Technoleros

Garmin is obviously putting a lot of effort into BaseCamp.  Only three weeks after releasing version 3.0.4, Garmin has released version 3.0.5, which includes fixes for 15 different issues and localization for 18 languages.  The added features and fixes increased the size of this download from 70 Mbytes in v3.0.4 to 125 Mbytes in v3.0.5.

BaseCamp is software to view and organize your maps, waypoints, routes, and tracks and send them to your Garmin device.  It works very similar to MapSource.  BaseCamp displays topographic map data in 2-D or 3-D on your computer screen, including elevation profiles. Then you can view and rotate the maps from any angle.

Features:

• View 24K or 100K topographic maps and other topographic data.
• Displays maps in 2-D or 3-D, including elevation profiles.
• View and rotate maps at any angle.
• Create waypoints and routes on your computer and transfer maps, waypoints, routes, tracks and geotagged photos between your computer and device.
• Transfers satellite images to your device (with the purchase of BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription).
• Shows animated playback of routes and tracks over time.
• Supports geotagged photos.
• Easily organize data into folders.
• Prints full-page, color maps.
• Exports user data for viewing in Google Earth.
• Includes advanced geocaching support; can import data from geocaching.com.

Changes made from version 3.0.3 to 3.0.4:

• Added localization for the following languages: Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmal), Polish, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish
• Added the ability to unlock BirdsEye Imagery for a specific device
• Added support to recognize European Topographic cards as retail products
• Improved map projection when printing BirdsEye Imagery
• Change to preserve subfolders when writing Garmin Custom Maps
• Change to correctly resolve relative paths in links on waypoints received from devices
• Change to use a more reasonable zoom level when selecting ‘Show on map’ for a single find result or waypoint
• Change to update the database to reflect missing images when doing a ‘Restore’ when the images were excluded from the backed up
• Change to preserve selection of device when starting BirdsEye wizard, if a device was previously selected
• Change to read maps on SD cards written to the \Map subfolder
• Fixed auto-routing issues on certain maps
• Fixed copy/paste of geotagged photos from a device not copying the photo
• Fixed possible issues when launching an external file or URL link
• Fixed issues when reading geotagged photos with invalid timestamps
• Fixed displaying postal code twice in POI property balloons in some European maps
• Fixed issues geotagging photos with Asian language paths

System Requirements

• BaseCamp requires an IBM-compatible PC running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later operating system or any Intel-based or PowerPC G4 or later Mac OS.
• Microsoft.NET framework 2.0 SP1 is required. A current version of .NET will be installed if needed.
• A video card that supports OpenGL version 1.3 or later is needed to view 3-D terrain.
• If you experience problems when interacting with the map views, please make sure that you have installed current video card drivers.

from Chris Hemendinger, senior software manager in SAS R&D and author of The SAS Dummy

Supported Versions and Combinations:

• You can use EG 4.1 with local SAS 9.2 (no metadata server).  Everything local on your Windows machine; it should just work.
• You can have both EG 4.1 and EG 4.2 on your local machine, along with local SAS 9.2, and all should work together.
• You can have SAS 9.1.3 and SAS 9.2 on your local machine, but EG (either version) will use only the version of SAS that is registered for local use, which is usually the version that was installed last.  You can run "sas /regserver" to register a particular version of SAS.
• You can have SAS 9.1.3 and SAS 9.2 side-by-side on a server machine with two metadata servers (one 9.1.3 and one 9.2) and object spawner instances, as long as you assign unique ports for the metadata server and workspace servers.  So in this way, you could point EG 4.1 at the SAS 9.1.3 instance, and EG 4.2 at the SAS 9.2 instance.  This approach might be helpful for transitioning.

Unsupported Versions and Combinations:

• You cannot use EG 4.1 with remote SAS 9.2, nor can you connect to a SAS 9.2 metadata server.  The SAS 9.2 metadata server has a different API that EG 4.1 doesn’t speak.
• You cannot use EG 4.2 with SAS 9.1.3 at all: EG 4.2 relies on some new features within SAS 9.2 that aren’t compatible with SAS 9.1.3 (ODS Graphics and some new APIs).

Garmin MapSource v.6.16.1 - v.6.16.1 - 55.01 MB

It looks like Garmin is on a four-month update schedule of its MapSource Windows-based mapping software.  MapSource is included with the purchase of a Garmin map on DVD or CD. Features include:

• Back up important trip data separately from your Garmin device.
• Plan routes from the convenience of your computer instead of on your device.
• Create, view, and edit waypoints, routes, and tracks.
• Plan extensive or complicated routes, in which you travel to several locations in an order you specify.
• Transfer waypoints, routes and tracks between your computer and your device.
• Transfer selected map from your computer to your device.
• Find items, addresses and points of interest included in the map data.
• View your maps in detail on your computer screen.

You can even download a MapSource tutorial at http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapsourceTutorial.html.

Changes made from version 6.15.11 to 6.16.1:

• Added support for 64-bit USB device drivers.
• Added generic label descriptions (less ‘unknown’ features).
• Added support for importing relevant data from TCX files.
• Added very small and very large symbol size selection.
• Added support for editing waypoint address and phone number information.
• Added New Zealand TM grid.
• Added display of the total length of all selected tracks/routes in the status bar.
• Added numeric sorting of routes, tracks and waypoints.
• Added ability to send error reports directly to Garmin after a crash.
• Improved memory issues when running MapSource under Windows 7.
• Improved map projection for many map products.
• Improved speed of ‘finalizing’ step when transferring data to SD cards.
• Changed mouse-wheel functionality to zoom in and out.
• Changed ‘seasonal closures’ avoidance option to ‘date and time closures’. MapSource will now route over roads that have time-of-day and seasonal closures if this avoidance option is not checked.
• Changed route via point symbol to small black dot.
• Fixed various categories and subcategories that affected find operations and the display of POI categories and subcategories.
• Fixed some auto-routing oddities.
• Fixed remembering ‘Find Nearest’ dialog search category.
• Fixed issues with ‘Save As’ file dialog (in some cases, existing files were overwritten without prompting).
• Fixed some issues with the Swedish grid.
• Fixed issue with address search when a city name was supplied.
• Fixed loss of mixed-case characters when transferring routes to some USB devices.
• Fixed an issue with the refreshing of the route avoidances dialog.
• Fixed an issue with finding elevation features.
• Fixed an issue where the comment field would be incorrect after creating a waypoint from a find result.
• Fixed an issue where transferring data from a mass-storage device would fail.

Only two weeks after releasing version 3.0.2 of BaseCamp, Garmin has updated the software to version 3.0.3.  BaseCamp is software to view and organize your maps, waypoints, routes, and tracks and send them to your Garmin device.  It works very similar to MapSource.  BaseCamp displays topographic map data in 2-D or 3-D on your computer screen, including elevation profiles. Then you can view and rotate the maps from any angle.

Features:

• View 24K or 100K topographic maps and other topographic data.
• Displays maps in 2-D or 3-D, including elevation profiles.
• View and rotate maps at any angle.
• Create waypoints and routes on your computer and transfer maps, waypoints, routes, tracks and geotagged photos between your computer and device.
• Transfers satellite images to your device (with the purchase of BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription).
• Shows animated playback of routes and tracks over time.
• Supports geotagged photos.
• Easily organize data into folders.
• Prints full-page, color maps.
• Exports user data for viewing in Google Earth.
• Includes advanced geocaching support; can import data from geocaching.com.

Changes made from version 3.0.2 to 3.0.3:

• Added display of which devices a BirdsEye Imagery is unlocked for.
• Added the ability to control which map feature lines are shown.
• Improved memory usage for Garmin BirdsEye Imagery and Garmin Custom Maps.
• Improved user feedback while transferring to folders and devices.
• Improved reported information when Garmin Custom Maps cannot be imported.
• Changed to allow transfer of partially downloaded BirdsEye Imagery.
• Added ability for BaseCamp to attempt reading all Garmin map images (.img files), regardless of name, from removable media.
• Fixed issue when using Find with a map that does not have a city table.

System Requirements

• BaseCamp requires an IBM-compatible PC running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later operating system or any Intel-based or PowerPC G4 or later Mac OS.
• Microsoft.NET framework 2.0 SP1 is required. A current version of .NET will be installed if needed.
• A video card that supports OpenGL version 1.3 or later is needed to view 3-D terrain.
• If you experience problems when interacting with the map views, please make sure that you have installed current video card drivers.

BaseCamp is software to view and organize your maps, waypoints, routes, and tracks and send them to your Garmin device.  It works very similar to MapSource.  BaseCamp displays topographic map data in 2-D or 3-D on your computer screen, including elevation profiles. Then you can view and rotate the maps from any angle.

Features:

• View 24K or 100K topographic maps and other topographic data.
• Displays maps in 2-D or 3-D, including elevation profiles.
• View and rotate maps at any angle.
• Create waypoints and routes on your computer and transfer maps, waypoints, routes, tracks and geotagged photos between your computer and device.
• Transfers satellite images to your device (with the purchase of BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription).
• Shows animated playback of routes and tracks over time.
• Supports geotagged photos.
• Easily organize data into folders.
• Prints full-page, color maps.
• Exports user data for viewing in Google Earth.
• Includes advanced geocaching support; can import data from geocaching.com.

Changes made from version 3.0.1 to 3.0.2:

• Eliminated error messages at startup with blank SD cards.
• Fixed several printing related issues.
• Fixed issue when hovering over the 3D view after turning off lines or areas.
• Fixed issue when importing a KML file that didn’t contain any visible ground overlays.
• Fixed issue with track and route join.
• Fixed issue with track and route insert.
• Fixed issue with geotagged photos on devices not being read.

System Requirements

• BaseCamp requires an IBM-compatible PC running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later operating system or any Intel-based or PowerPC G4 or later Mac OS.
• Microsoft.NET framework 2.0 SP1 is required. A current version of .NET will be installed if needed.
• A video card that supports OpenGL version 1.3 or later is needed to view 3-D terrain.
• If you experience problems when interacting with the map views, please make sure that you have installed current video card drivers.

A strong point of SAS Enterprise Guide is that it interacts seamlessly with many data types using the Microsoft Jet Engine (Excel .xls, Access .mdb, dBase .dbf, Lotus.wk?, Paradox .db, and text files .txt .csv etc).  To provide even more flexibility, there are also a few different ways in Enterprise Guide to output data to Excel.  A user can export their data to Excel, export to Excel as a step in a project, or they can right-click on a data set and select Send To –> Microsoft Excel.  The latter is a convenient feature that many users are comfortable with, but in Enterprise Guide 4.1, your results might not be what you expect.

One data set that we were working with included a date variable which was stored as a DATE9. format.  A user complained that every time she exported the data it ended up in DATETIME format, and all of the zeroes from the time complicated her project.  I tried to replicate her problem many times by exporting the same data set into Excel and I ended up with DATE9. every time.  I finally asked her to send screen shots of what she was doing, and noticed what she called “export” was actually using “Send To –> Microsoft Excel”.  I explained that to get the results she wanted, she needed to use the “real” export technique.  After I solved this problem, I browsed to support.sas.com and sure enough, SAS had already identified this issue in Microsoft Excel might not maintain date formats in SAS Enterprise Guide.  Apparently this issue is fixed in Enterprise Guide 4.2 but I have not tested it yet.

Garmin Communicator Plugin v2.9.2.0 - v.2.9.2.0 - 5.68 MB

Garmin updated its Communicator Plugin on April 6, 2010 to the 2.9.2.0 version, an upgrade from version 2.9.1.  The Garmin Communicator Plugin is a free internet browser plugin that sends and retrieves data from Garmin GPS devices.  The Garmin Communicator can send and retrieve data from any supported website.

The plugin works with IBM-compatible PCs running Windows® XP or Vista operating systems with Internet Explorer 6+ or Firefox 1.5+ Intel-based or PowerPC G3 or later Mac OS 10.4 or later with Firefox 2.0+ or Safari 2.0.  It is not compatible with Windows 2000 computers and will not install and/or function properly.

Changes made from version 2.9.1 to 2.9.2:

• Added support for 2GB aviation data cards.
• Made GetBinaryFile function available to non-Garmin websites.
• Switching to indeterminate progress if the calculated progress is greater than 100%.

Garmin’s Communicator Plugin page is located at http://www8.garmin.com/products/communicator/

I was one of the unfortunate ones who was unable to attend the SAS Global Forum in Seattle last week.  Thanks to discussion forums, blogs, and Twitter, I was able to keep up with a lot that was going on.  I was particularly interested in some of the new features that will be available in the next version (4.3) of Enterprise Guide, which is scheduled to be available this summer.  Below are some of the features that were mentioned:

• context sensitive keyword completion (syntax suggestion)
• relative file addressing
• code reverse engineering (see what old code is doing)
• an autoexec process flow for projects (runs automatically when project is opened)
• code analyzer (reads a program and turns it into a process flow)

I also had the opportunity to preview some of the new features in the upcoming version of Web Report Studio (4.3).  SAS is expanding drag and drop capabilities, which makes creation of report even easier.  The biggest news though is the ability to use more than one data source in a report section!

SAS recently released Hotfix 41EG14 for Enterprise Guide 4.1.  The hotfix resolves issues identified in:

• Problem Note 39149: The SAS Enterprise Guide editor’s width of caret position panel within the status bar does not accommodate for large row and column number schemes
• Problem Note 38003: Unable to edit existing parameter in SAS® Enterprise Guide®

Enterprise Guide 4.1 Hot Fix 41EG14 (183)

I have had to add Group Content Administrators to my SAS 9.2 Intelligence Platform a few times now, and it didn’t work as smoothly the last time due to my inability to read ALL of the steps and accompanying notes.  The process of configuring a Group Content Administrator in the Information Delivery Portal is well documented in the SAS 9.2 Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide, Third Edition and Angela Hall blogged about the process here, so I should have had enough information to correctly make this happen, right?  Well, there is a handy tip that I want to point out.  I had some developers who have read/write access to much of the metadata in our system.  I added some of these users to be Group Content Creators of the Public group following Steps 1-10 below.  Since these developers had inherited Read/Write Metadata permissions from higher up the tree in metadata, they already had implicit WriteMetadata ability.  When they attempted to add new portal pages for the Public group, Public not not available to share the page to.  Why?  Well, after Step 9 there is an important note titled “Important Note” that I somehow missed.  The note states to ensure the WriteMetadata permission is explicit.  To change this permission from implicit to explicit, an administrator merely needs to click the check the WriteMetadata checkbox one more time (it is already checked, but needs to be checked again).  In my defense, I was originally working from the First Edition of the Web Application Administration Guide, where “Important” was not in front of the word note and it was also not in bold text!

from support.sas.com:

Configure a Group Content Administrator

A group content administrator is a user who has WriteMetadata permission for the respective group, and the group’s Portal permission tree. A group content administrator can share personal content with the group, and can edit or remove content that has been shared with the group. (The SAS administrator and the SAS Trusted User has WriteMetadata permission for all group permission trees that are defined in metadata.)

Prerequisites: Before you can assign a content administrator for a group, all of the following must be true:

• The person who will be a content administrator must have a user identity that is defined in SAS metadata.
• This user identity must be a member of the group that the person will administer.
• A group permission tree folder must exist in metadata for the group. To verify that a permission tree folder exists, or to create one, see Overview of Permission Tree Folders.

To configure a group content administrator for the Portal Application Permissions tree, follow these steps:

1. Log on to SAS Management Console as the SAS Administrator (sasadm).
2. On the Plug-ins tab in SAS Management Console, navigate to Environment Management –> Authorization Manager –> Resource Management –> By Type –> Tree.
3. Right-click on the permissions tree for the group and select Properties.
4. In the permissions tree properties dialog box, select the Authorization tab.
5. Select the Add button to display the Add Users and Groups dialog box.
6. In the Add Users and Groups dialog box, select and move the group content administrator under Available Identities to Selected Identities. Note that the group content administrator must be a person, and not a group.
7. Click OK to exit the dialog box.
8. When you return to the Authorization tab, make sure the appropriate user is selected in the Users and Groups list box.
9. To modify the permissions for the selected user, in the permissions list row for the WriteMetadata permission, select Grant.
   Important Note: Ensure that the permission is explicit. The check box for a permission that comes from a directly assigned access control entry (ACE) has no added background color. If the check box for a permission has a background color, to remove the background color and designate the permission as a directly assigned permission, click the check box again.
10. In the properties dialog box, click OK to save your changes.

The user that was configured as a group content administrator can now log on to the portal and share personal content with that group.