Sunday, March 18, 2012

Archives for September 2006

Magellan RoadMate 6000T review

Magellan_6000t

UPDATE: This model has been discontinued. For current recommendations, please refer to our auto GPS buyers guide or check out our other Magellan auto GPS reviews.

The Magellan RoadMate 6000T comes pre-loaded with maps of the U.S and Canada, uses the SiRFstar III chipset, and sports an integrated traffic receiver (3 month subscription included).  It also has entertainment features — MP3’s and photos can be loaded to an SD card. The 6000T differentiates itself from the 3000T and 3050T primarily by incorporating Bluetooth for hands-free cellphone use.

Compare prices on the Magellan RoadMate 6000T

 

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10 ways to get lost with a GPS

  1. Don’t try it out at home first
  2. Don’t add waypoints before leaving home
  3. Enter coordinates by hand instead of transferring them from a computer
  4. Don’t bring along spare batteries
  5. Don’t bring a map and compass as backup
  6. Don’t mark your trailhead before hitting the trail
  7. Overestimate its capabilities in dense canopy
  8. Follow the compass arrow blindly (without realizing you need to go around an obstacle (like a mountain)
  9. Drop it in a river or off a mountain-side
  10. Think that you can’t get lost because you have a GPS

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Free topos and aerial photos: USAPhotoMaps

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Everybody loves stuff they can get for free, right? Especially if it is way cool and quite useful. Well, USAPhotoMaps fits the bill. Created by Doug Cox, USAPhotoMaps is TerraServer-based, just like TopoFusion. And just like TopoFusion, you can look at aerial photos or topo maps of just about any location in the U.S. For some urban areas, you can even view color aerial photos down to 0.25 meters/pixel (see below left)!

One of the ways I’ve used USAPhotoMaps is to locate newer 4WD roads that don’t appear on topo maps, which are usually much Usaphotomaps_color_urban_aerialolder than USGS aerial photos. In the image on the right below, I’ve drawn a track along a logging road. To the left below, you can see how I’ve been able to update a topo map with the hand-drawn track.

One of the other great things about USAPhotoMaps, is that Doug Cox just keeps updating it, adding new features and keeping it current.

USAPhotoMaps does lack some features, but all in all, it’s a great program, and you sure can’t beat the price. I believe it is Usa_photo_3particularly useful for people new to the world of GPS, who may not be ready to lay out money for mapping software and aren’t quite sure what all they can do with it. If you’ve never transferred your track to your computer, to view it on an aerial photo, you’ve got a treat coming. And now you don’t have any excuse not to!

There is a full chapter on USAPhotoMaps in my book, GPS Mapping – Make Your Own Maps.

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Other posts in this series:

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What the heck is RSS and why should I care?

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Don’t have time to read this entire article? Here’s a one minute video tutorial, but don’t forget to come back and grab our RSS feed.

Good questions. You may have noticed the RSS buttons in the right sidebar on GPS Tracklog. For those of you not familiar with RSS, this post attempts to answer the questions in the title.

So first, here’s why you should care.

Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation.

You don’t have to reveal your email address.  If you want to stop receiving content, you don’t have to request to be “taken off the list.”

One click, and poof… the subscription is gone.

Plus, since there’s no email address involved, there’s no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you.

That’s right… no more spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft.  And best of all, no reason to put yourself at the mercy of the publisher’s intentions.

You won’t need to suffer through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one) looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell.  No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts “just in case.”

Again, if you don’t like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel.  With just one click.

Pretty cool, huh?

That is cool!  Umm… What the heck is RSS?

Alright!  Now we’re ready to get to that part.

RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest.

You might have figured that much out by now.  But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed – you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

If you actually want to know how RSS works, click here.

What the heck is a feed reader?

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GPS Comparison Tools

Here are several GPS comparison tools, allowing you to pick specific GPS receivers for a head-to-head comparison:

Garmin

Magellan

TomTom

Mio

Additionally, at the beginning of each of my GPS reviews, I try to compare it to the units above and below it in the same product line.

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Links

Our friends in cyberspace…

  • Magellan GPS
  • Travel By GPS – GPS maps and tour guides
  • Laptop GPS World – reviews and discussion forums focused on GPS navigation software programs for PC, Laptop, Netbook, Notebook, Tablet PC, UMPC, and CarPC