I have just spent probably 30 minutes looking for a cable to program some GPS receivers – I could not remember where I put the cable. I was beginning to think that I had thrown it out. And that would have been a real pain since I had spent too long building this cable. It was one of those experiences that you only want to have once. Actually it was once of those that you never want to have. My heart fills with dread whenever I think on that work.

But thankfully I found it. I figured that it might be in one of about 40 aluminium cases, and so I started going through them one by one by one. And when I was about 50% of the way through, even going through cases that I was pretty sure did not contain the cable, I found the unit. It was actually in a box labeled ‘CRO and Sound Level Meter’. Oh… Well, at least I found it.

Now I have a few score of GPS recievers to program up. Thankfully there are less than last time, and now I have a procedure to follow. Without a procedure it was taking ages. Now thanks to the program running under DOS I can just PASTE the commands to program the GPS into the DOS BOX, and away we go. It should not take much time at all.

I have been terrorised by Telstra (or Tel$tra) again today. I was attempting to get a tracker out the door for a client for loan, and the GPRS connection would not work. Strange. I rang up Telstra, on their Mobile Data Support number (125111) and rather than speak to a person a computer answered. I hate speaking to this thing. None of the options seemed appropriate. I knew all about GPRS, and I had it connected. In the end I ignored the prompts and said “Data Support” and they put me through. Now I am just waiting for Telstra to actually fix the SIM card.

A friend of mine is going to Europe in 10 days and he is borrowing my copy of Microsoft MapPoint. This is an electronic Street Directory for your PDA or PC. Actually I do not even have the european version installed at the moment so he will be having lots of fun with it on his trip. From experience the maps are fairly good…. and you can even type in a street number and it will find the address.

Music:

‘Oh, Industry’ by Bette Midler.