I tend to go anywhere near are done. Since most of the work around my area is done, I'm filling in the extras. I have worked for the Post Office before so that and a mention on the Ubuntu-UK podcast by an OSM-associated interviewee got me an almost obsessive need fill them in. Also to fill in postbox reference numbers (eg ref=SE1 28) if I'm not too tired to stop and have the time, after a comment on one of my [diary entries] suggested adding the info. They give a good idea of the post-code area around it too (at least, the first part). Sometimes I even add the telephone numbers from phone-boxes (as eg. phone=+44-20-81234567).
Devices
Been trying out lots of Java/Symbian mapping and tracking apps for my new-ish top-spec Nokia mobile, have about 9 on the phone at the moment 'til I decide what I want to keep/not. Feel free to ask me about my experiences and opinions of them if you're just getting into one.
I also recently bought a Holux M-241, lovely little device as long as you remember to stop the logging before turning it off. Small LCD display, bluetooth 2.0, mini-USB port for data/power, runs off an AA battery (but can't charge it from the usb port). More accurate and sensitive (less prone to being thrown off by going under trees, buildings) than my phone as it has one of the latest-generation chipsets rather than a SirfStar II which my Nokia has, oh and its built for the job... Even works inside (just about, if <=2 levels below roof/or near enough a window in good weather) although it takes a while to lock on in that situation.
The M-241 works happily on ubuntu via the usb port (not tried bluetooth yet except to my phone as external gps unit) and you can extract the data with gpsbabel (as well as another Java app I haven't tried yet, I believe); as long as you have a recent version of gpsbabel: 1.3.5-ish compiled from latest cvs repository worked with a hack to set the static is_m241 var to 1 instead of 0. For some reason without that, it didn't want to believe it was what I said it was. Or maybe I hadn't yet got the hang of connecting/leaving it on instead of off (as the display lights up and hunts for gps with the usb connected, even if device is switched off).
Software
Besides the java/symbian(s60) on-device software I mentioned above, I mostly use JOSM for edits/uploading, after potlatch's constant delays while fetching data/hangs while it calculates got too annoying. Still hate bits of josm (what's up with layers, really!) but it's the best I've used so far. Still need to get the taskflow a bit more streamlined (mainly in the data-gathering via gps bits) but having fun, and that's an important part; if it gets boring I'm not likely to carry on with it too long. Feels great to be contributing properly to open source.
Let's hope all this enthusiasm isn't just a passing fad!