Category: Gear

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That’s Incredible

Posted on By Tom No Comments on That’s Incredible
Gear

HTC Incredible

I’m no stranger to smart phones. I’ve had a Blackberry for several years now for work. Not being tied to a computer just to get e-mail seems normal now, and as it should be. However, it has it’s good and bad points. I’ve started referring to the device as my “leash” since it keeps me tied to the office where ever I go. Even though it would be useful while I’m out and about exploring, I’ve to where I leave it at home when I’m not on duty. To me, it represents work, and occasionally I’d like to escape. Laura had wanted to get me a new smart phone of my own at Christmas, but that didn’t work out. I recently got a bit of cash from a singing gig, and decided that now might be the time before we start some summer traveling.

After some debate and research, I decided upon the HTC Incredible. Since we are on Verizon the iPhone wasn’t an option. At first I was intrigued by the Palm Pre. I liked its ability to act as a WiFi hub for multiple devices. However, I wasn’t as sure about the availability of apps for Palm. That narrowed it to either the Motorola Droid or the brand new HTC Incredible. While I really liked the Droid’s physical keyboard, the speed and overall specs of the Incredible won out, especially since they were the same price.

I won’t go into a detailed review of the Incredible. Others have done a much better job. However, these are my impressions so far, and my impressions about smart phones in general.

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Test-Driving the Eye-Fi Explore

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on Test-Driving the Eye-Fi Explore
Gear, Geocaching and Maps, Photography

Eye-Fi

I’ve been interested in these little gizmos for some time now. The Eye-Fi Explore is an SD card that will automagically upload your photos to your online photo service of choice whenever it comes within range of an open wireless network. Not only that, it uses some strange alchemy to geotag your photos each time you click the shutter. It sounded like the perfect photographic tool, but also the promises seemed too good to be true. I was hesitant to make the investment until I saw that Woot.com had one for a dirt-cheap price. I decided to give it a shot. I found it both to be about as amazing as I expected, and about as frustrating as I imagined.

Eye-FiThe Eye-Fi comes with the SD card (2 GB in my case, but available up to 8 GB) and a USB card reader, as shown above. The management software comes on the card itself, and automatically launches when the device is first plugged into the computer. The first thing I discovered is that you must have wireless access to configure the device. Just being connected to a computer with Internet access isn’t enough.

There are lots of parameters that can be set with the device. You can choose your photo hosting service (Flickr, in my case) and even set up separate routing for videos, so your photos may go to Flickr, but your videos to YouTube. You can set the device to connect and upload automatically to any wifi hotspot, or only when it comes within range of specified hotspots. I always like to edit my photos before they go public, so I set the privacy settings so that I would be the only one to see them on Flickr. You can also enable/disable geotagging.

Eye-Fi-Screen-Two

The most amazing thing is that this device actually works. I tried it in both my Fuji WP33 and my Nikon S70. It took photos, and when I turned the camera on in the presence of a wireless network, it uploaded the photos to my Flickr account without any interaction from me.

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New(ish) Kayak – Old Town “Dirigo”

Posted on By Tom No Comments on New(ish) Kayak – Old Town “Dirigo”
Gear, Paddling

I bought my first kayaks when I started working in Spartanburg Five, eleven years ago. The Perception Torrents have been great, fun boats, but there are several problems. First, these are wet boats. There are self-bailing holes in the bottom, so you are constantly sitting in water. Secondly, there isn’t any storage to speak of. … Read More “New(ish) Kayak – Old Town “Dirigo”” »

New Camera – Fujifilm Z33WP

Posted on By Tom 6 Comments on New Camera – Fujifilm Z33WP
Gear, Photography

DSCN3931

I was not able to find the perfect point-n-shoot camera. However, I was able to find an adequate camera. After a bit of back and forth and research, I purchased a Fujifilm Z33 waterproof camera today.

It was a trick to balance feature set and price. I knew that I wanted something waterproof, but there were several possibilities. I started off looking at the Canon D10, which looked like it was going to be a great camera, but the cost was higher than I wanted to go. It also looked a bit clunky and bulky to me. On the opposite end was the Vivitar 6200W. It was certainly cheap enough, but that came at too high a cost in lost features – no optical zoom, AA batteries, only 6 mp, and a long list of other deficiencies. That narrowed it down to the Olympus waterproof series, the Panasonic waterproof cameras, and Fujifilm cameras rounding out the middle tiers.

I had two distinct criteria for this particular purchase. First, it had to be available locally. I have a paddling trip to Congaree National Park coming up this weekend, so I didn’t want to wait for an online order. I wanted instant gratification, and that ruled out the Panasonic cameras. Secondly, the price had to fall within a reasonable range of a couple of gift cards I had gotten for speaking and singing engagements. That ruled out the Canon and the upper end Olympus waterproofs. It finally came down to a battle between two cameras – the Z33 and the Olympus Stylus 550 waterproof camera.

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i-GotU GT-120 Final Thoughts

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on i-GotU GT-120 Final Thoughts
Gear, Geocaching and Maps, Photography

As I stated in my last post, the i-GotU GT-120 was a pleasant surprise. The unit functions much better than the GT-100 that I purchased and returned last year. It geotagged images accurately from my little Nikon S50 camera. However, in my last tests I ran into some puzzling problems – not with the GT-120 … Read More “i-GotU GT-120 Final Thoughts” »

i-GotU Revisited

Posted on By Tom 8 Comments on i-GotU Revisited
Gear, Geocaching and Maps, Photography

i-gotU GPS tracker

A little over a year ago I tried out the i-GotU GT-100 GPS tracker from Mobile Action. At the time I was looking for a simple tracker for photo geotagging, and the GT-100’a small size and price ($49 from Amazon) were very appealing. I put the unit through a series of tests, and found it to be completely useless for geotagging, and wrote up two reviews to that effect (Test Driving the i-GotU GPS Tracker, and i-GotU GPS Tracker – Summary Review.) Those two reviews generated lots of hits and comments for this website, both for and against the GT-100.

Subsequently, I was contacted recently by Mobile Action and asked if I would be willing to try out the new GT-120. The unit arrived Saturday and I’ve been putting it through the same tests that I did with the GT-100. So far, I’m impressed, and pleasantly surprised. This unit appears to work much, much better, and geotags images like a charm.

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MyMac

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on MyMac
Gear, General Technology

New Mac

Anyone that’s been following my Twitter account knows that I’ve been agonizing over a computer purchase since my desktop computer died about three weeks ago. I’ve been getting along OK with the laptops I’ve had available, but it has been inconvenient for trying to print out photos or do some of the video work I wanted to do. Well, the wait is over. My new iMac arrived on Friday, so I’ve spent all weekend setting it up and getting used to it.

Laura says that I agonized more over this purchase than when I bought my new car. She’s right. However, when I was making the car decision, I didn’t have to consider between a way of driving that was completely different from how I had ever driven before, or with sticking with the familiar. That was my PC vs Mac dilemma.

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Getting More from Your Auto GPS

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on Getting More from Your Auto GPS
Gear, Geocaching and Maps

I figured it was time for a round-up.  I’ve been talking a lot about doing various things with a GPS, but haven’t gone into much detail.  Chances are that you got a GPS for your car because you feel like you’re directionally challenged, or you just the convenience of plugging in an address and getting directions.  That’s about the extent of what most people do, but there is so much more.

Thought it might be time to talk about automobile GPSs in general, and how they can really benefit a serious rambler like myself.  The one I use is a Garmin Nuvi 205, but most of what I’ll cover here should work with just about any unit.  If you’re into geocaching, you’ll already be familiar with most of these concepts.

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