Last month we sailed from Flushing in Holland to Poland and back. Good and reliable weatherforecasts were very much needed. Ugrib did that perfectly, but......tot my great regret NOT on my pda.

So I had to take along my laptop and I was dependend on local Wifi, wich was mostly NOT available.

Can you install Ugrib on a pda and get it working? I did not succeed, anyhow. If possible, please help me.

From a sailors point of view I have a few suggestions:

a) make waveheight visible (the Germans do too)

b) make temperature visible in the form of colours

c) make weatherfronts visible with standard symbols

sailing yacht JOY, Holland

administrator,

I suppose you are not familiar with long trip sailing.

>> using your PC or a PDA still requires you to get a connection to the Internet so we don't see why it's easier for you to connect with your PDA then with your PC? You could use your PDA as a modem or get one of these USB modems and use the SIM card from your PDA? Be carefull for roaming cost though!
A pc or laptop is not designed for maritime use (vibrations, salt, waterdamp etc) You also know the weight and space of a laptop with accessoires. You also know the batterie-use by laptop. That's why we highly prefer a pda .!!!!!

If the Germans on www.dwd.de can provide charts for use on pda, (with fronts and waveheight) I suppose you could at least equal them.

The pda has an internal modem, which connects tot the internet Hsdpa, even by phone GPRS if necessary. The pda is not dependend on wifi, it only needs a phone-mast nearby. I can connect the pda tot the existing plotterscreen for better view.

So, very sorry your arguments don't hold.

But, I will continue using your fabulous program and hope to have provided suggestions, as you invite us to do.

Kind regards, yacht JOY

 

Hello,

Not that it's particularly relevant but in response to your comments that we are not familiar with long sailing trips it might be worth knowing that the two founders of Grib.US have ten circumnavigations between them!

We understand that different individuals will have different preferred ways of working and we would like to provide solutions to as many people as possible.  We don't intend to get into arguments about what is the best way to work at sea but would say that a great number of yachts manage to have a computer onboard and easily overcome the issues you mention (weight and vibration we might not agree with though!)

The biggest single issue facing any developer as soon as you move to a handheld or mobile device is exactly what platforms you choose to develop for.  There are so many operating systems, and devices with different capabilities that it is very hard to cater for all needs.

We could easily respond to your requests for a PDA version - but exactly what does that mean and what devices should it target ? You mention that your PDA has an internal modem

Grib.US is a private company and much of our own hard work goes into providing completely free solutions for the benefit of the sailing community.  What we don't have is the luxury of very large development teams that we can utilise to meet the numerous different requests we receive.

We do have more products in the pipeline and some of them will be in the 'mobile realm' but whatever devices we target there will be numerous requests from those who own something different.

Thanks for your comments, they are always welcome.

Grib.US support