Magellan Roadmate is pretty cool
I’ve always been too cheap to fork out the money for a GPS system for my car even though I always get one when I rent a Hertz car. I have a GPS attachment for my Dell Axim handheld PC but downloading the maps and getting all the wires set up in the car was always too much of a hassle to use it.
And I’m too cheap to own a fancy-enough car to have GPS installed by the factory in the dash.
So when Magellan offered me the chance to test out a member of its new Roadmate line of portable GPS units on a family vacation to Florida, I was happy to give it a whirl. It arrived in a plain box a day before I left with no user manual or instructions (it was a demo unit) so I had a real-world test of how easy the Magellan 3000T would be to use and set up.
If you’ve ever used the Hertz NeverLost system you would be familiar with this unit, which works much the same, right down to the same female voice telling you when to turn. (The Roadmate obviously is based on the same technology but the Hertz system is far more advanced since it relies on a computer in the trunk.)
The 3000T, which lists for $599, is powered by rechargeable batteries or via the 12V adapter in the car. (You also can have it wired directly to the power supply in the dash if you’re handy.)
Once powered on, the unit locates the satellites and orients itself. One thing that impressed me was the unit’s ability to locate satellites even while being held by the passenger in a car; it didn’t seem to need line of sight to the dash or even clear view out the windows.
The unit’s 3.5-inch color screen was bright and easy to use. Using the touch screen you type in where you want to go and you’re offered several options, including the shortest time (duh!) or most use of freeways, etc. Once you pick that, it selects the route it thinks is the best and off you go.
Sometimes the routes Magellan thinks best are, shall we say, interesting, but I never found it to be totally off-base. Once in a while it will be a house or two off but that’s more a fault of the map and not the device. You can subscribe to live updates that will route you around traffic delays and construction zones as well.
One fault I would have with the device is timing; sometimes it told me too late to make a turn off an Interstate for example. Also the device’s female voice is sometimes too soft for a van full of people and the radio. However, it located gas stations, ATMs and restaurants automatically, which nearly paid for itself a couple times.
Is it worth 600 bucks? If I drove a lot I would definitely own a GPS and this one was a good one. In a few years you won’t be able to buy a car without one and maps will be one of those odd things our kids will look at in antique stores.
You can see the details at Magellan’s Web site at www.magellangps.com
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James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com
Google takes over the world
Google's quiet announcement last week that it has launched an online spreadsheet product is a major shot across the bow of Microsoft and signals a quantum shift in how we will use computers in the years ahead.
The product, which you can see at www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/tour1.html, is one in a series of products that Google has launched that intrude on Microsoft’s lucrative turf. Why should you care?
Well, for many folks a spreadsheet and a word processor is a commodity. You launch them, use them to process some data and then close them. Most people don’t particularly care what brand you use (unless you’re a Mac person) as long as they get the job done.
Microsoft, on the other hand, cares a lot. Microsoft Office is the cash cow of the company, generating billions of dollars in revenue. At retail some versions of Microsoft Office cost $500 or more; multiply that times the number of desktop computers in a good-sized office tower and pretty soon you’re talking big money.
Now what happens if you only gave “real” spreadsheets to the finance folks and let everyone else use Web-based spreadsheets when they needed them? If you had a few columns of numbers to add up, you launch your browser, do your work and close it. Nothing to install, nothing to buy.
The hassle for the IT department is eliminated; the cost is dramatically reduced. Now what about word processing? Does everyone need Microsoft Word installed on your hard drive? Or could you launch a Web browser and write a letter just as easily? What about PowerPoint?
Now you can see why Microsoft looks at Google like one of the “Desperate Housewives”.
If you go to www.google.com and click on MORE you can see all of the areas that Google has slipped its fingers into. It’s a pretty impressive list, ranging from mapping to shopping to applications.
And it’s not just Google intruding on Microsoft’s turf.
Dan Bricklin, creator of the VisiCalc spreadsheet, has put out the WikiCalc (www.softwaregarden.com/wkcalpha/) that, knowing Dan, will be even better than Google’s once it gets rolling. It will need to be installed on Wiki servers, however.
Of course, the only missing link is that you need to be online to use Web-based spreadsheets. With free WiFi all over the place that’s not nearly a big problem but it is enough of a factor to keep many people buying office suites and installing them on local hard drives.
Trouble is, Microsoft is facing a challenge there, too, from the excellent open-source alternative called Open Office (www.openoffice.org) a completely free suite of tools that you can download and install on your hard drive that directly competes with Microsoft Office and Works.
The big mama of all of this is if Google comes out with an operating system of sorts, something it claims over and over it is not planning to do. With Linux already out there and not making much of an inroad on consumer desktops that’s probably true; Microsoft owns the consumer desktop for now. But what is likely to happen now more than ever is Microsoft may own the OS but Google takes over from boot on up.
And that will make things very, very interesting.
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James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com
Letters...we get letters
Reader mail fills the space this week after we all survived the coming of 6-6-6 with our hard drives intact.
Q. I have been offered a $150 discount on one of the older Apple Ibooks still in the original retail packaging by a local dealer when compared to the pricing of the newer models. Are the newer ones that much better?
A. Answering questions like this are tough because I don’t know the relative value of the 150 bucks to your life. If you really have to reach for the difference, I may offer a different answer. But assuming you’re relatively solvent let’s talk about the differences between the old Apples and the new ones, which should generate at least some new mail.
The new MacBook is much faster (Apple claims 5 times faster) with a 13 inch, brighter screen (the Ibook came in 12-inch and 14-inch flavors.) The new ones come with larger hard drives (60 gigs now is standard) and a host of other improvements.
Would I buy the old model for $150 less? No. Maybe $300 or so, considering you’re making an investment in the future and the Intel-based Macs are the future. There’s nothing wrong with the older Apples (I am writing this column on one) but $150 is not enough of a discount in my opinion.
Q. I need to purchase a laptop for my son to attend college in the fall. The university requires (or I should say “strongly suggests”) that I buy one of these IBM Thinkpads directly from the school. I guess I could buy one someplace else but what do you suggest?
A. According to the literature you sent along, the school is offering sort of a small, medium and large when it comes to laptops. The prices are not out of line when it comes to retail pricing but then again, neither are you getting a great deal, either. You are correct that the school can’t force you to buy this model from them. The compelling part of this offer however is in the fine print; if you buy the IBM model direct from the school, the school will provide technical support free of charge for your student all the while they are attending classes. That’s a huge plus… any time he is having issues with the computer he can take it someplace on campus and have it worked on free.
In your shoes I’d go with one of the IBMs (probably the medium offer) and get a security cable and hope he uses it.
Q. My Adobe Acrobat keeps wanting to connect to the Internet to update itself. My firewall keeps stopping it. Should I allow it?
A. It’s kind of annoying but yes. You can either allow it and let Adobe update or go into the Acrobat preferences and shut off the “feature” that automatically checks for updates to the program.
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James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com
