Map your Driveway Invitations

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You sure meet a lot of nice people on the road. At RV parks, and especially at the rallies, we meet people all the time who say, “If you’re ever traveling thru my neck o’ the woods, stop by. We have a big driveway and a 30amp hookup!” Our answer is, “Be careful when you say that, because we’ll actually do it!”  We love visiting people by staying in their driveway.  Here we are at a good friend’s in Florida:

How do we remember where these places are? We put them on a custom Google Map. Watch the video below to see how to make one yourself.

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com
Computer Education for Travelers

Custom Maps with Google Maps

You’re not a real traveler if you don’t like maps! I’ve been staring at maps and dreaming about places all over the world since I was a little kid. My favorite Christmas present was a world atlas. There’s no better ‘wish book’ than an Atlas!

I still like to look at maps and dream, but now I also like maps to show where I’ve been! I love sharing my travels and, what better way than to show your travels on a computer map and let your viewers click on points for more information.

That’s exactly what Google Maps lets you do with it’s ‘My Maps’ feature. Here is a map of our 2008 travels. You can use the zoom in and zoom out tools, or you can click on any marker, or route line to see more detail - maybe a picture or a link to a blog post.

View Larger Map

Read more

Cell Phone Internet Hot-Spot

If you’ve been reading my posts about connecting to the Internet as you travel, you know that I love my satellite dish! But, I also am a big advocate of Wi-Fi and of cellular connections to the Internet. If you absolutely, positively need the Internet – you need to use all three methods. When we’re in the forest and the trees block our satellite dish, we’ll use our cell phone tethered to the computer and connect thru Verizon. If the Verizon signal isn’t available, we’ll find a Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere.

The tethered cell phone is a fabulous option for occasional use because it does not involve a separate contract.  Read more

Every RVer Needs a Blog

I travel Mexico on a daily basis even though I’m currently in Ohio.  How do I do it?  By following the blog of Tioga and George.  I also feel like I’ve made the RV trip to Alaska because of watching the Gundyville blog when they made the trip last summer. 

 

From Gypsy Journal Rally

Right now we’re at the Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina, Ohio.  The rally is produced by Nick and Terry Russell, so you can bet that most of the 250+ people here follow Nick;’s blog.    We meet a lot of people at rallies with only a few minutes to say ‘Hello’ and ‘Where are you from?’  If they give me a blog address, I can then peruse it at my leisure - usually during those sleepless hours in the middle of the night.  The next time I see them, I have some specific conversation starters. Here are some of the people you could meet if you were here:

Running Down our Dreams
Traveling USA
Trails of Serengeti

I really do believe that every RVer needs a blog!  We live a lifestyle that so many people envy, it’s downright stingy not to share it!  I’ve been keeping our Geeks on Tour Blog since April, 2003.  I hope that people enjoy reading it, but I keep it for myself.  I’ve always kept journals, and a blog is just the best way to do it these days.  I find myself asking questions like, “Where did we spend Christmas in 2006?”  I don’t remember - look it up in the blog!  Or What was the name of that park where we stayed and visited the Stonehenge replica along the Columbia river gorge?  I can go to our blog, type stonehenge into the search box and find the day that I wrote about it.  If I’m ever feeling blue (it doesn’t happen often, but it does happens) all I have to do is browse thru some random archives in the blog and be amazed at all the places we’ve been and things we’ve seen and done.  It’s a wonderful life!

If you’ve read this far and are asking, “what the heck *is* a blog anyway?”  I’ll tell ya.  First of all, the term is actually ‘weblog’, meaning a Log (journal) on the Web.  It is a simple type of website meant just for dated entries, called ‘posts.’  The most recent post is always displayed at the top.  As you scroll down, you will go back in time.  If you want to go back further in time than what is displayed on the main page, you can navigate to any past date using the Archives.  All this organization is handled for you automatically if you use one of the ’Instant Publishing’ systems like Blogger or Wordpress or Typepad.  You don’t need to know anything about how to make websites, the Instant Publishing system does all the organizing and layout work for you.  All you have to do is decide what you want to say!  If you’d like to peruse other RVers blogs, there is a good listing of hundreds of them on HitchItch.com.  We also have a list on GeeksOnTour/YourBlogs.  If you have a blog, you can add it to this list.

I use Blogger, and that is what we teach in our Geeks on Tour seminars and videos.  It is *so* easy I guarantee that anyone who listens to our 1 1/2 hour seminar (or watches the videos) will be able to make a blog in less than 15 minutes.  We gave our seminar at the rally day before yesterday and -here are at least 3 new bloggers today:

Neales on Wheels

Happy Highway Travelers
The Airville Robinsons

 

How much does Blogger cost?  Zero, Zip, Nada.  Unlimited storage and no advertising on your page unless it’s yours.  It integrates well with other Google products like Picasa and Picasa Web Albums, Google Earth and Maps.  If you’ve been thinking about making a blog but didn’t know where to start - check out Blogger.com.  The free sample videos at  Geeks on Tour will show you what to do.

 

Chris Guld

www.geeksontour.com

 

One Fee for Nationwide Wi-Fi

I just received an email “Boingo announces the addition of NomadISP to the Boingo Roaming Network, giving Boingo members access to close to 300 new hotspots located at RV parks across US and Canada.”

If RVers could pay one monthly fee and have access to Wi-Fi hotspots at RV parks all over the country, they’d be signing up in droves! Boingo’s ad claims “Connect any time you like, for as long as you want, at thousands of North American hotspots for just $9.95/month for 3 months!”

So, what’s the catch?

The main thing is simply that RVers are not Boingo’s target market.  Most of those ‘thousands of hotspots’ are hotels, restaurants and McDonalds.  Boingo is servicing the traveling business person.

If you found yourself in the campground with the sign pictured here, a Boingo membership would do you no good.  They’ve never heard of Boingo and you need to pay $9.95/day to get online here!

NomadISP, the subject of their press release IS for RV parks. But many, if not all, of the parks listed on their site offer Wi-Fi as an included amenity.  So, once again, you would not be using your Boingo account.

Read more

Picasa 3: The best gets better

Picasa is the best software you can have on your computer for managing all those digital photos you take as you travel! I say that because it does everything you need to do:

1. Transfer photos from camera to computer
2. Organize your photos on your computer
3. Make them look better with simple editing tools
4. Single-click easy to email, print, or make a free website
5. Backs up all your photos to CD/DVD

It does all this fast, easy, *and* it’s free. What more could you ask for?

Well, people have been asking for the ability to print text on top of a photo, they’ve been asking for a way to print multiple photos on one page and manually place them on the page wherever you want. Or how about better slide shows?, or editing out blemishes on peoples faces?, or tighter integration with your web album?

All these things and more are now included in the new release of Picasa called Picasa 3. It’s in Beta, which means they’re at the end of the development stage but not quite finished. When you use Beta software, it’s always recommend to make a backup of your system first. Picasa 3 is only available for Windows. The Linux version is 2.7 and there is no Macintosh version … yet.

I’ll write more about Picasa 3 once I’ve worked with it some more. Meanwhile, watch this video about the greatly improved Collage feature. I’d love to hear from any of you that do scrapbooking. How does this compare to what you’re using now?

If you have any problem viewing that high resolution one, below is the Youtube version:

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com
Computer Education for Travelers

CoolRVToyz.com Product Review

We live fulltime in our 30 ft class C motorhome. I learned early on to eliminate *all* unnecessary weight, and that included those big campground directories we used to have. So, I was delighted when asked to review this CD from CoolRVToyz.com. They call it “The Ultimate RV Parks and Campgrounds Directory.” “With more than 50,000 National & State Park Campgrounds, Public & Private Campgrounds, RV Resorts, Military FamCamps, RV Dealers, Camping Supplies, Truck Stops & more …” It is sold online for $49.95. You can download it immediately, or you can order the CD to be mailed to you. Either way, the fee includes 1 year of free updates to the listings.

I don’t know why, but I was expecting a self-contained directory with it’s own user interface, but instead, it is a compilation of Points of Interest to add to your GPS navigation device or trip planning program. For us that’s even better since we have our GPS mapping software running all the time we’re driving. Loading this data as points of interest (POIs) in that program will make the data very accessible to us. However, if you don’t have such a device or program, this CD won’t do you much good.

My husband, Jim, does most of the planning with our Navigation software, Microsoft Streets and Trips, so I asked him to install the CD on his computer and put it thru some paces.

Installation: When you run the setup program from the CD you are given several choices of what to load and where to put the files. The documentation and support files take 114MB then you choose files for your device or mapping program.

Garmin users have 2 choices. One for the Nuvi 3xx family, which moves the descriptions to the top, and Standard for the Nuvi/StreetPilot/Zumo family GPS devices. Note: You need the latest POI Loader to load the files on your Garmin GPS.

Magellan, TomTom, Navman have individual files and there is a generic file for other GPS devices. There is a choice for Delorme Street Atlas and one for Microsoft Streets and Trips.
I chose the Streets and Trips option for this review.

The included documentation is well written and easy to understand. There is a separate instruction file for each supported GPS device. The process of installing the files on individual devices varies greatly. You will need the manual for your GPS to complete the documentation and successfully load the files.  There are completely different files for the different devices.  .GPX and .GPI files for Garmin, .OV2 and .ASC files for TomTom.  That’s a lot of conversion work already done so you can easily transfer the data to your GPS device.  The listing at left is just a partial listing.

Streets and Trips Files: There are two ways to load the information into Streets and Trips. The setup program gives you a complete map file that can be opened directly which includes all the included Points of Interest. Or, you can use the Import Wizard to import data from the individual files in the CSV folder that is created by setup. I prefer the individual file import. There is less clutter and I get just what I want. The complete file is impressive, though.

The Information: There is a tremendous amount of information included in the files. We did a little spot-checking and found all the parks we had just visited in New England were listed, with the correct contact information.  But, we looked at our home park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and it showed up in the CoolRVToyz info as ‘Buglewood RV Park.’  We happen to know that it hasn’t gone by that name in many years.  It’s had the name Paradise Island RV Resort since at least 2003.  The phone number listed was also incorrect.

When you click on the link for more info, the link takes you to www.coolrvparks.com, and its listing for the park, not the park’s website. A feature to correct inaccuracies is promised, but not yet implemented.

Many of the POIs on the CD are already included in the Microsoft Streets and Trips program. I expect the same is true for other programs and GPS devices.  And, there were still some missing that we use all the time - like Thousand Trails and Resorts of Distinction.  These are membership parks, and only available to members, so I can see why they wouldn’t be included, but we found a POI file for them on Discovery Owners website and we use it all the time.

Most, if not all of the information on the disk can be found for free on the web, if you want to search - and tweak. If you’re the do-it-yourself type, you’ll enjoy browsing POI-Factory.  The Technology Corner in the RV.net forums is a good place to get information too. Don’t expect everything to be up to date, though. And it will take you many days to get as much as is on the CD.

I recommend downloading the limited free demo version of The Ultimate RV Parks & Campgrounds. Then you can try it for yourself and see how it installs on your GPS!

Chris and Jim Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com

Photosynth: Way beyond Panoramas

If you’ve ever taken several photos of a scene and ’stitched’ them together into a panorama, then you have an idea of a new world to come with ‘Synthing’ photos. Although that comparison is rather like comparing a bicycle to the space shuttle as similar modes of transportation.

Photosynth is a new service from Microsoft. It allows you, for free, to upload hundreds of photos of any particular location. It will then stitch them all together and give you a virtual world where you can ‘dive in’ to any part of the location and zoom in, zoom out and look around.

The service just went live yesterday (August 20, 2008), so, if you go there and try to play with it, don’t be surprised if it’s “busy.” It might be best to wait a day or even a week. Meanwile, you could be taking some pictures that would be good for a ’synth.’ That is, take a lot of pictures of one subject. Take the photos from every angle. Take closeups and distance shots. When they get synthed together, you will have a 3 dimensional experience.

Although the possibilities for sharing your travel photos is exciting … the long range possibilities of being able to explore our world in 3D are even more so. Here is a video of a presentation by a co-creator of Photosynth. The presentation is from TED - Technology, Education and Design. I love TED! Whenever I want some inspiration, I go to TED.com and watch a video. I dream of attending one of their conferences someday. Take a look by clicking the play button below. If that doesn’t work for you, you can use this link to TED.com instead.

Photosynth on TED.com

Chris Guld

www.GeeksOnTour.com

Internet, Satellite dishes, and Trees

I have a love/hate relationship with trees. I love the beauty, the shade, and the ambiance they provide. I hate that they block our satellite dish from connecting us to Internet. It took me a while before I had the nerve to ask a park for a site without trees. That was sacrilege! But, I got over it. We have plenty of opportunity to enjoy trees on walks and driving around. When I’m ‘home’ I want my Internet! I’ve learned to simply ask if there are any ’satellite friendly’ sites. Even though relatively few people have the Internet satellite that we do, the TV satellites have the same issue with trees, and park personnel are accustomed to dealing with the issue.

The following pictures are from Oregon and California. Our dish did get connected here, even with all the trees. It doesn’t need a wide open area, just a hole thru the branches (in the exact right spot) will do.

In the 5 years that we’ve been traveling and using our Datastorm Internet Satellite dish, trees have not bothered us. We were always able to find a hole thru the trees big enough for our dish to find its satellite and connect.

Until now.

We are in New England and I’ve never seen so many trees! As I mentioned in last week’s article, we had no connection (Satellite, Wi-Fi, or Cellular) in Acadia National park. The picture below is from a commercial park in central Maine. We didn’t even try to raise the dish here. Luckily, this park had good free Wi-Fi, so we got online all we wanted.

This next photo is from Burlingame State Park in Rhode Island. No satellite connection available here! And no Wi-Fi. Luckily the Verizon signal was good enough to use the Broadband Connect feature of our phone.

The angle of your dish makes a difference
Another thing that makes it more difficult to connect here in New England is that we are so far north and east. The satellite is in geosynchronous orbit over the equator somewhere in the Pacific. That means that it appears to stay in the exact same place … it is orbiting at the same rate the earth is spinning. For more info see this NASA site.

Think about it, if we were parked near the equator, our satellite dish would be pointing straight up. If the photo above was taken in Southern California, we may have been able to connect because the dish would be aimed higher and may be shooting over the trees. Here in New England, the dish is pointing much closer to the horizon, and even short trees get in the way.

Just another example that, if you need the Internet as you travel, you need to use all three methods to connect.

Chris Guld
www.geeksontour.com

Internet at Libraries and Cafes

We are currently in Acadia National Park! It is beautiful here. We really like to stay on the Park property and we chose a national park campground called Seawall. There are no hookups, and certainly no Wi-Fi here at ‘Seawall’ campground. We could run our generator, but our satellite dish could not connect thru all these trees! Our cell phones would not maintain a connection either - so we were OFF line! But, this is where we wanted to stay.

What do we do? I want to stay here for 3 nights, but my RV.net article is due today?! Well there are Wi-Fi hotpspots at various cafes and, most always at Public Libraries. We found a public library in Southwest Harbor, near the campground, where Wi-Fi was offered. What a cool place!

Internet Access at Public Libraries

And, I am certainly not the only one taking advantage of the Internet connection. One man who said he was traveling thru the area had a deadline to submit a grant proposal. Who cares that he’s on vacation in a beautiful national park? He can take a few hours, visit this local library, get his work done and get back to play! Others were just checking their email, and the woman next to me said she lived nearby but appreciated the free high-speed Internet.

I took a few minutes to speak with the director of this library. She said that the state of Maine has a wonderful public library system that helped them get set up as a Wi-Fi hotspot. She enjoys offering this service because she sees the benefits. There are traveling business people who take advantage of it as well as college students taking exams and many travelers every day accessing their email. She said that travelers particularly liked the fact that the Wi-Fi hotpsot was wide open and always on. They could access it from the parking lot 24 hours/day.

So, the purpose of this post is to encourage you to check out local public libraries as sources for Internet connections. They’re free, they’re usually high-speed, and you might meet some interesting people! We also took advantage of Wi-Fi at our lunch spot in Bar Harbor. Lobster Bisque and Internet. Does it get any better?

This is Chris Guld signing off from Acadia National Park in the Southwest Harbor Public Library!

Chris Guld

www.geeksontour.com

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