Review: Microsoft Streets and Trips

Years ago I fell in love with Microsoft Streets and Trips the first moment I saw the map. The map just looks the way a map should look. It looks like a printed map. The roads, the parks, the lakes, rivers, etc, it all looks just so "natural".

However, when I hit the "navigate" button I no longer want the printed map look, but instead I would want S&T to switch to the 3D-view (perspective view) look of Garmin Mobile PC.

The Truckstop Plus addon CAN be used with other software, as I've done it.

Basically, you have to get a demo of MapPoint 2010, a 3rd party utility that will export the pushpins to an excel file, and you've got it.

It's not an easy process - trust me on that. I spent about 6 hours doing it. But, now I've got a .csv file with each and every one of the pushpins that are in the Truck Stops Plus addon that I can do whatever I want. I've imported them into StreetDeck (a front-end software with navigation) and my Garmin Nuvi. Like I said - it's not easy to do though.

morning, checking out info on 2010 S&T

Thank u guys for for posting here. This forum keep us informed with a part of our lifes that (today) is so usefull. Thanx to everyone for the tips and for updates.
Malaki86, I'm not that good with computers. I won't even dare to try what u have done. I still hope that Microsoft will start thinking (just for a bit) at the users too and not only at "how to get more money".
Best regards to everyone

I do agree that they didn't do enough changes to the software. The mileage display is great (well, it would be if it worked), but other than that, just the 1 year map updates doesn't justify it for me.

As usual S&T still has a problem with rest areas.
if say you are going south on I5 WA to CA and then back up again and you find the rest areas, marking them as stops.
Route-optimize stops does not have the sense to put the south going stops on the south route and vise versa.
no it finds the 2 stops on each side of the road and routes you thru both!
while going south etc.
there are a lot of rest areas on this route to manually put in the right place!
any ideas folks?

Well, I guess it depends on your definition of "optimize". It sounds like Streets is doing pretty much what you're telling it to do. That is, your routing preferences can be set to "shortest" route or "quickest" route. In either case the only possible way to achieve it is to do both nearby stops one after the other. No other way would make any sense (when you are trying to get either the "shortest" or "quickest" way between all of the stops in a route) and doing it any other way would certainly mess up the routing calculations for more "normal" sorts of routes you might do.

The solution is to do it with two routes, not one. Just do a South route and then a North route and your problem will go away. Streets will be able to optimize each one without the conflicts.

...ken...

Simple and simply brilliant!
thanks
but i still have to individually check each one!
to see if it is north or south
am i missing something
9:00 AM
1303.2
Turn RIGHT (North) onto Avenue of Flags
0.2 mi

9:00 AM
1303.4
Turn RIGHT (East) onto SR-246 [E CA-246]
0.2 mi

9:01 AM
1303.6
Take Ramp (RIGHT) onto US-101 [El Camino Real]
10.8 mi
US-101
9:11 AM
1314.4
Turn LEFT (East) onto Gaviota Beach Rd, then immediately turn LEFT (North) onto US-101 [SR-1]
0.5 mi

9:12 AM
1314.8
Keep RIGHT onto Local road(s)
153 yds

9:13 AM
1314.9
At Gaviota Roadside Rest Area, stay on Local road(s) (North-East)
164 yds

9:14 AM
1315.0
Merge onto US-101 [SR-1]
1.5 mi

9:15 AM
1316.5
At exit 132, keep RIGHT onto Ramp
0.3 mi
CA-1 / Lompoc / Vandenberg AFB
9:16 AM
1316.8
Turn LEFT (North-West) onto SR-1 [Cabrillo Hwy]
120 yds

9:16 AM
1316.9
Take Ramp (LEFT) onto US-101 [SR-1]
2.0 mi
US-101
9:18 AM
1318.9
Keep LEFT onto Local road(s)
131 yds

9:19 AM
1318.9
Keep LEFT to stay on Local road(s)
32 yds

9:19 AM
1318.9
At Gaviota Roadside Rest Area, stay on Local road(s) (South)
0.1 mi

9:19 AM
1319.1
Merge onto US-101 [SR-1]
110.6 mi

10:54 AM
1429.6
Keep RIGHT onto Ramp
0.2 mi
I-405 / San Diego Fwy / Sacramento / Santa Monica
10:54 AM
1429.8
Keep RIGHT to stay on Ramp
0.3 mi
I-405 / San Diego Fwy South / Santa Monica
10:55 AM
1430.1
Take Ramp (LEFT) onto I-405 [San Diego Fwy]
52.6 mi

I remember having the same experience with my first version. It was truly eye-opening to see what PC mapping technology could do. Being able to drag that map around was simply breathtaking.

But that was 1998. This is 2009. The jagged, non-antialiased map drawn by S&T 2010 now looks embarrassingly outdated. This is especially true when you compare it to what's available on onlne map engines. These grab your eye by using brighter colors that "pop" out, rather than the more muted earth tones used in S&T.

Microsoft itself has a better map renderer available -- the one used on Bing Maps. If you put the same map area side-by-side in S&T and Bing Maps, you can clearly see the shared Mappoint heritage of the renderer. But even with a similar color scheme, Bing Maps just looks so much more polished, thanks to all sorts of little details.

It's been four years since Bing Maps first launched (then named Virtual Earth). And still no sign of getting these improvements ported over to Streets & Trips. The problem is that improved graphics do not deliver an immediate return on investment, in the way that features can.

how do you hook up S&T to play over the car radio?

It is not comming even close to improvements. Please guys let's take a moment and review the 2006 version vs. 2010 version. What major improvements are we talking about. Then don't forget to add all the money and time each of you spent on 2007,2008,2009 and 2010 and please be honest with yourself and weigh in the balance and see if is worth it the money for this 2010.
2007 was the best version I ever used from S&T. Because 08 was with automatic re-routing(so I returned the software to the store), 09 was with the lady saying forever "off-route" and 2010 has a "major" improvement with distance to the end but unfortunately is useless so would be better without it.
Three years in row Microsoft expected my money for bluffs.
Now let's see: is worth it or not???

Did I ever mentioned about the map looks? I was watching an documentary about the indians wars back in 1680 and I 've seen a map of USA with the indians tribes spreaded around the country. I was in shock for few minutes.....was S&T head to toe. No joke guys, no joke.
I don't want to say anything more but just think about it.

Quote:

how do you hook up S&T to play over the car radio?

Two ways, dutch treat:

First, many newer car radios have an input jack for iPods and similar devices. Those usually take a 3.5mm male plug, which is the same plug as the speaker output jack on most laptop computers. You will need a short stereo audio cable with male 3.5mm plugs on each end. Plug from the computer audio output to the radio input, then select the "AUX" or similar input on your car radio.

If your car radio doesn't have an Auxiliary input jack, you will need to use an FM transmitter. Almost all car radios have an FM receiver. You plug the audio cable for the FM transmitter in to the speaker output jack of the laptop computer, tune the transmitter to an FM frequency that is unused in your area, and then tune the car radio to the same frequency.

FM transmitters of this type are very low power devices, typically with a range of 25 feet or so, so they won't interfere with any other radios. They are available at many electronics shops, but I found one on eBay for about $8. It is battery powered, but also has a plug to plug in to the USB jack on the computer to provide power if you don't want to keep it in batteries.

I have used both of these methods. It really depends on whether your car has an "Auxiliary input" jack.

Jim M.

Version 2007:

New! Full-screen mode
New! Estimated drive-time feature
New! Integration w/Windows Live Search

Version 2008:

New! Perspective map view
New! Automatic rerouting
New! Connected Services (this optional feature was later discontinued)

Version 2009:

New! Street-level map of Mexico
New! Voice direction prompts that include street names
New! Pan & Select w/out the need to press a menu button
New! On/Off switch for automatic rerouting

Version 2010:

New! Import/export GPX files
New! Global switch to open/close pushpin balloons
New! Global show/hide pushpins

This is not a complete list. And many of us would buy Streets and Trips just for the one-year fresher map data.

Moose Master:

You're comments are interesting particularly your last post with the year comparisons.

I have been using S&T since sometime before the year 2000. I can't really remember the exact year. I probably use it 2-3 times every week on planning trips.

I can't relate to the "off route" problem you are experiencing because I have never used Streets with the GPS. I prefer to make the route with Streets, then make the route with Garmin MapSource on my computer and then put the route into my GPS unit. It keeps me "off the streets and out of trouble" We are retired and travel well over 7-10k miles on pleasure trips outside of our home town every year.

The part I find very interesting is your comparing the 2007, 08, 09 & 2010. It really jogged my memory.

From the first time I bought Streets I used it with very little trouble until I bought 2008. The troubles with it almost made me quit. I did go out and buy Street Atlas in 2008 for the first time. I wasn't very pleased with the interface and it sent me back to S&T. I did buy 2009 & 2010.

However, it just occured to me I'm NOT using Streets as much as I used to. When I consider that fact I have to agree with you that it has not progressed like it should have. Thanks for putting it in perspective.

I'm not ready to quit it and I'll probably keep on using it but not near as much as I used to.

Regards,

Mike Flannigan

Don't have to think about it very hard. Mappoint is Streets&Trips big sister. All of the basic mapping and nav functions are shared between the two products.

Microsoft Mappoint is a very powerful tool that is used all the time for that sort of thing ... zip codes, congressional districts, sales territories, indian territories ... all the same thing. As far as I know there is no other modestly priced product on the market that will do what Mappoint will do.

I'll bet my next pension check that the director used Mappoint to create the map you saw. It looked like Streets&Trips because it was.

...ken...