Nokia N95

As some of you may be aware, I've got me a new phone. It's the Nokia N95-8GB. This smartphone has a built in GPS (I'm not sure if it's just mine but the GPS isn't very good), 8GB of user RAM, internet access plus lots of other goodies. The N95 runs the Symbian operating system meaning that there are lots of nice add on programs for this smartphone.

One of the first things that I managed to do was install TomTom using an external Bluetooth GPS which works very well. I've got a GSAK macro which exports to TomTom .OV2 format with different icons for the different cache types. TomTom also (annoyingly, according to Sue) beeps when in the vicinity of a cache.

Last week, I splashed out on View Ranger (VR). This excellent piece of software is very similar to the Windows Mobile version of Memory Map (MM). The 1:50,000 scale Ordnance Survey maps are (c) 2008 and are more up to date than my old version of MM, for example the "new" A5 from Lichfield is shown on ViewRanger but not MM.

I've missed not having the OS maps with me (after the card reader part of my HP WinMobile device packed up) and it was nice to welcome an old friend back. The Oregon is very nice but I do miss my OS maps and I'm not forking out £100+ for each national park !

The installation of the software was simple and quick but copying the maps to the N95 took a while with the whole of Great Britain taking up about 2.5GB. The software reads .gpx files and I found a GSAK macro which exports the cache details with a bit more finesse than reading the native .gpx files. I changed the default icon from a rather ugly ammo box to a green ball which makes homing in a lot better.

However, all the caches are displayed as the same icon. After using Lordelph's Lovely Icons on MM, I decided to modify the GSAK macro to display different icons for each cache type. I also changed the way the caches are listed from GC numbers to the cache name which I find a lot more useful.

I now have the whole of the UK at 1:50,000, a load of unfound caches with their own symbols and desciptions; all on my phone!