GPS - It lives

In the ongoing quest to completely digitize my life, I've recently purchased a GPS solution. Mainly I want to bring back memories of when I worked with DFO, and combine my upcoming sea cruise with GPS... I wanna know where I am dammit!

Also, it's just kinda nifty. Geocaching seems like an interesting activity... and worst-come-worst, it will help me get places.

After much research (thanks Richard) I decided that I didn't care so much about the 20 channel 3-inch accuacy of these things. Anywhere within 30 feet is probably ok. Hence the purchase of a Pharos iGPS-360 unit (otherwise known as the one that comes with Microsoft Streets and Trips). Pictured above-left.

That way, you basically get some software for free, and a half decent GPS unit to boot. The only issue then is that I dont' really want to drag my laptop around with me. I want to use the thing with my bluetooth enabled PDA. Hence another purchase... this time the Pharos bluetooth adapter for the unit (GPS-BT).

The first problem... nothing works like in the manual... I set my PDA (Dell Axim 51) to detect the thing, found it, and setup the serial connection. Nothing. Oh well.


After about 1 hour of fiddling, I determined that I needed, much to my dismay, to connect an outgoing com port manually in the bluetooth settings. Then all is happy. It connects, Pocket Streets is happy, and my demo download of GPS Tuner (nifty geocaching software I'm told) works perfectly. Now if I'd only remembered to bring my PDA adapter home I could have charged it to a useful condition.

In any case, it works, and I was getting some fairly accurate results based on my quick calibration of some home prepared maps (thanks Google Earth), and a quick walk around the block.

All that's left to try is to ensure that my PDA adapter will charge the thing, and I'll have remote and island friendly GPSing during our upcoming cruise.

Of course, the neighbours all think I'm signaling my mother ship. The thing glows a nice radiant blue... shows up real nice in the back yard.

Nanoo nanoo.

Crappy video from laptop makes man happy

So, went searching today for an S-Video to RCA converter, and a mini audio to RCA adapter. The Source and Sony store provided, respectively. S-Video to RCA converters, as you would expect, are somewhat rare. It took the Radio Sh... *ahem* Source dude about 10 minutes of digging to find one. I went in asking for a cable... but came out with a cheaper adapter instead. Just as well... I had a cable around anyways I discovered.

The objective is to use my old R31 IBM Thinkpad as a cheap media extender. We'd used it many evenings for watching videos... but there's something to be said for screen size. So, as the old TV in the bedroom doesn't take S-Video, and because my $3000 sterio receiver system for some reason refuses to use any of the 4 S-Video connections available... I decided to try a less optimal, but probably more satisfying solution.

It works. So at least I know that it's not my laptop video config that's wrong. The res looks kinda crappy, but not enough for my well-post-teen eyes to get in a snit about. Now, if only I had a wired connection to the bedroom, the video frames might stop sticking.

Suns last rays

A kinda cold, but very nice day. Here's a photo of the park next to my house just as the sun was setting this evening. I ran out to capture a bit of a rainbow (or snowbow I guess) that I saw on the way home... but I think I just missed it. Anyways, the sunset and clouds were very nice too, so a quick pic of those in lieu of a rainbow. 

Foggy

Three degrees, and very foggy. Feels like home. At least the snow and ice is melting. 

Running in the sun

It was a very warm and slushy Saturday for a doggie walk... but we did it anyway. Having passed the park to visit Nova's doggie-sitter, he was very anxious to do some running. 

My Major Quiz

I took a quiz that attempts to select your aptitudes.... here are the results:

You scored as Philosophy. You should be a Philosophy major! Like the Philosopher, you are contemplative and you enjoy thinking about the purpose for humanity's existence. Philosophy 100% Mathematics 92% Engineering 92% Psychology 75% English 67% Chemistry 50% Art 42% Anthropology 33% Linguistics 33% Theater 33% Journalism 25% Biology 25% Sociology 17% Dance 17% What is your Perfect Major?

Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was fantastic. Well worth seeing in theatre. So very very close to the book, great pains were obviously taken. I've just finished the complete Cronicles, and can attest to the accuracy. As with the first Harry Potter, the visualizations actually exceeded my expectations, and my imagination. What can I say, but it was fun.

Walk in the Woods

Had a lovely walk today in the park with my wife and puppy. Nova particularly likes to be off-leash. The day was cool, but not cold (-3 or so) and very sunny.

As Nova get's older, I find he's becomming less excitable... he did very well with his recall in the park.... when treats were available. 

Earthquake frenzy

I've always wanted to feel one. Since I've been in Ottawa (nearly 8 years) I've heard of several earthquakes in the area that could be felt, but I'd never been lucky enought to feel one. This evening, there was a magnitude 4.0 just a few kilometers away (38KM according to Google Earth).

Not much to speak of... a very low rumble, and vibration... kinda like a large truck going down the road... but the house creaked a bit, and the rumble seemed to carry on for about 10 seconds afterwards getting lower and dimmer all the time.

Tam thought a plane was about to fly into the house. Nova was a bit upset... and I believe he thought it was someone upstairs or at the door.

Included is an image from the Canadian National Seismograh Network that shows the quake I felt (aprox 8:40 EST = 1:40 UTC). I do wish NRCan would improve it's earthquake web service however... their servers were blocked shortly after the quake. I guess the 1/2 million geeks in the Ottawa area all wanted to know what they felt.

Fortunately, the USGS is on the ball: "A light earthquake occurred at 01:39:23 (UTC) on Saturday, February 25, 2006. The magnitude 4.0 event has been located in the ONTARIO-QUEBEC BORDER REGION, CANADA."

They also have some details including the depth (15 km), and distances from major areas (42 km from Ottawa center).

Update: NRCan has come in with some slightly different (and I assume more accurate) data: "An earthquake of magnitude 4.5 MN occured on 2006-02-25 at 01:39:22 Universal Time. The epicentre was located at latitude 45.66 North and longitude 75.23 West. 7 km N from Thurso, QC". This puts it slightly north of the USGS. There's some difference in the scales used in different areas (4.0 vs 4.5). Apparently MN and M are not the same thing, as quakes propogate differently in eastern North America so sometimes they adjust the numbers.

Congrats on Curling

Congratulations to our Canadian (ahem - Newfoundland) curling team on their well earned victory today at the olympics. I imagine it's the first ever Newfoundland olympic gold medal.