Map Updates 1. July 2011

Well, I'm really sorry to again not be able to write about nice stuff done to the maps. I have not found any time. I worked a lot on the website and administrative stuff, and got a new shiny server for the website which should take over from tomorrow. Performance is like 5-8times higher, so also in the evening it will be lightning fast, and I don't need to spend time anymore trying to optimise everywhere so that the sites run decently.

As for the maps, if you look on the FTP server, there are now (this week only openmtbmap, next week velomap too) readymade gmapsupp.img files (though right now as I think, I'm not too sure if I included a .TYP-file). But definitely from next week onwards, there will be readymade gmapsupp.img files of all maps too, and I might add a premium installer that includes Contourlines to Europemap with working address search (timeframe 3-4 weeks).

It's still a misery to me how time passes by, and even though I worked like 12-14 hours daily this week, I find no time to deliver needed updates especially to Velomap regarding unpaved roads. But I do hope to find some time and implement my by now quite long list on map improvements for both velo and openmtbmap for next map update. Sad thing is really, administering the surroundings takes up more time than working on improving the maps.

Also the address index by mkgmap seems to make 2 steps forward and 1 step backward each week, but still not get to a really useful level. Mkgmap 1978 was producing pretty fine indexes for Mapsource, sadly they would crash on send, so right now I sticked to my 10 days old mkgmap version. Will try to put some hours testing the newest version for next map update to make sure no showstoppers included....

So far so long, hear ya next week with hopefully more progress.

Karten Updates 24 Juni 2011

Well just as a short note. I indeed updated the maps as always on Thursday night. However as I'm currently biking around Innsbruck (BTW - forget Willi Hofer, his difficulty notations are way overstated - his most difficult tours are much easier than stuff I expected based on descriptions) I don't have much time and am too tired to really work in the evening. Therefore a proper update notice on next map update.

 

As you may have noted, I changed 50€ subscription from lifetime to 5 years - this of course only affects new subscribers/members and decided to work on openmtbmap.org full time. So expect many cool changes over the next month (but then in reality over the last 4-5 months I did already work more than 40-50hours every ween on improving openmtmap.org website and maps.

Biggest change is that from July onwards (cannot say exact date) I will have adds by Netzathleten.de (same provider that puts adds on mtb-news.de. So I hope the adds are well bicycle focussed. I don't want to have advertisements that are really of focus. So I hope that the sales staff at netzathleten does a good job in channelling in adverts that are mtbike/bicycle focussed and hence not "as" annoying off intererest. This should bring in a bit of money too (though not enough to live (even if taxes and insurance wouldn't exist).

 

Well most important for this map update I fixed missing secondaries for Velomap, there were a few improvements on the address index for all maps, and I updated the Europe map on Wednesday. Velomap map of Europe should be updated by tomorrow too (just started the update so I hope it is online before the FTP server sync).

 

For everyone still waiting for answers to mails or comments, I try to answer as much as I can right now, but some stuff will be answered on Monday or Tuesday. If you have no answer by Tuesday evening, remind me.