Hi Louis, What a great question.
Yes, as you pointed out, so few people seemed to have a laptop and be interested in moving around, that I switched the focus of this app to helping you explore your environment, and plan your trips. I'm going to continue to add features useful to those with laptops or tablets, but I've been focusing on use of Google+ to bring you a complete understanding of what's around everywhere, and how to get from here to there. The best feature of all which I've accidentally discovered, is the Google directions which cover use of the mass transit system. So, not only can you get directions from here to there which are quite detailed, but if you say you want to use mass transit, and you wish to start out at a given time, or arrive at a given time, Google will add to the directions exact instructions on which bus or train to catch, where to catch it from (and how to get there), how many stops later to get off (and how long this portion of the trip will take). And the best thing is that Google will do this for free for any city; they only have to supply their system's data to Google (and I've been asking my city to do so, and they are just about to release it). You can even see all the other buses or routes which stop at the same stops or stations which you are using. Also, you can use this app to search from a starting point to see everything around it, or just particular types of things around it (such as the nearest ATM or restaurant to a point). When you get your list, you can select a restaurant for instance and see either the Google+ web page with reviews, or go to the official web page for the restaurant. You can even make "is open now" one of the conditions of your search. You can also use it to solve problems such as when someone tells you "you know the home depot that's near the airport", "my business is two doors down". You can easily use this app to locate the airport, then search from their for places names which begin with "home" (and they are shown to you in distance order from the start point, so you'll know the nearest "home Depot" when you see it in the list), and then from the "home depot" you can list all the near-by places and see which ones address are very close to it. The app is designed so that you can do anything from any place which turns up on any of your searches. There's even a presentation mode Google calls a "radar" search, where I present up to 200 results in 8 groups, which are the cardinal compass directions from the starting point, and the results are listed in increasing distance order in that direction. This makes it easy for instance to see what's "north" of a given point, to help you get a better idea of how places relate to one another. This app is all about locations, and all the things you can do with them, but it's hard to summarize it in one sentence to show how useful it can be if you learn to use it. My next plans are to finish "internationalizing" it, and to allow you to save "routes" of directions, so those with laptops and GPS receivers can use the app to guide them along the route. If others have other suggestions though, I'm open to ideas. Thanks for asking, Chip From: gosselin_louis [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, July 14, 2014 8:47 AM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: new beta of Remind Me Where Chip, I haven't been following this app very closely, but it's obvious you've been devoting a tremendous amount of time, energy, and what must be love, too, to this app. I'm very impressed. I've always had the impression, though, that it is intended for use on say a very portable laptop, possibly even on a tablet, while in motion. I've only got a desktop PC now, and believe most of my real independent travel days are over. Could one do anything much with this app on a desktop? Can one, for example, set up a route and explore what's on it? Or have I entirely misunderstood what's offered here? No need for a long response. I'm just wondering if I should be interested. Louis Gosselin From: Chip Orange [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2014 8:54 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: new beta of Remind Me Where Hi beta testers, The latest beta of Remind Me Where is ready (0.6.0). It now honors the menu item choice in the options dialog which allows you to specify your preferred units (Metric or English). It also requires an update to the GPS app; if Window-Eyes does not prompt you to update the GPS app, then Remind Me Where will let you know that this is required. Also, in the list of places, I've redefined the columns of the listview slightly so that the second column is the address only, and the third column is the distance and direction to the place (now in metric if you desire). This allows you to go to the verbosity settings of Window-Eyes, in the "Common" group, the "miscellaneous" subgroup, and you can set the speaking of listview headers so that they always speak for every column if you desire. This may help you distinguish between the address information, and the direction and distance information. I do still have some other places which specify their units only in English units (such as the search dialog), but I'll clean up those last few places soon so they also honor metric preferences. I have also updated the HTML documentation, trying to make it clearer and more complete. Thanks for all the testing and the ideas and suggestions. The download location for the Remind Me Where app is: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11745142/Remind_Me_Where.wepm Enjoy, Chip
