Snafu Blog

I’ve added a few more APs that I detected to the map and I’m now using my own simple code to generate the map rather than going out to another site to generate them. At some point I plan to add a table showing some summary data and a breakdown of manufacturers (gleaned from the MAC address), though this will have to wait as I have a room to decorate If anyone wants data they have collected added to the map, just email it to me, preferably in the .txt format the Wififofum saves as (just tab separated). At some point I’d like to have a submit form so people can upload data to be automatically included by work on the house precludes much work on this
Though quite a few sites already do this, none I’ve found seem to use google maps which is a shame as it looks a lot nicer than most of the icky maps around .

Recently I bought a new PDA and a bluetooth GPS to go with it so I can use Tomtom without the huge mess of wires that my current GPS setup has. Getting it going with Tomtom5 has been a bit of a grind as things have changed quite a bit in windows mobile 5. I’ve summarized the instructions that I found in various places on the Internet below as someone else with a xda exec and tomtom with a bluetooth GPS may find them useful (and save some google time!) 1) Install Tomtom
Copy the cabfiles from the CDROM to your PocketPC and doubleclick on them to install. There are four of them.2) Activate the hidden GPS settings thingum
Fire up a registry editor (eg http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/phmregistryeditor.shtml )
Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlPanel\GPS Settings
Delete the DWORD marked “hide”
Add a DWORD called “Group” and give it the value of “2″ (decimal)
The GPS panel will now show up in your connection settings.

3) Serial port magic (this is the special bit!)
1. Establish a bond with your GPS and select the checkbox for serial access.
2. In BT, select the OUTGOING port to 8.
3. In the GPS control panel, select the GPS program to 0 and make sure that the hardware one, is set to None.
4. Start TT5 and the GPS settings, select another bluetooth GPS, and you will see COM 0 free. Select COM 0 and close TT5.
5. At the GPS control panel again, now select COM 8 (before we set it up at 0).
6. At BT: select OUTGOING port to 0.
7. Back again to GPS control panel and select NONE.
8. Finally start TT5 and it should connect automatically. Wait for a couple of seconds and click the GPS settings and you should see it has connected.

The original post is here, I’ve copied it across in case it disappears at some point

Another thing I’ve been playing with is Wififofum which is basically a wardriving tool. It links up with your GPS so you can make funky maps of detected wireless accesspoints. One I made while driving round thanet is here. Shows how popular wifi is getting now!