Was in "Curry's Digital" today and they had an Inforad at £30 (last one) Bought it home, tried to download management software from their home page and received "Forbidden
You don't have permission to
access /tools/Inforad_Manager_Setup.exe on this server.
Apache/1.3.34 Server at www.gpsinforad.com Port 80" Message. Anyone purchased one recently and been able to set up successfully? I've emailed them, but guess there'll be noone in the office until Tuesday, and there's nothing worse than having a new toy and not being able to play with it. Might be worth others looking out for the same deal. It was said to be cheap at £80, and at £30....!
Tim{P}
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Sorry tim, the website is down. Nothing you can do till someone comes into the office on tuesday to fix it........
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thanks, TVM ; just have to drive slowly ;-)
Tim{P}
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bought one a year ago and it's OK. Can download updates and it does the job but...
Sometimes for no reason (like M1 junction 39) goes off for about a mile with clearly no camera in sight. Similarly on M621 coming out of Leeds.
However having one does moderate your driving style even if you don't switch it on everyday. Before inforad many points. Since - zero points.
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Used it yesterday Brad on the way to Lincoln (A15) was effective with the exception of one camera, northbound, which I presume was a recent move. I'll see whether it's noticed when I've downloaded the updates.
If anyone's looking for one cheap, call your local "Curry's Digital" (was Dixons) at £30 it's a bargain!
Tim{P}
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It can be bought online for the same price (delivery charges extra at £4.99)
tinyurl.com/ob6ev
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Dixons are sold out, but Woolworths have them for £39.
Lee -- There\'s no place like 127.0.0.1
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Before you all go rushing out to buy these things, do some research first.
Ask why they are less than 40 quid, how the company can survive and keep the database up to date at that price, and why the web site is down.
I dont know the answers BTW, but I would be asking.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Its just a GPS engine with a database that says go beep at certain points.
The way technology moves I would surprised if the cost is more than £10 and would bet my life they are made in China and shipped over.
The camera locations are published on the net you just need to load then in to your online database and update it. Cheap and easy. Customers pay for updating after 1st year.
Good business. The question for me would be why are the others so expensive.
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Good business. The question for me would be why are the others so expensive.
Exactly, when every else is charging 100 quid minimum why do you have to charge 2/3rds less.
Bad BAD business...
(btw the GPS chipsets are $8 each in bulk)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Apologetic email first thing this a.m., "Changes were made to our website over the weekend that inadvertently broke the UK link. The linked is now fixed and ready for use."
logged on tonight successfully. Driving down to Plymouth at the weekend... we'll see how it does!
Tim{P}
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Let us know how you get on, Tim. I'm tempted to get one of these things but
(a) you don't get owt for nowt
(b) TVM is an expert in most things IT and ignoring his advice could be expensive....
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Just got mine from Currys.Digital (Swindon branch) as well. Only had 2 left. Apparantly selling like hot cakes.
With regard for the "you don't get owt for nowt" comment, in some respects it's true. The 1st years subscription is free, then £24.99 a year thereafter, or £49.99 for a lifetime subscription.
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Lets say they capture a million users a year thats £25m annually to maintain a computer system and update a database.
They could actually give the things away free and the buyer would be squids in. Which is in effect what they are doing as £40 is the same amount as the annual update fee for a similar device on the market which I happen to own but where the updates come via a modem that connects via a premium rate phone rate rather than free over the internet.
Where can I buy shares?
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Thommo
I would hate to see your business plans. A million users a year? you are having a laugh are you not? Remind me not to invest in any shares you have an interest in.
And if you are paying 40 quid a year AND a premium rate number then you disregarded my repeated advice on here and bought the wrong one.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I WAS doing that on a system I bought some 5 years ago when it was the cheapest on offer. I have now switched over to Inforad.
Read the posts. Selling like hotcakes across the country. 1 million users would seem easily achievable. 1/2 million still good business. How much does it cost to maintain an online database these days?
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How much does it cost to maintain an online database these days?
Looking at the inforad website, that's not the only thing they do. They also go out and verify new camera locations that people nominate.
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I promised I'd report back after the trip Hull/Plymouth/Hull at the weekend.
Initial impressions, largely formed by a chunk of the A46 were good. It was sensitive at picking up "safety sites" and accurate. What was problematic was that the update from the server (updated prior to travelling) still had PREVIOUS sites logged. This was proved when travelling on the A46 round Lincoln. A while ago (six months?) there were road works on this stretch, with a 40mph limit, and cameras. This has not been there for a while, but the system still thinks it is, and tells you that you are going too fast, when the road has returned to National Speed Limit. There was at least one other instance of this.
Verdict then; not infallible, and I guess it's better if it over reacts than under reacts. I will keep using it when I'm doing long journeys on roads I don't know well, but will use the computer option to turn the audio alert off so that just the LED's display
Tim{P}
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So far with mine I've had a couple of false alarms where the camera is on the other side of the road, yet it still alarms - yes, the inforad is set up for directional cameras.
Also had a couple of false alarms on the A34 at Abingdon, heading towards Milton. I guess it's picking up a camera that runs parallel to the A34 at Abingdon on one of the local estates, and also is picking up the camera in Steventon village when approaching Milton. Looking at the interface, you can only adjust the timed warning before you get to the camera, and not the radius you are away from it.
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Small price to pay, TomTom+ struggles wth parallel roads - better safe than sorry.
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Does it give speed dependent warnings, meaning if you are travelling at or under the speed limit it won't give an audible warning?. I would only want the thing beeping at me if I needed to hear it.
I am trying to decide on one of the many systems available. I am willing to pay more to get the features I want, but of course want to pay the least amount possible.
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Trancer,
If you are travelling at or under the speed limit, it will give 3 audible bleeps and the red LED will flash for the whole duration you are in the camera range. If you are above the speed limit it will continue to alarm after the 3 bleeps. You can however mute the alarm by pressing down on the right hand button for a couple of seconds.
Operating instructions here:-
www.gpsinforad.com/files/INFORAD_manual.pdf (page 4 contains the visual and audible alert functions)
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Are any of these gps camera detectors with online updates able to be updated from a mac? Most of them seem to be windoze only.
Having someone to update a database shouldn't be too expensive. If they did online updates without verification then a dogsbody on minimum wage would suffice. One senior person with a bit of nouse to oversee them. Certainly no more than about £30k a year including equipment, salaries, on costs. Dogsbody would work from home so no office costs. You could probably get it down to about £20k if you kept your database on your webserver rather than having separate equipment. A dedicated linux server is about £100 pm to hire from somebody like rackforce with unlimited bandwidth. The verification process costs would depend on the mileage the person (people) did. I could see it could be a nice little earner as a second job on a per verification basis. This would keep the mileage down to a minimum and be a distributed way of doing it rather than relying on what one person could do and making them drive all over the country.
teabelly
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I love the mac crowd.
"get a mac it does everything windows does and better"
later
"why can I never buy anything to run on my mac"
ROFL ROFL
Anyway The Origin B2 is the BEST - BY A VERY LONG WAY - GPS Camera locator. Its databse accuracy is uncanny*, it can be set to only report cameras on your road, in your direction of travel.
*they have a team checking out the camera partnership locations on the road all day every day.
And to answer Teabag, you can get a modem with it to update so its PC independant.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I agree with TVM re Origin Blue but I have to say that mine went back 4 times for a repair that never worked for more than a couple of weeks BUT it was replaced under warranty without any hassle. Their customer service is fine and the database seem Very accurate - it is updated at least twice a week.
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People who use macs are just wierd.
'The whole world uses PC's, whats wrong with the whole world?'
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At least I don't have to spend most evenings removing virii and spyware like windoze users do ;-) A pc independent update system is always much better as you could find later if you update your pc OS or hardware it no longer talks to your gps camera locator either. A lot of them seem to rely on serial ports rather than usb which are becoming harder to find on modern pcs too, windoze or otherwise.
I only really want a gps camera detector to get a gps speed reading. I think I might get one of those driftbox thingies instead as you can do real time telemetry with them :-) They are about £465 so I shall be saving for a while.
teabelly
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I knew I'd get a response to that.
Mac users are like some weird cult where paying twice the price for the same computing power is seen as a good thing and any suggestion otherwise is heresy.
(runs away before the mods catch me for going off topic)
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I want an OS that is secure, reliable and works without fuss, hence no interest in running anything from M$ at home. Yes PCs are cheaper to buy but I have much more time to do other things by not having to fettle one constantly. I have to suffer the consequences of using XP in our teaching labs at work and the amount of extra time it takes to configure and look after compared to other solutions. I'll stick with my premium brand and you can make do with the no frills computing :-)
It is the same argument as to why people buy more expensive cars. Yes they all go to A & B in roughly the same amount of time in the real world but some you are less frazzled on arrival in some than others.
To keep this on topic I refer you to the 'If microsoft made cars' article from many moons ago :-) :
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Amiga would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.
14. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.
15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.
16. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!
17. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!
18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.
19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition for a few days before it worked.
20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other
teabelly
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And if Apple made cars, all cars would be made by Apple at Apples plant. There might be some minor variations but all would basically be the same car. Minor cosmetic changes would be announced with great fanfare as a new model.
Cars could only be bought from Apple car dealers at full retail price with a three month waiting list for popular models. The dealers would also intimate in a none too subtle fashion that unless you were buying a lot of cars and/or a substantial advice package to go with your car your 'three month wait' would likely be 'three months' for a very long time.
Apple would also state what was and was not included in any warranty and if the item concerned was fragile like a windscreen or a battery it would just exclude it from the warranty. Replacements for these items would of course only be made by Apple and you would be charged full retail price and if not in stock you would just have to wait. This policy would only change when threatened by a class action law suit.
In short if Apple made cars and had no competition we would all still be driving Morris Minors.
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If IBM made cars, they would never break down and would always get from A to B faster and more safely than anything else.
Oh and you couldnt afford one.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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