my D2 - the poor's man GPS.

[s13]

Just a quickie which you might have realized already..
I use the D2 also as my car stereo, it seats in a nice generic cradle and i use my car stereo AUX input to play music using it (who needs mp3 CD's when u can have 4 gig and a sweet interface?).

I don't really need a proper GPS since I know most of my area. for those rides where i need some guideness i use an online map service before hand.
sometimes i even print the map so i will have it with me on the road.

This morning i drove to a new place so i used the map site, but this time i took a screenshot and loaded it into my D2. whenever i felt a little lost, i just loaded the map on the D2 and used the zoom and drag options to get my bearings. it worked really nicely.
also as a bonus the music is not interuppted when you view pics.

Granted, i need to relay on my own map reading abilities but as a quick solution that doens't require me to spend the extra cash i really like it.

The only problem i saw was the limit on the zoom - but thats a minor issue.

[WAI]

Cool! That can come in handy for me as well. But I'm not good at reading maps lol.

[Yeeze]

Wow thats a really nice idea... also when you are in any kind of vehicle, like if yuo are riding the bus or even the bike...
you also can make a screen shot on google earth and so have satellite pics....

[DAPmagic]

Good idea! this with bus and subway maps. [biggrin]

Come to think of it, I could also copy the bus schedules as .txt files.

[r3d]

this is a good idea... does anyone where you can get downloadable map images.
I dont like the idea of taking so many screen shots of areas. I want to download a bunch at once and upload them all to my D2

[LJBlazer]

lol thats cool. but isnt the map really small?

[s13]

@r3d: it depends on where you live.. some places have google maps with good street level zoom, others usually have local sites with a similar service.
@LJBlazer: its not the screen size that prohibits usage of big maps - its the x2 level zoom. the screen is big enough on the D2 and the quality is good enough to read street names. if needed just remember that JPG doesn't take a lot of room and you can save several pics of different parts of your journey.

[Erasure4ever]

Cool idea, you could even take a picture of a paper map with a digital camera then store the pic in the D2.

[DAPmagic]

Good idea! this with bus and subway maps. [biggrin]



WTF? [confused] What I attempted to type was "I can do this with bus and subway maps."

I tried it with a picture of a subway map, but the map was so large. I tried resizing but then it was just too small, even with the zoom in feature. So, I kept the original size and cut it in half.

[Yeeze]

Does anyone know, where google earth stores the downloaded images?
Would be the a good way to get nice quality pictures....

[Erasure4ever]

Does anyone know, where google earth stores the downloaded images?
Would be the a good way to get nice quality pictures....

They are stored in your browser's cache as JPGs, but you need to tile them together because they're comprised of smaller JPGs.

[Yeeze]

Ohh... ok never mind... I think just taking a screen shot is faster and easier...

[red5]

Hey, s13! [smile]

which cradle are you using to use the D2 on the car? where can I get one?

[s13]

@red5: its a cheapo genereic cradle i already had lying around, here is pic of something very similiar:
http://www.nextor.co.il/ProductsImages/s250/B33410.jpg
i just turned it on its side.