GPS on a commercial flight

Ok that's me on a commercial flight with my GPS on. Notice the PDA is on flight mode, so it's legal and responsible, I guess.

World's largest self portrait ....using GPS

The technique is described this way: "My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing."

He writes that the briefcase began a 55-day circumnavigation on March 17, ending up earlier this month back where it started in Stockholm, Sweden.(Courtesy DHL) He then downloaded the GPS information--the trip covered 62 countries on six continents--to his computer and made the self-portrait in a single stroke. Read on here

GPS Rulez

I have now been using a GPS Navigation device for almost close to 10 months. I have tried Mapking for turn-by-turn directions GPS.run Trainer for navigation and track storage etc.

Here are a few features of Mapking that are cool. For one it is Mapking Mapking. It's not like some other brand of GPS software renamed for local markets.

You can see turn by turn directions like any other GPS software and you also keep getting speed warnings as per settings. You can switch from 3D mode to 2D mode and day- night mode as per your choice. Given above is a screen grab in Simulation mode [I was not really driving at 85 KMPH :) ]

Another good feature is it's fuzzy learning. How it works is that, if the software suggests a road on a particular route and you avoid it for your own reasons repeatedly over time, then Mapking lowers the weightage (marked W below) allotted to that road, and as time goes by (learning process) it will not suggest that road anymore. Cool. Many others out there don't have this feature. Good work Mapking..
And among many other good features, you can also add a POI (Point of Interest) by simply holding your stylus at any point on the map and adding it as 'my favorite' as shown below. You can name the favorites as per your choice and classify them under various categories for easy access later.

What Mapking could introduce though, is classifying favorites as per active maps. Like If I have a particular map as active, say Bangalore, then it should only show favorites for \Bangalore in the favorite list, and not all favorites from all the cities that I might have added. Also, it could cover larger city areas. They haven't covered outskirts of cities like you would want them to and these are some of the features on my wish list.....

And given below is a grab from Run.Gps Trainer. Quite a cool tool.
Needless to say, I wasn't really canoeing. But you can choose from many different types of activities and if you have entered your age and weight etc. honestly, it will show you calories burnt etc. You can choose what audio prompts it keeps spewing at chosen intervals and you need not have to look at the screen till your 'training' is through. A tad difficult while in a canoe with your PDA, unless you have one of them waterproof cases that I haven't. :(

Google GPS sans a GPS on your mobile phone

Now Google knows where you are, without a GPS device. If you have a GPRS or EDGE or 3G enabled mobile device and use mobile google maps, then you will probably not need a GPS receiver device anytime soon. Google uses triangulation method to locate you and points your location on gmaps mobile screen with a blue dot. It claims an accuracy of a 1700 m radius, but I have rarely seen it farther than a few meters from my true location. Good work GOOG. Well, Read the details here..