Serious GPS logging...

You may have seen the ScreenCastsOnline show where I used the iPhone for GPS logging to allow me to geotag my photos.

As I've a fair amount of travel planned for this year and I've got a new shiny camera to record it all, I'd love to be able to properly log all my photos and assign geotags.

Following on from discussions on the ScreenCastsOnline forum and various emails, I decided not to rely on the GPS tracker applications on the iPhone and go with a dedicated GPS tracker. One that I could just switch on in the morning and just forget about. The theory being I could forget all about GPS signal acquisition and not worry about running the battery down.

I toyed with the idea of getting a camera with GPS built in but they are very few and far between and the one I did consider, the reviews I found indicated that the GPS would have an adverse effect on battery life on the camera.

So what to do?

In the end I decided to get a dedicated GPS logger and went with the Wintec WBT-201, the recommended GPS tracker to work with Houdah Geo, the application I'll be using to merge the GPS data and photos. I figured I'd get one for the trip to the US later this week so I could put it through its paces.

So the device has arrived and after fiddling with it for a couple of days, I've decided that GPS tracking is not for the fainthearted and certainly not ready for prime time! The issue may well be that the device has no native Mac software supplied with it and the instructions are very poorly written, but I consider myself fairly tech savvy and have to admit, it's been a struggle trying to work out exactly what I need to do to set it all up. I even resorted to installing VMFusion on my MBP to run the Windows based software to see if that helped but even that is problematic and extremely complex.

There are some open source cross platform applications that allow you to access and configure the device but when I tried to download some of the apps and image files, I'm finding missing DMG files, broken links and even if I find the files, do I really want to build and compile code?

Perhaps I've been spoiled with all these easy to use Mac apps?

Eventually, I've been able to connect to the device using USB via Windows but I've no idea if I need to change any of the default settings. I've taken a walk round the block and managed to record a GPS track, load it into Google Earth and look at it on a map, but I seem to have waypoints all over the place but at least, they appear in the general vicinity of the walk I took.

It now looks like I can use HoudaGeo to import the track information via USB but I doubt I'll have much time to play further before leaving on Thursday. I'll try and play/research a bit more but I've no idea how or if I need to reset the device, how often to download the data to the Mac and just really if I'm doing all I need to.

Fingers crossed it will all work out but if anyone has links for the definitive guide to using the Wintec WBT-201 with a Mac or some simple hints and tips, I'd really appreciate it!

Update: After reading the really useful comments below, checkout my update

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Droboshare experiences

This post is basically an email I received from John Sammons following his experiences with the Droboshare. He purchased one as part of the same bundle I did but decided to experiment further. I've not had chance to replicate this on my system but the results he came up with were very interesting. I've reproduced his email in full below with his permission.

Thanks John....

Got the Drobo and am very pleased with it. Interestingly I have found that a bit of time with DroboShare pays dividends in the performance stakes.

I used the HD Benchmark program linked within your blog and found pretty much the same result as you. When I linked the Drobo to the Time Capsule via USB I got slightly improved network share performance but was concerned that the Airport Utility was reporting it as a 256GB drive instead of the current 2TB/16TB drive it should be.

My next test was to download the JumbShare application and configure my MacPro to use Jumbo Frames. This proved to give some improvement in Droboshare but not great when connected to my netgear Gigabit switch, approximately 15% more. Then came a rather outstanding discovery. I was never sure if the Netgear, being a cheap 5 port device, supported all the Gigabit ethernet standards. So I tried connecting both the MacPro and Droboshare to the Timecapsule Gigabit Ethernet as this as my most up to date switch. Wow.... this made a bit of a difference, see below.

I have run the test multiple times and with different file sizes and seem to consistently get between 92MB/s and 102MB/s, thats at least 3 x FW800 performance! Checking the Drobospace forums did not seem to give the impression this was a fast device but the results show otherwise. I also confirmed this with Disk Bench as I was so sure it was a rogue set of results.

My Drobo versions are:

Drobo Firmware: 1.3.0

Droboshare Firmware: 1.1.1

I have also moved the Drobo back and forth to the Droboshare/Direct connect with no problems. The key seems to be putting it in standby first to ensure a save transfer.

I also managed to get my Drobocare uplifted to 2 years which is the EU warranty, I had to exchange several emails with Data Robotics to get them to acknowledge that it should be a 2 year key from 1st May, I don't know if you have done that but its worth it for 2 years piece of mind.

Feel free to blog any of the above if it is of interest to anyone.

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Drobo and Droboshare..

Following on from my decision to move away from a pair of RAID 0 arrays for my backup solution (see previous post) I decided to try out a combination of a couple of mirrored drives for resilience and the ability to create offsite backups plus a Drobo based solution for long term storage (plus cloud backup, yada, yada....)

Well I ordered a Drobo MkII last week from Amazon and worked out I could reconfigure my existing config to free up 4 x 1TB drives to populate the Drobo.

Literally minutes after the order was dispatched from Amazon, someone on Twitter pointed me across to the eBuyer site where the same Drobo was on offer but with a DroboShare device thrown in for free (usually £169). The DroboShare is a device that allows you to connect your Drobo via Etehrnet to your network turning it into a NAS or Network Attached Storage device.

It was too late to cancel the order with Amazon but their policy is to accept returns within 7 days so I ordered the Drobo and DroboShare from eBuyer. Needless to say, the Amazon unit arrived several days ago but I left it unopened waiting for the other unit.

The second unit arrived today and I have to say, installation was a breeze.

Very nicely packaged with simple instructions! Basically:

• Unpack both the Drobo and Droboshare.
• Connect the DroboShare to my Gigabit ethernet switch with supplied cable
• Place the Drobo on top and connect to the DroboShare using the supplied USB2 cable
• Insert the 4 x 1TB Drives
• Power the two units from a single power supply using the supplied Y splitter
• Insert the CD into the Mac and installed the Drobo dashboard
• Once installed, the dashboard found the Drobo and realised that the disks were unformatted (note even if the drives are formatted or have data on, the Drobo will treat them as new disks and wipe them)
• Selected HFS+ as format and selected a 16GB volume (figured it was better to go for the maximum size to make upgrading easier later)
• Drobo then proceeded to format the drives and five minutes later, I had 2.7 TB of usable storage space!

Now before you ask, 4 x 1 TB does not equal 2.7 TB !

As can be seen from the graphic (click to see full size), because of the way drive manufacturers describe drive capacity, it's actually 3.63 TB in real terms. But this still isn't 2.7 TB?

In fact, 960 GB is reserved for protection and this is the beauty of the principle behind the Drobo.

In theory, I could copy up to 2.7 TB of data onto the unit, then remove one of the drives and still access the full 2.7 TB!

In the future, when 2 TB drives (or even bigger) are more common and more affordable, I could increase the available storage on the device (up to a maximum of 16GB) without having to move data around manually and reformatting. The Drobo will let me remove a drive, replace it with one of a higher capacity and just re-jig the data to fit!

Performance seems fine! I was a little worried about using the USB2 connection to the DroboShare as the unit does have a FireWire 800 connection, but this is only for use when directly connecting to the Mac itself. As this unit is only intended as a backup device, I've no real need for speed. Besides which, I'm currently playing a 4GB HD movie off the drive via DroboShare and at the same time copying another two HD movies across! The movie is playing just fine!

Update: I had a few requests to do a comparison between the direct connection compared to the DroboShare connected. Glad I did as the direct connection is nearly three times as fast! See the results here

A quandry......

Well you know that other Drobo unit, the one that's going back to Amazon tomorrow....

Nah, I don't need two Drobos at the minute, although I do have some spare drives without a home...

No, I need to stay sensible and send it back.....

Yes, I will!

BTW I have no affiliation with Drobo either directly or via MacBreak Weekly. I paid for the machines with my own hard earned cash at current retail prices!

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New kit..

Remember that new Mac mini I told you I was going to get ages ago (well, when the models came out anyway). Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought one of the base models from the Liverpool One Apple store last night. The base configuration is:

• 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1GB memory
• 120GB hard drive
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics

Shame on you Apple for selling a machine with 1GB!

Seriously, would it have hurt to cram in another 1GB stick for the same price?

Ah well, based on my experiences with my older G4(?) PowerPC based Mac mini, it's no big deal to upgrade the memory and a 4GB upgrade kit is only £50 from crucial.

At least, that's what I thought!

Gazmaz from ForMacEyesOnly sent me a PDF (see his Mac mini page) and video he's put together and the memory upgrade looks to be significantly more fiddly now :-( I may just leave it with the 1GB but the extra RAM is really needed. We'll see!

Before you ask, why have I acquired yet another Mac, well this one is for several reasons connected with the show. I'll be using it this week to demo a new piece of hardware that's just been released and I needed a standard Intel based machine with multiple USB ports. I didn't want to use the Mac Pro as that might "colour" the real life performance of this new gadget.

I'll also be doing a show or two in the near future about using the Mac mini as a replacement for the Apple TV for all your media playback.

Besides, you can never have too many Macs.

And before anyone else comments that I get a new Mac every month (boy, getting defensive aren't I), I went a whole year between buying the MacBook Air and the Mac Pro so cut me some slack ;-)

So what if I'm making up for it now!

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A nice dilemma to be in....

I'm at it again :-(

While I was at the Apple store a few nights back, I snuck in to take a look at the 17" MacBook Pro. I'd seen it before whilst at Macworld but that seems such a long time ago now.

If you follow my deliberations on the kit I currently use, you'll know that I use a 1st gen Macbook Air for my mobile computing (OK that would be sort of one step up from the iPhone type of mobile computing).

I don't travel that much (well not regularly each week, I tend to save it up for big trips) so my choice of the MacBook Air might be surprising for some people. Well the MBA is my pick it up with one hand, balance it on my lap, notebook mainly used whilst I join the rest of the family in the living room. Nothing too taxing, just checking my emails and RSS feeds.

It's small, yet has a full size keyboard and is light enough not to cause any major discomfort and speedy enough to handle its minimal duties.

When the new unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros came out, it was not even a consideration to think about replacing the MBA. I was pretty happy with the machine and didn't really see much of a difference in the new MBAs to warrant an upgrade.

However, (here it comes...) one thing that I have to admit to having an issue with on the MBA is the lack of screen real estate. After spending all day in front of some pretty big monitors, it takes a bit of getting used to a 1280x720 screen.

What, no violins.....

Anyhow, I sort of started thinking about if I really should look at upgrading the MBA for a new MBP, either the 15" or the 17", mainly for the extra screen real estate.

Well the trip to the Apple store confirmed it for me...

No!

I found both the 15" and the 17" to be way too heavy for me. Don't you just know Allison's going to give me a hard time on the Mac Roundtable after my comments about the iPhone being too heavy to control a presentation on.....

Lovely machines, but I'm so used to the form factor of the MBA.

A bit of research on the new MBA machines gave me food for thought, when it looks like they've significantly upgraded the graphics on the newer models. Not a bigger screen, but much faster and they support the 30" external monitor. A quick question on twitter brought back several responses form people who had upgraded and these ranged from the new machines being snappier, to comments indicating quite a significant speed improvement, especially if moving to the SSD.

Well it wouldn't harm to price a new MBA with SSD on the Apple store would it, and I've still got that Apple Developer credit to be used by November............

I'll let you know how I got on tomorrow and explain my dilemma!

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