MBlog

Improved Upload Process - New Agent

The MotionBased Agent 2.1 was just released for download yesterday.  We highly recommend this Agent for all to use.

Choose Activities to Send

The big addition for the new Agent is the ability to choose which activities you'd like to send to MotionBased.  No longer will you have to Send Entire History!

Notice the radio buttons in the Configure Agent page:

If you choose Send new activities only then the Agent will behave much as it did before.  Only the new activities will go and you won't see any selection page. 

If you choose Always choose activities to send then you will always see the new choice page...

Notice only the activities that have not already been sent to MB on this computer are checked. 

NOTE: Even though you have Send new activities only checked this screen will appear if you choose Synchronize and the Agent doesn't find any new activities to send.  This way you can pick which activities to send instead of sending the entire history.  Yes, that was painful.  Sorry to make some of you deal with that poorly implemented feature.

NOTE: For all non-Forerunner users the sport type will be Unknown and you will see a lot more entries on this page than activities that you performed.  This is a limitation of the track log segmentation found on Garmin non-Forerunner devices.  Simply choose to send all those that appeared on the date you performed your activity or better yet just use the Send new activities only  feature. 

Foreign Language Support

In preparation for our World launch, the Agent has now been modified to send languages other than English.  Previous Agents were having trouble encoding some language written into the speed zones and workouts.

Email Address Verification - No More GPS Spam

This one is for you John, Mike, Eric and all the other early MBers that won your first name as your username.  Since we used to require only a username to send activities to MB sometimes another Mike or John would send their activities into the wrong inbox.  Not fun for the recipient that gets someone else's activities and definitely not fun for the person that can't find their activities in the inbox.

Note:  We require your Email Address and not your password.  This is done so you may have someone else send activities for you without having to expose your password. 

Import Activities

Essentially the same as the manual upload via a web browser, but since the Agent is sending the activities the files are compressed.  This will save you lots of time uploading those big Logbook and Garmin Training Center Export files.

Note:  Garmin Training Center Export Files are not being accepted at this time.  We will be doing so shortly once we can ensure there will be no performance degradation for the server.

Messaging

Pretty much the only time you are going to get a red X is when MotionBased is unavailable, you aren't connected to the Internet or you have a firewall blocking the Agent from sending files.

If your Agent can't communicate with MotionBased you will see Send Queued Activities at the top of the list on the main menu after you have chosen synchronize.  This means that your files were successfully retrieved from your device and stored in a local queue, but not able to be sent to MB.  You can simply try to resend this generated file until it is processed.  This is especially handy if you are on a road trip and uploading activities to your laptop when you don't have an Internet connection.

 

For most other errors then you will get the green check-mark telling you synchronization is successful, but the messages on the right side will be the final say about the status of the upload.

Notice the error message on the right. I sent a file that MotionBased does not recognize.  Every time there is an error MotionBased Customer Support receives an email and starts to investigate.

The Green check-mark says all was successful, but the message on the right side says there was an error.  The message on the right explains the results of the upload where the messages on the left tell you if the Agent was able to communicate or not.

We admit that the green check-box successful message can be contradictory to the actual results relayed by MotionBased on the right side of the Agent.  We may change the wording of the Green Check-mark message, but the results will always be relayed almost entirely by the Upload Results messages.

Inbox and Upload Restrictions

Some of you have noticed that we are not allowing you to upload if you have more than 5 activities already in your Inbox.  This DOES NOT mean that you must upload 5 or fewer activities at once.  It simply means that you cannot start a new upload if you have too many activities waiting in your Inbox.  If you have 30 activities in your Forerunner and want to upload you may do so...once.  You won't be able to send another activity until you have submitted those 30 into your Digest.

We are also restricting only 3 uploads per user per hour.  This shouldn't affect the normal user, but will restrict someone that is having difficulty sending their files from continually trying.  We have found many people are impatient and instead of waiting for MotionBased to finish processing the uploads they send again and again and again. Ironically the more times you send the slower the system gets. Perhaps if the stoplight crosswalk button would make people wait longer the more times the button is pressed then we wouldn't have this dilemma.

These changes are not meant to keep anyone from sending actual activities to MotionBased, but are necessary to help some users understand that they don't need to send their upload 15 times.  The record was over 400 activities in the Inbox...in the long run we are doing everyone a favor.

If you have a special need then please email customer service.

Advanced Users

The presence of Send Queued Activities means you have a file waiting to be sent to MotionBased.  Your files are stored locally in system folder that is accessible by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + F from the main Agent screen.  There you will see folder named Queue where your files are temporarily stored.  QueueResend is the place where files that will be sent and will show up in your inbox whether you have already uploaded them or not.  Sent is a history of all the files sent to MotionBased.  If you are running out of Disk Drive space then you may want to delete all the files in your Sent directory.

Summary

The upload process has been one of the biggest bummers about using MotionBased for many people.  We do our best to stay in tune with our customers and react with new features that should continue to make MotionBased a cool place to track your activities and share them with the community.

Bike to Work Week

Although many of you ride your bike to work every day of the year.  Check out rwarren and the famous tchazzard mango ride:

We hope that many of you will take up this great way to mix exercise with necessity.  If it is unrealistic in your normal situation then no worries...but give it a try sometime this week in honor of Bike to Work Week. 

Make sure you post your ride and label it Bike to Work, categorize it as Activity Type = Cycling -> Road and Event Type = Transportation.

Here are some cool links...
http://www.bike-to-work.com/
http://btwd.org/

No matter how big or small your commute may be let's be sure to record it with your GPS and post it (and make it public) so we can share our cool community results with those that put great effort into making cycling better for all of us.

Quick Release Mount

The Garmin bike/goggle/wrist/anywhere mount has arrived.

The package includes a single cradle that accommodates Forerunner's and Foretrex's, and three mounting platforms. The quick release mounting system is pretty slick. A simple 90 degree turn releases or locks the cradle.

Bike Mount - Even though it's intended for the triathlete and duathlete, the versatility of the bike mount (disc and zip-ties) may interest cyclists. It accommodates most handle bars, even fat carbons, and may be best suited for the stem. A word of caution to the tri community, we haven't tested it with aero-bars yet, but the signal of a device mounted under your body can be effected by blockage.

Wrist Mount - You can throw your stinky fabric strap away. The included wrist strap is your standard rubber and plastic watch strap.

Goggle Mount - I'm guessing it's the square like piece. I haven't seen this part yet, and assume that goggle straps go threw the pins. I'm most fired up on the pin tool. I've tried everything, and refuse to cough up a couple bones for a stupid tool.

We're not sure when Amazon is going to start selling em, but Garmin is selling them for $25.45. Let us know what you think.

MB Gravity Elevation Correction

Bringing GPS Elevation Down to Earth™

MB Gravity™ is our next solution to just one of the many accuracy issues that are present when using GPS to train and record your outdoor experiences.

The Problem

Too many activities have displayed that 100 meter spike when viewing an elevation profile in the Dashboard.  This often occurs when the satellite signals are blocked from the sky above (trees, buildings, deep canyons).  Even though your horizontal location is still accurate enough to place you on the correct side of the road, the third dimension (alititude) is harder for your GPS unit to calculate...it requires a lock on four satellites where location only requires three.

Even if you don't get a big spike, it is often a bunch of little spikes that end up causing incorrect cumulative statistics.  We call that the Elevation Heart Attack. 

Nuts and Bolts

MB Gravity is a MotionBased.net web service that will cross-reference the horizontal location of every point along a GPS track and provide a more accurate and consistent elevation value provided by an elevation database built by the government.

Results

So what does all this mean for you...better elevation statistics.  Total Elevation Gain/Loss, no more spikes, more consistent grades.  Distance calculation will be more accurate because we won't be measuring the extra distance required to travel up and down all that incorrect elevation.  The MB Tune Up™ auto corrections won't need to be so agressive because the numbers will make more sense.

Let's take a typical ride with our good friend Randy Warren (you know him as rwarren on the TrailNetwork).  Randy lives in the Great Plains as many of you do.  No offense, I grew up in Minnesota myself.  Randy's ego has been stroked by MotionBased because his GPS reports him as being a stud climber.  Well, his numbers have been wrong sorry to say.  View this before and after situation:

Before MB Gravity

Few things to notice...Is this an elevation heart attack?  Did Randy really do 2,700 feet (820 meters) of climbing?  I think not! Was he picked up by a bird flown up a few hundred feet and dropped back down?  I really think not!  Why does this ever get reported to MotionBased by the GPS unit??? We have no idea, but we don't like it any more than you do!!!

After MB Gravity

So check this out?  The map looks like the same activity, but the elevation profile would make you think otherwise.  2700 feet is now 533 feet.  The elevation that was reported by the GPS unit was off by about 5x off reality.

This is just one example of how MB Gravity is going to help your numbers make some real sense.

Current Limitations

O.K.  MB Gravity is way cool.  I am not selling you snake oil just to get a subscription or two, but there are some known limitations to MB Gravity.

1. It works much better on roads and flat terrain than it does on steep grades or trails on a steep hillside.  We have a plan to fix that.
2. If you are crossing a bridge, MB Gravity will think you are swimming.  Don't worry we have a long-term solution to this problem...it's you!  Be sure to track all of your rides at MB so we can use the data collected from all the other activities on the TrailNetwork to know that you were high above the water.
   
   
   Notice the big square drop on the MB Gravity corrected photo on the right compared to the original on the left.  This is crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.  Too bad since you can see the profile at the end of the corrected photo looks a lot better than the original on the left.
   
   
3. You have to choose to apply the corrections to each activity.  It is not automatic.  We will eventually be providing you a way to easily correct all of your activities at once so don't spend too much time correcting the historical.  We wanted to get some more feedback before we go correcting our 50,000 activities and slowing down an already overburdened server.

Who will benefit?

I do imagine we could get a few more of you to pay for a yearly subscription if we charged for MB Gravity.  It will put an exclamation mark at the end of the bullets that differentiate MotionBased from other GPS mapping and training solutions.  MB Gravity is avaialable to all MB Customers both Lite and Standard. 

Here at MB we don't feel that anyone should have bad data.  Providing MB Gravity to everyone will benefit the community by putting more trust into their GPS training experience when coupled with MB.  We have plenty of features left to implement and yes they will only be available to Standard customers, but our MB Tune Up and MotionBased Everywhere™ products will be available to all.  You may not understand why just yet, but trust us on this one...it will pay off.

How and When?

MB Gravity is available right now at MotionBased.com since Monday, May 9th. 

Just view the activity of interest, click on Activity Options in the upper right corner when viewing the Dashboard or Map Player and choose MB Gravity Checkbox.  Notice that auto-corrections is required to be enabled at this time.

Remember, we will be providing a way to correct all your existing activities at once so don't get carple tunnel checking that MB Gravity box.  We want you to spend your time outdoors and not on the computer doing maintenance...that's our job!

Last note...Thanx to Brad Culberson a fellow MB Tester for implementing the MB Gravity Web Service on contact with MB. Brad, your efforts are much appreciated and you've done the GPS Fitness community a great favor by helping us get MB Gravity built quickly and with great quality.

Aaron
The Digital Trailblazer™

Improved State Rankings

Each time we send out our "now not-so-frequent" newsletters, we include a ranking of the states/regions with the most activities. This generates fun competition within the MB community.

Mark Wallace thought these rankings would be more valid if indexed against the overall population of each state/region. In fact, he found the latest census data and did the math for us.  Here's what Mark found for Jan-Mar 2005 (looks like California, Texas, and Florida lost their luster):

State	Activities	Activities/Million
Colorado	390	87.7
British Columbia	326	83.4
California	2409	69.5
Ontario	621	54.4
North Carolina	318	39.0
Texas	784	36.3
Georgia	285	33.8
Florida	542	32.6
Michigan	308	31.3
Illinois	294	23.8

Direct Digest Access

You can now access other MB digests by entering the below URL scheme.
username.motionbased.com

If you ask me, norcal.motionbased.com is bookmark worthy? See for yourself....
Oh yeah, this feature is only available to MB Standard customers.