Ubuntu Live CD, NTL Speed Increase and more...

17:57.22 - Saturday 30th July 2005   (Link to This Entry)

Currently typing this on Ubuntu to see if it's worth putting on the Scumputer-III - yet another machine built from bits and pieces I happened to have kicking about. I've only downloaded the Live CD because there were still some Windows drivers on the HD I plan to wipe, and I don't want to use those just in case. Damned things took me ages to find.

NTL finally bumped me up to 3Mb. I say they bumped me up - what they actually did was start charging me for 3Mb and left it up to me to select a different speed for my account. Cheeky bastards. Things are streaming along, however - the Ubuntu download (a 600MB+ CD image) only took about 30 minutes, at over 300KB/sec.

TomTom Navigator 5 Upgrade

18:25.43 - Saturday 30th July 2005   (Link to This Entry)

€68.95 Delivered - direct from from TomTom

I received the upgrade to my TomTom Navigator 3 a while ago and have used it for fairly long trips a couple of times now. I won't go into detail on all aspects of the program, since many folks have already done that. Instead I'll concentrate on what I see as the main differences between v3 and v5.

The most striking thing is obvious improvements to the map display - it looks identical but now draws and updates nice and smoothly, whereas the old version would redraw every half-second. The GPS updates are still coming every second, but the new s/ware looks much more professional.

Route-finding now has more options to get you to your destination: Fastest; Shortest; Avoid Motorways; Walking Routes; Bicycle Routes and Limited Speed options are all available. What's missing is a 'Stick to bloody Motorways' option which you'd think would be the first option (Fastest), but in fact... isn't.

A sample trip from the centre of Manchester back to Grimsby, for example, will take you in sight of Meadowhall in Sheffield - via all the 40mph (and less!) road that the route entails. Any regular driver in these parts will tell you that the easiest route for the same trip is M56 » M60 » M62 » M18 » M180 - notice anything about all those roads? Yep, they're all Motorways.

The icons within the application look to be a bit gritty compared to earlier versions, but there's no denying that the range of options available has increased dramatically. Users can now download extras, get Weather and Traffic info (subscription extras) and even dial numbers - presumably via a connected Bluetooth phone. There are even additional voices to choose from, should the default female announcer get too repetitive for you.

The preferences area has been expanded as well, with new options allowing you to configure.. well.. just about anything: Daytime Colour Scheme; Nighttime Colour Scheme; Status Bar; Map Names; Keyboard (!) and much, much more. I took a brief look through and pretty much left everything on default, however.