| Log setting of the GPS device |
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With most GPS devices you can configure how often your position is saved. There are usually three options:
- After a fixed time
- After a fixed distance away
- Automatic
Besides this you can choose the frequency (ranging from often to sometimes).
Ad.1 in this case, you get a very accurate recording. A journey of several hours will fill quickly your track memory on your GPS device. Mytracks.me has trouble with track files larger than 8000 points. Often this results in an error.
Ad. 2. In this option no points are logged if you hold still. That is efficient, but you will miss some in the track details.
Ad. 3. The GPS device has a built in algorithm that determines whether it is necessary to log a position.
You'll have to play a bit what for you is the best setting. I have good results with the setting on automatic.
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| Smartphones as GPS tracker |
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An Android phone can, with the free program "My Tracks" of Google (http://code.google.com/p/mytracks/), simply be used as a GPS tracker. There are many similar programs available, but it is clear and simple. And the name fits well for this site. For iPhone, there are similar programs.
The handy thing of using your smartphone as GPS tracker is that you are don't need a separate GarminGPS. And many people have such a smartphone thing. You don't see the actual speed unless you mount your phone to your handlebar,
My Tracks is pretty simple. Just press START / STOP recording on departure and arrival. Write to a GPX file and upload to mytracks.me.
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| Flickr album |
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Flickr.com is a website where you can go to to upload your photos. On Flickr for each photo you can give the geographic location where your photos was taken. These photos can be linked to mytracks.me through a Web service called KML. A Web service is an Internet address that serves special data. KML in this case is the form in which data is available. KML is the format that google-earth uses and mytracks.me works with this format too. The address of the KML service on flickr can be found on the page 'you'. This page contains a button somewhere at the bottom that says KML. The address of this button can be copy/pasted into the appropriate spot on mytracks.me. This page on mytracks.me can be found by clicking your name if you are logged.
For clarity: the KML service Flickr has the following form:
http://api.flickr.com/servicesds/geo/?id=xxxxxxxx@Nxx&format=kml_nl
in which the x-en must be substituted by the code of your flickr-account.
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