HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Joe in Lincoln, Nebraska listens to podcast and asked: “I’d like to ask about a navigation problem. I am a field technician. Means I travel all over the place and fix people’s broken computers and such. While I’m out on the field, I sometimes get higher priority calls and try to schedule my route to make it more efficient and avoid backtracking. Is there any device that I can plug into my laptop that would combine the best of the GPS and mapping software so that I can have that in my laptop since I already have that with me?”
What you’re looking for is “true route optimization” … something large delivery companies like FedEx or UPS use. The answer to your question is not consumer tech, you need more professional technology to accomplish what you want to do. Mark ran into some interesting info that might help you …
You’re looking for software that can understand multiple destination points and offer route optimization. Now, you wanted the further feature of having it understand that some stops were higher priority than others and adjust the routing accordingly. That is going to take you into systems designed for companies operating fleets of service or delivery vehicles. For instance, an outfit called C2logix has several systems they offer, but pricing is customized based on client needs (that’s code for “this isn’t a consumer product, and your Visa card doesn’t have enough room on it”).
One forum post we found was from a guy who claimed he’d been able to do this using a laptop, a $350 product from Microsoft called Mappoint, a plugin for that product called “Advanced GPS” and a USB GPS adapter for the laptop. We can substantiate this, of course, and we’d hesitate to recommend a solution that we can’t try ourselves.
On the consumer side, a GPS such as the Garmin nuvi 2450 or 2460 series will offer multiple destinations with route optimizing for the most efficient travel. This doesn’t adress your question of making some of those routes higher priority than others, but it does provide you with a consumer product between $200 and $300 dollars, depending on the specific model, that will understand you have more than one place to go and find the most efficient route to reach them all.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark
Lautenschlager
Facebook Participation: We’re getting responses to our Product Spotlight segment from our last hour where we compared two hot, new Android phones. On Facebook we asked our listeners: T-Mobile’s G2X or Verizon’s HTC Thunderbolt? Which of these do you desire most?
Here are some of the answers that we got:
Dave Graveline wrote: Thunderbolt! 🙂
Martin wrote: iPhone 4 and 5 when I can afford it.
Raf wrote: HTC Thunderbolt — I’m sorry, nuff said.
Tom wrote: Maybe the Thunderbolt, if bleeping big red gets off its butt and turns on in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Then again, by the time I can upgrade to a Thunderbolt, something else will be out calling my name. Grrrr … curse you cell phones.
Bill wrote: My relatives, locally and out of town, use Verizon. Since unlimited cell phone to cell phone is not charged, it has to be Verizon compatible.
Tune in to Hour 3 for more details.
Paul in Albany, New York listens to the podcast and called to help another listener. On our April 22nd broadcast: Shelley in Jefferson City, Missouri told us she accidentally deleted her photo program (iPhoto) on her Power PC iMac. Thousands of pictures from her vacations, adventures and milestones were gone and she wanted to recover them. She asked if there was a way to get iPhoto back. Unfortunately, because her iMac was very old, her chances were slim.
Paul shared his own experience and suggested using an undelete program to recover the pictures. Thank you Paul!
If you’d like to help another listener call us on 1-800-899-INTO (8646) or email us here, you could win a prize!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Dave Cole, Co-Founder – Next3D
We’ve talked about bad 3D and how it can give you headaches, but the reality is the current delivery system and capacity does not match the specs needed for good 3D. Next3D is rolling out a 3D video-on-demand service very soon.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1919 the Hungarian physicist Denes von Mihaly presented “Telehor”, the first functioning television set with which he was able to transmit simple shadow pictures via cable. Mihaly later moved to Berlin in Germany and founded his own laboratory. In 1923 he received a German patent for a technology to sample every pixel of an image ten times per second. One year later, the year the IFA was founded, another patented system by Max Dieckmann “to make moving images visible in a distance” was publicly shown.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com.
Rickey in Toledo, Ohio listening on, as he put it, “everything!” called to help another listener: On last week’s show (our April 29th broadcast), Steve in Raleigh, North Carolina
told us he had just purchased a laptop and that he wasn’t too computer savy. He wanted to know what to do to pickup Wi-Fi. Steve shared that his laptop picked up the Wi-Fi outside his nephew’s house, but at a parking lot, outside of McDonalds, it didn’t. We then discussed that it could be that his laptop was trying to connect to his nephew’s network, because it was the last one he connected to, and that it wouldn’t work if he was away from his nephew’s house. We then went on to discuss that places like Starbucks and McDonald’s may require an access code or Wi-Fi key.
Rickey told us that McDonald’s doesn’t require a WiFi password to use the connection and gave us details on how to connect to McDonald’s network. Thank you Rickey!
If you’d like to help another listener call us on 1-800-899-INTO (8646) or email us here, you could win a prize!
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Larry in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin listening on WOSH asked :
“Two weeks ago you had a caller thank you for speeding up his computer. Said he went and and spent $20 at Walmart. Looking for what program that was.”
We were talking about the System Mechanic software from iolo. This is a product that we have used for may years in our studios and continue to swear by it. And no, they don’t sponsor the show and pay us to say that. When we find a product that works well, and does what is claims it will, we talk about it. And this is one of those products that works exceptionally well.
They do have several versions of System Mechanic available. Their latest is version 10, which you can find for about $40. If you don’t mind a slightly older version, we’re still finding System Mechanic 8 available at places like Amazon for about $20.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info,
please email us here.
Into Tomorrow Product Spotlight with Rob Almanza
T-Mobile G2X vs. HTC Thunderbolt:
| T-Mobile G2X |
• Made by LG (Optimus 2X)
• Nice, sleek design
• Runs pure Android 2.2 smoothly (LG says it can handle 2.3 Gingerbread whenever the update is available)
• NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core mobile processor and HD gaming with 3D graphics
• 4-inch screen
• Supports full HD 1080p video playback and can record video in 1080p with its 8-megapixel camera (on the back)
• On T-Mobile’s “4g” Network
• $200 with a 2-year contract & after rebates, $500 without a contractHTC Thunderbolt
• Real 4G Speeds
• 4.3-inch screen
• 8-megapixel camera on the back and records 720p HD video
• Battery life because there isn’t a button that easily toggles 4G off, when you’re not in an area that has 4G, or … don’t need that speed
• $250 with a 2-year contract. Full retail without a contract is $570
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
iolo: Several copies of System Mechanic – Fix & speed-up your PC, Automatically
SmartShopper Electronics: Several SmartShoppers — Electronic Grocery List Organizer
ZAGG: A variety of goodies, including: ZAGGsparq battery packs, ZAGGMate iPad cases, dual USB 2.0 in-car chargers & XL gadget wipes