Saturday, December 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Friday, February 01, 2008
Alternative Transportation on the Wasatch Front
I've been meaning to post this up here for a while, it was a final presentation for one of my classes last semester. The assignment was basically to create a few different maps and use them to tell a story. I picked the topic because it is one that interests me. For a larger view the link is here
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
It does everything!
Not only is the Nokia N95 a phone, it is also a descent picture and video camera, an mp3 player, an internet cruiser, a GPS device, but it can also do this!
I want one.
Labels: Consumerist, GIS, GPS
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The 4th of July
On the 4th July, in the middle of a 2 week road trip, I found myself in the town of Trinidad in Humboldt County, California. I started off with some early morning tide pooling on the shores of the Pacific Ocean,
after that I ate some oyster and eggs breakfast at the pier cafe, all-American style. I then enjoyed an easy hike, even for having a full stomach. It looped around the peninsula in Trinidad to somewhat of a view of an old lighthouse. The ocean rocks were much more impressive the lighthouse. Here is the GPS track of that hike with some pictures that I took.
Later that day we wandered down to and around Arcata. Quite a bit going on, I couldn't tell the bums from the city officials. Did you know that Arcata was the first city in the U.S. to elect a majority of its city council members from the green party? Yeah, hippies. It was a bit of culture shock for someone born and raised and living in Conservativeville. And, how could I not love a place that prides itself on their minor league baseball team, The Humboldt Crabs? They play in a 1,500 seat stadium, and their hats are classy, so I bought one.
But, it wasn't the baseball that made me feel like an American, and it wasn't standing on an edge of America herself, it wasn't even the pizza I ate for lunch. The thing that sparked my pride in old glory was this-
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Waterfall Canyon
A 200 ft. waterfall at the top this narrow canyon. It is kind of steep, but short and quick. The round trip is roughly 3 miles of hiking. I've been up there a few different times, and the waterfall is not all too powerful. The most admiring thing is the distance the water falls. On a hot day you'll want to stand underneath it. I parked in a designated lot at the end of 29th street in Ogden, Utah. I believe you can get to the waterfall from 36th street as well, though I have never been through that way.
Labels: GIS, GPS, Hiking, Maps, Places in Utah
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Old Limber Pine Loop
In August of 2006 I hiked this trail on my way to Bear Lake, with the objective of finding a nearby geocache. The complete loop is about 1.4 miles and it is as easy as they come. A bit of a steep beginning, but then evens out to an slight climb to the top after that. There isn't much elevation gain, from 7795 ft. to 7942 ft.
Access the trail by parking in the designated parking lot. Just pay attention to the road signs. There are a few informational "nature-walk" signs located along the trail as well. It is just off the road in Logan Canyon on Utah State Highway 89 at the Bear Lake Summit, just before the descent towards the lake.
The Old Limber Pine is a group of 5 trees that grew into each other to become one claw looking tree. The highlight of the hike (well, besides the 560 year old tree) is the view looking down upon the bright blueness of Bear Lake.
Access the trail by parking in the designated parking lot. Just pay attention to the road signs. There are a few informational "nature-walk" signs located along the trail as well. It is just off the road in Logan Canyon on Utah State Highway 89 at the Bear Lake Summit, just before the descent towards the lake.
The Old Limber Pine is a group of 5 trees that grew into each other to become one claw looking tree. The highlight of the hike (well, besides the 560 year old tree) is the view looking down upon the bright blueness of Bear Lake.
Labels: Geocaching, GIS, GPS, Hiking, Maps, Places in Utah, Travel
Friday, May 25, 2007
Some GPS Tools
This post is about some sites and tools that I use to make the use of my GPS device even more fun, I have a Magellan Explorist 500.
It was Geocaching that first sparked my interest in owning a portable global positioning unit. I had absolutely no idea about what I was getting myself into. I envisioned a system that would be seamless plug and play applications, much like my .mp3 player. Was I ever wrong! I hope that as the technology advances and evolves it will become much more user friendly, and more compatible. In the current state of GPSing, do not underestimate the amount of reading, learning, mistaking and file converting involved on the users end. Hunting tupperware with sattelites takes a bit of dedication.
I think that the single most amazing tool available is Google Earth, and the fact that there is a basic version available for FREE is great too. I've studied and looked at maps of places so much that lately I have been reminding myself that I have never actually been there. I use Google Earth to discover and learn about the geography of any place. I mark interesting points and then transfer them to my GPS device, via a multitude of other programs. I also use it to scout out geocaches (.kml plugin) in an area, and you can bring saved routes from your GPS device onto the globe in Google Earth. I have purchased the Pro subscription for $20/year. Basically I payed that only to get the import directly from a GPS device feature, but since I have discovered other applications and avenues to do this. Though the higher resolutions are super nice, I would be just fine without the Pro subscription.
EasyGPS is a free program that does an excellent job of communicating with my device. It keeps things simple, and by using it you will learn the basics of GPS files. I would highly recommend it to someone just getting into this, because I have found it to be the easiest to use in marking points on the map and transferring that to a portable device. The problem with it is that there are no maps in reference to your points, you start with a blank screen. (I believe you can buy a version of EasyGPS that includes maps) I like to use Google Earth to mark points on the ground and then bring that point into EasyGPS and from there, transfer to the device.
GPSvisualizer has come in handy for me a few times, (especially when moving files from the device, to a program and then to another program.) it converts files to various other file types and it can actually read the .upt and .wpt formats that Magellan devices save as.
Trimble Outdoors features many trips that are organized into activities such as hiking, horseback riding, paddling and many more. It is similar to a newly discovered site I have been messing around with called EveryTrail, which makes for sharing your travels with your friends. EveryTrail uses the routes from GPS combined with photos (which can be directly imported from your Flickr account) and other points of interest to display an adventure. A fancy thing about Everytrail is that it uses time and date stamps from both your pictures and GPS track to estimate exactly the place that the picture was taken. People can also vote and comment on "Trips". Both Trimble Outdoors and EveryTrail offer .gpx files available for download that you can then load onto a GPS device (by using EasyGPS) or you can open a Google Earth file and view the route on your computer.
Two last things, I recently updated the internal software of my GPS device over at Magellan, and since I have noticed load time in drawing the mapping a bit quicker. And my most used avenue for trouble shooting would have to be the Groundspeak Forums, it is just about a sure thing, that someone has asked your question somewhere in there before.
It was Geocaching that first sparked my interest in owning a portable global positioning unit. I had absolutely no idea about what I was getting myself into. I envisioned a system that would be seamless plug and play applications, much like my .mp3 player. Was I ever wrong! I hope that as the technology advances and evolves it will become much more user friendly, and more compatible. In the current state of GPSing, do not underestimate the amount of reading, learning, mistaking and file converting involved on the users end. Hunting tupperware with sattelites takes a bit of dedication.
I think that the single most amazing tool available is Google Earth, and the fact that there is a basic version available for FREE is great too. I've studied and looked at maps of places so much that lately I have been reminding myself that I have never actually been there. I use Google Earth to discover and learn about the geography of any place. I mark interesting points and then transfer them to my GPS device, via a multitude of other programs. I also use it to scout out geocaches (.kml plugin) in an area, and you can bring saved routes from your GPS device onto the globe in Google Earth. I have purchased the Pro subscription for $20/year. Basically I payed that only to get the import directly from a GPS device feature, but since I have discovered other applications and avenues to do this. Though the higher resolutions are super nice, I would be just fine without the Pro subscription.
EasyGPS is a free program that does an excellent job of communicating with my device. It keeps things simple, and by using it you will learn the basics of GPS files. I would highly recommend it to someone just getting into this, because I have found it to be the easiest to use in marking points on the map and transferring that to a portable device. The problem with it is that there are no maps in reference to your points, you start with a blank screen. (I believe you can buy a version of EasyGPS that includes maps) I like to use Google Earth to mark points on the ground and then bring that point into EasyGPS and from there, transfer to the device.
GPSvisualizer has come in handy for me a few times, (especially when moving files from the device, to a program and then to another program.) it converts files to various other file types and it can actually read the .upt and .wpt formats that Magellan devices save as.
Trimble Outdoors features many trips that are organized into activities such as hiking, horseback riding, paddling and many more. It is similar to a newly discovered site I have been messing around with called EveryTrail, which makes for sharing your travels with your friends. EveryTrail uses the routes from GPS combined with photos (which can be directly imported from your Flickr account) and other points of interest to display an adventure. A fancy thing about Everytrail is that it uses time and date stamps from both your pictures and GPS track to estimate exactly the place that the picture was taken. People can also vote and comment on "Trips". Both Trimble Outdoors and EveryTrail offer .gpx files available for download that you can then load onto a GPS device (by using EasyGPS) or you can open a Google Earth file and view the route on your computer.
Two last things, I recently updated the internal software of my GPS device over at Magellan, and since I have noticed load time in drawing the mapping a bit quicker. And my most used avenue for trouble shooting would have to be the Groundspeak Forums, it is just about a sure thing, that someone has asked your question somewhere in there before.
Labels: Consumerist, Geocaching, GIS, GPS
