TidBITS#741/09-Aug-04
=====================
It's summer in the United States, and Jonathan Jackel is in
a driving mood, cruising with the Route 66 mapping software.
Meanwhile, Andrew Laurence is lazing about on the couch with
Elgato's EyeHome digital media device. In other news, Apple
released Mac OS X 10.3.5 and Security Update 2004-08-09, Intuit
has released Quicken 2005, Apple posted iPhoto 4.0.2 then quickly
replaced it with iPhoto 4.0.3, and iData Pro has returned as
iData 2 under Mac OS X. In DealBITS this week, enter to win
free DLexpo VIP passes!
Topics:
MailBITS/09-Aug-04
DealBITS Drawing: DLexpo Free Passes
EyeHome: So Close, Yet So Far
On Track with Route 66
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/09-Aug-04
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Copyright 2004 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/09-Aug-04
------------------
**Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.3.5, Security Update 2004-08-09** --
Late Monday, Apple released via Software Update Mac OS X 10.3.5
and Security Update 2004-08-09. Bearing in mind that we heard
about these updates right before putting the issue to bed and so
can confirm nothing, here are the improvements that seem most
relevant to us (the first link below offers more complete release
notes). Mac OS X 10.3.5 offers updated Mail and Image Capture
applications, improved compatibility for third-party applications,
improved font management, additional FireWire and USB device
compatibility, and better Bluetooth compatibility for the Apple
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse and Bluetooth cell phones. People
working in mixed platform scenarios should appreciate enhanced
support for NTFS-formatted volumes, and those in highly networked
environments should see improved reliability for user logins
and mounting of home directories. Mac OS X 10.3.5 rolls in all
previous standalone security updates and also includes fixes
for a problem that could cause Safari to resubmit form data when
using the forward/back buttons and the TCP/IP-based denial-of-
service "Rose Attack." The 10.3.5 update varies in size depending
on what you need to download; Software Update told me it was
22.9 MB. A stand-alone version that updates 10.3.4 to 10.3.5
and a combined version that updates any version of 10.3 to 10.3.5
should be available from the Apple Downloads page shortly. As
always, be sure to back up before installing such a major update.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25791>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
Security Update 2004-08-09 updates Mac OS X's code for handling
graphics in the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format to work
around a problem in which malicious PNG image could cause
application crashes and execute arbitrary code. Security Update
2004-08-09 is included in Mac OS X 10.3.5, so you don't need
to download it if you're updating to Mac OS X 10.3.5. [ACE]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798>
**iData Pro, Go Cocoa** -- iData Pro has long been my favorite
digital shoebox, a repository for completely miscellaneous
text snippets, as I explained in TidBITS-675_. The program was
available through Casady & Greene, who closed their doors in
June 2003. iData's author, Mike Wright, robbed of a distribution
channel, thereupon generously started giving the program away.
On Mac OS 9 (non-Classic) it was made free forever; on Mac OS X
it was a six-month "demo," but it was fully featured, and over
time, eight bug-fix updates kept it from expiring. Meanwhile,
Wright partnered with Robin Casady to revive the program by
rewriting it in Cocoa. This effort has now resulted in iData 2
(currently version 2.0.2, with the "Pro" deliberately dropped
from the name). The Cocoa rewrite provides all the cool stuff
and good behavior that Cocoa brings along for free, such as
styled text, Unicode, images, Services, scroll-wheel support,
speech, and spell-checking. A valuable new feature is the
capability to insert a live link to any file or folder on disk.
iData 2 and iData 1.0.17 can import each other's files; iData 2
can also import InfoGenie and QuickDex files. iData 2 costs $50;
a few iData 1.0.17 features still missing from iData 2, such as
label printing and advanced phone dialing, are slated to return
in a future major update, at which point the price will rise
to $70. A 30-day demo is available for download (1 MB). iData 2
requires Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or later. [MAN]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07145>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07247>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07276>
<http://www.idata2.com/>
**Envision 1.0 Released** -- Back in May, I wrote about Envision,
an interesting program from Open Door Networks that works to turn
a Mac into an Internet-based slideshow. It's out now (a few weeks
ago, in fact; programs that ship during Macworld Expo can fall
through the cracks for us), and includes one particularly helpful
new feature: the capability to save the images from an Envision
slideshow to a folder for use with Mac OS X's screen saver.
Envision 1.0 costs $40 through 15-Aug-04; after that the price
will be $50. A 30-day evaluation version is available as a 2.1 MB
download; give it a try and see if a digital picture frame might
be in your future. [ACE]
<http://www.opendoor.com/envision/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07678>
**iPhoto 4.0.3 Released** -- Early last week, Apple released
iPhoto 4.0.2, which seemed like an extremely minor update unless
you were ordering iPhoto books in Europe. It also addressed issues
with using multiple text rules in Smart Albums, and provided
notification when new versions are available (presumably for
people who don't already use Software Update). However, Apple
pulled the update mid-week without notice, then posted an iPhoto
4.0.3 updater on Thursday that claims the same new features. Note
that the new version needs to update your iPhoto catalog, so it's
a good idea to backup your existing photos before applying the
update. The update is available as a 7.1 MB download via Software
Update, or as a 5.9 MB stand-alone download. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iphoto.html>
**Quicken 2005 Released** -- Intuit has released Quicken 2005, the
latest version of its financial management application. The new
version adds online support for more financial institutions,
streamlines new account creation and category management, and ties
into iPhoto to generate a visual home inventory. Quicken 2005
for Mac currently costs $60, and is available as a 32 MB download
or in a boxed version. [JLC]
<http://www.quicken.com/quickensw/mac/>
DealBITS Drawing: DLexpo Free Passes
------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If you're with commuting distance of Long Beach, California and
have some free time at the end of this week (13-Aug-04 through
15-Aug-04), you might want to check out a new trade show that's
just starting up: DLexpo, or the Digital Lifestyle Expo. (If
you're not near Long Beach or are busy this weekend, note that
DLexpo will be in New York City in late September and in Atlanta,
Georgia, in mid-November, with many other cities under
consideration for 2005).
<http://www.dlexpo.com/>
As you might expect from the name, DLexpo is heavily Macintosh-
oriented and will be showcasing the latest digital tools,
including DV cameras, Bluetooth cell phones, MP3 players,
professional audio products, and the software that goes with all
this hardware. Along with the show floor, there will be a number
of presentations and workshops running throughout DLexpo,
including a feature presentation from Apple's Rhonda Stratton,
the director of product marketing for QuickTime. Unlike many
conferences that charge one steep fee for everything, DLexpo has
chosen an a la carte approach: attendance normally costs $10
for the show floor, $100 for the Saturday and Sunday symposium
presentations (which includes the show floor), and $25 per day
for the Saturday and Sunday workshops given by people like Andy
Ihnatko and David Pogue. There's also a 3.5-hour DV workshop led
by Josh Mellicker of DVcreators.net for $59 and a 3-hour Nikon
Digital Camera Workshop that costs $300 but that includes a 3.2
megapixel Nikon 3200 Coolpix camera that you get to keep. Despite
the a la carte approach, it could add up, and that's where this
week's DealBITS drawing comes in.
DLexpo is giving away five VIP passes that give you free
admittance to the show floor, the Saturday and Sunday symposiums,
and the Saturday and Sunday workshops: a $150 value. For those
who don't win, DLexpo is still offering a discount that will
significantly cut all the prices (even more for students and
educators), so if you think you might want to go, be sure to enter
at the DealBITS page linked below. As always, all information
gathered is covered by our comprehensive privacy policy. Check
your spam filters, since you must be able to receive email from
my address to learn if you've won. Because this instance of DLexpo
is happening so soon, I'm closing the DealBITS drawing at 11:59 PM
(Pacific) on Wednesday night, 11-Aug-04, and I'll notify everyone
via email the next morning of the winners and discount codes.
You can register to attend DLexpo at any time, even after the
show starts.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/dlexpo.html>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
EyeHome: So Close, Yet So Far
-----------------------------
by Andrew Laurence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I have a dream. It's a simple dream, really.
I dream of a device that will bring my digital media - music,
movies, photos - to my home theater system with its comfy couch,
audiolicious speakers, and large-screen television. TiVo has freed
me from the confines of the network schedules (see "TiVo: Freedom
Through Time-Shifting" in TidBITS-594_); I want a device to free
me from the confines of physical media. I want my music collection
available in an unending stream. I want to show my mother digital
pictures of her grandson without huddling around a computer
monitor. I want to torture guests with unending hours of baby
video footage. Last, but perhaps most important, I dream of
a remote control that won't piss me off.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1204>
EyeHome from Elgato Systems comes tantalizingly close to realizing
this dream. By the spec sheet, it does nearly everything: it
plays MP3, AIFF, and unprotected AAC files on the stereo, with
support for iTunes playlists and the capability to browse by
album/artist/song; it displays JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP graphic
image files on the television, according to iPhoto's albums and
slide shows; and it plays MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and DiVX movie
files on the television. A simple preference pane activates its
Java-based server software on your Mac and advertises its presence
via Rendezvous. The EyeHome itself, a small, silver set-top box,
connects to your Mac via Ethernet and to your television or
receiver via RCA, S-Video, or optical S/PDIF jacks. (Those with
wireless networks can use an 802.11b/g bridge such as the Linksys
WET11 or NetGear ME101.)
<http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome>
<http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=36&prid=602>
<http://www.netgear.com/products/details/ME101.php>
**Eye for Details** -- In practice, the EyeHome does just about
everything it claims. Setup and installation are a breeze. Just
install the software, hook up the device and turn it on. It
finds your Mac (or multiple Macs) via Rendezvous and Shazam!
Your pictures, movies, and music are all available for playing
on the television and hi-fi stereo.
iPhoto's photo albums are displayed in the same order as they
appear within iPhoto; you can view a single photo or play an album
as a slide show. During a party I played a random slide show of
baby pictures on the television, a handy conversation piece
(and a way for the guests to catch up on the baby's life, while
the real article was long since asleep).
Songs, albums and playlists all play from the iTunes Library.
However, EyeHome's Music section doesn't descend through the
library as I expect. I'd expect it to descend from Artist to
Aretha Franklin to a list of her albums, but instead you get a
list of songs. Similarly, going from Genre to Jazz, one expects
a list of artists, but again you find a list of songs.
EyeHome is restricted to playlists in iTunes and cannot create
ad hoc playlists. Having tasted the rich freedom of Slim Devices'
SlimServer software, however, I find the marriage to iTunes
limiting; ad hoc playlists are addictive, and the EyeHome's Java
software feels slow by comparison (see "Good Vibrations from
the Squeezebox" in TidBITS-726_). The documentation claims that
EyeHome can play Internet radio stations (via a .pls file in your
Music folder), but I could not get this feature to work.
<http://www.slimdevices.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07637>
I don't yet have DV footage converted to a compatible format, but
from my test with some downloaded material, video playback works
quite well. Quality on the screen is a direct function of the
file's video format; the more information in the file, the better
the image. MPEG-1 looks grainy, while MPEG-4 and DiVX can look
quite spectacular. As always with digital video, there can be a
wide quality variance depending on the codec used; I had problems
with a few DiVX files, but all the MPEG files I tried worked fine.
<http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?id=5269>
(The EyeHome can also browse the Web, but I don't find that
feature at all compelling; viewing the Web on a TV didn't work
well with WebTV, doesn't work in a hotel room, and doesn't
interest me in my home with broadband and laptop computers.)
**Eye on Interface** -- However, while the EyeHome appears to
realize my dream, it falls short due to a horrible interface
and a remote control with tiny buttons and inscrutable icons.
When a computer outputs its display to an NTSC television, it
offers an image of only 640 by 480 pixels - tiny by modern
computing standards. When faced with this constraint in a consumer
device, TiVo chose a simple vertical list of selectable items;
selecting an item takes you to a new screen and a new list of
options. TiVo's interface is quickly comprehensible, uncluttered,
and focused on the task at hand. Elgato, however, shoehorns a
three-pane interface into this limited space. Large text buttons
occupy the left-hand portion of the screen, one for each major
function: EyeTV, Movies, Music, Photos, Internet, Services. (I
find the topmost EyeTV button to be exasperating, as it is useless
without an EyeTV device and cannot be moved or removed.) The
right-hand portion of the screen is used for browsing content
in the selected area, and small soft buttons for media playback
sit along the top.
It sounds simple enough, if a bit cluttered. However, the
execution is maddening. To navigate through the interface, you use
a set of small directional buttons on the included remote control.
When an on-screen button is highlighted, it is surrounded by a
blue rectangle. However, when one of the large media buttons is
active, it is shown as an Aqua-ish blue blob. If you click to
highlight that button, the rectangle vanishes! Suddenly, there
is no indication of which item is currently selected.
It gets worse as you delve deeper: press Select on the remote, and
the cursor moves into the selected area (say, Music), where each
listed item is delimited by a similar roundish blue blob. Moving
the cursor to an item once again highlights its text with a blue
rectangle, but that is the only indication of where your eye
should focus. The list pane doesn't have a visual highlight, and
the Music button is still surrounded by a big honkin' blue blob
that draws the eye away from the content pane.
If the content in the list pane is longer than one screen, buttons
for the next set are at the top of the list, not the bottom. If
you are prone to pressing Down as you move through a list (or,
say, just finished with one selection and want to move to a
different screen), you must press Up several times in order to
move to the next set. A scrollable list of "pages," TiVo-style,
would make a great deal more sense.
At various points, soft buttons for playback options (Search,
Back, Play All, Random) appear at the top of the screen. These
buttons are denoted with white-on-black icons, in a different
font than any other button text. (It might just be a smaller point
size; after all, this is NTSC video we're looking at, which isn't
the best way to view typefaces.) The appearance of these icons is
another inconsistency, and while the Search button is handy, again
the implementation is horrid. Pressing the Search button brings up
a simple text field, but the field isn't highlighted for input -
that infernal EyeTV button is! So, hit the Right button and input
text with the multi-tap numeric buttons, just like a cell phone
and just as annoying. (Again, TiVo gets it right with an on-screen
alphabet and arrow-to-select.)
In that hard-to-define quality of "feel," the EyeHome interface
feels clunky. Navigation feels like tabbing through fields on a
Web browser; this should come as no surprise, because it is, in
fact, a Web browser. The browser accesses your Mac over TCP port
8000. The EyeHome software on the Mac is the Apache Web server
with the Tomcat Java application server. It appears that the
EyeHome is a licensee of technology from OEM digital media
supplier Syabas. The device's Web browser identifies itself as
"Syabas," and the server's .jar filenames begin with "syabas."
Other Syabas licensee products appear to include the D-Link
Wireless Media Player and the Neuston MC500.
<http://www.syabas.com/solutions_myihome.html>
<http://www.syabas.com/solutions_myibox.html>
<http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318>
<http://www.neuston.com/en/mc500.asp>
In summary, the convenience of having one's digital pictures on
the TV is a blessing, as is dialing up a digital movie on a
moment's notice. Music playback works, but it pales in comparison
to the SlimServer software on the Squeezebox from Slim Devices.
If you can get past the interface, the EyeHome functions quite
well. It costs $250 and is available from Elgato Systems and
various online dealers.
[Andrew Laurence continues his quest for the ideal home theater
digital hub. Frankly, the category is beginning to look like MP3
players did before the iPod came out. Hmm...]
On Track with Route 66
----------------------
by Jonathan Jackel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I have always loved maps. I can read a map for hours: cool names
of little towns; different colors for each state (why is Louisiana
pink?); all the different ways of getting from here to there.
Growing up in Los Angeles, I relied on Thomas Brothers maps. These
books are hundreds of pages long, each page covering about 70
square miles. I just looked up a street name in the index, found
the address on the map, and plotted the course myself.
<http://www.thomas.com/>
These days, of course, most people use one of the online mapping
and directions services, such as MapQuest, MSN's Maps, Yahoo Maps,
and TopoZone. There are also sites for browsing topographic and
census data, and even satellite photos.
<http://www.mapquest.com/>
<http://www.mapblast.com/>
<http://maps.yahoo.com/>
<http://www.topozone.com/>
<http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse-tbl>
<http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.aspx>
But if you use Mac OS X and want mapping software that covers
the whole country (without requiring an Internet connection),
right now there's only one game in town: Route 66, published by
Geographic Information Systems BV in the Netherlands. The company
produces mapping software for Europe, Canada, and the USA; I'm
reviewing the combined USA/Canada package here. (National
Geographic sells the only other mapping software for the Mac;
it's focused on topography, though the company claims the
product is suitable for planning road trips.)
<http://www.66.com/>
Why should you buy mapping software if you can get maps and
directions for free on the Internet? Here are a few reasons:
* More control over how routes are created and printed
* Additional information like latitude, longitude, and altitude
* Capability to save frequently used locations and routes
* Faster zooming and scaling
* Ability to use maps/directions while in your car or on an
airplane
* Real-time mapping with global positioning satellites (GPS)
Route 66 does all these things - some surprisingly well, some in
surprisingly clunky ways. I ran into the occasional inaccurate
distance or misplacement of addresses, which seem to afflict
every type of mapping application. I also found the format for
displaying directions to be strangely contorted. At the same
time, the maps print at incredibly high quality.
Unfortunately, I had to drop one of the reasons to use Route 66
right away; I was not able to get Route 66's GPS integration to
work. Theoretically, any GPS unit that follows the NMEA-0183 v2.0
protocol should work, and all recent units I looked into claimed
some level of NMEA compatibility. But when I tried Route 66 with
a compatible Navman GPS e Series unit, I couldn't get it to work.
If you use GPS on a Mac, feel free to send me a recommendation
for a brand and model.
I still found Route 66 to be plenty useful. You interact with
Route 66 through a single window with several panes: one for
searching, one that displays a map, and one that shows any
waypoints you have defined; the last pane shows directions for
the route between your waypoints. A toolbar lets you choose tools
for zooming, selecting, measuring as the crow flies, getting
information about a particular location, bookmarking a location
with a thumbtack, and using a location as a waypoint for a route
you design.
**Route Searching** -- The search pane is where things get
interesting. Type in an address, and you get a map. Not just
a map, but sometimes a list of businesses located at that
address. I had no idea Sun Microsystems had an office in my
building. That's the kind of serendipity you just don't get
from a paper map.
You can also search for businesses. When I type my doctor's name,
I get his address and a map of his location, plus his phone number
and medical specialty. After finding my house on the map, I can
tell Route 66 to give me a list of doctors within five miles. You
also can tell Route 66 to display all doctors on the map with a
red cross icon and scale the map to get a custom search radius.
This feature begs for experimentation. What's the closest bank?
Or Apple Store (unfortunately only a few of the stores are in
the Route 66 database)? Quite a few merchants, from 7-Eleven to
CompUSA, get their own special icon, which you can display or hide
for printing or viewing onscreen. I asked for Places of Worship
and found nine churches within about three miles of my house.
Unfortunately, all Places of Worship get the same cross-adorned
logo - even the synagogues and mosques. Yikes! How do you say
"faux pas" in Dutch?
The search feature has its weak points. If you type in a typical
Washington DC address like 1500 H St NW, you'll get what seems to
be a list of every street in Washington. Apparently, anything with
an H, including the word Washington, counts.
**Rooting for Routes** -- Creating routes is simple. Once you've
marked your location with a thumbtack (you can bookmark any number
of locations that way) you can easily tell Route 66 to use that
location as a departure point, and define any of the locations
you've found (or any point on a road on the map) as a destination.
Route 66 automatically, and fairly quickly, lays out the route
in between. You can tell Route 66 not to use a particular road by
setting a "road block"; Route 66 then chooses the best route that
avoids the roadblock. This is a big improvement over MapQuest,
which might insist on sending you down the wrong way on a one-way
street or making you turn left at a sketchy intersection. You can
even plan routes with multiple stops (hardware store, bank, home)
and have Route 66 determine the optimal route for you, based on
speed, mileage, or cost.
The narrative directions, though, are a bit strange and long-
winded. I prefer an abbreviated style of directions:
W Apple Ridge Rd. 0.25
R Watkins Mill Rd 0.90
B/C Neelsville Church Rd
For me, this translates into, "Go west on Apple Ridge Road for
one quarter mile. Turn right on Watkins Mill Road. After 0.9 miles
it becomes Neelsville Church Road." When I'm driving or riding my
bike, I only need to glance down to know what I'm looking for next
and how far it is between turns.
Route 66, by contrast, just blabs and blabs:
(begin) Apple Ridge Rd (Montgomery Village) Leave in south-western
direction. After 1330 ft turn right towards Watkins Mill Rd 1330
ft Watkins Mill Rd. After 0.9 mi straight on to the Neelsville
Church Rd
And that's with "Use concise route descriptions" turned on! The
text above doesn't even include all the columns that Route 66
provides, which cannot be hidden or rearranged. Notice how Route
66 can't even bring itself to round 1330 feet up to one quarter of
a mile (which is 1360 feet). The user cannot choose the precision.
Personally, I would prefer hundredths of a mile to feet. The odd
phrasing (who turns "towards" a street that they are turning
onto?) screams, "I've been translated!" No matter what, it sounds
wrong for a product aimed at a U.S. and Canadian audience.
**X Approximately Marks the Spot** -- The worst thing about Route
66 - any computerized map, really - is the uncertainty about
whether its data is correct. I did an unscientific test, trying
out locations that I had actually visited in several states. I'd
say that about a third of the time, there was some weird glitch
in Route 66's data.
* My parents' house in California is shown a block away from where
it actually is. (MapQuest makes the same mistake.)
* My kid's school in Maryland is shown 1/4 mile north of where it
actually is. That's the other side of town for us. (MapQuest
doesn't even list this school)
* The house where my wife grew up in Pennsylvania isn't even in
the database. (MapQuest has it, though the placement is off a
little.)
* Route 66 doesn't recognize the address of the Maryland vehicle
emissions testing facility closest to my house, which seems like
exactly the wrong thing to leave out of a program people use with
their cars. (MapQuest had it.)
* A road I have bicycled on for years is shown as incomplete.
(MapQuest has it right.)
* Route 66 told me to turn left at an intersection where left
turns are prohibited. (MapQuest avoided this problem.)
* When you search for "LaGuardia" you see an airport icon in Lower
Manhattan, between Houston and Bleecker on LaGuardia Place. That
would be an awfully convenient place for an airport, but I can
attest to the fact that LaGuardia Airport is still in Queens, some
8.5 miles from Route 66's icon. If you look at Route 66's map of
Queens, LaGuardia is clearly there, but Route 66's search engine
doesn't seem to know that.
Overall, Route 66's data seems slightly worse than MapQuest's. One
drawback of having the map software on your computer is that it's
much more difficult for the publisher to keep updated than a Web
site. I always take computerized directions with a grain of salt,
and Route 66 is no exception.
**Route 66 by Bicycle** -- The main reason I personally was
interested in buying mapping software was to help plan bike rides.
When you plan a ride, especially in new territory, you want a
succinct list of all the turns you have to make and how far it
is between turns. This is called a "cue sheet." I have found that
an accurate cue sheet gives me a lot more confidence because I can
always look down at my odometer and tell if I have gone too far or
not far enough. But making a cue sheet can be a tedious process
involving rolling a little measuring wheel over a paper map
repeatedly to get an good measurement.
<http://www.epinions.com/
Brunton_MM10602_Digital_Map_Measurer_Outdoor_Electronics/display_~reviews>
I was hoping that Route 66 might generate cue sheets for me, maybe
with turn-by-turn maps. At a minimum, I was hoping that it would
at least measure my routes accurately.
It took a lot of experimentation, but I now have a halfway decent
result. The key is to plan your route carefully and keep in mind
Route 66's limitations. Route 66 thinks in terms of streets and
addresses. If you try to set a waypoint in the middle of a forest,
Route 66 instead uses the closest street address, so forget about
planning hikes. Route 66 doesn't even have a concept of a street
intersection; you cannot search for locations by intersection.
Cue sheets, on the other hand, consist of almost nothing but
intersections: go down this road for X miles, turn right at the
intersection of Y Road. You don't say, "Go to 10305 Z Street
and turn right," but that's how Route 66 thinks of it.
A reasonable compromise is that you can put a thumbtack in the
middle of an intersection and name the thumbtack something like
"Warfield/Dorsey". If you do a search for "Dorsey Warfield" Route
66 will find your thumbtack. Make a thumbtack for each turn on
your ride. Then assemble a route from your thumbtacks. Be careful
to add them to the route in the order they will be visited, and
make each successive one (except for the first) a "destination"
waypoint. You can reorder the points by dragging them into the
right order if you make a mistake.
Another key is reverse psychology: to try to trick Route 66 into
choosing the particular route you want, rather than directing it
to each and every intersection. Route 66 frequently gives strange
measurements that sometimes involve backtracking when you
explicitly tell it to make a lot of turns in a short distance.
If you use fewer waypoints and let Route 66 have more control over
the route, the distances are consistent and more-or-less correct.
In addition, the directions and turn-by-turn maps are easier to
understand because the extra backtracking isn't there. Sometimes
two waypoints, perhaps augmented by a roadblock, are all Route 66
needs to plot the route the way you want, even if you want
multiple turns between the waypoints.
A very cool feature is that Route 66 can list every gas station
and store within a set distance of a waypoint, and then show their
logos on the map. If you find yourself dying for a PowerBar,
you'll at least have some idea where the next one is available.
Route 66 claims it can also do this search for the entire route,
but the search took so long I never actually had the patience to
see if it worked.
Another way Route 66 improves on the paper map experience is with
altitude information. On a map, all the roads look flat. On a
bicycle, they are not. When going into unfamiliar territory, it is
nice to know whether the terrain is within your ability. Route 66
makes it fairly easy to get altitude information for a particular
point or street, but it would be nice if it also showed you the
peaks and valleys on your route.
Once you add all your waypoints to your route, they are
conveniently shown by thumbtack name in the directions - until you
save and reopen the route. Then Route 66 converts everything into
street number addresses, which definitely would look weird to your
bike club. You'll have to print your route before you close it for
the directions to be comprehensible. There is no way to export
directions from Route 66, except as a PDF via Print Preview. If
you want to tweak anything about the directions, you'll need to
retype them yourself (unless you have the full version of Adobe
Acrobat; PDF2Office just butchers it).
**Interface and Tools** -- The user interface generally needs
work. There is no Open Recent menu item, and Route 66 is the only
Mac OS X application I use that completely forgets the last
directory I visited. Every time you try to open a stored route
file, you start at your home directory.
There are no keyboard equivalents for any of the tools, such as
zoom in and zoom out. If you are using the "info" tool, which
shows the exact address under the cursor, you can't zoom, set a
waypoint or thumbtack, or add a roadblock without switching tools.
That requires either a trip up to the toolbar or a Control-click.
A tool palette would at least make the journey shorter, but
keyboard commands would be best.
On the other hand, the zoom tool is very clever. Simply drag a
rectangle, like cropping a picture in iPhoto, and that rectangle
is scaled up to fill the map area of the window. You can zoom in
to a neighborhood-size scale and run the "information" tool over
the streets. Each address is shown in a tooltip. The ruler tool
lets you measure straight-line distances, and also shows latitude
and longitude (to the hundredth of a second) and altitude (to 10
feet of accuracy, but don't bet your pilot's license on it).
However, there's no speedy way to zoom out. It takes more than 25
clicks to go from the largest scale (1:2,300, or 1 inch equalling
192 feet) to the smallest (1:84,000,000, or 1 inch equalling 1,326
miles). Fortunately, the scale indicator is also a drop-down menu
that lets you choose the area covered by a map (2 miles square,
for instance) or a state or province to display.
A far more serious problem, in my book, is the glitchy help
system. You would think the one place a software publisher would
want to avoid problems is the very place users go to solve their
problems. Route 66's help is a simple HTML-based Windows port
(right down to the little purple book icons, which stopped
rendering properly as soon as I installed Safari 1.2). In Safari,
you cannot type into the Route 66 help search box. Fortunately,
you can paste into it. As a workaround, type into the Google
search field and copy your query into Route 66's search box.
Internet Explorer 5.2 works, but then you have to change your
default browser in Safari's General preferences.
The help system claims you can search for locations by phone
number, but I could not get it to work. In fact, Route 66 quit
without warning - without so much as a "Route 66 unexpectedly
quit" - when I tried.
Lastly, printing options are plentiful, though a bit hidden
(you must choose the Route 66 item hidden away in the "Copies
and Pages" pop-up menu in the Print dialog). You can print just
the directions, directions with turn-by-turn maps showing an area
around each turn that you specify, and/or an overview of your
whole route. You can also just print or copy maps without any
routes on them. "Strip maps" are also available, but they are
nothing like AAA TripTiks (which show a blown-up representation
of the route on multiple thin sheets) as I expected. Basically,
you get an overview map on each page.
In the end, there are a lot of rough edges, but Geographic
Information Systems BV is to be commended for being willing to
release Mac-compatible software at the low end of the market;
Route 66 costs $35, making it a budget solution. With a little
work and attention to how people use maps for a variety of
purposes, Route 66 could become a first class product.
[Jonathan Jackel is a bicyclist and map lover who lives in
the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.]
PayBITS: Did Jonathan's review help you find your way?
Consider thanking him with a few bucks via PayPal!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=jonathan%jjackel.com>
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Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/09-Aug-04
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The second URL below each thread description points to the
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<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/>
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music files on the iPod. Readers theorize on why RealNetworks
is taking this approach. (5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2282>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/146>
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<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2283>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/147>
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<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2284>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/148>
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