WWTBAM Bored

darn it.

So dinner with friends, planned weeks before, ended later than I thought it would. Some people at an event I was at earlier in the day had announced a party after the event. I thought I could get from one to the other but it would be tight, as parties after these particular events tend to start right after the event, say 4:30pm, & wind down around 8 or 9 latest.


They didn't write out directions; "we assume everybody will be looking it up on their smart phone anyway, besides which we're a few blocks from the T". Event was downtown, on the T (that's MBTA, Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority, for you who don't live here), nobody drives downtown unless they really need their car later or are from out of town. Most people going to party were going directly from event, & were taking the T. I had left my car on the Somerville line where I can park free legally, took T to event, took T back to car, drove to dinner (which would have involved various awful bus connections had I not gone to get car, as dinner was not on the T) then attempted to look up directions to party via real map. Which I do have. I was having real problems, as people had flashed smart phone images of the intersection of nearest main st & house, & I wasn't finding that intersection on my real map. To cut long story short, it turns out there are 2 main streets with same name, Washington Street, in that area of Jamaica Plain (a Boston neighborhood). (There are actually way more Washington Streets in Boston alone, not to mention adjoining areas. Washington was very popular around here.) One of them is probably actually in JP, the other just near. The one I really wanted crosses route 28, called Columbus Ave at that point, the other one comes near but doesn't cross it, but does cross a Columbia Rd, which is what was tripping me up with me trying to make my real map jibe with what I had been flashed on the smart phone earlier. Because they cross it at diff points, of course. Angling in diff directions; one southwest, the other southeast. If I had studied real map long enough I would have figured this out. By which time, from where I was, I wouldn't have had time to get to party anyway.


Now, had I had a device, even the laptop I keep putting off buying, into which I could have punched the actual party street, which is only 2 blocks long, I'd have gotten up enough of a real map image to have seen immediately which Washington it intersected with, & where. Had someone, of course, told me "watch out; there are 2 Washington Streets in that area" that would have helped too.


If you buy a Prius, or, I am told by someone who has one, also a Tesla, you get the kind of GPS I want. Price is a little steep there.

Amazon has nice Garmin Nuvis (with lifetime maps) for less than $100. Google smartphones are relatively cheap and include Google maps, which also have satellite imagery included. The laptop is probably the worst option in terms of price and useability, but I can see how, if you're used to reading flat maps, that might work better for you. If you do decide to go that way, make sure you download the full suite of Google Chrome, which will include Google Maps.

Not sure what you mean by "map-equivalent" GPS. I was a huge map fan, but even I have to now concede that the GPS is by far the better option. And cheaper, if you travel to more than a few places.

Let me know if I can help.

I too, was a HUGE map guy. When computers came along, I would map out my route via Google Earth. But I always felt that it was 'right' to look things up and trace your route.

Then, for Christmas in '13, my brother got me a Garman Nuvi. I was lukewarm about it......until I started using it. What a fantastic tool! For some unknown reason, I've named it "Stella".

Stella plugs into one of my 12v accessory ports and sits happily on my dashboard on a weighted, form fitting mount - no holes to drill and nothing to install. As my job does not keep me in any one 'office' location, I can use Stella in advance to let me know how long it will take me to get from where I am to any meetings I may have during the day. That way, I can work on my site for the maximum amount of time and still make any appointments.

I would highly recommend getting your own Stella.

Since 2 of you independently recommended Garmin Nuvis, I looked up Garmin but found their site geared to people who already have their product & want to update it. From what I could get it to cough up about what their screens actually look like, its the same "AAA-trip-tik"-like display that drove me nuts back when my Mom was getting them from AAA, & which is the way all GPSs except Prius's & Tesla's seem to display stuff; just the street you're on, with maybe one parallel street off to each side, if you're lucky. Garmin's advantage as one of you & their own site proclaims is that their imagery depends on satellites, not cell towers, so you're not going to suddenly lose it.


If I hadn't been trying to make my trip last night at night, &/or had more time to get there before the party ended, I was game to try for it. I'd have eventually figured out I was looking at the wrong Washington Street. Still, the easiest route to where I wanted to go involved taking the street I was on, North Beacon Street in Allston, to where it intersected Mass Ave, then taking Mass Ave to the right Washington Street & following it all the way down to JP. That way I go a lot out of my way but avoid confusing cross streets. However, I would have to navigate the Kenmore Square area, never fun. I'm reasonably sure that's not how a GPS would have routed me. I couldn't see it at all from the display someone showed me on their smart phone at the event; it was only clear from a real map. I'm not convinced a GPS is going to be a great help in particular inside Boston where there are all sorts of "you can't get there from here even if you can see it" intersections, not to mention continual ongoing roadwork (yesterday afternoon they were routing people out of Harvard Square; I am glad I knew how to get to Allston, where I was meeting people for dinner, via Central Square instead). You have to know the alternate routes well enough to have them planned.


When I know I'm going to have to map out my own route ahead of time, I use Google maps, just as jaybee speaks of. I print them out if I can & if I can't, I take notes. Draw my own facsimile maps. I am still geared toward a laptop or notebook because I need it for other purposes (getting important e-mails 24/7 without having to pay a $50/month smartphone fee for the privilege), but it would have the advantage of giving me Google maps too. I appreciate the suggestion of downloading Chrome for the maps, for times when/where the wifi on whatever laptop I buy doesn't work.


I've also been hampered a lot lately while trying to shop for the 24/7 device, be it Google's notebook or Kindle Fire. The new security feature Google has rolled out for gmail asks you to prove you're you when logging in from one of these devices, at least when they're display devices in a store. Never used to. (I used to be able to log in from store demos all the time.) Theoretically this is simple; you give them some info like your cell phone #, they verify that (you gave it to them long ago) & text you a code. But in real life, once you're into the gmail from the display item in the store where you're shopping, you can't get your address out of the device without a fight. I don't need this. Someone I know shelled out big money for an I-pad, then an I-phone, & neither will let them log into an account they dearly need to log into. They can only get in via a real computer. I need a demo that will let me test both addresses. Right now it takes the store clerks about 15 minutes to get one of the addresses out of their display device, & doesn't answer my questions. I've read that the Kindle Fire rolled out "multiple address logins" when enough people complained that "buy your child their own Kindle if you don't want them using your account & having access to dirty pictures" wasn't the right answer, but so far I've not gotten a demo of that feature.


To get the GPS I really want demoed, you have to have a friend with a Prius or Tesla who went for that option show you theirs (I haven't seen the Tesla version but the Tesla owner's spouse I know has & I believe them) or I guess go to a dealer & pretend you're car-shopping. It looks like Google maps, essentially. With the "you are here" car icon familiar to all GPS users, I believe. Been a while since I've been in a Prius that had one, but I was so psyched. I went shopping for it in the real world & found I would have to buy a Prius to get it. That these high-end (very high end, in the case of Tesla) places feel people would benefit from a real map, updatable to their car's position, on their dashboard, shows that there is some demand for it out there. Not enough to trickle down to me, though, I guess.

I have a Garmin Nuvi that's a few years old. I knew it had the option to display a map that looks like Google, but I didn't know how to activate it. I found this video that shows how to access all the Garmin Nuvi options, including some that I never knew it had:



The map view I'm talking about is shown at 2:10 & 5:10 on the video.

Comments on your last post:

When I google the Prius navigation system, it doesn't look that different to me from any other car's navigation system. My MIL's Edge has essentially a Garmin system with some options built in. Garmin, for instance, sells a subscription service (30$ a year) called Birdseye which will give you high resolution satellite imagery - maybe that's what you're looking for? Here's a link to a screenshot of what those enhanced images look like.

One thing that I've also used that you may not have tried before is to zoom out of the "you are here" dot on the GPS screen, then zoom back in on the destination to check on street names and such. That might give you the view you're looking for.

I'm not fond of either the Google Chromebook or the Kindle Fire for the kind of use you're talking about, but that kind of thing is very personal, so don't necessarily listen to me on that.

The screen shot jarnon shows below is pretty much what I want, if the street names show up that is (I can only see one on the demo). The demo when you click on it goes into other things, though. I will have to explore this at their site I guess.


mrkelly: satellite imagery is not what I want; I find that too confusing even when stationary (sitting at a computer) unless I really need to know what my destination building looks like; even then, I often find the images unreal because they're not the way they will appear from a driver's or pedestrian's eye-view. Just a map with all the streets & intersections on it is fine. I'm not crazy about the latest iteration of Google maps, even; streets are not distinct enough. If I owned the computers I was using I could fool around with resolution, which might help.


I will certainly check for zoom-in/out features on GPSs though. If they've been there all along, why the heck aren't the people I know using them? I guess this is a rhetorical question.

ghostjmf wrote:The screen shot jarnon shows below is pretty much what I want, if the street names show up that is (I can only see one on the demo). The demo when you click on it goes into other things, though. I will have to explore this at their site I guess.


mrkelly: satellite imagery is not what I want; I find that too confusing even when stationary (sitting at a computer) unless I really need to know what my destination building looks like; even then, I often find the images unreal because they're not the way they will appear from a driver's or pedestrian's eye-view. Just a map with all the streets & intersections on it is fine. I'm not crazy about the latest iteration of Google maps, even; streets are not distinct enough. If I owned the computers I was using I could fool around with resolution, which might help.


I will certainly check for zoom-in/out features on GPSs though. If they've been there all along, why the heck aren't the people I know using them? I guess this is a rhetorical question.

I would hope they haven't taken away the zoom feature -- my decrepit (that means more than 5 years old in electronic terms) old GPS has it. You can even, with some practice and effort, force it to take an alternate route if, say, your route is forcing you through a bad part of town. And the more I zoom in, the more street names come up. I haven't paid to update the maps (that's how old it is -- it didn't even come with lifetime maps) but it will still get me most places, so I use it on trips, because using my smartphone with the GPS turned on burns so much battery life.

Good luck!

I have often wondered why I haven't heard/read about "my GPS put me in danger by the route it gave me" which for some people would translate into "the people's skin color didn't match mine" whereas for others of all colors they are really going through a place no-one goes through unless they're unlucky enough to live there. I haven't researched this, but I've never heard/read about it in passing. My guess is that the known GPS bad-routing device of putting people on highways whenever possible (a friend's GPS did that here in Boston to the point of ridiculousness; you don't need to be on an interstate to go to places a couple miles apart) is the companies' owners' way around that.

ghostjmf wrote:If you buy a Prius, or, I am told by someone who has one, also a Tesla, you get the kind of GPS I want. Price is a little steep there.

I have a Prius but it doesn't have a GPS. If memory serves (I bought it nearly 10 years ago), the GPS would have been available as an extra. --Bob

Late to the party on this.

Boonie got a Garmin Nuvi when he retired (he could pick a gift from a catalog). We like it very much.