GPS: Garmin Nuvi versus Dash Comparison

I've been reading reviews of the Dash Express, which is just being dropped into general availability, though it appears that Amazon won't be shipping it until 27 March, 2008.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of data available yet comparing the Dash Express with currently available devices. Since I need to do this anyway, I'll come up with something for the Dash Express, my now back level Garmin nuvi 650, and a current traffic enabled Garmin nuvi.

----------------

Ok, first possibly fatal problem is that it's not clear how the Dash Express can be transferred between cars, which is a problem since I most often need GPS when in a rental car. And, since I travel a lot in rental cars in California, I can't affix the mount to the window, by law. Dash support says they're aware of the issue and it's not a straightforward fix, since the unit is bulky and heavy.

(to be continued)

GrandCentral Issues: Click2Call Problems Resurface

The last couple of days I've been noticing that GrandCentral's Click2Call is either unresponsive or takes multiple invocations to call my local number so that I can call out.

I don't see an outage notice, but, then, GrandCentral doesn't display outage notices in a prominent place. It would be helpful to have the range of informational --> critical outage messages in an easy to find place on their site.

D-Link DIR-655 Router

Picked this up at CostCo in Cypress, since, for whatever reason, it's not at the local one in Richmond, CA.

(Update: ok, it turns out that Richmond does have it. It was just in the locked case.)

There's a free support number, 888.822.9299, for Costco members, 24/7.

First step is to print out the settings from the old Netgear WGT624 router.

Update: no sweat setting this up and making it operational. I need to do some refining on the settings, though.

ShifD: Share Note, Place, Link Between Phone and Computer

Starting to try out ShifD to interchange info between a PC, using either a web site or an Adobe AIR application, and a mobile phone using SMS messages.

Initially I tried out the function using just the web site, under my latest thinking of avoiding PC based applications, but I'm interested in Adobe AIR. So, I'm probably further junking up my laptop (and further tethering myself to a particular machine, but...)

LinkedIn Makeovers

A pretty spartan listing of tips on LinkedIn makeovers, with some focus on Guy Kawasakai's postings:
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/linkedin_profil.html

iPhone: Handset Speaker Stopped Working

After using my Iphone with the iPhone earbuds this morning, I took out the ear buds and found that the handset speaker/ringer (as opposed to the speakerphone) stopped working.

After powering the phone off and on a couple of times, as part of trouble shooting I found:
--speakerphone function worked
--ear buds worked
--bluetooth worked.

I tried the Apple iPhone support site and did two of the non-destructive resets without success. Just about the time I was ready to trek to an Apple store to have them fool around with it, I plugged in and unplugged the ear buds a couple of times and now the handset speaker/ringer works again as desired.

Is there some sort of mechanical switch that is tripped when the plug for the ear buds is inserted that stuck in the wrong position?

Timebridge: Repetitive Meetings

Now that Timebridge has Google Calendar integration, I'm trying to use it for more of my meetings among those who don't share the same calendar system.

I ran into a case today where I want to schedule a meeting each Monday, but, as far as I can tell, there's no way to set up a standing meeting. If the Timebridge conference call function is to be used, it also should be available for each of the meeting repetitions.

Update: I received a note from Timebridge support that adding support for repetitive meetings is on their development roadmap. (5 Mar 08)

Grand Central: Site Not Responsive

This will teach me to recommend a beta service. The Grand Central site seems just plain non-responsive for the last 1/2 hour or so.

Road Conditions in the Anlong Veng, Cambodia Area

Babu posted about some activities in the Anlong Veng area that included some information about traveling there from Siem Reap. I commented on the blog entry, but there wasn't any followup. Anyway, so as not to lose the thought, I'll repeat most of the comment here.

I appreciated the news that there is road improvement progress between Siem Reap and Anlong Veng. Now that the independent tourist overland route between Poipet and Siem Reap is becoming more and more expensive, overland to Siem Reap from the north is becoming more and more attractive.

Is the road to the north sealed much past Banteay Srei? I understand from your blog entry that the part that's not paved is graded. Is it your impression that the grading will extend past Anlong Veng to the border?

I was also interested to read about the school building efforts. Is it your impression that school and library construction efforts such as Room to Read's (http://www.roomtoread.org/countries/cambodia.html) have been effective? I realize that this question may be too broad to answer.

Handheld GPS: Garmin Colorado and Vista HCx

My Garmin eTrex Vista HCx, which I've had for less than a year, may be lost forever, so I'm looking for a replacement.

The obvious first choice would be the same thing, an eTrex Vista HCx.

However the new Garmin Colorado, either 300 or 400t, are worth considering.

Some considerations:
--size: Colorado is 2.4"W x 5.5"H x 1.4"D, HCx is 2.2" x 4.2" x 1.2" (the Garmin web site, for some reason isn't consistent in listing W-H-D in the same order)
--weight: Colorado 7.3oz; HCx 5.5oz
--display size: Colorado 240x400 pixels - 3" diagonal; HCx 176x220
--battery life: Colorado 15 hours; HCx 25
--chipset: Colorado- Garmin proprietary; HCx SiRF III
--datacard: Colorado SD, though it appears that 4GB is the limit supported with SDHC; HCx microSD

Some unanswered questions:
--the Colorado has a "Transflective color TFT"; the HCx has 256 level color TFT. What's the functional difference, if any? There is at least one report that the transflective TFT technology is less readable out of doors as well as discussion about the display.
--apparently the Colorado lacks a "night mode," which affects the screen brightness and colors displayed.
--is startup time too long?
--is Trackback feature needed?
--USB 1.1 only?
--no street names with City Nav loaded
--no waypoint averaging
--map borders clutter screen (I've seen this on other units)
--lists don't scroll around, but have a beginning and end
--zooms only to 80 feet

This page lists many perceived deficiencies and this one lists issues.. It's hard to know which of these can be changed/fixed with a firmware update, assuming that Garmin wanted to make the change in the first place.

One concern I haven't yet seen mentioned elsewhere is, with the non-SiRF chipset, can the Coolorado ever take advantage of Ephemeris APGS to reduce time to fix. Perhaps the function or its equivalent is already included?

GrandCentral: Quickrule

GrandCentral has a "quickrule" function that allows one to send all incoming calls to voice mail or forward to a temporary number.

There probably should be some sort of reminder function to make sure someone doesn't set one of these and forget about it.

Garmin City Navigator Thailand NT comments

Garmin has produced street level mapping for Thailand with points of interest such as lodging, restaurants, and transit (for example, small town bus stations)and ships it on a microSD in an SD adapter. I got version 8.

Some initial comments:

• the serial number isn't evident, if it has one at all
• when used with a nuvi, it doesn't show 3D maps
• detail in small towns is pretty good, though there are some misspellings

Points of interest include:

• border checkpoints
• Banks and ATMs

GrandCentral Issues: System Status Notification

So I see on the Grand Central Inbox page a notice about a partial outage. I just happened to see this.

It probably would be helpful to have this sort of status message available some other place, perhaps a System Status page.

Also, it would be helpful to have a news feed with significant status messages. Even BART does this. (And so does Skype with their Skype Heartbeat messages.) The phone service demands, pretty much by definition, carrier class facilities and status information is a part of this.

GrandCentral Issues: Inbound Calls Not Working

Now at least one caller said that there was no ring at all when he called my GrandCentral number.

Updated: I can call myself just fine.

Updated: Ok, I asked the guy who called me this morning and did not hear a ring to call again. He did, was announced by the GC robot as "unknown," even though he is in my GC address book, and I picked up. He says he heard nothing--not a ring nor an announcement from the GC robot.

GrandCentral Issues: Click2Call Working?

Ok, now I can't get GrandCentral's Click2Call to originate calls at all:

• I select "Call."
• GC responds by displaying numbers from which I can call
• I choose one
• GC displays the indication that the call is happening
• but no ring at the number I've chosen to call from

Updated: Just tried calling and got through ok, so perhaps the function is working again (for me).

GrandCentral Issues: Inbound and Outbound

The story so far is that I've been having problems when using GrandCentral's outbound calling Click2Call feature. The people I'm calling have been complaining that there is a long silence when they answer, leading to their saying, "Hello...hello, etc." and then, occasionally, hanging up.

Since I'm making real work calls with the GC Click2Call service, I stopped using it for most important calls. Yesterday, 31 Jan 08, after one problem in the morning, I used it a couple of times in the afternoon with people likely to be understanding and they reported no problems. So maybe it's a transient problem.

I did have another problem yesterday, which I had forgotten before, when someone called me using my GC number. The GC robot said, "Press 1 to accept," which I did, since it was a coworker, and nothing happened. I pressed "1" several more times, but the my coworker and I never connected. (I called him back and apologized.) This happened again with another person who wasn't so understanding.

I've started telling people to use my GC number and now I'm really hoping I don't have to tell these same people to go back to the old numbers. People don't understand why I list one number for voice and another for SMS anyway (and some people don't know that SMS=text), so the whole thing is confusing for them.

GrandCentral Click2Call Problems

Apparently my previous problems with people hearing long delays when I originate calls to them using GrandCentral's Click2Call are continuing. The best course seems to be to avoid using it for a while.

GMail and Thunderbird: Switching Between Plain and HTML Composition

Sometimes while in the middle of writing an email note I want to switch from my usual plain text composition mode to rich text/HTML.

Web based GMail allows this easily; Thunderbird doesn't, which is a big pain.

Signing into Plaxo with Verisign OpenID

As part of trying to flog Plaxo to a friend, I went to the Plaxo site, which I hadn't visited for a while to update my Plaxo profile with my GrandCentral info. A couple of days ago I had signed up for an OpenID using Verisign as my OpenID provider.

The Plaxo first-time-OpenID-sign-in process wasn't all that intuitive, requiring first (unannounced as far as I could tell) that my OpenID be "attached" to my Plaxo Id.

The first time I tried associating one with the other, the process flunked. The second time worked, though, as far as I could tell, I did exactly the same steps. If someone wasn't medium sophisticated in this stuff, it's unclear if they would have prevailed.

GrandCentral: Representing One's Phone Numbers

Since GrandCentral doesn't handle incoming SMS/text messages, it's a problem trying to decide how to represent one's phone contact information on, say, a business card or an email signature.

People are conditioned to understand O[ffice], W[ork], C[ell], and (maybe) M[obile] as prefixes for phone numbers on cards and email signatures.

I suppose one could use H[ome], but it's so uncommon a card or a sig[nature] that it doesn't make real sense to include it with the others. The common usuage would be to spell it out in a personal note or, perhaps, trade in a vCard.

If I were to use GC, for GrandCentral or U[nified], it would just cause confusion.

And dividing between V[oice] and T[ext] and labeling as such doesn't seem practical (and exposes a changeable cell/mobile number, too).