use laptop for gps

GPS mouse and appropriate mapping software, such as Ozi Explorer loaded onto your laptop. Ensure good power supply ideally independant from your cranking battery.

Cheap as chips to set up and a GPS mouse I've found is more reliable than your standard GPS with regards to maintaining satellite contact.

the "idea" is a good one but in pratice it is a pain in the butt, i only say that as i have done it and gone back......
But to answer your question, you need a usb gismo that picks up the signal and the program (oziexplorer) and the maps and someone who know what they are doing to "connect" it all togeather ........
Now to get back to why i dont like it, the laptop is NOT designed to be bounced around, it is big and dont fit to well anyware, it is hard to use a mouse or pad, it may have a big screen but it is also attached to the keyboard and it all takes up to much room....
So what to do ??????
Buy one of the cheap BIG screen GPS navs on e-bay, make certain it is not "locked" and can be loaded with "oziexplore" and and load all the maps and program and you will never look back, i did and someware on here i have a thread on how to do it, dont ask me ware as i am hopeless at finding "threads" but it is on here as are many other threads about GPS's and so on..
Cheers and good luck
Joe

Hi Vicbar : I have a hand held garmin gps connected to lappy , I have loaded mapsaurce program & shonky maps a cheap option :Note make sure you get good advice from a supplier I.E like a good map shop !!! you can find a lot of information on shonky maps & down loads from gpsaustralia wed site .
But I would a agree with the thread bulky in a vehicle ,so have a look at post 90343 on gps plus try a search here & google
good luck nick

Hi,
I just tried it for fun and with possibility of using it.
The issues raised above against the laptop is true.

However if you want to go down that path look at a solid state device, less likely to be effected by bouncing around.

I had one of those ASUS netbooks and a Bluetooth GPS which I had used with a PDA.

I was able to run Oziexplorer on the netbook and connect to the gps.

I reckon it would work well but they are bulky, battery life is poor so need power supply and would need some heavy duty mounts to support.

All doable but to much of a pain.

I have been playing around with an ipad and have it mounted on the dash, it works well but does not run Oziexplorer. There are a lot of other options in this area.

Rich

Depends on what you want from the gps. If you want a talking guide around town, then the laptop is probably not the way to go. If though you are looking for mapping in the bush, as said already, it's hard to go past adding Oziexplorer to the laptop and plugging a little mouse style gps into a USB port.

The downside, as already said is the inconvenience of sharing the cockpit with a laptop. Suggest look at a cheap slate style pc rather than use the laptop. A version of Oziexplorer is available to (with some limitations) run under the Android operating system (see here). I haven't tried it, but that should make for a very inexpensive gps with a good screen.

Another thing to consider - Is your laptop bright enough for such use?

Cheers

John

vicbar,
I have a Dell Latitude ATG (military spec) laptop with a 160gb solid state hard drive. This is mounted on RAM mount. I used to have a bluetooth GPS but replaced it with a GPS mouse. This setup had travelled about 60,000KM on different trips running continuously. The 100 series has quite a bit of space between the front seats and as it's auto I don't need to change gears often.
The setup was a bit exxy but I use the laptop for a myriad of other things like backing up and processing images, writing trip reports on the fly, storing MP3's etc.