Program Technical Information Web Page

This web page gives the user a visualization of a typical computer screen when Thumb Drive is inserted into a USB slot for  1st time.

(  THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE "GEEKS" AMONG US  )

Remember: Our Thumb Drive is partitioned into two( 2 ) drives; An 805 MB CD partition ( contains our software ) & a 1.76 MB Read/write memory drive "Removable Disk " to store your data!

TYPICAL DRIVE STRUCTURE ON A PC BEFORE & AFTER INSERTING THE THUMB DRIVE IN A USB SLOT

1.) Before one inserts the Thumb Drive, the computer structure might look like that shown below on my development computer.

Drives ( G: ) & (H:) are my only two( 2 ) external drives

The drive letters are ( were )  A:, C:, D:, E:, blank , G: & H: l

2.) After one inserts the Thumb Drive, the computer structure on the same computer would look like that shown below. 

Note that our Thumb Drive has inserted itself as "CD Drive ( F: ) Tri-County"

The drives are now A:, C:, D:, E: Thumb Drive F:, G:, H: & J: ( our Removable Disk )

TYPICAL COMPUTER SCREEN REACTION AS THUMB DRIVE IS INSERTED & SOFTWARE LOADS

The 1st item to appear is the image to the right. This display will not be seen on subsequent insertions of the Thumb Drive if one places a check mark in the box ahead of the text reading:

 "          Always do this for software and games " ( for this software anyways! )

It is important for us to note the alphabetical letter appearing in the "CD Drive ( # ) Tri-County" bracket. In this example it is the Drive letter "F:". It signifies where one will find the Three (3) County Map folders when running the GPSu+FNS 5.09F_* Tracking Utility program.

In this example the folder is "F:\_Map_ County Name" . The County names being "Broward, Miami-Dade & Palm Beach". One will find this under the  File > Folders... option where a "File Locations" window opens and one may (in this example) specify:

F:\_Maps_Broward or

F:\_Maps_Miami-Dade or

F:\_Maps_Palm Beach

Suggestion: Use whichever folder you mostly dive as the default "Specify Folder Location"

The 2nd item to appear on the computer screen is similar to the one shown to the right ( but, of course, not as large as shown in this image ).  This action is the computer recognizing that an external drive ( in this case our Thumb Drive ) has been inserted into a USB slot.

NOTE: The 1st time this happens on a new installations takes a few seconds longer as the Thumb Drive "gets acquainted" with its new environment!

3.) After a few seconds the GPSu+FNS software loads. The initial time you perform this step, the screen shown below appears. Subsequent start-ups do not show this screen!

The purpose of this screen is to assure proper installation of the three( 3 ) auxiliary programs necessary for proper operation of our product.

Please pay close attention to this step!

PAGE NOTES FOLLOW

* The asterisks shown in the above example after "GPSu+FNS 5.09F_" is a number between 1 & 9. We have Nine( 9 ) "Departure Port" variables; ( Jupiter Inlet south to Cape Coral Channel ) as shown below. Buyers should specify their desired "Departure Port".  In this manner, their program opens with the chart associated with their departure port.

** There are three (3) map folders:

   _ Map_ Broward

   _ Map_ Miami-Dade

   _ Map_ Palm Beach

 

This is to keep the map list short ( by separating the Counties ). Also, there are two (2) types of files in each folder; *.fns = the map and, *.xgu = the associated map calibration file. Opening either type opens the same map! i.e. B01_Graphic.xgu = B01_Graphic.fns ( northern most map in Broward County )

Once running GPSu+FNS, when you go to open a file ( File > Open ) a window opens. Note the dialog at the bottom of the window where it asks "Files of type:". Open the dropdown box to the right & specify the 12th item in the list "Encoded GPSU". This will, for your convenience, keep the list as short as humanly possible by only displaying files with the ".xgu" extension.