The Rimrocked Blog

This will be part one of two, possibly three posts (depending how successful I am with the latest GPS Babel beta release and my eeePC). Part one will look at the Trackstick, the first data logger I tried, part two will look at the GlobalSat DG-100 which was the 2nd data logger i bought (the reason i needed a 2nd will become clear by the end of this post) and part three will chronicle how I got the DG-100 to work in linux on my eeePC - if it works. If I’m feeling really crazy I may even try it with Mac as I’ve found a couple of posts showing how to make it work, which means I may even get to a 4th post about my datalogger experiences.

The first question you probably have if you’re relatively new to the GPS world is probably, “What’s a GPS data logger?”. A GPS data logger is a passive GPS device and logs the position of the device at regular intervals to it’s onboard memory. After a “trip” you can plug the data logger (or memory card depending on the device) into your computer and retrieve your route, usually in multiple formats such as GPX or KML. Once you have the GPX or KML file of your trip you can many things with it, the one we’re most interested in of course is using it with Rimrocked.

On to the Trackstick…purchasing this device was easy, I simply went to their website, clicked the “add to cart” button, went through the checkout process and in 2-3 days I had my trackstick. The trackstick has a USB plug on one end and slides open to insert 2 AA batteries. There’s a single button on it that depending on how long you hold it does everything you need (in theory). It also comes with a CD that contains the software for interacting with the device on your computer (Windows only).

My first test of the trackstick was to simply place it on the dashboard of my car, hold the button until a light came on and drive to/from a wedding that my wife and I were going to that was about 45 minutes from our house. A few days later a friend of ours was going to Germany for work so I gave it to him to use, I also asked him to retrieve my tracks from the device as I was unable to get the software to work on my Dell PC or my Mac with Windows installed on it. Ian was a little frustrated with the use of the device as the single button/light setup is a bit of a pain to use and the usability is lacking because you never really know what it’s doing, although he had no trouble installing the software. His trip can be seen on rimrocked here.

Once Ian got back and I had the device again I tried installing the software a second time - no luck. About a month later Ian and I were going mountain biking and I figured it was a good opportunity to get an idea of the trails we frequent near our homes so I strapped the trackstick to my handlebars, turned it on and off we went.

We went for quite a ride, getting sort of lost but not really and about halfway through the ride I realized the trackstick was no longer on my handlebars. We doubled-back about a half kilometer or so with no luck - it was fall and the leaves had fallen quite a bit so it likely either fell into the leaves and buried itself in them or bounced off the trail under more leaves.

Overall, it the Trackstick was OK, wasn’t great as the single-button/light setup was cumbersome to use properly and of course never being able to get the software to work properly sure didn’t help. In my opinion it’s probably a little overpriced for what it is and how it works but it did it’s job well when it was working - although the software leaves a lot to be desired and is quite flaky (given my experience at least).

So, if you happen to mountain bike around the trails near Kanata Lakes/Morgan’s Grant in Kanata Ontario and you come across a little black tube it’s probably my trackstick - if it still works could you email me and I’ll setup an account on rimrocked for you to upload the points?

As far as integrating a GPS data logger with Rimrocked, it couldn’t be easier. Follow the instructions for your data logger to retrieve a KML file, log in to Rimrocked, under “Your trip > Add trip > From KML”, click the “browse” button and select the KML file that’s on your computer, press ok, fill in the rest of the trip details and presto-chango, you’ve got a trip added to Rimrocked using your KML file as the map points!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Devices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.