Laptop GPS World

For those who may be wondering why Garmin's MapSource allowed Mike to do the routing the way he wanted, MapSource has routing preference settings that allow you to "Avoid unpaved roads" and "Avoid Seasonal Road Closures". That makes it a no-brainer to do what he wanted. Just click a couple of checkboxes in the routing preferences. I think those two preferences may even be set by default.

...ken...

The "Avoid unpaved roads" and "Avoid Seasonal Road Closures" would be useful to have even in Streets and Trips, in addition to the existing routing options.

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

You would sort of expect any navigation or trip planning program would make it very easy to do things like:

Avoid:

_Toll Roads
_Unpaved Roads
_U-Turns
_Carpool Lanes
_Ferries
_Seasonal Road Closures

...ken...

Streets & Trips only has the following preferred roads options:

Interstates and limited-access
Other highways
Arterial roads
Toll roads

There still is a bit of a space in the dialog box, so I think it would still be possible to squeeze one or two more options there.

By the way, a few days ago I noticed Microsoft updated it's official site for Streets & Trips. It no longer shows the old 2008 version. Now finally there is info about the new version 2009: www.microsoft.com/streets

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

In the Find coupons I notice I only have one coupon showing for North America. Upon further research I found that the new Find Coupon feature is only a 14 days trial membership to a paid service. You need to sign up through S&T for the free trial. They should get a commission for this referral if they aren't already. It could help to pay for further development of the software.

Entertainment® online trial offer details: Free trial lasts for 14 days. Trial begins when you first sign upwith Entertainment online through Streets & Trips. Valid only in the United States, D.C., and Canada with the purchase of Streets & Trips 2009. You must activate your trial membership before June 1, 2011, to use this offer. Free trial offer is not available to current Entertainment online subscribers. Additional restrictions apply; see www.entertainment.com/microsoftst/info.html for more information.

I wish we could remove the find coupon icon from the toolbar if we have no use for this service tough.

coupons???? you mean clue-pons


here's a clue -- it's a scam

Has anyone signed up for the service? How much is the membership fee? Is it a yearly subscription? The discounts seem attractive. Many restaurants offer buy-one-dinner, get-one-dinner-free deals.

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

You can eat 2 dinners?

Terry

We used the Entertainment coupons on a trip to Seattle earlier in the year. It was pre-S&T 2009, but Entertainment has a website where you can search for the coupons. Since we were there for less than two weeks, I didn't bother to pay for a subscription. I bet we saved $200 on various entertainment and dining in one week. Everything is 2-for-1, buy one get one free, etc. The only downside to online coupons is that you need to print them off. Not many of us carry printers in our vehicles, so you need to plan ahead and print the coupons before you leave home, or perhaps your motel has a printer.

We've always purchased the local coupon book from the local school fundraiser (usually $20), and we use it all year. It's a great way to try new stuff that you might not find otherwise, and you generally get a free meal out of the deal.

We're planning a week in New Mexico, and I'll probably go ahead and buy a subscription.

Draw a box with the right mouse button, then go to the ROUTE menu in the toolbar and select 'Avoid Area'. You MUST include an intersection in the avoid area or it won't do anything.

kcflyer:

That's an interesting tip. Thanks for posting it.

Regards,

Mike Flannigan

If you want to save some steps on the avoid area, just draw your box where you want it and then right click with your mouse on the edge of the box and choose "avoid area" from the drop down menu.

Wayne

Hi Wayne,

It's good to see you active again. Things must be about wrapped up at the course?

I've been playing with Streets&Trips and some other laptop nav software a bit since I saw S&T in use in your truck on our trip south last year. It's really interesting to do in-vehicle navigation with such a nice big display but I can't find any way to mount a laptop in my CR-V. If I can figure some way to mount a 7" touchscreen I may build a car-puter this winter that I can stuff under the seat.

Had a big dump of snow here yesterday - 17cm - that those Americans down in Colorado were kind enough to ship up this way. I had had plans for at least a couple rounds of golf this week but that might not happen now.

...ken...

Has anyone noticed that the way you search for intersections, interstate exits, state and county roads has changed to where it doesn't work unless you're very specific which sort of defeats the purpose?

It appears that if you want the same search results that 2007 gave you MUST include the city AND the state in which the intersection, etc. exists. If you just include the state, like in previous versions, 2009 ignores it and gives you all the intersections in the US that meet that criteria. The funny thing is that it won't return the correct result and returns roads that aren't in your search. This is a HUGE PITA!! Sorry.

I created a practice search and find for people to use with S&T 2006/7 and now it's completely useless. It's really hard to specify the city if the roads are in urban/suburban or even rural areas. UGH! I can't tell you how upset this all makes me.

Here's an example you can try in 2007 and 2009. I don't have 2008.
Intersection: US-12 and WA-261
Formatted according to S&T Help: US-12 & SR-261, WA

2007 Results: 1
US-12 & SR-261, Dayton, WA 99328

2009 Results: 8
Results include the entire US and aren't even CLOSE. It doesn't even include the CORRECT RESULT!!!!!!!!
US-171 & SR-26, Deridder, LA 70634
... (LA, MA, OR, RI, UT)
US-12 & SR-26, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538

If you type in the wrong city that the intersection is in then you get the whole US results anyway.

Anyone see if I'm doing something wrong? Is there a way to make this actually work like it did in 2007 because this is flat out BUSTED!

The only way to get the correct result in 2009 is to type in: US-12 & SR-261, Dayton, WA

What's the point of that? If there are multiple intersections of those two roads in the state then there's no way to get a list of them.

Curt

BTW, would it kill someone to add the ability to type in GPS coordinates in the quick Find bar like (format: 47.####, -90.####)

For whatever it's worth, I just tested S&T 2008 and got the same result you get in 2007.

For "US-12 & SR-261, WA" I got the single result in Dayton, WA 99328.

...ken...