A Panel Transformation with Garmin

This story comes from Chip, a pilot who recently upgraded the panel in his Cessna 172. The plane was equipped with a Garmin GNS 430, a Garmin GMA 340 audio panel and a Garmin GTX 327 transponder. Chip said that this equipment has worked perfectly for him for 11 years, but that he decided now was the time to upgrade to glass. He got rid of his 6-pack and replaced it with a Garmin G500 glass flight display with Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT). “The synthetic vision is great, and neat, and it’s on the money when you are approaching the runway,” he said. He also loves the georeferenced approach charts on the G500. But Chip didn’t stop there. He upgraded his GNS 430, transponder and audio panel to the all-new GTN 750 touchscreen avionics with remote transponder and remote audio processor. “The products are amazing and very user friendly,” he said. “I think Garmin has an outstanding product…and Garmin’s tech support worked well with our installer with any technical issues that we encountered.” The custom installation was completed by HTS Avionics out of Martin State Airport.

Check out these “before” and “after” photos! We love to see the transformation that takes place in a panel when it’s converted from steam gagues to glass, and we want to see your panel transformation, too. Submit your photos online or post them to our Facebook page! And to check out photos of other Garmin-equipped aircraft, visit our photo gallery.

Google Plugin for Eclipse 2.5

Since Google added SQL support to App Engine in the form of Google Cloud SQL, the Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE) team has been working hard on improving the developer experience for developing App Engine apps that can use a Cloud SQL instance as the backing database.

They are pleased to announce the availability of Google Plugin for Eclipse 2.5. GPE 2.5 simplifies app development by eliminating the need for manual tasks like copying Cloud JDBC drivers, setting classpaths, typing in JDBC URLs or filling in JVM arguments for connecting to local/remote database instances.

GPE 2.5 provides support for:

  • Configuring Cloud SQL/MySQL instances
  • Auto-completion for JDBC URLs
  • Creating database connections in Eclipse database development perspective
  • OAuth 2.0 for authentication.

Configuring Cloud SQL/MySQL instances
App Engine provides a local development environment in which you can develop and test your application before deploying to App Engine. With GPE 2.5, you now have the ability to configure your local development server to use a local MySQL instance or a Cloud SQL instance for testing. When you choose to deploy your app, it will use the configured Cloud SQL instance for App Engine.

Auto-completion for JDBC URLs
GPE 2.5 supports auto-completion for JDBC URLs, and quick-fix suggestions for incorrect JDBC URLs.

Creating database connections in Eclipse database development perspective
The Eclipse database development perspective can be used to configure database connections, browse the schema and execute SQL statements on your database.

Using GPE 2.5, database connections are automatically configured in the Eclipse database development perspective for the Development SQL instance and the App Engine SQL instance.

You can also choose to manually create a new database connection for a Cloud SQL instance. In GPE 2.5, we have added a new connection profile for Cloud SQL.

GPE 2.5 now uses OAuth 2.0 (earlier versions were using OAuth 1.0)  to securely access Google services (including Cloud SQL) from GPE. OAuth 2.0 is the latest version of the OAuth protocol focussing on simplicity of client development.

Can’t wait to get started?
Download GPE here and write your first App Engine and Cloud SQL application using GPE by following the instructions here.

Google hope GPE 2.5 will make cloud application development using App Engine and Cloud SQL a breeze. We always love to hear your feedback and the GPE group is a great place to share your thoughts.

NAVIGON 2.0 Navigation App for iPhone

A couple of months ago, Garmin acquired Germany-based navigation provider NAVIGON to extend ther footprint in Europe and in the mobile applications space. Just like Garmin, these guys develop great products and we’re excited to work with their team.
Now, NAVIGON announced a broad overhaul of its popular iPhone navigation app that includes a couple of major improvements, so we wanted to make sure you’ll be able to check out the details.

Like Garmin’s StreetPilot OnBoard app, NAVIGON for iPhone is an onboard navigation app that saves the maps on the device to stay independent of cell phone coverage. This is really helpful when you lose your data connection, since you’ll still be able to navigate and calculate new routes. But it also means that you have to save large amounts of map data on your phone. NAVIGON 2.0 is the first onboard navigation app that solves this issue by allowing users to download maps by state. You can simply pick the maps you need and download additional ones at a later point (WIFI connection required).

Navigation systems have become more complex over the last years, so NAVIGON has also rethought the way the app interface is structured. As a result, the new version is more intuitive and easier to use than ever before. In addition, NAVIGON 2.0 also includes an in-app purchase option for quarterly map updates.

Watch the video below to see the new features in action.