newbie here - so now that I downloaded poi what happens?

Alerts will sound only if you told POILoader to set an alert. There are exceptions, but generally the only time it will sound an alert is when POILoader was instructed to set an alert for the file.

If you want alerts and icons, they have to be loaded at the same time as the POI file. Icons and sounds must have the exact same name, the only difference being the extension. There must be only 1 period in the file name, and that is between the name and the extension. Any more periods and more than likely something will not work correctly.

POILoader must be run in the Manual Mode. When in the manual mode it will ask you for each file if you want an alert and then give you the chance to set either a speed or distance trigger.

I strongly recommend you be very careful about what files you set alerts for. Too many alerts and you'll feel like chucking the unit out the window. Out of the many I load, only a few have alerts. I don't mind an alert pop-up on the screen, but to have the unit tell me about a Starbucks on 40 corners as I drive through a town is just too much.

Thank you, I am beginning to understand and will try again to load some poi, I did it once but there are no extras on my Garmin

When you touch Where to it pops up the first of about 3 screens. Extras is on the second page so you need to touch the down arrow at the bottom of the screen to find them.