How Do You Keep Your POI Files Up To Date and Organized?

See Scrugneysgundogs' method at: http://www.poi-factory.com/node/17095 . It has the advantages of renaming without the necessity to rename.

I just keep the POI files & icons in the same directory & copy them all (selectively, of course) in big shot into my GPS map directory to refresh them. I keep all my US+Canada POI files in a sub-directory, and then filter them down to West Coast only POI files in the main directory to cut down on the actual file size that will get sent to the GPS. Anytime I update a POI file, then once a month I copy them into a GPS to update it. Whatever works for you, doit, but this works for me. I don't need to know POI locations in KY or TN if most of my travels are just up and down the CA West coast, so that is why I filter out a lot of un-needed locations.

What about updates? Is there a way to get notification when specific POI files are updated? Something like how you can subscribe to a thread in some forums?

I was wondering about that as well...is that feature available here, and I have somehow overlooked it?

I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to organize them... with little positive results. Thanks for asking it. It was one of those things I guess I just assumed I was supposed to know.

Tim (Y_I_Work)

The site admins evidently want a site where people interact and participate -- not just stop by when a file is available. They have chosen not to send out a notices. There are previous threads on the subject.

Unfortunately, that doesn't really help the user. I have a couple dozen or more POI files from this site on my GPS. I have been active each week since I got my latest GPS and found this site. But I do expect that some of my POI files are out of date, and it will be quite cumbersome to determine which I should update.

I do scan the red lights file information regularly to see if any updates are for my sate or a location that I expect to visit in the near future, download it if the updates affect me and pass on the update if not (the updates don't usually affect me). I also keep an eye on the latest POI page, but not religiously and this is where I expect that I have missed some updates.

Unless people post a message in the forums each time there is an update, and I have never seen advice for contributors to do that, then I'm likely to continue to miss updates.

Even if this site doesn't want to mail out automatic notices when there are updates, it would be nice if they let you build a list of the files that you have with version numbers or release dates, and automatically compare it for you to the current data, pointing out which ones that you need. No email would be needed, people would still have to come here to check to see if there were updates, but at least once you came the check could be done by computer rather than by a tedious manual check of numerous files.

We are actually waiting for the other sites out there to report that this module works well. We let others be the testers for the new stuff.

Miss POI

There was a poi site that I used to visit in the past that had a really nice feature.When you signed on the first thing you viewed was a list of your custom pois and any others that you had downloaded from the site.They also had a time stamp by each one on the last time updated.It made it easy to keep up with what files you had plus viewing the time stamp for the latest update.Not sure if this something be tested now but would be great tool for the members.

I have set up a spreadsheet to just track my updates - it's all done manually. Title headings are source of poi file, filename, latest update, no. of entries, prior update and no. of entries, and comments/notes.

It's tedious, but it helps me keep track of the latest updates and how the entries have changed since the last version. For some files, these change rarely (i.e. National Parks or zoos), for others (i.e. diners, drive-ins and dives) they change more frequently.

I check them over on average every few months.

I'm sure there is a better way, but maybe this description will help someone else...