Memory Map information

The message <[email hidden]>
from Broadback <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Apart from Memory Map itself is there a good source of information about
the product? For example I would like to know the advantages of
registration, I know it enables some software but which? The information
may well be available in MM help, but not in easy to find format.

When you install, to get anything atall I think you have to feed in two
magic numbers: serial number & key. If I remember rightly the
downloadable sample has a pair of numbers which will allow you to look
at mapping, but no more, for ten days only. I don't think you can print,
up or down load to or from a GPS or do waypoints, routes and all.

Buy one map section, from a retailer or MM direct and you get a number,
which you register with MM by telephone or on line (revealing your, or
at least someone's, name) and you get the key number which lets the
system work reasonably.

Buy another bit of mapping, and it'll have a new number - you can ignore
that and simply load the mapping in, and it will work happily.

MM say that the OS as a condition of their licence to MM have insisted
that whenever MM advance a full version number (offering reasonably
cheap upgrade to existing registered users) they have to make all
earlier issued mapping useless with the new programme. I gather it is
not that difficult to remove this copy protection.

Buy MM's issue of French IGN mapping, and you get a slightly different
programme, and the mapping is compressed. If you let the installer do
the installing, then the decompression is seamless, but if you just want
the mapping, you need to explore and find the little decompression
utility. The OS version of the viewer/printer etc program will display
the French mapping, but not vice versa (or is it the other way round?).

My original magic numbers still work after two, or maybe three, upgrades.

The last time I upgraded I had to send back my original CD's before
they'd post the new ones out, so, suspicious and furtive as usual, I
copied them before parting with them, and have done nothing whatever
with the copies since! Would they be any use to you? I think that you'd
need to get someone's magic number, and I wouldn't let you have mine,
just in case you upgraded on it, or something, which might screw my next
upgrade! If you are buying second hand MM from the weeping widow, just
make sure that she lets you boot the PC it is loaded on up, and copy the
magic numbers. They are no longer fully visible, just like credit card
numbers, with a few **** ****, so you'll need to have enough savvy to
find the file which holds the numbers, and copy that. You'll just have
to accept that "licenced to John Smith" appears at the top of the frame
every time you use it, although it no longer seems to be put on map
printouts! I don't think that you can change the licencee name easily,
because the "licence key" seems to be derived from the Serial Number and
the Name together.

So just go out and buy the bloody thing new and shrink wrapped. It is
not that expensive, and it is a damned sight cheaper than paper mapping!

Richard