Octagon Technology

Bob Heil presentation to Lincoln Shortwave Club

Bob Heil, K9EID, gave a presentation this evening to the Lincoln Shortwave Club from his radio shack/lab in Illinois USA, via Skype.

Octagon Technology set up the wifi network and presentation equipment for the event.

Who is Bob Heil? He built that box for Peter Frampton, friends with Joe Walsh, worked with The Who, the Grateful Dead etc – get more details from his Wikipedia page.

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It was excellent.

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Loading gpx Files into Memory Map on the iPhone

Since writing this article I now follow the same process but keep the files in my Microsoft OneDrive.

Read more about Backpacking Geek – click here.


 

One big difference between the versions of Memory-Map on my old Windows 6.5 phone and my current iPhone is the way they handle imported routes from the PC version of the software. The Windows version simply connected to the complete route library in the PC application, then on the phone you could choose which routes from that list to show, turning them on and off as required. On the iPhone you have to load the routes individually and once you have finished with that route unload it and then load another (keeping too many routes loaded at one time impacts the performance of the app). The “Save as” gpx file in Memory-Map PC version solves the problem.

But the issue is getting the routes into the app from Memory-Map on the PC. The first thing you have to do is save the individual routes as gpx files on your PC. In my Memory-Map I have a category for Lincolnshire – which has over sixty entries, both routes and location markers – if I save the whole of this category as a gpx file when I open it on the iPhone it is too confusing on the screen to be useful – another reason to limit the open routes/markers on the iPhone.

In the knowledge base on the Memory-Map website it describes how to email gpx files to your iPhone for use in the Memory-Map app. However I use my Dropbox account to transfer (and store) my gpx routes and markers.

It is easy to save gpx files on my PC with descriptive names, into a Dropbox folder, these then synchronise to my Dropbox online. Using the Dropbox app on my iPhone I can access the files.

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gpx files in a Dropbox folders

These files are opened in Dropbox, by tapping on them – they open as text files. By then tapping on the “open in” icon I can choose to open the file in Memory-Map.

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showing the “open in” option

The gpx file is loded into the Marks and Routes section of the Memory-Map app.

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the gpx file available for use in Memory Map

From there it can be opened and used on a map.

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I have a number of gpx files available for free download here – more are always being added.

This article is sponsored by Octagon Technology.

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eBook Reader- again

Upgrading to iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 broke one of my favourite apps, Stanza, an ebook reader. A quick search on the internet will show you how many people are upset by this. I have used my PDAs/smartphones to read books for years, starting with a Psion Series 3a device and books I got on CDs at computer fairs and from BBSs. So I was keen to get another ereader and fast. (See my original post here.)

Well I tried ShuBook – it is OK, but there were two problems. I really could not get on trying to ignore all the Chinese characters and although I could connect it to my Calibre library, it would not download the catalogue to the iPhone. I could transfer books to it via iTunes and it was a good reader.

Whilst looking on the web to see what was to become of Stanza I found this page

iOS 5 issues..

which led me onto trying (buying) MegaReader and using it this week and it is working out fine.

Things it does

  • It has built in access to online book collections, and I was easily able to add Munseys to the list. So I have access to a huge supply of pulp sci-fi and other freely available books.
  • It linked to Calibre and allowed me to access my catalogue across both my office and home networks.
  • It gives a good reading experience, including the option to lock the orientation of the page.
  • The app is supported by the developer.

There are a few issues (if I use Stanza as the bench mark).

  • There is a bug when turning the screen if the orientation is locked, where it does not redraw correctly.
  • Stanza had a great feature where the brightness of the screen could be adjusted by drawing a finger up or down the screen – very useful to set a comfortable reading light depending on the ambient light.
  • I could only download books one at a time from my Calibre library – in Stanza I could choose to download everything by an author, or from a series or tagged collection with one click.
  • The library display can sort the list by author or title, but if you have many books on your iPhone this is a long list to look through – better if you could choose to list all the authors and then drill down to look at their books or show A to Z of the titles and then drill down into those.

Octagon Technology has a client who we support, with manuals he distributes to staff on their iPhones. For this week they have been using iBooks but if MegaReader works out for me I may recommend he buys this for his staff.


Here are a couple of pages with links to free ebooks.

FREE eBooks, Excerpts, Stories! « Mike Cane 2008.

Over 900 Free ePub eBooks! « Mike Cane 2008.

 

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WordPress iPhone App Updated

The WordPress app for iPhones updated today and it has been greatly improved.

The page/post editor now has formatting buttons and adding a link is also on a button – in the previous version I had to google to find out how to add a link. Although the editor is not wysiwyg – it just puts the code on the page for you – it is easy to pick up the basics. Still no horizontal line though.

The app now includes a reader for WordPress sites you follow and shows the “freshly pressed” WordPress blogs.

One thing that has not changed, is that images are always inserted at the end of the post – it would be better if they were inserted at the cursor – it would save much cutting and pasting.

I use the iPhone app not only to write my blog but to write posts and maintain pages on the Octagon Technology and the National Hamfest websites.

am really pleased with this update – and it has come just in time before I go and walk the West Highland Way when I plan to blog a lot, so family and friends can see out progress. A little formatting will help the clarity of the posts.

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Other engineers and staff at Octagon use Android phones/WordPress apps to contribute to the site – when I am back at work following the National Hamfest I will check out whether their apps have also been upgraded.

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