Car Navigation Review: TomTom GO 930, GO 720, XL (30 series), Mio Moov 370

We were in search for a good GPS car navigation unit for use in Australia. Our three choices were: TomTom GO 930, TomTom GO 720, TomTom XL, and Mio Moov 370. Below is a review of what we liked and did not like about them.



Read on to know which model this is.
Photo taken 2008-10-17


TomTom GO 930:
+ I love the black rubber finish. Feels less fragile compared to other TomTom models.
+ Has the superset of features for TomTom units: TMC, Bluetooth, FM, other common features.
- Very expensive

Conclusion:
Simply put, if money was not a consideration, I would have gone for this model. I have yet to see any real negative reviews about it other than its price. Plus while holding it with my own hands, it really did feel very solid.

More reviews here:
TomTom GO 930 Review 1
TomTom GO 930 Review 2


TomTom GO 720:
+ Features: FM, Bluetooth
- Weak FM & Buggy bluetooth (So they claim)
- Pricey
- Forums report signal problems in Sydney CBD.

Conclusion:
The weak reviews and the price tag really did turn me off about this model. None of the features that distinguish it from XL or One XL seem to be any good. Furthermore, this old model seems to have an old GPS chip that is less sensitive compared to new models. My suggestion is to either go up for the 930, or go down for the XL.

More reviews here:
TomTom GO 720 Review 1
TomTom GO 720 Review 2


TomTom XL (30 Series):
+ Value for money
+ TMC ready if you want to buy bundle
- No FM, No Bluetooth

Conclusion:
This is the model that we eventually decided to go for. We like the feature set. We don't really need FM or Bluetooth. And the price is acceptable. Plus the 4.3" widescreen is just the correct size, I would say.

More reviews here:
TomTom XL Review 1
TomTom XL Review 2


Mio Moov 370
+ Solid Feature Set. Pretty much equivalent to TomTom GO 930.
- Community support base

Summary:
Other than the fact that I haven't actually seen this exact model yet, I was a bit worried about the having community support for the product. I preferred to have a unit that has more user, more people adding corrections, more people creating POI entries, more icons, more sounds, etc. If you're not really concerned about the community support issue, then I think it's a really impressive product.

More reviews here:
Mio Moov 370 Review


That's it for my review! I hope it helps. Now, if only we had our car already. =(

Google Chrome does not support ICC color profiles?

After the announcement two days ago, I was really looking forward to Chrome. Unfortunately, it seems to be missing on one of my most loved new feature of Firefox 3: support for color profiles.

See my post here and test it out for yourself.

Damn!

Control multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse

If you're geekozoid like me, you probably have more then one computer at home. And maybe even have them in a range of different operating systems. How do you control them from one source?

Well, there are plenty of options out there, like VNC, etc. But I just discovered one cool app: Synergy. I works for Windows, linux and mac. And best of all, it's free!

Check out my video below.



References:
* http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
* PC World Magazine August 2008

Enjoy!

How to enable color profiles & color management in Firefox 3

Photographers and photo enthusiasts will be happy to hear this. Firefox 3 now supports color management. No more viewing flickr using Safari. You have to explicitly enable it though. Read on to know how.

Here is the link to the official test site for ICC v4. Go ahead and open it in a new window.

If your browser does not support color profiles or has it disabled, here is what you'll get:


If your browser does support color profiles, this is what you'll get:


Here is how to enable Color Management on Firefox 3:
1) Open Firefox 3 browser.
2) On the address bar type the following:

about:config

3) On the search bar type the following:

gfx.color_management.enabled

4) Confirm it is now set to true, then restart firefox.

That's it! Go back to the test site and confirm that you get the proper image.

Now, if only they had turned this on by default...

Enjoy!

Canon EOS 350D on Vista 64-bit.

As of time of posting this blog entry, Canon still does not support Vista x64. Here's a trick that I found to work:

1) Install 32-bit Vista drivers. You normally get the EOS Solution disk with your camera body. Just use those.
2) Here is the magical bit... On your camera, change the connection mode from PC Connection to Print/PTP.
3) Now connect your camera to your Vista x64 pc.

Voila! It works like magic. =)

Enjoy!

How to connect from a mac to a windows vista pc.

It looks like macs are not capable of the new networking protocol used by Windows Vista (smb/cifs). To get them to talk to each other, you will need to downgrade the vista machine to use the old protocol. Here's how to do it:

1) On the vista machine, click Start and type regedit
2) Navigate to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\
3) Change the property lmcompatibilitylevel from 3 to 1
4) Reboot

You should now be able to connect from your mac to the vista box. Enjoy!

Vista Ultimate x32 on Dell 700M

	CPU: 1.8 GHz Pentium M
	Memory: 2GB
	Graphics: Intel Extreme Graphics 855GM

I just upgraded my laptop's memory to 2GB. (Which deserves a post in itself. To cut the story short, I didn't realize my laptop still uses DDR1. Anyway...) I'm hoping this is enough to run Vista. I'll be updating this post about how it goes.

What works out of the box:
1) HDD access
2) Graphics
3) LAN
4) Wireless
5) Touchpad
6) Special function keys: Brightness up/down, Volume up/down, Wireless on/off, CRT/LCD, Sound up/down, Printscreen, Eject, Standby
7) Monitor lid button
8) USB


What needed drivers:
1) Touch pad special functions. Get drivers from here.

What doesn't work (yet):
1) None found

What's not yet tested:
1) SD Card reader