The Rabapab Blog

I picked up a copy of Streets & Trips 2009 GPS today at Best Buy. My initial thoughts when I got home were that it was a waste of money, because I could not get a GPS signal from my apartment. I figured hell my Blackberry can get a signal, why shouldn’t this little GPS adaptor. I guess it really needs to be outside to get a good signal, it didn’t do that bad in the car either. It came with an extension cable that allows you to move the receiver for better reception, although it doesn’t seem to do that bad attached right to the netbook. The nice thing is that the unit also works with Google Earth so I can get GPS information in there when I am out and about as well. I guess you could say that I really just bought it for the USB GPS receiver, but for $70 I didn’t figure it could be very bad. And it’s not that bad, once it got locked in it held onto at least 6 satellites at a time.

It will make it nice for when I am travelling some place that I need directions to get to. I will just be able to take the netbook with the GPS receiver and have instant navigation. It would also be nice for outdoor excursions, considering the size of the netbook and the GPS receiver, it would not be that much to carry around in a backpack. With the Tetherberry software that I picked up not too long ago, as long as I have cellular data service, then I will have internet access. Figured that I could put the two together for a nice little navigation package. All that would be left would be a mounting kit for the car, but I just don’t think I am going to go that far. Besides it would make everything more visible, the last thing I would want is to draw unnecessary attention to my vehicle. For now it will serve its purpose and since it was not that expensive it will work out great as a starter unit.

Once I have had a chance to really use the Streets & Trips software I will toss another post up to review it. I will also be trying to use the GPS adaptor with other software to see how compatible it is. It definitely works with Google Earth, but I have not had a chance to figure out if there is any other software that it works with. I may try to take it out today and see what other software it works with, I am hoping some of the wireless networking software I got will be able to use it to determine locations for access points.

That’s it for this article, more to come with Street & Trips 2009 GPS.

So I finally got my Google Voice (GV) invite last night. I was able to get my account mostly setup and the GV app for Blackberries installed on my phone. I have been waiting for a while for GV to be available to check out, but they have been under a closed beta with the existing Grand Central users since GV was announced. The basics of GV are the following.

• One number for all your calls and SMS, which basically means that all of your phones can ring at the same time when someone calls your Google Voice number. You are in complete control over which phones that you have added to your account will ring when a call is received.
• Voice Mail Transcription, completely automated voice to text transcriptions can be sent via email or SMS text message, whenever someone leaves a voicemail. Very nice when you do not have time or the ability to check your voicemail.
• Listen In, which allows you to listen to voicemail messages as they are being left, just like with a physical answering machine. Upon hearing the callers message you can decide to then take the call if it is someone you want to talk to.
• Phone Routing, which allows you to send calls to certain phones based on who is calling.
• Personalized Greetings, allows you to setup Personalized voicemail greetings for individual callers.

And those are just some of the features of GV. I have begun to use my GV number for business contacts, as in companies that I do business with that require me to give them my phone number. With the spam features built into GV I will easily be able to filter out the unwanted telemarketing calls that might come from giving my phone number out to those companies. I normally don’t get too many telemarketer calls anyway, one of the beauties of using only a cell phone, which are naturally unlisted numbers anyway. So with the GV number that adds just another layer of filtering that I did not have before. Over time I will be switching all of my existing service accounts over to my new GV number. That way every one of them will be using that number to reach me, and I will be able to take advantage of the features included in GV to make sure that I am getting only the calls that I want to take.

As I spend more time using GV and start getting regular calls on it, I will toss up a quick post to update everyone on my thoughts for the service. I have been excited for some time to check GV out and now that I have a chance I really want to see how useful it could be.

So I just picked up a copy of Tetherberry tonight, decided I could certainly get some use out of something like that.  And I will especially now that I have this netbook pretty much running how I want it.  Battery life is rather good so far with Windows 7, although for the best battery life I must reduce Windows 7 to its Power Saver mode.  It takes away some of the prettiness of the operating system, but oh well, it still does what I want it to. 

So Tetherberry will allow me to use my Blackberry data plan as my internet connection, wherever I can get data service on my phone.  I have nationwide coverage and it is a pretty big network, so I should pretty much be able to hop online from anywhere.  Now obviously with the type of connection that I have I do not plan on watching a movie over the internet with it.  I really intend the connection to be for email, light web browsing and messaging.  That is mostly because I don’t want to over use my connection, and since I would only really use it when I am travelling it shouldn’t be a problem to keep the bandwidth usage to a minimum. 

I will be checking out Tetherberry over the next couple of days, and I will throw my thoughts up in a few days.  This is certainly not new software and has been out for several months, but I felt the need to type something so this is what I came up with.  LOL. 

If you would like to check out Tetherberry for yourself, feel free to visit their website at http://www.tetherberry.com.  The software currently sells for $49.95, but compared to the monthly recurring cost of tethering service with most of the nations cell phone providers, that is a small price to pay.  And more importantly it is a one-time fee.  As I mentioned I don’t intend to use anymore bandwidth than I would normally use on my cell phone during a given day, not to mention that I would most likely only ever use the software a few times a month.  But to be able to look at map on a screen the size of a netbook or laptop instead of that tiny Pearl screen makes it worth it 10 times over, I would even take it over the Storm screen.

Oh my goodness, I am not really sure why I did not pick up a netbook sooner than I did, but am actually glad I waited.  I ended up getting a very nice one, and so far it has worked out wonderfully for me. 

I have quickly gotten used to the smaller keyboard and am now able to breeze thru quick posts like these.  I won’t lie and say that if you have never used one before that it won’t take some time to get used to.  But with the Asus that I got it is not much smaller than a normal laptop keyboard anyway.  And unlike some other netbook keyboards this one has full size shift keys, much nicer than the smaller ones found on other netbooks.  As much as one can say about a keyboard the touchpad is actually very nice as well, once it gets a proper dose of sensitivity reduction.  Otherwise it is fairly difficult to type because the cursor keeps jumping around or you are clicking where you shouldn’t and completely mess stuff up. 

Battery wise it is actually doing pretty good so far.  I have not really sat down and messed with the Power settings to find that perfect long battery configuration while still allowing the device to functional and connected.  With Windows 7 it doesn’t seem like it would be too difficult to get closer to 9 hours of life out of the battery.  The manufactures claims 10.5 hours of battery life, but most reviews that I have seen indicate the number is more like 8.5 – 9 hours max with power saving settings.  Since the netbook came with Windows XP I would like to compare the life I am getting with Windows 7 to what I get with Windows XP.  I plan on doing a clean install of XP Pro which I already have a license for here within the coming months to really get a good comparison between the Power Saving settings built into XP coupled with the Super Hybrid Engine software from Asus against the Power Saving settings built into Windows 7.  I have to say I am impressed with the life I am getting with just Windows 7.  I have been on this thing since 5:30 PM today, and it is still going, 33% (2 hours 45 minutes).  Mind you I started off at around 98% or so on the battery.  So not bad all things considered.

Overall I am very pleased with my purchase and would certainly recommend the Asus Eee PC 1005HA-P to anyone looking for a compact yet well endowed netbook.  This thing has it all and comes with room to grow.  Definitely look this sweet little PC up if you are in the market.