Evesham NAV-CAM

On woot.com, I took advantage of the low low price of $159.99 for the Evesham NAV-Cam 7700 GPS system. I wouldn't count on getting this price again any time soon (I wish I'd bought a dozen at this price), but even for 200 bucks it's a bargain. This particular GPS is one of those that gives you street-by-street verbal guidance as you drive. On the main screen, which is a touch-screen, it lets you choose from an "easy" mode, which in my mind is worthless, or a more feature-rich mode. The easy mode just gives you a few features, but the full navigation lets you browse the map, pick points of interest such as restaurants or gas stations, or find specific streets within a zip-code. You can also have it display gas stations live on the map.

You can choose a 3D or 2D map depending on which you are more comfortable with, and it will highlight the major streets but it will also track all the neighborhood streets as you drive. When you approach your turning spot, it will say something like "in 100 yards, turn right," up until "arriving at destination." If you take a wrong turn, it will quickly re-calculate your route to let you know where to turn next. If you want, you can look at the route it has chosen and tell it to avoid specific roads, or, for example, all highways. You can optimize for speed or distance. All of this is done through a simple touch-screen interface. A few times, it has told me "turn left, then turn left again" when it can't quite figure out where I am (such as if I'm in a parking lot), but once I get on the road it figures it out and calculates a proper route.

If you're someone like me, who gets lost a lot, I highly recommend this device, or one like it. It has a few other features that might be useful for travellers, such as picture storage/viewing and mp3 player, and it is overall very small, but I find the built-in US maps/GPS to be the main use. The experience of driving with this thing is almost like having a sense of direction.

Call 811! Call 811! (before you Dig)

There's a new number in town (811 to call before you dig), and it's reachable starting today. If you go to the www.call811.com website, you can see how many times it has already been called. This new nationwide (US) number can be used to have the appropriate utilities and other agencies come out and mark the area where you are going to dig. The need for this should be obvious to most people, but every year some 10000 still insist on digging their way through gas lines, electric lines, and other underground lines which will flat kill you. This included people who are simply trying to install posts for a fence.

The release of this number rounds out the N-11 numbers in the U.S. So if you were planning to lobby your local government to provide a dog-watering emergency service, you'll just have to use a longer number.

The Common Ground Alliance is a non-profit organization which attempts to educate the public about these risks. In addition to public safety, they also protect the infrastructure and the environment. There are many advantages to having all those unsightly cables and pipes underground, so please, people, call before you dig.

If you need 811 logo items for you business, you can find them here.