In this post, I’ll describe the TomTom GO 710′s on-road navigation features, and offer some useful tips on how to make them better!

Strengths

Getting around by road is this device’s primary function, and there are plenty of reviews to be found online that describe these features, so I won’t bore you with all the details. In short, however, here are a some of the features that drew me to the TomTom GO 710 as an in-car navigator:

• Bluetooth phone integration

  Just like a Bluetooth headset, the TomTom GO 710 lets you make and take calls while driving without taking your phone out of your pocket. Because it has a screen, it also lets you browse your phone book for a number to dial, view incoming SMS messages, and, on fancier handsets than my Motorola V3, compose them. It even comes with a high-quality external microphone that you can clip to your sun visor, to supplement the not-so-good microphone built into unit itself.

• POI display while driving

  You can configure the map displayed while driving to show icons for particular POI categories, such as parking garages, ATMs, and geocaches. The Garmin devices I looked at required you to search for and select a particular POI before it would be displayed on the map.

• Wide screen

  Though the 4.3″ screen still seems smaller than most people expect, this is the biggest you’ll get in a device under AU$1,000. If for nothing else, the larger onscreen buttons (especially when entering text) make this worthwhile.

• GPS QuickFix

  Most GPSr units can take around 30 seconds to locate enough satellites to get a fix on your position first thing in the morning. By downloading satellite position information from the Internet when it is docked with your PC (or, optionally, on the go using your phone’s data connection), the TomTom cuts this to less than five seconds.

• Complex Itineraries

  While comparable units often restrict you to one “via” when planning a route (e.g. drive home via the supermarket), the TomTom software lets you create and save complex itineraries with multiple waypoints and destinations.

• Relatively cheap

  The closest competitor I looked at was the Garmin nuvi 660, which costs about AU$300 more, and sports a bunch of extra features I would never use.

Not mentioned in this list is TomTom’s iPod integration, which requires an additional cable but reportedly works very well, and is fairly unique in the marketplace. Since I don’t have an Apple-brand MP3 player, this feature isn’t of use to me.

Weaknesses

After two weeks of driving around, I’m pretty happy with the device as an in-car navigator. There are, of course, a few things that could be better, though:

• Australian map accuracy

  There is a major intersection near my home that is bristling with “no U-turn” signs. The Australian maps supplied with the TomTom GO 710 (provided by WhereIs) must not reflect this, because whenever I approach home from the north, I’m directed to make a very dangerous, very illegal U-turn. On a couple of occasions, I’ve also been directed to drive through an alley that turns out to be for pedestrian use only. Thankfully, as with most GPS car navigators, you can simply disregard the instructions and the device will calculate a new route for you when you stray from the path it has suggested. Being able to blacklist certain roads or turns in advance for all future navigation is a nice feature that some competitors offer, and apparently TomTom devices once did this too. Bring it back, I say!

  Additionally, the Australian maps don’t seem to contain any speed limit information (although you do get alerted when passing a speed camera). The device makes a best guess based on the size of the road, but these are rarely realistic, which definitely hobbles the unit’s ability to plan the speediest route and estimate an accurate arrival time.

  TomTom has wrestled with map accuracy in the US, having responded to critics by releasing a free update to its US maps at the start of the year. Hopefully its Australian maps will receive a similar treatment.

• QuickFix and starting indoors

  TomTom’s unique QuickFix feature works great, as long as you’re outdoors when you switch on the device. If you start your drive in a parking garage, it will give up on the QuickFix attempt, and begin a more time-consuming scan for satellites. I’ve learned to only switch on the GPS once I have left the parking garage so that I can get a near-instant position, but this rules out planning your route before backing out of your parking spot.

Tips

The other main gripe I have with the device’s navigation features out of the box is the incompleteness of its POI database. It contains plenty of Safeway grocery stores, for example, but not the one nearest my home in metropolitan Melbourne (it’s been there practically forever). It also contains all the ANZ Bank and Natonal Australia Bank ATMs, but not Westpac Bank’s. Thankfully, this is made up for somewhat by the availability (and growing completeness) of third-party POI databases, many of which are free (e.g. GPS Data Team, TomTom POI Files – Australia). These databases are available for competing devices as well.

TomTom POI files have an .ov2 filename extension, and often come with an accompanying .bmp file, which is a 22×22 pixel icon used to display the POIs on the map view. Installing a POI file is easy: simply connect the TomTom to your computer and copy the .ov2 and .bmp to the folder on the device that contains your maps (on my device, that’s the folder named Australia). The next time you turn on the device, the new POIs will be available for selection in a new category.

If you find a POI database that you want that is not available in a TomTom-compatible format, you can use a tool like the free POIConverter to convert from other manufacturers’ formats to TomTom .ov2 files.

Another issue I discovered pretty quickly was that the audio warnings produced by the device when approaching speed and red light cameras are extremely obnoxious. The sound is loud and strident enough to really distract you at a critical moment, and the device cannot be reconfigured to correct this. The solution is to disable the built-in safety camera database (Main Menu > TomTom PLUS services > Safety camera warnings > Disable warnings) and then download and install a 3rd party safety camera database as a collection of POI files. You can then configure the device to warn you when approaching these POIs (Main Menu > Preferences > Manage POIs > Warn when near POI) with a configurable audio warning. Several much less objectionable sounds are available.

The only other thing I’d recommend to improve the driving experience is to grab the Australia 2 colour scheme, which is available for free download through the TomTom HOME desktop application. The colours it uses give you a much brighter and more lively daytime map view. For nighttime colours, I like the built-in Astra scheme, but I’m still looking at alternatives.

The one essential tool for geocaching is a GPS receiver (GPSr), which gave me the perfect excuse to add this long-coveted piece of technology to my car. But finding a unit that would make a good on-road navigator (with good maps, nice screen, useful routing features, and an extensive Points of Interest (POI) database) as well as a good tool for geocaching (offering accurate coordinates and useful off-road navigation features) would prove to be a challenge.

The conventional wisdom seemed to be that the combination of a Pocket PC or other Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and a Bluetooth GPSr would provide the most flexible solution, allowing me to use different software and maps for each type of navigation. But despite my rampant geekiness and confessed addiction to gadgets, I just didn’t need another computer in my life. I wanted a purpose-built gadget that I could rely on while driving, and that Jess and I could pass back and forth while out hunting for a geocache.

Also on my wish list was a device that could record position tracks that I could later use to automatically geocode photos (embedding position information into the file) that I took while out and about. Since none of the sub-$1,000 in-car GPSr units on the market offered this feature (you have to either spend a lot of money, or get a GPSr designed for hiking), it seemed like I’d have to shell out another $200 or so for a device like the Sony GPSCS1 built specifically for this purpose.

In the end, however, I found everything I needed and more in the TomTom GO 710 portable GPS car navigator. All it took was a little rampant geekiness.

In my next few posts, I’ll describe both the built-in features of the device that led me to choose it as an in-car navigator, as well as the tricky hacks and add-ons that have enabled us to take it geocaching and more.

Thankfully, I’ve found this free utility called, in various places, System Tray Audio Device Switcher, SysADS, SADS, and System Tray Audio Device Manager. It lives in my Windows system tray and allows me to select my playback and recording device with just a couple of clicks. The program hasn’t been updated since its release in 2003, but it works on Windows XP SP2 just fine (I’m not holding my breath that it’ll work quite so well in Vista, however).

Even with this utility, most Windows programs can’t switch audio devices while running. Windows Media Player, for example, will latch onto the selected playback device when it starts up, and will continue outputting to it even if you switch devices while it’s running. More flexible programs like Skype do allow you to switch devices at any time, but only by overriding the system default device in the program’s own settings.

In short, this utility does save me the trip to the Control Panel to change audio devices, but I still need to restart any audio programs I may have already open in order for the switch to affect them.

Here’s hoping things get better, not worse, in Vista.

Led by deliciously broad-but-believable performances from Dame Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins, the film tells the tale of London’s Windmill Theater, and the shows it put on during World War II for the beleaguered citizens (and eventually, the resident troops) of the city. The shows were scandalous for their time, featuring female nudity, which was only allowed if the naked figures remained motionless.

Even before the curtains go up (and the clothes come off) at the Windmill, the film is laugh-out-loud funny thanks to the jubilant eccentricities of the newly widowed Mrs. Henderson (Dench). Though haunted by her past, she takes on the world with a smile and a devilish gleam in her eye. This reaches its apex when, in the face of dwindling profits, she proposes the Windmill present shows featuring nude women, and must then convince all the men around her that going ahead with her plan will not bring about the downfall of civilized society.

As the shadow of war descends on London at the film’s midpoint, the story suffers from a slight sense of frivolity. I found myself wanting something to invest in on a deeper level than simply revelling in the farcical inpropriety of it all. Eventually this does come, but by the time it does it is almost too late. In the end, it’s Mrs. Henderson herself that provides some much-needed heart.

Plenty of girly fun for the girls and lots of boobies for the boys. Mrs. Henderson Presents has something for everyone.

It all begins with a box on your lease application. “Tick here and UtilityOne will contact you to arrange your utility disconnections. This is a free service.” I’d allowed my skepticism to rule in past moves, but this time I decided to give it a shot. Within a few days of lodging my application, UtilityOne called me on my mobile phone to get all the details.

The phone call was friendly and straightforward, and basically consisted of confirming my details and then asking me if I’d like them to handle the migration of each of my utilities in turn: electricity, gas, telephone and water.

Though the company bills itself as an expert in dealing with utilities, that expertise doesn’t mean it can deal with lots of different companies. For each utility (electricity, gas, water, telephone), it has selected one or two providers that it works with. If you want to use someone else, UtilityOne can’t help you.

I use Origin Energy for my electricity and gas, because its GreenEarth programs let me pay a little extra for services based on renewable resources with zero greenhouse emissions. UtilityOne doesn’t deal with Origin Energy.

I use iiNet for my home telephone, because I can bundle its competitively priced telephone services with its superior ADSL service and save money. UtilityOne only deals with Telstra.

There isn’t a lot of competition for water services in Melbourne, so UtilityOne was able to hook me up with City West Water. But two months later I received a water bill for my old address. City West Water says UtilityOne never contacted them about disconnecting it.

So I gave UtilityOne a call about it. Here’s what the helpful agent on the line said:

Ah, I see what happened. We didn’t organize the disconnection of your water service because you didn’t ask us to.

So apparently, although the company will proactively ask to arrange the connections of each of your utilities, you have to ask for disconnections yourself if you want them. I guess disconnections don’t equate to referral dollars.

To be fair, a quick poll around the office hasn’t indicated that any of the other companies offering similar services in Australia do much better. My advice: If you want something done right…