I'm fairly new when it comes to wardriving. I do it mainly just to see what funny SSIDs I can find, and also to see which parts of the various small towns I drive around have the highest number of WiFi networks. While I am wardriving, I also have NetStumbler use a GPS receiver connected to my laptop to keep track of exactly where the signals were detected. It works quite nicely.
The trouble is...I also have a mapping/navigation program on my laptop that I like to use on those long weekend trips to make sure I don't get lost, and I too like using it with the GPS receiver.
Now, under normal circumstances, I can run either NetStumbler or the mapping program with the GPS no trouble. But, when I want to run both at the same time and have both use the GPS receiver simultaneously...obviously, it's normally not possible.
Well, for those who often find themselves in a similar situation (Wanting to share a GPS receiver among multiple applications), I've found a small (Only 58KB!), handy and most importantly FREE utility that makes this possible. It's called
XPort.
What XPort does is allow you to take the input from a real COM port (Such as the one your GPS receiver is connected to), then replicates it through up to eight virtual COM ports, allowing you to share the data from your GPS receiver among multiple applications. No installation required. Just unzip to any folder, and run the program. After you have it configured, it'll run as an icon in the system tray. Quite nifty!
Just thought I'd post about this for those who wish to use NetStumbler with GPS along with any other GPS programs simultaneously.