Controlling the baseline

Recently, my GPS device starting prompting me to update the maps which were over a year old. Obviously, roads change so this seemed perfectly reasonable. I am very dependant upon my GPS and literally cannot drive my car without the voice that consistently guides me to turn right or left depending upon where I need to go. These days, it seems like almost every device or appliance that I use requires constant updates via the internet. The problem is that many of the companies who manufacture these devices do not seem to know enough about configuration management. 

My experience this week is that the update failed halfway through because it ran out of memory. The technote suggested that I add a 4Gig memory chip which was previously not required. I understand that maps get bigger, but why did the device proceed with the update when it did not have enough room to complete the update successfully? Right now my GPS is only useful as a small paperweight and I dare not try to drive anywhere new until I get this fixed. 

My call to their help desk assured me that their update program works fine and they instructed me to reset the device and try again. Right now I am running the update for the third time and hoping that I can use my GPS tomorrow without it malfunctioning and leaving me to find my way around using the maps on my cell phone. 

Let's hope that my cell phone does not force me to update the firmware.

Are you finding that the devices that you use are manufactured by people who do not know what a configuration baseline is? I would like to hear about your experience and I may end up using some of these incidents in a chapter of my upcoming book!

Bob Aiello, Technical Editor CM Crossroads
http://www.linkedin.com/in/BobAiello
[email protected]