For those of you who might have played with OSM , might have always felt a need to download and view it on their laptop offline.
The files are typically at a contry level or a state level and most of them are pretty huge and memory hogging.
In any case if you feel a need to extract out a bounding box from a huge .osm file here is what you can do.

First download Osmosis from http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmosis#Downloading
Since it is java based it will pretty much run on all platforms where java will run.
Then download the state or country maps in osm format from  OSM or from Cloudmate
The file format which we need to download the file will be something like <Country or State Name>.osm.bz2 like in my case it is california.osm.bz2
Once you download that file you need to unzip it using a command like bzip2 -d california.osm

Now say for example you want to only extract OSM data from a bounding box between Top Left Longitude -122.093566 / Top Left Latitude 37.39062 and Bottom Right Longitude -122.093566 / Top Right Latitude 37.39062 which is an Area of Sunnyvale and Mountain View, California you would give a command like

./osmosis --read-xml /mnt/officedesktop/maps/california.osm --bounding-box top=37.39062  left=-122.093566    right=-121.939929  bottom=37.318027  --write-xml svl.xml

The output of the command will be called svl.xml

This way you can extract out bounding boxes for areas of your interest and use it in applications like Gosmore

posted at: 22:14 | category: /worklog | permanent link to this entry

If you use the Operator Extension  for microformats and whenever you come across a Geo(Microformat) encoded URL  and want to lookup that location on our beloved  Open Street maps , I have written an Operator  plugin for doing just that.
The plugin is available @  http://bhavesh.freeshell.org/downloads/osm.js .You can save the text file using your browser with the name as osm.js.
Once you download it you need to copy the osm.js file in your operator folder.It wiill be something like <Firefox Profile Folder>\profile\operator on Windows and <Firefox Profile Folder>\operator
Please note that you need to install the Operator Extension before you can copy the osm.js file.Once installed you will be able to see the file in the Preferences or Options of Operator like below

You will then need to restart firefox to have Operator load the new plugin.

If everything goes well you should see the following in the Menu of Operator inf Firefox.


If you run into any issues you can send me an email @  Please mention osm.js in subject line so I can distinguish between spam and real emails.

posted at: 22:46 | category: /worklog | permanent link to this entry

posted at: 01:12 | category: /lodgingreview | permanent link to this entry

***We stayed in this lodge for 2 nights for our visits to Zion National park and Bryce National park.The location was very good because to go to both these parks it is a convenient drive and as it is to Drive to Bryce national park you have to go thru the Zion Natioinal Park.
It is conveniently located to some restaurants and grocecry stores.
The rooms were clean and overall for the price we paid we liked this motel.

0.3

posted at: 00:58 | category: /lodgingreview | permanent link to this entry

posted at: 00:38 | category: /reviews | permanent link to this entry

posted at: 00:23 | category: /lodgingreview | permanent link to this entry

I finally bought  a car gps (till now i had a gps mouse to connect to a laptop).The gps i bought is the refurbished tomtom 130s, more details @ http://www.tomtom.com/products/product.php?ID=488&Category=0&Lid=4 for about $67 after rebate.

First impression
No power adapter for connecting it to the wall.
Can only charge battery via computer or car charger.
Sofware updates was very quick and automatic  as soon as you install TomTom Home and connect the gps to the laptop.
You can completely operate the Tomtom from the laptop in a mode called "Operate One" where in instead of tapping on the GPS screen you can use the mouse your computer.
No SD card input or bluetooth as advertised.
Adding favorites is not that easy because it stores the latitute/longitude as the name of the favorite so unless you rename it quickly it will be hard to remember Lat/Long.Also renaming favorites is very hidden under the Change Preferences->Manage Favorites.

Tips

• As soon as you charge it , please connect it to a laptop so that you can update all the software on the gps to get the latest version.
• Please backup using Tomtom Home all the configurations as soon as you get it.
• Download POI's from Tomtom's website and from the Open Street maps Project  via cloudmate's download site for tomtom @ http://downloads.cloudmade.com/
• Download POI Edit from http://www.poiedit.com/ it will help you backing up your favorites
• Looking for 3rd party apps for your tomtom look it up @ http://home.comcast.net/~spheasant1/3rd_party.html
• Interested in using Openstreetmaps on your tomtom find more information @ http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TomTom

After using it for my major road trip here is my feedback on this gps.

Pros

• Simple interface
  
• Hackable
• Good community around it which has lots of software (most of them free).
• QuickGPS feature works.
• Cheapest with a lot of bells and whistles.
• Very compact fits in a pocket.I carry it everywhere I go.

Cons

• No SD card
• No POI modifications or categorization.
• Llimited to about 80 favorites only.
• Battery life of only about 2 hours
• Lacks multiple route planning facitlity
• Lacks planning route  on desktop and then moving it to the gps.

posted at: 23:48 | category: /reviews | permanent link to this entry