Wednesday, November 3, 2010

THE DOWNSIDE TO UPDATING GPS MAPS

As I had mentioned before, my Garmin GPS has been something else trying to update the maps. Just registering it was an ordeal. But finally, I found a good public servant. She was an angel in disguise, she was cheerful and overly wanting to help me in my crisis. Who does that nowadays? She's the computer technician at my public library and my new BFF.

After trying to upload from my home dial up computer, calling Garmin's technical support telling me I need my computer updated without telling me how to do it and when he did, he said I should first turn off my security program. Well, my security program took me hours to install and I wasn't about to uninstall it, wondering if I was installing the maps correctly, still not knowing if the upload of the the maps would take and install the security program again.

So this time I went to the library again with my computer and GPS and tried again to upload the maps, (it all began at 1:00 PM as soon as the library opened) but again it stopped the process after another 15 minutes. I got up my courage to ask the girl at the front desk of the library if someone could help me. Amazingly, she called the computer technician.

This lady named Deborah is now my BFF. She first wanted to see for herself what was happening, so we hooked up my computer again and I showed her the process I went through and how it gave me a serious error message and stopped dead in it's tracks.
We then went over to one of the library's computers, hooked up there and I got a little further, but it stopped when I had to upload a program to be able to upload the maps. OK. Since I was on one of the library's computers, it wouldn't let me go any further so I hunted down Deborah again and she tried, getting the same results. She then allowed this problem to be faced, only on her own computer, on her own turf, on her terms in the back room cubical which she worked. After playing games with uploading the program which was needed to get to upload the maps, even she had to go through the back door to get it to load on her computer. With much excitement on both our parts, it said it would take two hours to load all of the maps. At this time, it was 4:30 PM and I just couldn't take any more of it. Deborah invited me to come back because she would be working until 8:00 PM and I'd only have to wait until around 6:30 PM. But I left the library telling her I'd be back the next day at 10:00 AM. About 7:30 PM Deborah called me with the good news that it did load all of the maps from what she could tell. We both agreed there should be a better way of doing it, because even herself being a computer technician it gave her much grief.

When I arrived the next morning to pick up my GPS, I showed her how to put a name to an address. Her mother was having trouble doing it on her GPS. Deborah had uploaded all of the Magellan GPS manual on her computer hoping to read it and find out the answer. Her mom lives back east so she couldn't hold her mom's GPS in her hands to figure the thing out. When I showed her on my computer how I did it, even if it was a different manufacturer, she was grateful for the information which she believed helped a lot in getting what her mom wanted her GPS to do.

So when you hear about all of the GPS manufacturers offering free uploads on maps, question how difficult it is. This all should be done by satellite, in my opinion, and Deborah thought the same thing. Not all of this rigmarole, frustration, running around to find a computer to do it, causing hours upon hours of time getting more and more frustrating.

Now I'm wondering what I should get for my BFF as a gift for the time, patience and great attitude throughout this ordeal. I didn't mean to make my problem hers, but at a time of desperation, I had to ask for help, which I really always hate doing. I thought maybe she could just tell me that's what I need to do is to update my computer, but she didn't. She probably realizes not everybody's computer and knowledge is what these manufacturers believe is really out in the real world. But you tell me, does everybody's computer work exactly perfect? I doubt it, but that's what Garmin believes everybody's computer should, just because they have high tech people to work what they want done on their computer is what us common folk should do; have a computer working in tip top order and an operator that has a programming degree. Shame on big computer companies and their high tech technicians.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi!

Sorry to hear you had such a tough time with loading your maps. I did an upgrade of GPS maps to my computer last July with the help of a Garmin technician. He was extremely helpful and understanding. I do not believe they actually wanted you to uninstall your security software, but to temporarily disable it. I know computers can give us fits sometimes. :( Glad to hear you found such a nice gal to help you out.

Marlene
RMKK Companion