Month: January 2007 Page 1 of 2

At long last, Garmin has finally posted the Mac version of Training Center on their web site. This is a pretty big download at 61.17MB, but it is well worth it for Mac-friendly Freds. I noted that this is version 2.0.1, whereas the version we got at MacWorld is version 2.0.0. Garming has listed the changes on the web site.

Thanks again to listener Mike for helping out FredCast listeners by providing them with Training Center while Garmin worked to get this on the site.

At long last you can finally show the world how much you love cycling (and The FredCast) while you’re in your car! The FredCast license plates are finally available. They are a bargain at $11.99 each. Check them out on our Cafe Press site. While you’re there, please consider a t-shirt, hoodie, mug, or . . .

Don’t forget tonight’s live show at 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 pm EST with Graeme Street of CycloCore.com. Click here for instructions on how to listen and call in. Talk to you tonight!

Thanks to listener Mike, I finally got my hands on the new Garmin Training Center for Macintosh this evening. Thanks are also due to Ryan at the Garmin booth at MacWorld.I haven’t been able to fully put it through its paces, but here are my comments so far:

As you can tell from the screen shot above, the Mac Training Center looks and feels very similar to the PC version, except with the quartz style of Mac OS X applications (note that some of the numbers were fuzzed out because I recently cleared all of the data out of the Edge and the only thing I had to upload was a recent ride with my 10-year-old daughter and the speeds would have embarassed me!). 😉

It has a halfway decent base map and I’m not clear yet how/when Garmin will provide a better map into the Mac, so I have to experiment with whether it might read some of my Garmin MapSource files from the PC. Also, I tried importing gpx and hst files but that didn’t work. According to the documentation, it will import tcx files but I have no idea how to create those.

UPDATE: Listener Tim emailed to tell me, “one of the things I just read on the Motionbased Blog is that to import your .HST files from the Windows version of Training Center requires you to upgrade your Windows Training Center to version 5.0. The Windows version 5.0 of training center supports the new .tcx file format that is also supported in the MAC OSX verison.” This is on the same CD with the Mac version so I just need to install it and give it a try. I will keep you all updated.
It’s nice to be able to get ride of that 10GB Boot Camp partition finally so I have to thank Garmin (and Mike) for that!

Remember, if you want a copy for yourself please send an email to thefredcast@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Garmin Mac Software’ and we’ll do what we can to get you a copy. Remember, this is first-come-first-served.

P.S. Have you seen the iPhone? WOW! This is the single coolest gizmo I’ve seen in a long time.

I’ll be recording our regular FredCast tonight as always, but our next live show will be on Wednesday night (January 10) at 9:00 pm EST / 6:00 pm PST / 02:00 UTC/GMT.

Our guest once again will be Graeme Street from Cyclo-Core.com and our topic will be nutrition. Please plan to call-in with your cycling nutrition questions for Graeme.

We’ll be using the Talkshoe service again, so here is how it works:

1.You can Listen live at Talkshoe. You don’t need to download any software to listen.

2. You can Chat with the other listeners while the show is “on the air.” This is similar to instant messaging or ICQ, and I’ll be able to see what you chat while I’m talking. You’ll need the Talkshoe Client for that.

3. You can Call into the show. To call in, sign up and pick a PIN at TalkShoe.com, then call the show at 724-444-7444. The show ID is 12496. You can call using a land line, cell phone, Skype or any other VOIP service, but you must have a pin of your own to call the show.

4. Listen to the podcast. Don’t worry if you can’t listen live, because I will be posting this as a part of Episode 51 next week.