Beaminster — Jan 3rd 2017
John Lemon gave an outstanding presentation on ViewRanger, an app created by the Ordnance Survey which brings the precision and detail of the famous ranges of paper maps to iPad and iPhone. The app itself is free, but the maps, which are downloaded onto your device, have to be paid for. However, while a complete set of the 1:25 range of Great Britain would hit your wallet for almost £300, there is an extremely affordable way of getting small maps, known as tiles, either for 10km x 10km squares (in the 1:50 range) or 5km x 5km squares (in the 1:25 range. These cost, literally, pence, and would be extremely useful for planning walks when on holiday (or of course, at home!) The maps have a brilliant search function which will locate anything that is shown on the map, and give detailed information on distances between points (as the crow flies), marking routes you have taken (or want to take), and, in conjunction with the camera on your device, labelling, live, features that can be seen by the camera. That alone is a stunning facility. There was much more, and if you can make it, come along to Dorchester next Tuesday, when John will be giving this excellent presentation again (and Euan will have had time to think up more questions!) If anyone would like a lift please let me know and I will make what arrangements I can to get you there and back.
After coffee Euan showed his Norwegian Christmas video, to a chorus of ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’ Next time we will ask him to sing the accompanying carol in English. There was a (very brief) question and answer session - please bring your problems along so we can help you solve them! - and then David Moon showed how easy it is to use FaceTime, the Apple app for making video calls - free - and the non-Apple equivalent, WhatsApp.
All in all the fourteen present agreed that we had had a good start to our New Year!
