RichC | June 16, 2022
As the warm evening and nights of summer arrive, I catch myself looking up at the sky again. It may have started with a purpose back when Charlie (Kamikaze) and I were locally sailing the “Fiberpile” and studying celestial navigation before there was much more than radio directional finders (LoranC was too costly and wasn’t […]
RichC | June 7, 2019
A pitfall in real-time GPS mapping services is that, although they “can” highlight road construction and closures, they are not always accurate or give appropriate advice for detours or “route arounds.” This was apparent on a 16 hour drive back from Florida (see comment) and more recently for a road closing leading to our development […]
RichC | November 21, 2018
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RichC | September 19, 2017
A successful install after receiving the Andrew Rodriguez “group buy” iDrive Android Avin replacement for my BMW X5 35d on Saturday. It was a bit intimidating seeing the bundles of wires and 4″x4″ instruction sheet. But after disassembling the dash, most of the plug n play was very smooth. If there would have been a […]
RichC | March 20, 2016
One cumbersome downside of driving older premium vehicles like our 2010 BMW X5 35D is that 6 year old technology might as well be 20 years old. The navigation software and maps leave a lot to be desired in today’s Internet connected mapping world. The current 2009 maps (above) have never been updated and […]
RichC | November 29, 2012
So much for the model robot boat “Snoopy Sloop” and the planned unmanned crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Whoops! The technology packed and lake tested 4 foot sailboat set sail from England on November 27th and intended a six month voyage to the Bahamas, but unfortunately the little boat encountered “strong tides” … something neither […]
RichC | September 24, 2012
After being a little (ok, a lot) disappointed with Google Maps being replace by Apple’s Maps app in iOS, I was anxious to give something else a try — so I downloaded, activated and have started to update Waze . So far so good with using the turn by turn navigation on my way to […]
RichC | November 25, 2011
My daughter tested the Glympse app on her Android phone on her way home to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving this past week. She sent the link to my phone and shockingly I was able to open the moving map based web page perfectly on my aging Palm Pre smartphone. As her progress closed in on home, […]
RichC | February 20, 2011
While doing a few chores around the yard on a bright and warm-ish Saturday afternoon, I decided to hook my old Garmin GPS 75 (early 1990s) to a solar panel scavenged from the boat to see if they both still worked. Besides being clunky, and slow to acquire the satellites, the GPS worked after putting […]
RichC | December 31, 2009
A strange GPS story and follow-up courteous of the Air Forces Space Command Twitter account to usher out 2009 and welcome 2010 … Happy New Year, by the way. GPS strands couple in snow for 3 days GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A Nevada couple letting their SUV’s navigation system guide them through the high desert […]
RichC | September 29, 2009
Here’s a safety tip that came from a “Dear Heloise” clipping set to me by none other than my mom; no matter how old I am she never stops being a mom. Actually I don’t think she was really thinking about me, but most likely my son and daughter … so I’ll forward them the […]
RichC | August 2, 2009
I was traveling to western NY this weekend and “had” planned to use the Sprint Navigation app with GPS on my Palm Pre, but the GPS on the apps wouldn’t load correctly. I tried a reboot and switching the GPS on and off, along with multiple app reloads of both Sprint Navigation and Google Maps […]