109/365 (April 19, 2010) – I’m frustrated right now. I bought a new GPS specifically to use with my Mac…and guess what, despite all assurances that it would, on arrival…it did not. It happily connects to my old PC via Bluetooth, and my other Bluetooth GPS happily connects to my Mac, but each will not pair with the other. I’ve been fighting with it and the company I bought it from all day.
The GPS doesn’t come with software on a CD, not that it would be useful to me anyway since the software is Windows based, but it is located on the unit itself, which is supposed to be plug and play. However, when I plugged it into the PC running Vista, it said I needed a USB driver…that was located on the GPS. So somehow, I was supposed to install software located on the GPS, but had to install that software before I could mount the GPS? I managed to get around that issue by mounting the GPS as a mass storage Device and dragging the files off. Got the drivers installed, but then when I tried to run the software, the program crashed. I followed the instructions…
- Turn on the WBT-202
- Connect the unit to any USB port of computer via USB cable
- Press the power button longer until the GPS LED and Bluetooth LED go out. It switched to MSD mode now. At this moment, the orange Micro-SD LED will light on
- The inbuilt access tool (WBT_Tool) will be executed automatically and pop up the following dialogue, please choose WBT_Tool and press “OK”
….and when I attempted this, I was given a fancy”Engrish” communications error telling me: “Communication with Host fail! Please Plug out the device and then try again”
On the flip side, the GPS that I thought did not work with the Mac, suddenly does when I made a few system changes. Go figure. But at the end of the day, the Bluetooth system on the Mac does work, but something in that particular GPS unit doesn’t speak to it.
And the retailer was completely useless, sending me tidbits such as telling me to install the drivers on the CD. Um, no CD! And even if there were, it doesn’t address the real issue since it was supposed to work with the Mac and the software is Windows based.
Feeling very cranky at the moment.
Tags: 365, mac, photo a day, Photography, Technology