EssentialContent.com

Navteq ignores user assistance

noreply@blogger.com (EssentialContent.com) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Today, October 24 2008, is the one year anniversary of the last batch of 36 updates to the Navteq Points Of Interest and map errors that have been submitted through Navteq�s website. Out of the 36 updates, 5 were actually closed, the rest of them are still open.

Navteq, a main supplier of maps and points of interest to GPS navigators, has a section on their website called Navteq Map Reporter. Apparently you can report errors or missing addresses or Points Of Interest, POI's, through this section. But experience shows that Navteq doesn't really care about keeping their map and POI data up to date, and generally ignores data entered through the website.

On October 11, EssentialContent made the first 16 entries about wrong or missing POI's, mainly of changes to what could be found in the latest version of Mapsource City Navigator, the highest quality maps that can be bought for Garmin GPS navigators. Another 10 were added on October 19 and a final 10 on October 24 - a year ago today. Out of all these corrections or missing things, only 5 were actually dealt with by Navteq, the rest were ignored, and the wrong data is still wrong in the latest version of Mapsource City Navigator.

You would think that a company whose core business is delivering accurate GIS information to GPS terminals would be interested in receiving and updating the errors in their data from locals in these areas that really know what is what and where. The fact that there is a section on the Navteq website called Map Reporter could fool you into believing that Navteq cares about the quality of the GIS data. Unfortunately reality seems quite different.

With this kind of experience with Navteq, it would be wise for everybody who used GPS terminals with Navteq maps in them to be very cautious - you cannot expect the information given to be accurate.

Trying out new picture sizes

noreply@blogger.com (H.T. Ohlsen) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:04:00 +0000

I'm currently trying out new picture sizes for the picture threads on websites. As I can see on the visitor statistics that users have increasingly larger screen resolutions available, the EssentialContent.com websites should make use of this increased screen area to bring larger and more detailed pictures. So far I've used the 600x400 pixel size for landscape pictures and 333x500 pixel for portrait pictures. The webpage about
The Berlin TV Tower I made today features new picture dimensions - 800x533 pixel for landscape pictures and 467x700 pixel for portrait pictures. I've looked at it and it looks fine on a 1280x1024 screen, but it's a bit much on a 1280x800 laptop screen, I will probably still have to keep at least the portrait size somewhat smaller. As I renew the pictures on the different websites that are up to 10 years old by now, I will be using larger picture sizes as well, but the final choice in sizes are still not made.

Research trip to Prague, Austerlitz, Bratislava and Vienna

noreply@blogger.com (H.T. Ohlsen) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:12:00 +0000

The latest research trip went to Prague, Austerlitz, Bratislava and Vienna.

EssentialContent.com is preparing the website www.visitingprague.info to be included in the travel destination website portfolio and needed pictures of this beautiful town. A 3 night stay resulted in some excellent photos of which some of the best will find their way to the website.

After Prague the trip went on to Austerlitz, or today a few kilometers Southeast of Brno in the Czech Republic. This is the location where Napoleon on December 2. 1805 beat the vastly superior sized Russian and Austrian army and established Napoleon and France as the strongest power in Europe. The pictures of the battleground and the Mohyla Miru or Mound of Peace on Prace Hill will be added to the website www.picturingeurope.com - a future trip that passes Waterloo in Belgium will add pictures of the Waterloo battlefield to the Napoleon theme.

On the way to Vienna, the trip passed Bratislava in Slovakia, where a quick stop was made to get pictures of the Bratislava Castle and close surroundings for the www.visitingbratislava.info website.

The next few days were spent in Vienna getting pictures for several different websites, including www.europeanvacationitineraries.com and the Eastern Europe itinerary.

All in all the trip was very productive and increased the EssentialContent.com picture library considerably. Expect the find the pictures on our websites in the near future.