I use my iPhone as a pager (via SMS alerts) and need a ringtone that can ALWAYS wake me up in the middle of the night. The default ringtones from Apple just don’t cut it (especially the ones used for text alerts). So, like any geek, I created my own.
Here are a few different tones you can use for alarm sounds or very annoying ringtones.
Figured I would create a quick how-to on converting the MRDS mines data to POI. This covers how to manually create a file from MRDS format to Garmin POI format. To do this in an automated fashion (no real clue why you wouldn’t), see a future post on how to use MRDS-2-POI an application I created to automate the re-formatting.
First, go to the MRDS download page. Select you area of interest by clicking on the area you want to download:
Then select CSV from the download dropdown next to “Choose Format”, and select “Get Data”:
Then either download the zipped file, or the clear text file by right clicking and saying “save target as”
Once you have the file downloaded (as either text or csv), then you can massage the data manually:
as you can see there is a header line with a leading comma, and then the rows start with no leading comma. To import via POI Loader, you are going to need to delete the header line, and re-arrange the fields from the format:
POI Loader accepts .csv files that contain longitude, latitude, speed alert information, and optional comments. You can create .csv files using a text editor, MS Excel, or a similar program.
POI Loader assumes a .csv file utilizes the following format for each POI (brackets [ ] denote optional text):
I just did a quick test on a virtual machine of the time it takes to process the entire MRDS database of 305476 rows, and it took an entire 00:00:10.414 seconds. Needless to say, I am very happy with this performance.
I processed a row of data like this:
10000002,A010001,,"Lucky Find Prospect",55.52751,-132.68514,NA,"United States",Alaska,,M,Copper,Gold,,Unknown,,N,Occurrence,"Chalcopyrite, Pyrite","Calcite, Quartz, Siderite",,,Underground,,,,,"Vein Follows Contact","""Mosier, Dan"", ""Hirschmann, M. M. (Elliott, R. L.)""",,Diabase,,,,,"{Deposit:: USGS BULL 347, P. 165.}{Deposit:: USGS MF 433}{Deposit:: USGS OF 78-869, P. 120.}",,,,,,,,
MRDS-2-POI / MRDS_Parser v1.00 Copyright (c) 2011 – 2015 Frederick Barton Web Site: http://www.HeroFish.com/
Description ===========
MRDS-2-POI is a small application to convert source files in a Comma Separated Value (csv) format from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to the Garmin POI csv format.
It has been designed to be fairly agnostic in regards to the primary source files, so it is likely to work for other csv file types.
MRDS-2-POI Features =======================================
* MRDS-2-POI takes a csv file which can have the following: — first character of the file can be a comma — commas can be embedded in the fields like ,Field,"Field, 2",Field3 — a row of header data as the first row — This is used to provide the selection boxes and checkboxes
* The output format is based on the GARMIN POI csv format: LONGITUDE,LATITUDE,NAME,COMMENT
* Approximately 70-80 characters can be used in the comment field
For a while I ran VirtualBox, but after an upgrade at some point, it had a strange memory leak that I couldn’t bother to track down. Eventually, I got tired of having to reboot my Server every 2 days, and uninstalled virtualbox and went back to vmware server (free edition). I have been very happy with the performance using the server as both a desktop and a VM host. I run 2 –3 Guest VM’s continually and the host and VM’s all seem very reasonable.
My Server stats:
OS Name: Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise OS Version: 6.0.6002 Service Pack 2 Build 6002 OS Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. System Model: EX58-UD4P System Type: x64-based PC Processor(s): 1 Processor(s) Installed. [01]: Intel64 Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~2261 Mhz Total Physical Memory: 12,285 MB
——— /UPDATE ———
Well, quite a flame inducing title I am sure.
I was running Hyper-V as a feature on Server 2008 (GUIfied), switched to VMWare Server, and finally am now using VirtualBox. These are some of my thoughts on the process that brought me here.
Hyper-V:
Out of the box support for my hardware, even though the hardware was assembled by me. This is what won me over vs. VMWare ESX. ESX didn’t support the i7 CPU + my Mobo, consequently if I wanted to do lower level virtualization, Hyper-V was my only choice (at the time). I ran Hyper-V for a number of years, and while the VM’s ran fine, the OS as a desktop was dog slow. Trying to play Ghost Recon on this setup was masochistic. The other annoyance was lack of support for access to devices attached to the host OS (like printers and USB devices). Finally, I didn’t have the ability to copy textual data from one VM into another (a very important part of my work). I could remotely access the VM’s via RDP, but because I have to run VPN’s within the VM’s RDP wouldn’t work.
Finally, while I started installing Hyper-V based VM’s at work, and running Virtual Server for those on non-64 bit hardware, my company decided to run in the other direction choosing VMWare Server, after trying it out at work, I switched.
VMWare Server:
I converted some of my VM HD’s from Hyper-V (.vhd) to VMWare HD’s (.vmdk), uninstalled the Hyper-V feature and installed the free to use product VMWare Server. Suddenly, my Host machine was blazingly FAST. Did I say FAST? Man, what a night and day difference. I installed Splinter Cell, Medal of Honor, Fallout and Crysis, and realized why I choose that i7 in the first place!
My VM’s were just as fast – at least without doing any fancy measurements, just by the good old eyeball. I now had back my desktop performance, but features of the management utility to manage the VM’s was still fairly minimal. Also, the USB support was lacking still. I visited a coworker in California, and he was running VirtualBox. Once I saw him copying between the two VM’s, I decided to dig a bit deeper.
VirtualBox:
I started reading up on VirtualBox, and most of the reviews were good. Also, I didn’t have to convert my VM’s to test it out, VirtualBox reads .vmdk and .vhd files natively, and is supported on many platforms (including OpenBSD). I installed the app, created a new VM, pointed it to my stopped virtual HD’s from the other MV’s, and BAM, it was working.
So far I am pleased with VirtualBox, I ran into a bit of a snag recently with the update to VirtualBox (vs. the additions software + extension pack versions). And for some reason, after the upgrade the virtual Audio hardware was doing a RAPID click sound (resolved by changing to a different virtual Audio hardware). The other item I notice is that if I try to run multiple CPU’s in these VM’s, I get a hang about every 5 min or so for about 3 sec. When I reduce to 1 CPU, and remove any integration with the virtualization components of the Host, it actually runs smoother (but a bit less speedy).
The management app (VirtualBox Manger) is pretty minimal, and not extremely intuitive. Here are some notes on the cmd line interface which is much more robust:
WINDOWS:
While the online manual is pretty good, it actually leaves out the usage of vboxheadless, while pointing out that vboxheadless is the “preferred” method of starting a headless vm. Since the options are a bit different than “vboxmanage modifyvm –vrdeport ”, which is the described method of defining alternate ports on which to run the headless server (not the preferred method).
C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>vboxheadless Oracle VM VirtualBox Headless Interface 4.0.4 (C) 2008-2011 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved.
Usage: -s, -startvm, –startvm <name|uuid> Start given VM (required argument) -v, -vrde, –vrde on|off|config Enable (default) or disable the VRDE server or don’t change the setting -e, -vrdeproperty, –vrdeproperty <name=[value]> Set a VRDE property: "TCP/Ports" – comma-separated list of ports the VRDE server can bind to. Use a dash between two port numbers to specify a range "TCP/Address" – interface IP the VRDE server will bind to -c, -capture, –capture Record the VM screen output to a file -w, –width Frame width when recording -h, –height Frame height when recording -r, –bitrate Recording bit rate when recording -f, –filename File name when recording. The codec used will be chosen based on the file extension
To create a “headless” vm running without a GUI (so you can RDP into it):
Also, while I was able to get vboxmanage metrics collect to work, vboxmanage metrics setup wouldn’t work for me at all. Maybe I will give it a try again at some point…
Reports TwinCities.com: The Ron Paul revolution has completed its sweep over the Minnesota Republican Party convention here. Paul backers won 12 of 13 Republican National Convention delegate slots filled in balloting Saturday, May 19, at Rivers Edge Civic Center. They might have taken all 13 seats if a Paul state delegate had not graciously conceded […]
As I’ve noted many times, most reporters are stupid, lazy or both. They don’t get Ron Paul and his movement because they are incapable of getting Paul and his movement. They can understand the horserace aspect of this election but are unable to fathom the complexities of a movement that will last far beyond it. […]
Ron Paul endorsed candidate Kurt Bills has won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota! Victory for our movement comes in many forms. This is unquestionably one of them. Enjoy it and let’s work to put Bills in the U.S. Senate come November! […]
