My First LeapPad vs Power Touch

Our son just got a My First LeapPad as a gift. He also has a Power Touch reading system. Each of these are meant to teach kids while they play. For what they are meant to do, they have the same functionality, but each implementation has its own pros and cons.

New TomTom GO

TomTom has announced their TomTom GO 700 Satellite Navigation unit. It has a couple of new features over their previous products (previous post). This version has Bluetooth and a hard drive.

Bluetooth allows you to use the TomTom GO 700 as a hands free speaker phone for your Bluetooth capable cell phone. Also you will be able to access your phone book on the TomTom's screen. Also with a Bluetooth cell phone, the TomTom GO 700 can connect to the internet to get real-time traffic information. (This competes with XM Radio's navigation data). The 2.5GB drive, allows you to store many more maps on the device than were possible on the compact flash card of the TomTom GO 300.

The TomTom web site does not list when this will be available, or how much it will cost.

Mac Mini in VW GTi

This blog entry shows a very cool install of a Mac Mini into a VW GTi. Here is a list of some of the equipment that he used:

• 7" touch screen monitor


• iPod dock


• Accessible Firewure, USB and Ethernet jacks


• Griffin RadioShark USB FM/AM tuner

I don't know if I would want one of these installs in my car. I don't know what I would want to do with a Mac, that I couldn't do with a stereo that has an iPod interface.

[via HTmini]

Problems upgrading to php 4.3.10

I have been having a lot of problems upgrading my version of php on one of my servers. I can not just use the upgrade provide my yum, since I need to recompile php to include the mcrypt feature (previous post).

So I downloaded the source rpm, modified the spec file and built the rpms. When I upgrade using the rpms, the installation goes fine, but when I attempt to use any php functions that are provided by pear modules, the functions are undefined.

Acura's NavTraffic system

I just watched this video of Acura's XM NavTraffic system. This looks like a great system. I couldn't tell from the video if the recommended navigation route automatically route around traffic problems.

I want to get a system like this when we get our next car.

[via AutoBlog]

Using GPS during trip

Yesterday, we drove down to Palm Springs to visit some family, and we used our GPS Navigation unit in our Odyssey. It worked great, but there were two problems/issues.

1. In the evening, we knew that we wanted to get food in about an hour. What we wanted to do was to find restaurants along our current route. The Honda Navigation system doesn't have this.


2. In between San Bernardino and Palm Springs, the navigation unit was not able to receive signals from any of the GPS satellites. At that point, the system did not know what road we were on. I am not sure if we weren't able to receive the signals because there was interference in the area or there was something with the navigation unit itself.

Network thermostat

The network thermostat that I mentioned previously is now for sale at Smarthome.com. It for sale for $399, which is too expensive for me. Also it looks like this requires a CAT5 line run to the the thermostat, in addition to the HVAC control lines.

It is surprising that they would include the punch down block to include Power Over Ethernet. I would assume that all they would need to do is have a little box that had two ethernet jacks, and a jack for the power adapter. (This is what was done when I was using wireless broadband.)

I also wish this had 802.11 so it wouldn't be necessary to run and additional CAT5, but I don't know if it is possile to power a 802.11 device from the 12 volts DC running on the HVAC wires.

[Via Gizmodo]