B. Mann Consulting

After the jump, the email I received from LoadMyTracks -- saying that the Globalsat DG-100 is now supported on Mac OS X with their application. Here are my previous posts about the DG-100.

Yeah, I know, I've been *really* bad about using it. I got busy right when I received it. Now it's time to re-invest some time into using it consistently. I want my Flickr map to have more photos on it (I recently uploaded my 9000th photo).

Here's the email from ClueTrust / LoadMyTracks:

After Long Last, we are happy to announce support for the GlobalSat DG-100 GPS Datalogger. To verify that this code works on computers that aren't here at ClueTrust, we'd like for any of you who can to test this out within the next couple of days (we're hoping to release before the end of the week).

The pre-release version can be downloaded from: http://www.cluetrust.com/Downloads/LoadMyTracks_063.dmg

Please reply to this message so that it goes into our ticketing system and include your OS version and processor architecture along with any other information you may see fit.

Right now, we are detecting any serial port as a possibility of being the DG-100, since it identifies itself as a Prolific serial port and we're uncertain if this is consistent across OS releases or is specific to particular installations. We are also curious to know if other GlobalSat devices use the same protocols and therefore might be able to use the same plug-in without modification. If you get a chance to try with them, we'd appreciate any feedback.

On our machines, the DG-100 shows up in System Profiler as "USB-Serial Controller" with a Vendor ID of 0x067b and a Product ID of 0x2303. It is possible that we have installed compatible drivers for other purposes and that's what we're seeing. If you do not see ProlificUsbSerial in the list of Extensions (in System Profiler), you may need to go to the Prolific web site and download the drivers: http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31

Once you have the drivers installed and working (and the device is recognized by System Profiler), then you're ready to run LoadMyTracks. After launching, select GlobalSat. If there is a menu for selecting the serial port, then select "usbserial" (which is what the prolific drivers identify themselves as).

NOTE: If you are trying a bluetooth device from GlobalSat, you might want to try using the BlueTooth serial port that you've created for this purpose. If you haven't done that yet, contact me and I'll send further instructions.

We don't have any of their BlueTooth devices, so we haven't tested with them. Once you have selected usbserial (or if it's the only serial port on your machine, you won't have a menu), then you can click Acquire (make sure you select Tracks, or nothing will be downloaded). The download process can take up to a minute or two, but shouldn't take much longer than that. If the download process has resulted in a valid KML or GPX file, then great!

NOTE: we do know of a problem with the altitude readings and haven't been able to clarify with GlobalSat why we're seeing these clearly-bogus readings. If you have problems with the download, please follow these steps with the GlobalSat device plugged in to your machine.

1. Launch Terminal
2. At the prompt, enter: defaults write com.ClueTrust.LoadMyTracks DebugLevel '6' – followed by the return key (this will turn on debugging on, and the single quotes around the 6 are required)
3. Switch to the Console application and hit the Mark button (this will insert a line in the file that demarcates our new data)
4. Launch LoadMyTracks
5. Try your Acquire
6. Quit LoadMyTracks
7. In terminal, enter: defaults remove com.ClueTrust.LoadMyTracks DebugLevel – (this will turn off debugging for the next time you run it)
8. Copy the text from the Console window (the text from the mark to the end)
9. Attach the output file and the console window text to the return message.
10. Also, look in your Home folder's Library folder and find the Log folder within it. Here there may be a "LoadMyTracks-GlobalSatGPS.ctbl" file. If there is one, please include it in your message. For this debugging only, we'd also like a copy of the System Profile for your machine if there are problems communicating with the GlobalSat device. To get the System Profile, go to the Utilities folder in Applications and run System Profiler. From here, do a Save As and include that file in your email. If you have problems sending the files because they are too large, please put them in a folder and compress them using the finder's Compress item in the File menu.

Please reply to loadmytracks@rt.cluetrust.com, with subject "[cluetrust.com #358] FR: Request to support GlobalSat DG100 GPS", to help the guys track down any issues.