Street Atlas 2006
Details about the new SA 2006: http://delorme.com/streetatlasusa/default.asp
One of the most interesting questions to pose to a stormchaser is "which tool could you NOT live without?" After alot of pondering, I'd have to say my GPS mapping system and with that of course Street Atlas. After all, once you are on a storm, you don't need radar or radios. But you had best know the road network ahead of you and where you are at in relation to it at all times to either intercept or flee. A mistake here can have a range of consequences.
Sure, one could argue that paper maps could be used. But compared to a GPS mapping system..well...it's not even a fair comparison. LOL! For me, I chase alone and it's always comforting to glance over and to know exactly your position at all times and what lies ahead. Gone are the days of fumbling for the right page of the "Roads Of Texas" and then trying to determine exactly where you are at and when the next turn is up ahead. Alot of mental capacity was taken up simply trying to navigate and plot your route. Now I let the computer do all of the work and all without arguing about intercept strategy or your position. :-) June 9th and June 12th last year were absolutely critical in this respect.
Oh, and how about estimating drive times and distance to get to a target area? This is quite useful if you have the highway/street speed variables set correctly. Last year I even used the fuel calculator function with surprisingly accurate results. A few times, I used it to find a motel in a city or town without having to fumble through all of the coupon books. And for the hospital function, I used it to locate the hospital in Liberal, KS along with a phone number. It wasn't life threatening, but a severe gum infection dictated that I find a medical facility immediately and on the Sunday evening before Memorial Day.
One particular function I liked was the voice command. I used SA 2004 last year and the voice engine on it was just too unstable on my meager laptop. However, it worked well for the first half of the season and I came to rely upon it ALOT. I've talked to alot of chasers about this feature, but nobody else used it or bothered messing with it. I'm abit puzzled by this, especially if you are a solo chaser. My hands never touched the computer to zoom, pan, auto-center on/off, etc.. I never had to look down other than to check my position with a quick glance. The end result is I kept my eyes on the road alot more and hands on the wheel. The safety factor alone was significant...not to mention the convenience.
Now, I did have to do some voice training with it to improve accuracy. After about a 10-15 minute session, it was able to decipher my Texas accent. As long as I spoke succinctly, it never missed. A single beep confirmed your command was processed. The most important aspect of getting this to work though was the microphone...and one with an on/off switch. I used a good unidirectional condenser mic (like what newscasters use) which picked up my voice with little background noise. I positioned it in close proximity to my mouth, but not so close as to be intrusive or poke my eye out. ;-) This enabled me to avoid an annoying headset. You'll want the off switch so that the computer won't waste CPU listening and processing audio data continuously. I also set it up so that all voice commands started with "computer" in order to distinguish a command from casual conversation. You can set that to whatever you want. I tried "Hal" for grins, but found the computer confused it for other words. Too bad though because it was kinda cool to simulate "2001: A Space Odyssey". :-)
With ALL of that being said, the new SA 2006 looks pretty good with a couple of important improvements...primarily the options/setting all being in ONE place to set and adjust. Being a programmer and applications developer, this drove me absolutely nuts. It was a poor design. But, fix it they have. The other thing I like is you can now customize keyboard shortcuts. This is great for all of the different keyboard configurations on the various laptops out there. I also like the fact that they recommend only 256mb memory (minimum 128mb) with XP. This is good news if you only have 512mb and trying to run a wireless card and GRLevel3. But, WxWorx still draws 512mb memory, so if you can, step up to 1gb memory if you are going to run SA with it.
One of the most interesting questions to pose to a stormchaser is "which tool could you NOT live without?" After alot of pondering, I'd have to say my GPS mapping system and with that of course Street Atlas. After all, once you are on a storm, you don't need radar or radios. But you had best know the road network ahead of you and where you are at in relation to it at all times to either intercept or flee. A mistake here can have a range of consequences.
Sure, one could argue that paper maps could be used. But compared to a GPS mapping system..well...it's not even a fair comparison. LOL! For me, I chase alone and it's always comforting to glance over and to know exactly your position at all times and what lies ahead. Gone are the days of fumbling for the right page of the "Roads Of Texas" and then trying to determine exactly where you are at and when the next turn is up ahead. Alot of mental capacity was taken up simply trying to navigate and plot your route. Now I let the computer do all of the work and all without arguing about intercept strategy or your position. :-) June 9th and June 12th last year were absolutely critical in this respect.
Oh, and how about estimating drive times and distance to get to a target area? This is quite useful if you have the highway/street speed variables set correctly. Last year I even used the fuel calculator function with surprisingly accurate results. A few times, I used it to find a motel in a city or town without having to fumble through all of the coupon books. And for the hospital function, I used it to locate the hospital in Liberal, KS along with a phone number. It wasn't life threatening, but a severe gum infection dictated that I find a medical facility immediately and on the Sunday evening before Memorial Day.
One particular function I liked was the voice command. I used SA 2004 last year and the voice engine on it was just too unstable on my meager laptop. However, it worked well for the first half of the season and I came to rely upon it ALOT. I've talked to alot of chasers about this feature, but nobody else used it or bothered messing with it. I'm abit puzzled by this, especially if you are a solo chaser. My hands never touched the computer to zoom, pan, auto-center on/off, etc.. I never had to look down other than to check my position with a quick glance. The end result is I kept my eyes on the road alot more and hands on the wheel. The safety factor alone was significant...not to mention the convenience.
Now, I did have to do some voice training with it to improve accuracy. After about a 10-15 minute session, it was able to decipher my Texas accent. As long as I spoke succinctly, it never missed. A single beep confirmed your command was processed. The most important aspect of getting this to work though was the microphone...and one with an on/off switch. I used a good unidirectional condenser mic (like what newscasters use) which picked up my voice with little background noise. I positioned it in close proximity to my mouth, but not so close as to be intrusive or poke my eye out. ;-) This enabled me to avoid an annoying headset. You'll want the off switch so that the computer won't waste CPU listening and processing audio data continuously. I also set it up so that all voice commands started with "computer" in order to distinguish a command from casual conversation. You can set that to whatever you want. I tried "Hal" for grins, but found the computer confused it for other words. Too bad though because it was kinda cool to simulate "2001: A Space Odyssey". :-)
With ALL of that being said, the new SA 2006 looks pretty good with a couple of important improvements...primarily the options/setting all being in ONE place to set and adjust. Being a programmer and applications developer, this drove me absolutely nuts. It was a poor design. But, fix it they have. The other thing I like is you can now customize keyboard shortcuts. This is great for all of the different keyboard configurations on the various laptops out there. I also like the fact that they recommend only 256mb memory (minimum 128mb) with XP. This is good news if you only have 512mb and trying to run a wireless card and GRLevel3. But, WxWorx still draws 512mb memory, so if you can, step up to 1gb memory if you are going to run SA with it.
posted by Steve Miller TX at 2/01/2006 10:18:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home