Steve Lusardi wrote:
Larry,
You make this stuff sound wonderful, but in fact it scares the hell
out of me. Navigation using uncertified charts? Since when is this
progress? Sounds like stupidity to me. Close your eyes and imagine
the court ruling in an accident liability case when you tell the
court you were using uncertified charts from the internet after
causing massive property damage and or loss of life.
Steve


"Larry" wrote in message
...
Have you guys been to:
http://demo.geogarage.com/noaa/
Where Google Maps and satellite views get the marine chart overlays?

Take a look....(c;

My little Nokia N800 Linux internet tablet has an open source
freeware app the Linux hacker geniuses wrote called Maemo Mapper
that uses these tiles and a little Bluetooth GPS receiver (12
channel, WAAS-corrected, very sensitive, size of a matchbox) to put
a fix, track your progress, do waypoints and plan routes on a wide
variety of map tile repositories it downloads and stores from open
internet repositories such as Google, Virtual Earth, open source map
repositories, NOAA weather radar LIVE, Terraserver, Runway Finder
(latest aviation charts!)....etc., etc., more every week. On the
road, it connects to Points of Interest databases so detailed it
even has the self-serve laundromat up the street, complete with
their phone numbers you can use while ashore in some strange port,
lost as usual trying to find that maritime museum in Tahiti. You'll
carry the tablet while ashore walking around with the little GPS in
your watch pocket of your jeans. That way you won't get lost in Key
West, again, next time and can find that special bar right on the
map!

I'm in contact with the guys who wrote Maemo Mapper (open source
freeware) for the Maemo Linux tablets, and am trying to get them to
do what's necessary to get Marine Charts, with your boat's position
tracking on top of them.....no, no...not those OLD, OBSOLETE charts
from 1989 on the damned expensive chart plugs....straight off the
internet with the latest charts available for FREE! So, there you
are cruising the ICW or your favorite Chesapeake Bay, tracking your
course on top of the latest marine chart...or...Virtual Earth's
latest satellite photo...or...any of many land mapping
sources...with the LATEST weather radar picture directly from the
NOAA doppler radar available by clicking the WX icon over any
picture/chart/map...all in relation to your course being plotted by
a $230 Linux internet tablet connected through your Bluetooth
cellular phone's internet service to shore.....if it can connect, of
course. If not, it'll use the STORED maps/charts/tile photos from
your two 16GB SDHC memory cards ($59 ea at buy.com when I got mine.)

Interested??.....(c;

http://www.nseries.com/n800
the tablet....

http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/
all the freeware for it.

http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/maemo-mapper/
the open source freeware mapper program
(installs on the tablet by coming to this page and clicking
that green arrow's .install program. Linux is easier than WinXP.)

http://www.youtube.com/results?
search_query=maemo+mapper&search_type=&aq=f
some older videos on using Maemo Mapper not related to a marine
environment....

Search Google for maemo mapper to get lots more info on this
fantastic little Linux program.....

------------------------------------------------------------------

So, there I hope you'll be, crusing down the ICW plotted within a
couple of ft by the little GPS up under the bimini in a ziplock bag.
Wherever you are on the boat, not just tethered to wires at the
helm, you can look at your tablet and see where you are on the
chart. Wondering what the terrain looks like up ahead, you click up
the menu button to the left of the screen, click MAPS and pick VE
Hybrid from the list of repositories. Maemo mapper switches itself
from the NOAA chart to Virtual Earth's latest satellite photo with
all the local streets and roads around you nicely plotted and
labeled...EXACTLY where the chart just was with your little blue
icon in the center. You look up around the bend from a real picture
and see some docks to look out for sticking out from shore and the
fork in the ICW not far beyond you need to take the left channel on
according to the chart you just left. You press the WX clicker and
NOAA weather radar's NEXRAD displays on the satphoto (or chart as
selected) showing you a nasty thunderstorm about 12 miles ahead
you've heard banging away in the distance but can't see where it is
for the trees and terrain, here. Now you know the storm's exact
location on the chart and can keep an eye on it to see if it is
approaching your course of going the other way.....

Lying comfortably in your aft cabin with the tablet on your pillow,
you decide you can snooze a little longer before being needed on
deck. You put the tablet in LOCK mode, shutting down the display,
but the programs keep tracking your movements and that weather cell
for instant retrieval without having to boot up. In standby with
the display off, you don't need to charge it for days....It runs for
6 hours at full brightness, not 45 minutes like the damned laptop
battery hog at the chart table. It charges in an hour, ready for a
few more watches....

This is what I'm trying to get the Mapper hackers to do for you...(c;

Not $1500, Not $2400, Not $699.......$230 for the tablet, $0 for the
software and data off your cellphone, $100 for the tiny GPS box that
recharges in an hour and runs for 22 on its little cellphone battery
that's also user changeable as easy as your cellphone's.

Still interested??

You'll switch Maemo Mapper to the runwayfinders.com aviation charts
next week when you fly down to Miami....exactly like this, too....(c;

After you've docked, you'll connect the tablet to the marina's wifi
(it's 5 times as sensitive as the most expensive laptop we can find)
so you can click up Streamtuner and pick one of its 15,000 radio
stations across the planet streaming on the internet....or watch any
number of internet videos from youtube on MyTube those hackers wrote
for it free....or use mplayer to play one of the DivX movies you
loaded on its external card off alt.binaries.movies.divx newsgroup.
Who needs XM?? How silly....

iPhone my ass.........

I think he means NOAA charts of the US coastline. Not much use to us Brits!

If it's taken the Linux guys 12 years or more to catch up with the likes of
Oziexplorer, think of the startup problems likely to be inherent in the
software.


Dennis.