8310 maps

  • On your Bold

1) Go to – Options – Advanced Options – Location Aiding – Turn this to DISABLED
2) Put in your Micro SD card
3) Connect your BOLD to your computer via USB cable
4) When the window comes up asking you whether to enable Mass Storage, say YES

On your computer

1) Make sure you can see your SD card (it will be listed as a removable disk drive)
2) Go over to mapcacher Map Creation Tool for MGMaps [/url] and follow the instructions to outline your custom map, I would recommend going from 0-16 (zoom levels), and SLOW and DETAILED level of detail
3) Save your custom map on a dekstop or somewhere where you can see it, but becareful to save it as “mymap.map” with the quotation marks, and select All Files from the Save File As drop-box.

etc …..

  • Last week I upgraded my 2 year old Blackberry to the latest BlackBerry Curve 8310. So far I am pretty happy with it. I spend about an hour to customize it to my needs. The Voice Dialing is a great feature. Unlike older phones it does not require you to record all names, but it uses speech recognition on your existing address book.

The key new feature of the 8310 however is the integrated GPS. I noticed on Internet forums that a number of people have challenges using the GPS with Google Maps. I guess that’s not surprising since RIM does not advertise this feature, pushing instead the paid for maps and direction service from TeleNav. After some tinkering I have good news. Free Google Maps works great with the integrated GPS and here is how I got it to work:

1) Make sure that the GPS is working and has connection to satellites. Go to Options -> Advanced Options -> GPS -> select the menu and choose “Refresh GPS”. The display will tell you the number of satellites it can reach and your location. I noticed it does not work in my office in San Jose or in close range to high rise buildings.
2) Download Google Maps from google.com/gmm (using the Blackberry browser) and follow the instructions to install it on your Blackberry (I have Google Maps version 2.0.1). Do not use the Google Suite installer for Blackberry (which includes additional Google apps), since according to some reports has a different Google Maps version which does not work with the internal GPS.
3) Go to Options -> Applications -> Google Maps -> select the menu and choose “Edit Permissions”; Select connections and select the menu to expand it. Make sure you allow “Location (GPS)” and “Carrier Internet” connections for the app.
4) Save the changes. Go back the applications menu and start Google Maps. Hit “0? and it should now show a blinking point which indicates your current location.

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