I know the question you’re all asking. “Zarch, you live 1.3 miles from your job. You live in Utah, where all the streets are laid out as a numbered grid. You have two other means of GPS navigation. WTH?” To that, I answer, I am a gadget admirer, and I constantly seek the gadget that performs its function perfectly. Enter the Nuvi 360.
Let me begin by saying that the official branding from Garmin is n
I’m picky about sunglasses. Being a nerdy sort, exposure to the sun causes severe anxiety, and I need some specs to keep the glare down.
Behold: the Smith Maverick specs. Why does this count as nerdy? One word: plastics. I mean, polarization. If you don’t wear polarized sunglasses, you’re a real Luddite. Also, you’re probably squinting a lot.
Silliness aside, the key things I look for are comfort, sturdiness, and great improvement to vision. These pretty much nail all three, and they don’t make me look too retarded.
This one’s been on my wrist for years now. I’ve had gadget watches that I wear for fun (I have a binary LED watch, and I had a Pimp Watch for a while too, and a couple of slick retro-looking Spoons), but this one is the old standby.
So what makes a great nerd watch also a great every day watch? I guess the key here is practical technology. Guys like me enjoy things that are solar powered, and this watch delivers there. A full charge gives the watch 11 months of battery life (in perfect darkness), and 5 or 10 minutes in the sun gives it a full charge (I read somewhere in the manual that it takes 8 hours under fluorescent light, which is more realistic if you’re a regular reader). The other fun bit of technology is the automatic time setting from the atomic clock in Colorado. We’ve got these atomic clocks all over my house; there’s something satisfying about having everything ticking exactly the same.
Another thing about this watch is that it’s very similar to the first real watch my parents got for me, a great old feature-packed Casio with a big black rubber wrist band. Very nostalgic. Plus the fact that it’s pretty much bulletproof, being a G-shock and all, just completed the package.
So there you have it, another post of Zarch’s every day gear. If interested, here’s the page from Casio with all the specs.
We’ve been through a few digital cameras here in the Zarch household, starting with a 1.3 megapixel Olympus I got way back when digital cameras were just a novelty. Since then, we’ve had a Fuji Finepix, a couple of Nikons, and my wife’s great Canon Powershot S70 (which gave up the ghost today, in a sad coincidence). The camera that rides with me in my gadget bag these days is the Lumix DMC-FX9, from Panasonic.
When I first went shopping for a camera of my very own (as opposed to a “family” camera), I had a few things I was looking for. I wanted it to be very small, to have good battery life, and to have some compensati on for my shaky hands, especially shooting landscapes. I have some terrible photos of the Seattle skyline that were making me think about some sort of image stabilization. Reviews I read got me thinking about these little Lumix compacts, and after some deliberation, I bought one.
I thought it might be of interest to post about the gadgets that accompany me in my day to day life. I’m a gadget whore, you might say, always looking for another fix of the latest crap that comes out. That’s why the stuff that sticks around might provide some interest: if a device survives my gadget churn for any length of time, there must be something pretty good about it. I might also mention the gear that didn’t pass, that got cycled out quickly, just for contrast. So watch for the new posts, starting with one later tonight.
Well, I didn’t see a ton of reviews out there for this gadget when I was shopping, so I thought I’d post my thoughts in case others were interested. So far, I’ve had it for a day or so, and I’m pleased.
The eTrex Venture Cx is the entry level mapping GPS from Garmin. The C means it’s a color screen, and the x means expandable memory, in this case through microSD cards. The next one up the totem pole is the Legend Cx, which includes a 32mb memory card. First thing I planned on doing was adding a 1gb card anyway, so that wasn’t an appeal. I lingered on the Vista Cx for a while, since it includes a barometric altimeter and an electronic compass. Then I got my senses back and realized GPS altitude is perfectly fine for my uses, and I have a great compass anyway, and a decent sense of direction. Besides, I can walk a few steps and the Venture will give me a heading. No USB cable is included, but it uses a standard mini cable. I’ve got about 15 of those around my desk, so no problem. These can power the Venture Cx when it’s plugged into your computer, or in my case, plugged into the USB power adapter in my car.
Let’s talk features. The Venture Cx lacks a SIRFstar III chip, but it does include WAAS. I got a decent fix (up to six satellites) in my home, a one-story ranch in the suburbs. Driving around the neighborhood seemed accurate enough, Continue reading ‘Garmin eTrex Venture Cx Review’
Well, I’m not an iPod guy. But I have owned three iPod nanos, the latest one a new 2nd-generation basic model, the 2gb silver one. I picked this one up mostly out of frustration with my recent forays into the flash player world.
My main player is a Gigabeat S60 from Toshiba, which is actually about the first mp3 player I’ve been satisfied with to keep for more than four months or so. I cherish that player so much that I wanted a little flash player to take running, or to use while I ride my motorcycle, or while I’m mowing the lawn, etc.
I’ve had an iRiver U10, which I ditched because it was too big a pain to use while in my pocket. I also have a Sansa e280, which is just quirky and kept locking up on me (the latest firmware may help – we’ll see. I’m holding out for Rockbox on that one). I loved the Rio Carbon, but the hard drive thing worried me. Anyway, none of the other players really fit my needs perfectly.
Let me give you some pros/cons for the nano, from the point of view of a non-apple guy.
The latest gadget in my personal stable is the Creative Zen Vision. This is the latest PMP from our buddies at Creative, and I’ve had a pretty good time with it so far. It’s not without its quirks, but it’s pretty good at what it does too.
The Vision’s design is head and shoulders above any other player I’ve had lately, with the possible exception of iRiver’s PMC-120. There are separate, tactile buttons for each function. As sexy as touch-panel style controls look, they’re pretty lame when you’re in the car or in the dark. It’s fantastic to have a player that lets you feel your way around when you need to.
So there I was, a happy person with both a wireless phone and a trusty handheld, my iPaq h4355. I got sucked into the idea of a converged device at CTIA in New Orleans, though, when I had a chance to play with a PPC-6600. It had an integrated keyboard, bluetooth, and I figured I wouldn’t miss the WiFi once I was on the web through Sprint. So I put the phone and iPaq up on eBay, and took the plunge.
For the past year and a half, I’ve been happily using a 20gb Rio Karma as my mp3 player. It had the great interface, a really nice docking station, and lots of storage. I even had it rigged up to the AUX inputs on the deck in my car. So why buy a Carbon? It’s only got 25% of the storage space. Well. . . I’ll try to explain.
