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FIGURE 10-10: Pasting the bitmap into Windows Paint

There is only one problem with using your PC to take screenshots of your GPS: Your GPS has to be hooked to your PC, and PCs aren’t easy to carry about — even laptops, which are portable, don’t really stand up well to use in the field.

It would be far better to be able to be out and about.

G7toCE

G7toCE is a version of G7toWin that will run on Windows CE and Pocket PC versions of the Windows operating system. There aren’t many CE devices about these days, but Pocket PC devices, such as iPAQs, are common.

In fact, several different versions of G7toCE are available. The versions for portable devices are as follows:

Pocket PC 2003

■ARMV4 version

Pocket PC 2002

■ARM version

Pocket PC

■SH3

■ARM

■MIPS

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H/PC 2000

■ARM

■MIPS

H/PC 2.11

■SH4

■SH3

■ARM

■MIPS

The different versions are for different processors running the handheld devices. To find the processor that your device contains, refer to the manual or consult the “About” screen, accessible from somewhere in the operating system. The screen shown in Figure 10-11 is from an iPAQ 3950.

FIGURE 10-11: G7toCE in action

The good thing about G7toCE is that all the different versions are virtually identical in the way they work and look.

Before you can start to use G7toCE, you will need to install it on your handheld device. First you have to download the appropriate file for your hardware and operating system from www. gpsinformation.org/ronh. People who have problems installing this software normally do so because they have downloaded the incorrect file for their combination of hardware and operating system. Currently, there is no single “install” file that covers all possibilities, so you have to choose carefully.

For this example, we are installing it onto a Pocket PC 2002 machine, so we need to download the appropriate file for that. This file is called g7toce_PPC_2002_arm.zip.

After you have downloaded the package (a zipped, or compressed, file), you can open it using a utility such as WinZip. This file contains four program files (see Figure 10-12):

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FIGURE 10-12: Contents of the downloaded file

g7toce.exe: The main program file.

G7windatums.txt: This file is used to control how coordinate datum conversions are carried out and can be ignored.

changes.txt: A file listing the changes to the application.

readme.txt: The installation instruction file.

There is no installation program; you have to carry out the installation manually. The procedure is as follows:

1.Copy the file g7toce.exe to the Windows\Start Menu folder on the handheld device (see Figure 10-13).

FIGURE 10-13: Copy the executable to the Pocket PC.

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2.Create a folder called G7ToCE under the My Documents folder. Into that folder copy the g7windatums.txt file (see Figure 10-14).

FIGURE 10-14: Create the appropriate folder for the application.

3.Run G7ToCE. When you do this for the first time, an error message regarding a file called g7toce.ini will be displayed (see Figure 10-15). This is normal.

FIGURE 10-15: Initial error message displayed

4.You’ll fix this error now. Select File Configuration (see Figure 10-16).

5.Select the DMS tab (see Figure 10-17).

6.Select Save Configuration at Exit (see Figure 10-18). You may also change other parameters at this stage if you want.

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FIGURE 10-16: The G7toCE configuration screen

FIGURE 10-17: The DMS screen

FIGURE 10-18: There is a lot of room for configuration in G7toCE.

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7.Select any other tabs (GPS, Text, Icon) to set the startup parameters suitable to your needs (see Figure 10-19).

FIGURE 10-19: Set your startup parameters.

8. Click OK (see Figure 10-20).

FIGURE 10-20: Save the configuration file.

9.Exit the application.

10.Check the folder My Documents\G7ToCE for the file g7toce.ini to ensure that it has been created properly.

11.Now you are ready to use the application.

Now you need to connect the GPS to the device. To do this via a cable connection, follow these steps:

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1.Turn off the device.

2.Connect the cable between the device and the GPS receiver.

3.Switch the GPS on and let it start up fully (it should be ready to acquire satellites but need not have locked on to them).

4.Start the handheld device and start up G7toCE.

You’ve now got the application set up well enough for you to take screenshots from Garmin units. To do this, click GPS Get Display Bitmap (see Figure 10-21).

FIGURE 10-21: Retrieving the bitmap display

G7toCE will now download the display on the screen of the GPS to your handheld device. After the bitmap of the display has been transferred to the handheld device, you can display the image by clicking GPS Display Bitmap (see Figure 10-22).

FIGURE 10-22: Bitmap displayed in the application