TechnoGeek Learning Rally

In a previous post, we told you about a different kind of rally, where RVers would be learning about Computers, Cameras, Smartphones, and more.  We thought you might like to see how the Rally went.  Here is a short video:  Read More →

Can Facebook be your Rally’s Website?

by Chris Guld of Geeks on Tour One of the first websites I ever built was for our wedding in 1998.  Since then, I’ve built websites for my own personal interests as well as for businesses and clubs.  Now, we’re holding an RV Rally, so I should build a website for it right, or at least a Blog? Maybe not. A normal website is primarily one-way communication. Social media (e.g. Facebook) these days allows us to have communications in multiple directions.  People reading your Facebook page can not only talk back to you, they can also  communicate with each other.  They can even share your page with their friends … can you say ‘word of mouth advertising?’ The rally that we’re holding is a joint effort between us – Geeks on Tour, and Phil and Tracey May of  TechnoRV.  Rather than attach the rally to either of our business websites, we’ve decided to try a Facebook Page.  This way the rally has a web identity of it’s own, separate from either Geeks on Tour or TechnoRV.  The Techno-Geek Learning Rally Website/Facebook Page Take a look and tell us what you think.  The URL is www.facebook.com/technogeeklearningrally.  If you’re not a member of Facebook, you can still see the page, you just can’t interact with it.  If you are a member of Facebook, click the ‘Like’ button to connect to our rally. Benefits of using Facebook First of all, it’s free, and Oh-So-Easy.  Beyond that, it’s interactive. ... Read more

Is Picasa the Only Software for Managing all your Travel Pictures?

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksOnTour.TV Aren’t digital cameras great?!  Just snap away to your heart’s content, no worries about wasting film, or costing more money, or taking up more space.  You can see right away if you captured the image you wanted, and take more shots if you didn’t.   I’ve been known to take over 100 pictures in any given day when we’re traveling thru beautiful countryside.  For RVers, like us, you can quickly rack up thousands of pictures!  Now what? If you put your pictures onto your computer, which we think you should, then you have lots of choices for what software to use for managing and editing them.  At Geeks on Tour, we’ve been evangelists for Picasa over 7 years now.  It’s a free program that you download to your computer from Google.  We teach several seminars on it, produced over 60 tutorial videos, have a website dedicated to Picasa, and wrote a book on it!    But, we know it’s not the only game in town.  Many people with Macintosh computers are very happy with iPhoto which comes preinstalled on their Macs – even though Picasa does have a fully compatible Macintosh version.  On Windows computers, the gold standard photo editing program is Adobe Photoshop ($700!) or Photoshop Elements ($99.)  There are also several free programs, including Microsoft’s offering – Windows Live Photo Gallery, and a full featured, free, Photoshop workalike called GIMP. Why we... Read more

Droid Smartphone for Navigation

by Chris Guld, www.Geeksontour.TV It’s a rare RVer that doesn’t use some type of GPS device to assist in navigation.  When we sold our house and hit the road in 2003, we used the Streets and Trips software on our laptop with a little USB GPS receiver.  A few years later we bought a Garmin dashboard GPS, then a Rand McNally RVND, and now a Magellan.  Those are all great devices and we use them all, but I like using my Droid smartphone with Google Navigation the best!  Why do I love it?  Let me count the ways: It’s in my hand.  I am in the passenger seat – this is not a good thing for a solo driver – but for a navigator, it is so comfortable to hold the device in your hand to be able to adjust your view, search for locations, or change settings.  When I have to manipulate the screen on a device that is mounted to the dash, I have to sit up in my seat and contort my body in order to see the screen and be able to properly use the controls.  If we’re using Streets and Trips on the laptop, that’s easier than the dashboard units, but it’s big and awkward. It’s fast.  My navigation advice is usually needed when Jim is driving according to the dashboard unit and he says something like, “this next turn doesn’t seem right, what should I do?”  I need to quickly get a birds-eye view of where we are vs. where we’re going, and evaluate the choices of how to get there.  With a simple pinch gesture, the Droid responds... Read more

A Different Kind of RV Rally: Learning Computers, Cameras, and Smartphones

by Chris Guld, of GeeksOnTour.TV If you are a typical RVer, you use a lot of technology.  How would you like to spend a week, with other RVers learning how to really use all those toys?  From GPS and mapping software for planning your travels, to digital cameras and software for keeping photos organized, to using the Internet with laptops, tablets, and smartphones for keeping in touch with friends, family, and the world. I’ve been writing tech-related articles in this RV.net Blog for several years now, and with my husband Jim, as Geeks on Tour, we’ve presented computer seminars to thousands of RVers at various Rallies across the country. Then we met Phil, Tracey, and family from TechnoRV.  They also teach technology topics at RV Rallies.  We are both full-time RVers.  So we got together and planned the first ever Technology Learning Rally for RVers.  This will be more like a week-long immersion school and tech-toy playground than a rally.  Each registration receives a 3-ring binder of materials, including instructional handouts, hands-on worksheets, and tutorial videos on disk.  It will be a small group with lots of opportunity for personal attention using your own computer/tablet/camera/smartphone. In addition to all our normal seminars, we will have hands-on sessions for beginners, lots of open Q&A, Show &Tell sessions, as well as projects, contests, and games like Geek Jeopardy. If you’re interested and you’ll be in Florida at the end of April,... Read more

Send and Receive Faxes while Traveling

A fax machine is certainly not high on your list when you travel by RV, but once in a while there is a need to send or receive faxes.  We use the Internet for everything else, why not faxing?  Even if you do travel with an all-in-one printer/fax machine, most of them will need a cable from a land-line telephone in order to work.  Read on and we’ll tell you about a couple of websites that we use for faxing – one for receiving and another for sending. Receiving Faxes Receiving is easier than sending.  All that is required is a phone number that receives the faxed document and redirects it as an attachment to an email.  We’ve used eFax.com for many years and have had no problem with our grand total of about 3 faxes per year!  Here’s how it works. You sign up for a free account.  You will be assigned a fax number.  Now you can give that number when anyone wants to send you a fax.  To them it’s just like sending to any other regular old fax number, but to you it looks like an attachment to an email.  Is it really Free?  If you go to efax.com you will see an eFax Plus for $16.95/mo and an eFax Pro for 19.95/mo.  There is a free version, honest!  You need to browse to www.efax.com/efax-free in order to sign up.  With the free version you can’t choose your phone number, and you’re limited to receiving no more than 10 faxes/month.  You can’t send faxes with eFax free.  Sending Faxes It’s... Read more

A Map of Visited States

Would you like to have your very own map of visited states to put on your blog, facebook profile, or email signature?  It’s easy and free by going to http://epgsoft.com/.  Just choose ‘Create Map’ and ‘Visited States Map.’  You should now see a listing of all the states.  Check off the ones you have visited, then Create Map. Make sure to select the Map Size and the File Format.  Then, when you click Create Map you will see: If you find that you’ve missed some states, or selected some by mistake, you can click the Back button on your browser to fix it, then click on Create Map once again to see the corrected version.  Once the map looks how you want it, you right-click on it and choose Save Picture As (or Save Image As – depending on your browser.)  Navigate to the folder where you want to store it and click ok.  Now the map is a picture on your computer that you can use like any other picture.  How about the World? If you travel the world and want to have a map of visited countries, check out http://douweosinga.com/projects/visited.  It works similarly to the visited states above except at the very end.  Instead of saving an image file, you get html code to put on a blog or website.  It also only uses one color.  I find for a world map that one color is better anyway.   visited 83 states (36.8%) Create your own visited map of The World or Like this? try: Eddie the DJ This... Read more

Part Time Mobile Internet Connections

As fulltime RVers, we have no problem signing a 2 year contract for Internet service from Verizon, but we know many people who only travel part time.  What are their options for mobile Internet service?  A couple years ago, your only option was to rely on Wi-Fi which is very UNreliable!  Now there are several options for short term cellular Internet connections.  The technology world moves fast, and nothing moves faster than cellular Internet plans, so take the information below as talking points only.  Check with your provider, and/or your contract for the details that apply to you. Verizon is the focus of much of the information in this article since it is what we use personally, and it is the most popular service among RVers.  There are links at the bottom for information on other providers. 1. Putting your Contract on Vacation: Even if you do sign a 2 year contract with Verizon, for example, you can put your service (and payments) on vacation for up to 6 months.   Be aware that vacation time will be added to the end of your contract.  That means, if your contract period starts on 1/1/11 and goes thru 1/1/13, and you put it on vacation for 6 months, your contract now goes thru 7/1/13.  Be sure to check with your service provider (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T etc.) for details based on your particular contract. 2. Bring your Own Device: People sign up for a two year contract because that is the way to get the device (Mi-Fi, or cellular modem) for a steeply discounted... Read more

Snowbird RVers can get DSL or Cable Internet Service

by Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.tv We write a lot of articles here about how RV travelers can get Internet service.  All the options are some type of wireless service (Wi-Fi, Cellular, Satellite) because there is no wire that stretches with your RV down the road! But wired is almost always better than wireless, it’s more reliable, it’s usually faster, *and* there are generally no usage limits.  So if you have that option – do it! What do I mean by a ‘wired’ connection? I mean DSL or Cable.  A service where you have a physical wire (or cable) to your Internet Service provider.  If you’re staying in one RV park for 3 months or more, you may have one of these options. We are currently staying at Paradise Island RV park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  We got here mid-October and we’ll be staying thru March.  There are telephone lines at each site in this park so we called AT&T to get DSL Internet service.  They turned on the service at our site within just a few days, and we are paying $42/mo which is supposed to adjust down to $19/mo promotional deal after the first month. No Yearly Contract This is the second winter season we’ve done this.  When we left last April, we just called AT&T and told them to discontinue service.  Not so long ago, you had to sign a yearly contract to get service, but that’s not the case now. The AT&T line gets plugged into a DSL modem and that in turn is plugged into our WiFiRanger... Read more

Rand McNally TripMaker RVND GPS for RVs

In this third, and final, article about the Rand McNally TripMaker RVND 7710 GPS for RVs I’m going to talk about Route-Planning.  The other two articles were: What’s Up Ahead Multi-Stop Trips Some of the comments to the previous articles specifically asked about routing.  We want to know that the GPS is not routing us thru low clearance bridges or on other roads that are inappropriate for RVs.  This video shows how to plan a route thru Baltimore.  Other trip-planning devices would take you thru a tunnel, but the TripMaker knows that there’s a problem there.  Watch the video to see how it works. Alternate Link: GPS-Route-Baltimore.mp4 – 14.82MB Download Low Clearance Bridges I found a low bridge in Jacksonville, Florida for an example route.  Here is how Google Maps plans the route: Using Google’s Street View – you can see the low clearance! Here’s how the Rand McNally TripMaker GPS plans the same trip:   Now that’s exactly what we want right?  The Rand McNally TripMaker simply plans a route that avoids the low clearance. It doesn’t know all Low Clearance Bridges Be aware that *no* database has all of the low bridges – so, you still have to use all the tools at your disposal.  For example, we are members of Thousand Trails and we’ve spent some time at the Ohio park called Kenisee Lakes.  If you read the directions in the Thousand Trails book, you are told: Note: There are low clearance bridges... Read more

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