GeekForce

So, you probably know that for quite some time, I’ve had a GPS receiver.

In case you dont know what one of these things is, it’s a handheld device that has an antenna built into it, on which it receives singnals from satellites. The device measures the amount of time it takes for signals to arrive from each of the satellites it can “see”. Based upon this timing it triangulates your position.

It is a peace dividend. it was originally designed for military vehicles (fighter jets, ships, hummers). It was commercialized, in a way similar to how the internet was commercialized.

So, you buy one of these receivers, and all of a sudden you know where you are on the planet. Pretty useful, eh?

I’ve had a Garmin GPS II+ for a long time. It still works great, but being me, I want more modern stuff, so I’ve been looking at newer devices. Now they make a bluetooth capable GPS - that’s cool!

Here’s what I want to do - I want to trade my GPS data with my mac, so that applications like Kismac will work, and so that I can hack up my iPhoto metadata with Lattitude, and Longitude in my pictures.

One I have that, I can make a cool google maps interface that shows icons of WHERE I took each photo - that’s pretty cool, no?

Duane will remind us that I have a moratorium on technology spending. You already know where i’m going with this, dont you, I can see it in your eyes. Your confidence in my discipline is waning…

I bought a Serial to USB convertor. it const me a total of $40. The Garmin GPS II+ sports a cable with a 9 pin DIN at it’s business end. I plugged that into the Serial - USB convertor, and voila!

Now i can feel the love of the lattitude & longitude on my mac here at home…

Imagine the possibilities!

• Take my GPS on a Bike Ride, and download the tracklog, and use some math to get real performance data from it!
• Tag all my photos with the location that i took them…
• Better route planning for road trips
• Better Wifi hacking!

Well Duane, scorn if you must, but at least I didn’t go and buy a new GPS. i always figured that the moratorium covered NEW Hardware purchases, not interface devices that help me make better use, and extend the life of my existing systems…