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Tag: Gadgets

The End of My Rope

Posted on October 29, 2012 By Tom 1 Comment on The End of My Rope
Miscellaneous

At the EdTech conference this year the theme was “A High Tech Adventure!” Some of the conference staff were wearing camo, and camping gear made up most of the floor displays. The vendors always give away some freebies – usually pens and pencils, with a T-shirt being the high end of the spectrum. This year … Read More “The End of My Rope” »

That’s Incredible

Posted on May 5, 2010 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.

Read More “That’s Incredible” »

The Tech Guru

Posted on May 4, 2010 By Tom No Comments on The Tech Guru
Gear, General Technology

I’ve been accused of having too many gadgets. I confess, I have quite a few. However, I’m not one to rush out and buy the latest just because it’s new. I need to have a purpose for the gadgets that I get – not just so I can have something shiny. Yesterday, however, I met … Read More “The Tech Guru” »

i-GotU GT-120 Final Thoughts

Posted on May 27, 2009 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 May 25, 2009 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.

Read More “i-GotU Revisited” »

Flip Mino – Some Final Thoughts

Posted on December 8, 2008 By Tom No Comments on Flip Mino – Some Final Thoughts
Gear

Don’t bother. Seriously. If you’re purchasing this thing for personal use, you can do much, much better. I’ve had several weeks to work with the Flip Mino, and the results have been consistently disappointing.  It never seems to be in focus, or, more correctly, it focuses on something other than my main subject.  Camera shake … Read More “Flip Mino – Some Final Thoughts” »

Photo Navigation

Posted on December 3, 2008 By Tom 6 Comments on Photo Navigation
Gear, Geocaching and Maps, Photography

First a caveat – I try not to review or discuss specific gadgets here at RandomConnections unless I actually have the device in hand and have played with it, either having purchased it for myself, for work, or having swiped it from a friend for a test run. I don’t like to speculate on a device’s capabilities unless I’ve seen them myself. Also, especially this close to Christmas a favorable review might be taken as a “wish list”, and that’s not necessarily the case. So, I tend to stick with what I’ve actually seen.

Today I’m going to break with that policy somewhat. My intent was to discuss a capability rather than a specific device or brand, but it turns out that only one brand has this feature (so far.) I’m talking about photo navigation, the ability to navigate to a geotagged photo via GPS as an inherent capability of the device.

Read More “Photo Navigation” »

Working with the Flip Mino

Posted on October 19, 2008 By Tom 1 Comment on Working with the Flip Mino
EdTech, Gear, Photography

Flip Mino

One of the perks of my job is that I get to try to try out lots of new tech toys. One of our curriculum coordinators had requested one of the little Flip Mino video cameras. She graciously let me give it a whirl before giving it back to her.

Even though this device (or some version of it) has been out for about a year now, I hadn’t gotten very excited about it. High-quality video cameras are now very reasonably priced, and now even point-n-shoot cameras come with a video mode. The question was – Is the Flip redundant? Would you be better off applying the cost of the Flip toward a better point-n-shoot? I really needed to find out because I’ve got several others requesting these, and needed to know how best to spend our equipment funds.

Read More “Working with the Flip Mino” »

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