Win free Streets & Trips 2008 with Connected Services (Donated by Microsoft)

Well, I'm a newbie here, but I just got a Samsung UMPC and a car mount. I would really like to try this software for driving since I go on many sales calls and am still getting to know the area and all the alternate routes. My car does not have a built-in navigation system. Also, I would really like to test the GPS/software combo whenever I go on vacation.

My wife has always been the navigator, but now that I'm driving alone, I really need assistance. I have no other GPS navigation software or devices. Thanks.

Another UMPC owner here..

For business I frequently travel to many new destinations.. I already have a 'cheep' GPS that provides the bare necessities and helps save on fuel, but want something more powerful.

First I'd like to take advantage of my UMPC's touch-screen and mini keyboard to enter destinations more quickly.

Second I'd like to be able to plot a days worth of trips in one shot..

Lastly and more fun is that I'm a member of a car club that organizes many 'drives' over the course of the year, each one being a little different but mostly rural with lots of curves, relatively safe from things like intersections and pedestrians. S&T could help us plan routes more easily (we could zoom in on questionable areas and decide when to alter the prospective course).

At the end of it all we'd post a map on our forum that shows the planned course from a bird's eye view!

Thanks!

As a frequent traveler (Continental awarded me their Platinum Elite booby prize) I am often in situations where I need directions.

I have a Wibrain B1H UMPC (12 volt), but I do not have a GPS. Together they would make an effective portable guidance system, no matter what rental car I get stuck with

Help me make my meetings on time!

So, basically, it boils down to, my wife won't let me buy GPS software because, according to her, it's not a neccessity. Being newly married, I can't really blame her. Though, this doesn't stop her from being angry with me when I don't know how to get where we need to be but, that's neither here nor there. (End sob story). I've never used any GPS software or hardware and I've been hoping to put an old laptop in my vehicle and use it in conjunction with Road Runner (a freeware carputer frontend). This could really help me out as I do have to travel a bit at times both for work and leisure.

My wife and I are separating from the military to become college students. I did two tours in Iraq; she did one. While I was in Iraq, I used GPS every time I traveled. I became so dependent on the amount of quick information that a laptop coupled with GPS gave me. It has probably saved my life and made life a little more convenient in a very stressful situation. We could find friendly bases without driving up and down the streets of Baghdad. We could find alternate routes if we suspected terrorist had booby trapped a certain route. We could instantly find where a local informant was talking about using the maps with GPS. I just saw how beneficial GPS is when used correctly. There is so much more we could do with it than "where am I now" which is why I need something like MS Streets and Trips.

Since my wife and I were military and my family is all military, my family is spread across the United States. My mom and dad live in Buckeye, Arizona. My brother lives in Midwest City, Oklahoma. My grandparents live in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Kokomo, Indiana, and Okinawa, Japan. My great-grandmother lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. My sister lives in Austin, Texas, and my wife's family lives in Oregon and Washington State. So, you can see how much traveling we must do in order to keep in touch with family. I have traveled quite literally from one end of the country to the other in our car in a single trip. I've driven from North Carolina to California and from Texas to Idaho. Next month (March) , I fly from Japan to Arizona, then drive from Buckeye, AZ to Austin, Texas, stay for three days, and finally drive from Austin, Texas to Seattle, Washington with a stop in California for 1.5 days.

I like traveling by car, but there some things that just frustrate me. I always go to mapquest and print off directions to where I am going; so when construction requires I make a detour, I get all screwed up. I hate trying to guess when I should stop for gas. I always seem to make the wrong decision. "Should I wait until I cross into Missouri to get gas or get gas on the Illinois side?" "Which state charges more in fuel taxes?" "Should we stop to eat in this city, or the next?" "Do you think they have this particular restaurant in this city? It seems large enough, but where would it be?" Things that when you drive across the country for many days, you cannot plan. These are things mapquest just does not tell you. This is where I wish I had a good GPS system.

My dad always jokes about getting my a TomTom or some other GPS system, but they are just too expensive for both me and him. Especially, now that my wife and I are both college students. I've had to purchase computers and scholastic software in order to get going into classes which gets pretty darned expensive. Besides, using another device like TomTom when I already have my laptop is a waste. I mean MS Streets and Trips is software plus a USB device. Sadly, the GPS I want just has to wait until after college, but we will still be traveling. I've been trying to convince my wife that having a GPS unit connected to our laptops would make the trip so much more peaceful. We would gain all the benefits of that I have described above and then some, but she uses those things called "logic" and "good financial planning" to counter my points.

Maybe, I'll see you on the road,
Brandon

Let's get down to the root directory. I need real time gas price information to save money to feed my gadget habit. Plus, living and driving in Washington, DC, real time traffic would be a god send. Maybe I could avoid traffic jams instead of surfing while I'm stuck in them. I've even got the perfect car computer for it - an OQO 02.

I've used your Streets and Keys for some time now and I'm looking forward to maybe winning your mini contest! I have 2007 now and didnt' get 2008 yet.

Thanks for the invite on the newsgroup, Rich

Thanks to GottaBeMobile for the heads-up to this awesome contest and forums. The Short & Sweet is that I'm in the 3rd year of medical school. I have to travel for many of my rotations and, soon, interviews. Also, I just moved to MI, and have trouble getting to my clinical sites. This would be a huge help. -Brian "M.D."

Hi Marvin,

This will be my first post on this website. I stumbled across this website while searching for a GPS device that could hook up to a computer. It's been hugely useful for reading about hardware/software.

If I were to win your contest and receive a Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008, I would be extremely happy because this would actually be my first GPS machine. The reason why I want a external device that hooks up to a computer and not just a miniature GPS machine is because of the versatility of it hooking up to my computer (will elaborate below) or my laptop which I always carry around with me anyways. I also like how I can get more functions and performance out of an external device.

A couple of years back, I traveled around western side of North America in my car for around 2-3 months. It was a great opportunity and I saw a lot of interesting sites which included cities (Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Edmonton, etc...) and national parks/monuments (Yellow Stone, Mount Rushmore, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Banff, Jasper, etc...). It was a lot of fun, but also very frustrating to navigate around. I didn't use a GPS machine and did all my navigating and planning through papered maps. Needless to say, I got loss a few times.

Having had so much fun, I plan to do a similar trip this year, but instead of travelling around the western side of North America, I plan to travel around the eastern side. That was why I was researching for a GPS device and that is why it would be great if I won. Also, with the software provided, I would be able to thoroughly plan out my trip and help enormously with the task of driving around.

Other than using the machine for the trip I just talked about, I do drive around my city all the time so it would be nice to have a GPS machine so I don't get lost. Seeing as how this model has connected services, it would also speed up the driving time.

Finally, in my first paragraph, I mentioned a computer, after reading about what this guy did to his car (http://www.geardiary.com/2008/02/24/my-car-pc/), I couldn't resist wanting to try this out myself. So I started on a project of adding a computer to my car. I have most of the parts already, but am still missing some vital components. Currently, this includes a touch enabled screen (might just buy an Asus EEE pc screen and the touch screen attachment), a CPU (the one on the motherboard I have is broken), some kind of wireless (EVDO maybe?) + Bluetooth card, and a GPS receiver (!). The monitor will be mounted where the cd-player/radio is now. It's a very ambitious project, but I think the end result will be something that I will be proud of. Knowing that I can switch between this computer and my laptop when I am out of the car is what makes this Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 a must have.

That basically sums up why I want the Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 and how I would be using it. Thank you for having this contest and I hope you enjoy reading my post.

-Michael

Marvin,

Thanks for offering this mini contest. My reason for replying to this thread is to try to obtain a replacement copy of S&T 2008 with connected services. Based on my use of S&T 2003 and 2004, I purchased 2008 with connected services. Since I am one of the individuals to have the bad luck of the programming not running any more (I am sure it is the activation verification portion of the code), I returned the product and purchased 2007 with GPS. For my personal use, which consists of nearly every weekend trips to the Metro and Baltimore areas to visit family and grandchildren, 2007 version has worked ok but I miss the connected services features of 2008. During my original ownership of 2008, I spent over 200 hours of testing the connected services feature of this product with one of the engineers at Pharos (James Chin) to resolve some of the issues of living outside of a service area during the week and reentering the area on weekends. I am convinced that the 2009 version of this product will contain the same connected services issues of 2008 unless there is more user feedback to resolve some of the inherent integration issues. In addition, after downgrading to 2007 without connected services, I realized how much I missed and previously utilized the traffic status of connected services while I tried to navigate the congested metro areas of Baltimore and Washington DC weekly. As a Navy fighter aircraft flight test engineer for over 33 years, I have become very familiar in efforts in to trying to resolve hardware and software issues in a constant changing environment. If provided another product from MS, I would reformat my laptop hard drive and reinstall the 2008 version of S&T and concentrate in trying to isolate and try to resolve with Pharos and MS the connected services issues that will likely impact allot of users. In my opinion, the current version needs some major troubleshooting to become a highly successful product for users entering and leaving the connected services areas.

Steve

The mini-contest is now over. Thanks very much to all who posted to this thread. Please, allow me a couple of days to make the decision. The two people who will receive their Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 with Connected Services will be announced here on or before March 3, 2008.

Thanks very much to Microsoft for donating 2 copies of Streets & Trips 2008 with Connected Services, and thanks to all the participants in this mini-contest: amlason, tdma134, toyfountain, merryann, hkight, kcflyer, tonimarcus, Triddy, ktrack, rafiqathar, edh, bigtyme, TechnoGuy, tenbear, ch0ices, tcassidy, GrahamNet, Qucifer, ghaue, abraxxas, fatterwolf, Phil, akunkel96, nobb, HuntingKnightSM, jkim, Vood, Chuck, navmaxlp, Battousai2k, Dave P, richbenn, drb, 314pi, and Kapinossa.

Streets & Trips 2008 with Connected Services will go to the following two people, who I think can both add value to the Streets & Trips user community:

• toyfountain, to help him with the development of his new free add-on for Streets & Trips: POI Scanner. He recently spent his hard-earned money to make sure he has all the recent versions of Streets & Trips 2006, 2007, and 2008 just to test the compatibility of POI Scanner. And I heard he was just bidding on eBay for MS AutoRoute 2007 over the weekend - he is not planning a trip to Europe, he just needs MS AutoRoute 2007 to insure compatibility with his freeware. For the same reason he would like to have the "Connected Services" edition of S&T.

• Kapinossa actually bought the Connected Services version when it was first released, and spent quite a bit of time on the phone with engineers at Pharos, trying to help identify a cause of an issue related to his usage of the MSN Direct receiver and Streets & Trips. However, he returned the product within the 30 day money-back period. He writes: "I am convinced that the 2009 version of this product will contain the same connected services issues of 2008 unless there is more user feedback to resolve some of the inherent integration issues". He would like to continue working with Pharos on the issue.

edh jokingly said: "Marvin, next contest, you should try to get enough copies for all members so no one is disappointed.(just joking)" . I agree ! Laptop GPS World is giving away one copy of S&T 2008 w/GPS, and two copies of software-only version of S&T 2008 to the following people:

• Battousai2k became very dependent on the amount of quick information that a laptop coupled with GPS gave him while in the military. It has probably saved his life and made life a little more convenient in a very stressful situation. Now that he and his wife are separating from the military to become college students, a small wish of his is to have his own laptop set up for GPS navigation. Your wish is granted, Brandon, and thanks for the service you and your wife did overseas!

• hkight first became interested in the science of map reading while training at Ft. Belvoir, VA in the Corp of Engineers. Years later, he switched to an entirely different field – that of university professor at the local University of Buffalo, teaching courses in computer programming, statistics, and psychology. He remained there until he retired, 31 years later.
  
  Last summer he purchased his first GPS unit (Garmin StreetPilot 7200) to install in their newly purchased Winnebago motor-home. It was readily apparent that the GPS would be an indispensable navigational tool but he also began to realize that another database/mapping program like Microsoft’s Streets and Trips would add considerably to the flexibility of the GPS. If he is able to find a good match-up between MS Streets and Trips and his Street Pilot 7200, he would then enjoy teaching a course at either the University of Buffalo or in one of several Adult Education programs helping others to learn the rudiments of using the Garmin GPS with Microsoft’s Streets and Trips.
  
  I think it would be fabulous if you could do that! In the past I've heard some public libraries had offered MS Streets & Trips classes, too.

• Vood already has a 'cheep' GPS that provides the bare necessities, but he wants something more powerful he could use on his UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC). He'd like to be able to plot a days worth of trips in one shot. He is a member of a car club that organizes many 'drives' over the course of the year, and S&T could help them plan routes more easily (they could zoom in on questionable areas and decide when to alter the prospective course). At the end of it all they'd post a map on their forum that shows the planned course from a bird's eye view.

Thanks to Whitney Tenold of Edelman for making this Microsoft promotional giveaway possible.

WooHoo!

Thanks Marvin, Laptop GPS World, Whitney & Microsoft for sponsoring this contest. It didn't hurt that so few of us signed up!

Pat

Congrats, Pat, and everyone! I'll be sending PMs to winners later this evening (requesting your mailing addresses).