Closure on my poorly routing GPS – it’s NOT the GPS!

So all of these photos are click-able… I encourage you to click on these as they will show you what has caused me “grief”. This first photo is a photo of the intersection directly off Google Maps. You can see, it’s a big, wide open intersection. I wish there were cars in it… but the no such luck. The next three photos… Well, I can’t truly believe!

I spent some time playing with the GPS software. It did the same thing! I was shocked, angered! How could the screw up so bad! In an effort to get ready to attack Garmin support tomorrow, I went to google maps and did a little routing. WHAT??!? It did the same thing! Let’s try MapQuest! SAME THING! Oh sheesh… this is crazy! Yahoo Maps … guess what? SAME THING! You have GOT to be kidding me… Nope!

Here is the evidence!

I’d love to tell you this makes sense. It doesn’t, but at least EVERY map site I tried is right!

I suppose, to make this REMOTELY productive…. I will rank the mapping sites on ease of use:

1. Google Maps
2. Yahoo Maps (Though it might be as easy, I am just used to google)
3. MapSource (Garmin Map Software – $120 … the others are free but don’t talk to my GPS)
4. MapQuest (The original is falling behind the others!)

New geek toy … rss2email

So I downloaded some slick code today! It’s written in Python, I don’t know python, but … that’s okay! I just installed it and it works. What this does is takes the rss feed from my blog (or any rss/atom feed) and “watches it”. When it sees a new post, it emails whoever I told it to email.

Some of the geekier people might say, but you are already syndicated? (RSS stands for really simple syndication). Yes, but not everybody understands that. Not everybody has an RSS reader set up, so this help my family know when I blasted my latest ramblings to my blog.

Now, the sad thing is that… well, I had a tech geek oops tonight and probably delivered 200 emails to family members. Thankfully, not 200 to EACH! It was a slip, I apologized, hopefully they will still let me eat with them at the finer dining establishments!

Mac vs PC

Many of you won’t know this about me. I have basically given up on the PC world. Well, that’s kind of stretching it. I own 2 XP systems, my wife has 1 as well, but at the same time, the computers we use the most are both Mac laptops! What brought on this change? Mac improving!

For years, I thought Apple computers were “bubble-gummy”. Great toys, they make great pictures and videos, but come on… you cant control them, you have limited options, only one mouse button… well those days are long gone. With the introduction of Mac OS X, the guys at Apple took a break from updating Mac OS and started over from scratch. They kept the user interface similar to the old world, but the backend is a Unix system. To keep this simple, Unix is a powerful operating system that has been known for years to be good for servers and computer geeks. Now, throw on a very user friendly front end and you have a SUPER powerful computer that’s very easy to use!

Now, here’s the kicker that got me to cross the line… for a long time Mac used a “PowerPC” chip made my Motorola. I don’t know why, but they decided “Let’s use Intel processors in our computers” and that’s what they did. I don’t know the details, but the new Intel based Mac’s offer one feature that the older ones don’t. They run Microsoft operating systems! That’s right, I am typing this blog entry in Windows XP on my MacBook Pro. Now, if you are a geek and you are reading this you will be saying “Old news”… well, yeah, but my blog is not really targeted at geeks, so go read someplace else! So, what does that mean…. a new Mac can do EVERYTHING a PC can do *AND* everything a Mac could/can do! The best of both worlds? I think so!

The final thing that put me over the edge… “computer design”. Simply put, I have owned/used laptops and computers made by HP, IBM, Dell, Compaq, Gateway, Toshiba and others. Simply put, Apple based hardware is the best made. The price tag is high, but the integration, design and appearance of hardware is incredible. The way the power cord wraps up, the way the magnetic power connector attaches to the laptop, the way the computer closes. It’s all designed well, looks good and works great!

So… there you have it! If you ask me what kind of computer you should buy, I will simply tell you…. “A mac”.