Other Street Navigation Software

In addition to Street Atlas USA, here are two other popular street navigation programs available for navigating the roads of America. I don’t have enough space to fully describe them, but here’s some general information in case you’re shopping for software.
New versions of street navigation software are usually released annually with new street and POI data as well as new features. If you travel in an area that doesn’t experience much growth or change, you probably don’t need to upgrade every year. On the other hand, because all the street navigation software packages retail for under $50, it’s not that expensive to stay current.

Microsoft Streets & Trips
Microsoft’s Streets & Trips is a popular alternative to DeLorme’s software. The program has all the basic street navigation features, including some advanced features such as saving a map as a Web page, downloading current road construction information from the Internet, and creating drive time zones (such as show me all the places I can drive to from a certain location in under an hour). The software is easy to use and comes bundled with Pocket Streets, the Pocket PC version of Streets & Trips. streets.

Rand McNally StreetFinder & TripMaker Deluxe
Rand McNally, in the map business for over 130 years, is one of the main providers of U.S. paper street maps and road atlases. The StreetFinder & TripMaker Deluxe software package provides all the features you’d expect in a street navigation program, along with Mobile Travel Guide ratings for hotels and restaurants and suggested scenic tours and one-day driving trips. To read more about the product, go to www.randmcnally.com.

GPS car navigation systems

Street navigation software coupled with a laptop and GPS receiver isn’t your only option to stay found while driving through the asphalt jungle. GPS car navigation systems are starting to become popular as factory-installed options and third-party add-ons for cars and trucks. These systems are streamlined versions of street navigation programs, offering basic navigation features such as real-time map display, address searches, and route planning.
Car navigation systems range from portable, handheld GPS receivers that are equally at home on the trail or the road to systems permanently installed in a vehicle. Some of the more sophisticated products use gyroscopes, connections to the Vehicle Speed Sensor (car-speak for a speedometer), and three-axis accelerometers to provide speed and distance information when a GPS signal is temporarily lost; such as in tunnels or urban areas with tall buildings. I have to admit I’m not a true road warrior and don’t spend lots of time in my car. However, I did have a chance to try out a Magellan RoadMate GPS navigation system (www.magellangps.com) for a while and was pretty impressed.
RoadMate mounts on your dashboard (as shown here) and is portable so you can easily transfer it from one car to another. The version I tested had an internal hard drive that was preloaded with street maps of the entire U.S., so you can just plug it into your cigarette lighter and go. This is perfect for a business traveler who just flew into a city he’s never been to before and has to spend the next couple of days in a rental car trying to find his way around. Routes are calculated in a matter of seconds, and a large, high-resolution map screen keeps your progress updated. And with a touch screen, voice prompts, and a simple user interface, even my nontechnical friends and family members were able to figure out how to use it in no time.
Granted, the RoadMate is a single purpose device, costs about as much as a low-end laptop, and doesn’t have all the features of a street navigation software package. However, if I were regularly spending a lot of time on the road or visiting cities I didn’t know very well, I’d give some serious consideration to it or a similar GPS navigation system. My crystal ball tells me it won’t be too many years into the future when in-car navigation systems start to become standard in most new cars and trucks.

Moving Maps with Earthmate

In addition to its mapping software, DeLorme also offers the small Earthmate GPS receiver that’s designed to work with Street Atlas USA and other map programs that use GPS data. (You can use other types of GPS receivers with Street Atlas USA, too, but the Earthmate is designed to work with the program with a minimal amount of setup.)
You can connect the Earthmate to a laptop via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable, serial cable, or a PowerPack that supports Bluetooth wireless communications. After you have the GPS receiver hooked up and Street Atlas is running, the two general modes of operation are

• General navigation: Street Atlas USA processes the received GPS data and displays your current position on the map with a series of dots that shows where you’ve traveled. As you move, the map automatically moves to show your position. In addition, your speed, direction of travel, and GPS satellite information is shown in the program’s GPS tab8.
• Route: After you create a route in addition to the general navigation features, Street Atlas USA displays turn-by-turn directions onscreen, informing you how far your destination is and the travel time to your destination. If you have the voice feature enabled, Street Atlas USA announces the directions; you can choose from several different types of voices. If you’re driving by yourself, be careful when using the GPS features of Street Atlas USA with your laptop sitting next to you on the passenger seat. Fight the tendency to get distracted from your driving while you look at the screen and use the mouse and keyboard to enter commands. I recommend someone riding shotgun — that is, a navigator who’s in charge of running Street Atlas USA. If you drive solo a lot, get a laptop-mounting bracket that places your computer in a more visible and easy-to-use location.