tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53730097649139521272011-11-27T16:32:30.648-08:00News and tools for the overly curious.John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.comBlogger211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-80744783726051632342011-11-07T22:56:00.000-08:002011-11-07T23:02:50.370-08:00

My free GPS tool has been updated, and is about ready for release. I discovered that there were some more lurking issues for localization settings which use "," in numbers instead of the "." which standard US English localization uses.The good news is that I am on Windows 7, so I can set my own localization to match anything I please, and then run my software to see what it does. That's much

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-3267585225975925392011-03-23T21:05:00.000-07:002011-03-23T21:12:24.089-07:00

I had a customer ask me about volume pricing beyond the discount for 6+ copies of PingGraph, so I have added two additional discount categories. Here's the full list now:Price Per Unit (US$)1 copy = $39.002 to 5 copies = $24.006 to 24 copies = $15.0025 to 99 copies = $11.00100 or more copies = $7.00That puts the maximum discount around 82% off now, if you're distributing PingGraph across a large

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-53714186475879154272011-02-10T22:44:00.000-08:002011-02-10T22:49:21.179-08:00

The vendor I use to process credit card orders for PingGraph is switching over to use the esellerate system. Esellerate has been around for years, and has been an easy transition. Registered users won't see any difference, and new buyers will just be automatically directed to the new purchase page.I needed to make a couple of minor changes to the program to do the switchover, so I've released

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-52902011947507396072010-12-27T16:04:00.000-08:002010-12-27T16:20:14.283-08:00

One of my GPSMonitor users just sent me a note about how he's using the software on a couple of Panasonic Toughbook notebooks with an integrated GPS. Unfortunately the notebooks didn't have GPS software, so he tracked down several packages, one of which was GPSMonitor. Now he's happily monitoring sites across 3000 acres where he works.So if you're looking for GPS softwar for your Toughbook, give

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-85444507931494449452010-11-13T16:16:00.000-08:002010-11-13T16:34:45.678-08:00

No new software releases or anything today. Just a tip to make your web experience better.Have you ever been irritated at those ads all over the web pages you go to? I try to keep the ads fairly simple on my site, but I'm sure you've seen how bad it gets with all the blinking, animated "ooh, ooh, click meeeee!" ads.I also want to give the kids in the house less opportunities to infect our network

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-48476688590019663112010-10-30T12:28:00.000-07:002010-10-30T12:39:04.228-07:00

GPSMonitor has an update to its mapping code which isn't actually a change to the executable. The current version 2.0.0.5 will automatically start mapping properly for a GPS which uses commas in the latitude/longitude rather than periods.The application itself pulls the local number formatting information correctly from the computer, but it calls out to a web site to draw the map page. That means

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-69713034964529433132010-10-14T23:14:00.000-07:002010-10-14T23:23:45.598-07:00

We're winding down on code changes. There are just a couple of things this pass to make logging more usable. The log file doesn't have to exist before you start logging, and the date and time have been reformatted to be easier to use by customer request.You can download the free demo installer for PingGraph from here, or download a .zip file here in case you have a firewall that blocks

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-46334023244091665162010-10-03T15:39:00.000-07:002010-10-03T15:43:57.969-07:00

I've created a short tutorial video for PingGraph to show some of the typical patterns you can see as it runs. It's great for identifying things on the network like the effects of saturated lines, large downloads, and streaming audio and video.Speaking of streaming video, here you go:

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-21563939657756643112010-09-29T20:50:00.000-07:002010-09-29T21:20:47.986-07:00

Version 3.0.0.4 is now available for download. It's got a series of small fixes and updates in it.It turns out that you could resize the window to be too small. The next time you restarted, it would cause an error. (Thanks for the heads up, Ray!) It nudges window sizes back to something usable automatically now instead of causing an error. You can also turn off the bandwidth tests in case the

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-53462683800810986282010-09-17T23:43:00.000-07:002010-09-17T23:45:49.532-07:00

With the help of a PingGraph user, I was able to track down a startup problem which happened on some systems. This update should behave much better for those users. Thanks, Rick! I have also changed the default time scale to be about a minute instead of the maximum year-long scale.

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-32057673650869726142010-08-18T07:37:00.000-07:002010-08-18T07:40:21.450-07:00

I just put an update up for download, version 3.0.0.1.I needed to fix date parsing on the message of the day for Eropean customers which use day/month/year instead of month/day/year. It broke the message of the day parsing code.Also, I added several more error messages in case things go wrong. It should give you a reason why if it stops working. Thanks for your patience as I work through these

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-42744079291198985282010-08-17T07:39:00.001-07:002010-08-17T07:41:13.789-07:00

I have put together a survey for current and potential users of PingGraph to identify a few things about how they do their job how to reach people who can make good use of PingGraph. Please stop by and take the survey.

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-31198162608619074902010-08-17T00:07:00.000-07:002010-08-17T07:49:51.894-07:00

Both PingGraph (version 3.0.0.0) and GPSMonitor (version 1.0.0.5) have been updated and are available for download.PingGraph has a whole new design. New graphs, new data storage and logging capabilities, and much faster rendering of easily scalable graphs.GPSMonitor now allows you to save a copy of the raw NMEA data to a text file.In honor of the new release, PingGraph is on sale for 25% off

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-49624312057360784942010-08-11T21:53:00.001-07:002010-08-11T22:24:54.560-07:00

Have you ever tried to store data in the application properties in C#? It has some really slick abilities to store settings for you. I use it for window sizes and things like that. All you do is add data to your settings (usually found in Properties/Settings.settings in your project), then reference them. You start off by getting your application set up to use settings with this "using" statement

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-35129456838748877592009-08-11T20:39:00.000-07:002009-08-11T20:46:01.436-07:00

I've gathered all my recent updates, got everything working, and have published the new version. New features:Scans just the actual com ports available on the system. No more wondering if going up to com25 is far enough. This should make it connect a lot faster.Override on the baud rate is possible on a new "Overrides" tab. Let me know if you can think of anything else to override.Average

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-30718261755549461532008-05-08T17:30:00.001-07:002008-05-08T17:42:18.855-07:00

Oh, you tricksy Europeans. I forgot to take into consideration that you might use something besides my localized US English numeric representation for latitude and longitude. GPSMonitor is expecting something like this, which is the default location if you have no GPS hooked up:latitude = 40.522longitude = -111.958And some of the GPS systems out there have been trying to feed this format to my

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-53158534954992225502008-04-14T17:47:00.000-07:002008-04-14T17:57:49.691-07:00

I've received a request to increase the range of COM ports that GPSMonitor scans, so the next update will include scanning up to COM15. Yeah, someone has their GPS at a double digit com port. While I'm at it, I may also allow it to be set to something besides the default 4800 baud. If you have a request, drop me an email.Based on my web logs, a bunch of you are testing out the application with no

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-22804115504702663592008-03-22T16:14:00.000-07:002008-03-22T16:42:48.675-07:00

Well, I decided to go ahead and wrap up the initial release of GPSMonitor, my windows-based GPS data monitoring and translation tool that makes NMEA string data easily readable. Go ahead and give it a try!

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-69929075223636332612008-03-21T21:54:00.001-07:002008-03-21T22:02:03.028-07:00

I've put a bit more work into the site, getting it ready for upcoming software releases. The map for GPSMonitor now has controls on it, and it allows for the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. I've filled out a lot more on the GPSMonitor page, getting rid of the filler paragraph. I still need to get a screenshot or two so I can put them on the page.I'm going to set up GPSMonitor with a PAD file and

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-33941642816568708692008-03-07T19:48:00.001-08:002008-03-07T19:57:08.708-08:00

The site redesign is going well, but is a bit slow due to Real Life continuing with its demands. I'm putting in the functionality I want on the site , then I will worry about making it look nicer by adjusting colors, logos, fonts, and all that fun stuff before declaring it live. I'm experimenting with doing the whole site as php files so I can include interesting things like RSS feeds and google

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373009764913952127.post-88417407433314178952008-03-06T22:59:00.001-08:002008-03-06T22:59:40.081-08:00

I need some content to test the RSS feed, so here it is.

John Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04022040878903005030noreply@blogger.com0