Notices

...rolling naked through cacti...

I image everything must be easier afer that.

Allright, I guess I need to take the desert excursion (cursing) class, sinnce I really missed that sarcasm bit in the original post where I got a little too serious. .

How could I miss that library thingie he put in there ?

Just goes to show - not to take these OS and free stuff wars too seriously.
But anyways, I will pass on that "cacti copulation" class, thank you.

I've wondered about the other mapping programs also. (found this thread searching to the referenced flite). Which by the way I hadn't realized flite and festival were related (or the same or whatever).

Can Maemo Mapper create travel routes offline? I searched and actually found the manual, and the answer looks like no, they are made (somehow) online, downloaded and loaded. I might be reading it wrong or it might have changed since the documentation was written, <sarcasm>I know how these maemo programmers don't care about accurate documentation</sarcasm> [edit:Oh, I see the answer is no, and gets violent replies when asked AGAIN]

<Serious>I'll share some random information about sarcasm however. One of the differences between early-onset dementia and Alzheimer's, is Alzheimer's victim's get sarcasm. With dementia, you take things at literal face value. That is part of how/why old people tend to get 'taken' with driveway paving and roofing scams, they trust everybody. I think I got that from 60 second science podcast last month, but my memory's not that good.</Serious>

sarcastic rant/
It's interesting to me that the FOSS "community" has pockets in it that are very anti-community. "You get what you pay for". Does that mean FOSS is worthless? I bet there are a few developers who would take issue with that concept. So instead, FOSS is not worthless, but potential users are. So they better saddle up to Google and spend hours searching out descriptions, and explanations for those descriptions, because the packager didn't bother to take the time to throw in a useful description. Maybe I'm weirder than I think, but that sounds either selfish (I can be bothered with developing or packaging it, but not with providing a description so others might know what this is without reading forums and blogs and FAQs and stone tablets) or elitist(if you can't tell what it is by the title, you're clearly too stupid to benefit from installing it), or lazy (I coded it, I packaged it. Any you want a description too?? Do I look like a freaking developer to you???)
I know. We need a standard. A standard description for all maemo packages. Maemo can lead the way in better standardization of packages for all the FOSS projects of the world!

How about this for the first draft RFC?

Package Description -
Code, to do stuff, when executed properly on the appropriate hardware.

That covers every line of code ever written, or to be written, for anything. Now these poor over-worked, under/not paid and under-appreciated developers and packagers can spend their time doing things that will really benefit the FOSS community.

Boy that was simple to resolve. Whats wrong with you all that I had to do all the work and solve this for you?? /sarcastic rant

And for those of you wondering, I have the cacti scars to validate my BA in Sarcasm and the obligatory minor in Hilarity, which is an advanced study of humor.

I like that; "potential users are [worthless]".

In most Free and Open Source Software this is usually the case.

Not because of the developers disdain but because the majority of FOSS was originally developed for one user only, the developer his or her own dang self. Potential users were not even a factor at the time of the original motivation.

The fact that it is in the public domain is because the developer chose to share it in the first place. This is a good thing.
Publishing documentation for tasks that one already knows is redundant. Perhaps a talented developer would rather spend his or her online time sharing more work that they ...developed. (rolls eyes sarcastically)

Ideally if a FOSS is useful others will find it. If it is good, those who found it will promote it. And if enough people use it, a community will develop around it.

In the end, the community independently provides a good deal of the documentation and support for many good and worthy FOSS efforts.

...for example. >> Clicky <<

In your not a Linux user name will be "Cryptic".. It goes the same the other way Linux to Windows or Mac to anything...

Linux structure makes a lot of sense. If your just jumping in to the "culture" then take a quick look at what your getting into. Here's a great place to start http://linuxcommand.org/ also you if you like to N810 then you should try out a "live CD" on your laptop or desktop to look at an actual Linux Operating system. (I'm an Ubuntu Fan, this is also Debian based.

The other good read is an article on the conception of unix/Linux. I like the wikipedia entry on it.


Any way, not to hijack this thread (sorry about the above, I'm an avid linux user.) I've been trying to use mameo mapper and the base Maps program from Wayfinder and I'm not satisfied with either. Are there any side by side comparisons out here? Obviously the Nokia N810/N800 community is small, it's been hard to find. If I can't find it I'll have to do it myself but no point in repeating it, plus I would like to find something I like.

Last thing is there a running list of the map options?
This is what I've found so far;
* Wayfinder's Map -w/ Teleatlas
* Mameo Maps w/ open street (I know there's more map options, what are they?
* Navit (I just download but haven't used) http://www.tecdencia.net/navit/
* Roadmap, I've just read a few small things on this. I'm not sure if it's a separate piece of software or just some sort of plug-in/add-on.

Anyway curious to see what's out there.

Back to the serious side of this question.
I for one would like to know if anyone has tried all of these mapping programs and written a comparison or if there is a website with a comparison. I finally got my GPS working last night and would like to know which one will fill my requirments the closest. I imagine that I am like many others in that I would like to fire up the mapping program, enter a destination and have my N810 tell me how to get there. I only need this once or twice a month, so do not really need a dedicated GPS, so it would be great to have my unit do this when I am not surfing while waiting on my kids....

I believe Maemo Mapper is the most mature, followed by Navit.
You can definitely meet your requirements with MM.
Before you leave home, download and save your route. See this post about my first trip.
I tried Navit once, but could not get it to display the map I downloaded. I probably did something wrong.

I just went for the few extra $ and bought a license for the "map" application.
Besides the fact it has (as an EU user living in a damn small country) the nasty idea that you need to change from maps at country boarders (you cannot go from Belgium to France on one map for example) it works pretty good.
If you can score on of the old packages (Nokia N-N880 Navigation Kit N800) out there for a N800 with a bluetooth mouse included it's even cheaper - they sell for less (I payed 60 €) than the price of a license, you get a '"okay" gps mouse, a car holder, car charger and you can use the serial for 3 year routing.

The serial (and gps) work also on the N810 by the way.... carholder will not fit 100% as it's made for the N800.

So whats the most user friendly (not having to edit code, and easy to navigate the menus) FREE On the fly gps application that will run on diablo?

Navit looks good but I have no idea what I'm doing outside of the gui. Maemo mapper looks good as well but I need to be able to change my route on the fly w/out a internet connection. So what are my options?