New to the Forum

Welcome to the site russharris .Check out the FAQ.
Here are a few for doing your own pois.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25752

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25743

(link no longer available)

For setting them up see http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25721

There is plenty to read and learn here. Also there are many that are willing to helo when asked. Welcome aboard and enjoy. Look at the FAQ section and you will find the answer to alot of questions.

Thanks, Charlie, for the welcome and the links. I'll check them out. Since the poi files are man readable, at least before they are created, it seems pretty straight forward.

For sure, I'll poke around for a few days and have already read some of the FAQs. The possibilities are endless of POIs to create....hmmm, all the Italian Beef sites? I've eaten a few thousand in my lifetime, although anyone outside of the Chicago area might not know what the heck I'm talking about as for what an IB is.

--Welcome, and glad to have you aboard the best forum-site in the world! There is no end to what one may learn here from many a good folk, here.

-Enjoy-

Welcome to the site. Hope you enjoy what you find here.

Welcome. If you are thinking about creating POIs, you are not a novice, but still - there are several tutorials that you should go through to make sure the settings on your computer are most agreeable to the POI process and to make a backup.

Look at

Get a Manual and Verify Settings on your PC (Garmin)
and
Backing Up Your GPS (Garmin)

Many of us feel strongly about the need to backup, so please do that.

Sounds like you will soon be a contributor.

Again, welcome

Much appreciated!

Well Aboard.. looking forward to your contributions.

Thanks, jgermann, for the advice. Luckily I'm computer literate dating back to the days of writing basic programs, learning DOS, etc.
I've had my folder settings to show hidden files and have already made a backup of my GPS. I've got an 8 gig HD micro card coming Tuesday and understand the core principles behind the 3 files(same file name--dif extensions) that make up a POI.

I've got some loaded on my 2595 already and they work, but I have to figure out things like if I reload more, does it still wipe out the existing ones, etc. I just have to experiment a little. I've never worried too much about map co-ordinates in the past so will need to pick up something that turns addresses into co-ordinates, etc.
Thanks,
Russ

Once you run Poi loader it overwrites the existing files. A work around is the re-naming method. See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/8779

This program works well for coordinates http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoding.html. .Many others available.

When I become an active member, will I have access over the POI file for good or only for 1 month?

You will have your windmill (be an active member) as long as you've posted in three of the previous five weeks:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/262

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6668

You also will continue to have access to the redlight and speed camera files as a general maintainer, posting in 9 of the last 26 weeks:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/16197

The general maintainer status is a handy way for members to continue to access the camera files even if they lose their windmill due to a vacation, computer outage, illness or whatever.

Welcome to the site, you will find many knowledgeable people here.

Welcome & enjoy the vast information, knowledge & assistance you will find here.

Enjoy.

Fred

Welcome to the forum russharris.
Based on your background you should have no problems following instructions with any questions you may have. There are many knowledgeable people on this forum that are eager to help, and do so in a respectful manner. Good move, by already having backed up your GPS may spare you avoiding aggravation in the future.

Box Car has written some instructions on using Extra_POI_Editor or EPE for short. While EPE no longer will Geocode, it will allow you to manipulate data and see how it would be displayed on a typical Nuvi. In addition EPE will do conversions between different file types allowing an easy method to create full featured GPX files and even create GPI files.

Sadly, the author of EPE is no longer active so we can't expect any updates that will address the Geocode API call but you will find EPE very useful for a great many other purposes. Oh, welcome to the site.

This is a great sight and you will learn a lot by just reading the comments. The people who provide the answers to our questions have a wealth of knowledge and are willing to help those of us who are not so proficient at this stuff.

Welcome. Enjoy the wealth of information that is POI Factory.

This is a fabulous website with a lot of practical information. Be sure to fully explore all of its components.

Been working with POILoader last few days..my version dates to Jan 13..
I am finding adding new data is not overriding or cleaning the old data..I need to clean first and then write the new data.. not what the instructions say in POILoader.. I did read the ...8779 which dates to 2008..

What am I missing or mis understanding about his application..

Sorry back to welcoming Russ

You will find a vast amount of information from the folks on this site. Anything and everything to do with GPS's, someone will know something about it. Enjoy the site.

Enjoy the forum....its one of the best sites to be apart of.

At one time POILoader (no space) always outputed a file to your device whose name was poi.gpi - regardless of what the input folder was. The next time you ran POILoader, it would create a new poi.gpi file - overwriting any poi.gpi file that happened to be on the device - EVEN THOUGH you had pointed POILoader to a new folder on your computer containing different points of interest.

As Charlie noted, the workaround was go into the device and rename poi.gpi to , say, Restaurants.gpi. Then you could run POILoader again and point it to a folder called, say, Starbucks and it would create a new poi.gpi file whose contents was Starbucks points of interest. If you then renamed poi.gpi to Starbucks.gpi, your device POI folder would contain Restaurants.gpi and Starbucks.gpi.

The newer versions of POI Loader (note the space)
[see http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-99... for the latest version]
gave the user the option of determining the name of the output .gpi file. Using the examples above, when you loaded your collection of restaurants, you could have told POI Loader to call the output file Restaurants and it would have created on the device a file called Restaurants.gpi. Likewise for Starbucks.

Bear in mind that you can choose to overwrite - using POI Loader - existing .gpi files. That is exactly what you should do if you have just updated various .csv files in your Restaurants folder or if you have just downloaded an updated version of the Starbucks.csv file.

But - if you now only want to add the Walmart points of interests to your device, all you have to do is point POI Loader to the folder containing Walmart.csv, Walmart.wav and Walmart.bmp (assuming you wanted to have voice alerts and Walmart icons for this new run. You can call it any name you want, but if these three files are in a folder called Walmarts, that will be the name of the output file.

Now you will have
Restaurants.gpi
Starbucks.gpi, and
Walmarts.gpi

Each person has to decide the way they would like to manage the Custom points of interest on their device.

Some people like the use one level of sub-folders to create "Categories".
see Charlie's
How do you set up and load custom POIs with or without categories.

You should try to avoid having loaded the same POI file multiple times (as one is likely out-of-date).

Sorry to be so detailed, but there still seems to be misunderstanding about what the newest version of POI Loader does and does not do.

Everyone is willing to help with any problems or questions you may have. Again, Welcome and enjoy.

Good explanations..my thanks..hope Russ and other benefit...didn't mean to highjack thread...great information..

Russ..great folks here..good information..

Dears

I was going to be an active member in 3 weeks and that was last week. this week it is 3 weeks also although I contribute daily. Is there any other measures else than the contribution?. Thanks

Thanks so much for the warm welcome. There has been a lot of good ideas thrown my way about techniques and programs that will help me out. This thread might get too long if I thank you all individually, but know that I appreciate EACH of your contributions to bringing me up to speed.

Now excuse me while I have some reading to do...

Now I have a better idea of how to add one category without overwriting all the rest.

And thanks Charlie for your write up.

Your account info states that you've been a user at The Factory for 2 weeks and 1 day as I type this. You're getting there!

You will find this site an invaluable wealth of information. The community members are knowledgeable, friendly, and willing to provide assistance and information for the members. Have a good day!!!

Hi All,

I just can't find words to thank you so much for the greetings. Your help and support. I feel that I joined a new family. Its really wonderful to have all that kind support and help. Really thank you so much for all your sweet words and have an amazing week

Hossam

Welcome aboard!

This site covers such a range information. For me, it gave me just enough smarts to turn a strictly utilitarian device into a utilitarian device that is FUN. The customizations I made with POIs, proximity alerts, tourguide implementations, even voice alterations has been such fun both to implement as well as to watch others' expressions when surprised by this customizations. I look forward to your contributions to add to that fun.

I am really enjoying this site, THANKS to all the contributors

Welcome to the site!