Newman GPS and Gadgets Blog

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:42:01 +0000

iPhone is a smartphone that has been designed and sold by Apple Inc, it was originally released in 2007, and since then has taken on various new guises through a series of different models and versions. The smartphone is a highly multimedia-enabled device which functions as a camera phone, which allows users to take part in visual voicemail with friends and family. The handset also acts as a portable media player (which essentially acts as a more visual iPod), allowing users to store and listen to their entire music collection. The iPhone’s web browser, Safari, has gained much acclaim and is extremely responsive, with fast loading times, and multiple options and features. The Internet client enables users to use e-mail, web browsing, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Much of the interface is based around the touchscreen, which dominates the front of the handset, and enables individuals to use a virtual keyboard rather than physical one. Everything on the iPhone can be accessed via the touchscreen, including the App Store, which was launched in 2008, and now has 200,000 apps, all approved by Apple. In was back on January 9th 2007 when Apple first announced the iPhone, after blogs, websites, and word of mouth had started circulating potential designs and specifications. The ‘original’ iPhone was first released in the United States of America on June 29th 2007, before being shipped to Europe. This first handset featured a quad-band GSM with EDGE technology, and Time Magazine immediately named the smartphone the ‘Invention of the Year 2007’. Apple were keen to capatilise on the iPhones success, and keen to develop it further, therefore another model, the iPhone 3G (which boasted faster 3G data speeds via UMTS) was released on July 11th 2008. In terms of software, Apple released version 3.0 of the iPhone OS for the iPhone on June 17th 2009. On June 19th 2009, the iPhone 3GS was released, demonstrating improved performance, a camera with higher resolution and video capability then its predecessor, along with voice control, and support for 7.2 Mbps HSDPA downloading. Iphone’s are available at all leading mobile phone retaillers including phones4u.

Protect your car through vehicle tracking system

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:51:17 +0000

Monitoring and safeguarding any vehicle is now possible sitting at home! NTrack Vehicle Tracking System is a state-of-the-art service which enables anyone to track a vehicle or a fleet to ensure better security of vehicles by reducing auto theft which is an alarming issue these days in major metro areas. With this service, you can even switch off your car from a remote location. All you need is a GPRS enabled handset and a Banglalink data package to go to internet and you can monitor the vehicle live.

Banglalink and NITS Service Pvt. Ltd., a sister concern of Nitol-Niloy Group, signed an agreement on 9th September 2009 to jointly promote the NTrack Vehicle Tracking System. A special discount of 20% on device price and yearly service charges will be provided to Banglalink users.

Apart from GPS tracking, Major features of NTrack are:

* Live tracking with street level mapping that will display address, speed and direction of the vehicle.
* SMS alerts for crossing speed limit, reaching pre-defined location, unauthorized route etc.
* Remote security control and engine switching off to protect theft.
* Web Interface to track the vehicle throughout Bangladesh.
* Fuel Cost and Mileage Reports
* Arrival and Departure Reports.

Wav To Mp3 Converter

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:47:08 +0000

The digital entertainment world has grown by leaps. In the process it has given the enthusiasts many solutions and also given rise to many complexities. It has again come round a full circle with newer solutions and this has happened again and again. The digital audio world just completed one circle that started with file formats. Initially there were a few simple file formats. But this seemed to be not enough for the ever growing needs of the industry and its professionals. For different uses like broadcasting, streaming, storage etc. there was created a need of file formats to suit each set of functions. This gave rise to a crazy plethora of formats each serving some specific functions. New formats were also introduced by different audio players and platforms in their bid to control the market. As a result the average listener suffered. They did not need all these formats. They just needed one format for all their audio files, so that they could build a seamless collection that could be played by a single audio player as it was in the beginning. But this was no more the case. Completing collections became very difficult as not all files were available in one format of choice. So very often they had to do with missing parts in their collections. On top of that they had to install a number of different audio players to play the different audio formats. This resulted in less disk space. It even resulted in software conflicts and music enthusiasts had little choice of an audio player.

Then came the audio converters. With the converters the industry completed one full circle. These converters like Wma to mp3 converter were easily able to convert between formats like WAV, MP3, WMA, and OGG making it possible to have all the files in a collection in one single format of the user’s choice irrespective of the formats that they were downloaded in. So it now has once again become easy to complete a collection. Obtaining the particular music files that one needed was never the problem. The problem was that the files are always available in different formats. It is never just possible to obtain all the files that one needs for a collection in one single format of choice. But now with the audio converter it is possible to convert all the obtained files into one format of choice. Thus one can collect the necessary files in any format available. They are then converted wit the converter. In this way, it is okay to install just one player of choice. It was a crazy world out there so far and enthusiasts were loosing sleep over completing there collections seamlessly. But now audio converters have taken control over the pandemonium.

The other great thing about these converters like the wav to mp3 converter is that all the files can be converted into a small format like mpeg-1 layer 3 or mp3 which saves a lot of disk space. These formats reject a lot of audio data pertaining to sounds which are not easily discernable for the human ear. By converting all files into mp3 one can reduce the physical size of collections and are thus able to store large collections. This also makes it possible to store entire cd collections in the personal computer hard drive.

Converting wma to mp3 is not a pain

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:26:54 +0000

There are a lot of different opinions about music but one thing is clear – everybody likes it. Of course tastes differ and there is a wide variety of genres and artists so clearly there is a lot to choose from and everyone makes their choice according to their opinion. You can determine by yourself what to consider classic and what to hate, however the music you like is what you wish to take with you to work, vacation or at home on your computer or CD player. Using differ types of devices may cause problems with music downloaded from the internet because of all the different formats and given that internet is the biggest source of information we must consider a possibility that there are some certain troubles we can have with playing our favorite songs. And this is exactly the time when for example converting wma to mp3 becomes so important.
Looking for an ultimate decision people often have to download a lot of audio converters for different types of audio files, which is really hard and takes a lot of time, and when they finally find them they are disappointed by the terrible quality or in other situations huge amount of time that conversion takes.

Today we have the ultimate solution to all those problems. Factory Audio Converter is the perfect software product that combines a wide range of functions and significant speed with a variety of supported formats, so you won’t have to search for any other software anymore. Not only that but it also has a built-in music player that can either help you make no mistake in choosing files to convert but also make the time you have to wait much more pleasurable. And that’s not all, because you can not only convert wma to mp3 using this unique application but also rip CD audio and convert it as well as rewrite the converted files back to CDR and CDRW disks.

What’s more important – you don’t have to be an advanced user to utilize this product. The interface was designed to be as convenient as possible and all the important options are highlighted and easy to access so converting wma to mp3 will be as easy as installing programs. All work is presented in a form of an application wizard to you will be taken trough it step-by-step easy and simple. Of course if you are familiar with the process this audio converter will let you choose all the specific setting that you like. You can change bitrates and tone to reduce the size of the files to store them in lesser disk space.

Remember, if you are looking for an ultimate solution to all your problems with conversion, just go online and download Factory audio converter and that’s all you need to do. It’s fast and convenient and you will be surprised by the quality of sound it can create. You can convert wma to mp3, rip CDs and write them and with an amazing speed. And the amount of files doesn’t matter, because it will work perfectly with a thousand files as good as with a single one. You can choose folders or groups of files as well and you will not be disappointed. This is a dream come true. If you are still not convinced go online and download the trial version and see for yourself.

SmartMirror Heading to Major Retailers

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:36:49 +0000

The Azentek SmartMirror was a hot topic in August, with only a few units available, many back orders and waiting lists began popping up, along with a few disgruntled customers who were tired of waiting. If you find yourself in the disgruntled customer category, today is your lucky day! Azentek is ramping up production of their GPS mirrors and stated the mirrors will be available at major retailers by the end of the year. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, the $800 rear view mirror crams a 4″ GPS unit alongside its standard sizedrear view mirror. The GPS system doesn’t skimp on features and has hands free Bluetooth calling, a built in speaker, and text to speech functionality. The mirror also has an SD card slot for expansion.

Really Cool Portable GPS Tracker

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:28:50 +0000

This must be one of (if not the) coolest spy gadgets I’ve ever reported on. It’s sort of a cross between a USB memory stick and a GPS receiver and what it does is store where ever you take it on the flash memory.

The Portable GPS Tracker is pretty small so you could either always carry it on you or use it in 007 spy mode by planting it on a person or vehicle you want to monitor. You may be wondering how you retrieve the stored info and secret routes, well that’s where it gets really cool.
Once the tracker has done it’s travels and it’s back in your possession you simply connect it to you PC and download the data. This data can then be plotted on Google Earth, Mapquest, maps.google.com and Virtual Earth to show exactly where it’s been, how long it took and how it got there.

I just think this is so cool (may of said cool a record number of times in this post) it obviously has the spy functionality of tracking somebody else but to me it is even more useful for tracking your own holidays and backpacking adventures. So not only can you bore visitors with your holiday snaps you can also show them exactly where you went.

Full feature list:

Records time, date, location, speed, direction and altitude
Works with Google Earth, Mapquest, maps.google.com, Virtual Earth
Location points are downloaded into its software and then mapped
Battery duration is 5 to 7 days of typical operation with 4,000 records
Requires 2 AAA batteries (not included)
Dimensions: 4″ x 1 1/4″ x 3/4″
Comes with TrackStick, lanyard, software CD

You can used to be able to buy this nifty GPS tracker from Think Geek for $249.99, a good alternative now is Amazon.

iPad Finally Available by End of This March?

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:32:44 +0000

Since the iPad was launched by Apple last January, there has been so much speculation when it will be available in stores. According to several industry sources, it will go on sale on March 26 in the US. The basic version, with WiFi only and 16GB storage, will be priced at $499 while the 32GB and 64GB versions will be priced at $599 and $699, respectively. These units will be the ones to hit the stores first while the WiFi plus 3G models will be available later in April. The 3G feature costs an additional $130 for all models so the top of the line 64GB WiFi+3G will be priced at $829. Data plans for the 3G service will depend on the telco provider that you will choose. The iPad is powered by a 1 GHz Apple A4 CPU and runs on the iPhone OS. So Apple users, especially those who have iPhones, would surely love to get hold of this device once they hit the stores.

TomTom Gears Up For IFA 2008

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:37:37 +0000

TomTom has really been stepping things up over the past few days. We’ve seen the announcements for the PRO 4000 and PRO 8000 series the other day, plus the GO 940 Live has even been discussed. So what makes us suspect that there going to continue this GPS rampage? Well, with the IFA coming up soon, there’s no real reason for TomTom to hold back.

We’ll have to wait and see exactly what will surface from the upcoming IFA, however the price tag for the GO 940 LIVE ($871) may be enough to stifle your interest. For now, it’s a safe bet to hold off on buying any new GPS devices.

Opera 10.5 Beta – World’s Fastest Browser Now Available for Mac

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:29:51 +0000

Opera has just released the 10.5 beta version of its web browser for Mac computers introducing several new features to the web browser such as the Cocoa, unified tool bar, growl notifications and multi-touch gestures. This new beta version is also a lot more stable than the earlier released Pre-Alpha version and provides support for Macs running the older 10.4 Tiger Mac OS. There are still a lot of Macs running Tiger 10.4 but Opera 10.5 support is only for those using Intel processors and unfortunately not for those with PowerPC processors. According to benchmark tests conducted by Computerworld, Opera 10.5 beta version is faster than Safari’s latest version and Google’s Chrome. Take note that this is still a beta version and there are still a few bugs that need to be dealt with until the stable version is released. But you can already test drive Opera 10.5 beta to get a feel of how the full version would work.

Try out your mobile broadband provider inexpensively

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:16:38 +0000

Pay as you go mobile broadband definitely costs more in the short term but could there be significant benefits to using this no contract required mobile broadband service? This actually depends on what you consider to be the real cost of a mobile broadband contract. For example if you sign up at a monthly rate of 15 pounds per and scarcely use the service, you are not reaping the full benefit of your monies paid. With pay as you go mobile broadband there is often no monthly fee and you are charged based on the amount of download you use. This charge may be as much as 10 pounds per gigabyte of download, but if you are not a frequent mobile broadband Internet user this could amount to a savings over 90 days of up to 35 pounds. In contrast of course anyone who regularly uses mobile broadband for home or business could easily create an expenditure of 100 pounds using pay as you go broadband during that same timeframe. One definite advantage to using a pay as you go for a one month contract plan is that it does allow you to try out the mobile broadband coverage and reliability of service from any particular provider. As anyone who’s ever been stuck in a long-term contract with a broadband company they were not pleased with will tell you, this is probably the most important feature of pay as you go plans.