GlobalTop G33 Unboxing

As I told you in my last post I got a GlobalTop G33 Bluetooth GPS Receiver from buyGPSnow.com. It was a though decision since there are not many reviews about this type of hardware on the net making it hard to finally decide for one device. And it was even harder to rule against the almighty SIRFstar III Chip which is the only thing a GPS n00b like me knew about GPS Hardware.

Finally I went for the G33 which has a MT3318 chip made by MediaTek (best known as MTK). This chip features 51 channels, Ultra Low Power and High Sensitivity, WAAS, a 20 hours battery, 5hz Update Rate and Auto Off.

Pictures might not be very professional (I’d say blurry), but hey! this is my first unboxing ever and I just wanted to take the time to make a point here and help a few folks out there to make a decision on which piece of GPS hardware they want to buy.

that being said, enjoy the pictures!!!!!

(Click on each picture to see the 1280 x 1024 version)

USPS Envelope (no wonder it took SSOO long to arrive) Just Kidding, thanks to buyGPSnow.com for the free shipping!!!

The back of the envelope, lots of seals

Finally the box!!! just as it was pictured in the buyGPSnow.com site, Let’s see what’s inside

The back of the box, where they tell you this product is intended for use with PDA’s and Smart-phones

Time to finally open that box!!!!

When you open the box, you find a plastic casing containing all the juice, the only thing outside the plastic case is the CD with the manual (you were not expecting a printed manual did ya?? come one, this is the XXI century!!!)

The back of the plastic case, where you can see the battery and the USB car Charger

We open the casing and finally have access to the contents. The GPS is held by a cardboard while the battery and the charger are wrapped in plastic bags and nicely fitted in the plastic casing

What’s inside: GlobalTop G33 (Left) Battery (Bottom) Car Charger (Right) Universal PDA vent mount (Top)

As you can see the G33 is really small. Here it is next to the my Dell Axim X51v

Last shot was not a fair size comparison, here it is next to the iGO Stowaway Bluetooth Mouse. now that’s small!!!!!!

The battery in its plastic bag, it’s a Lithium Ion battery of 3.7V. battery life is supposed to be 20 hours, but that is yet to be seen

Nothing new here, a mini USB car charger

This is the GlobalTop Package, The G33, the car charger, the Li Battery and the CD

The battery compartment, located in the back of the GPS, the device is very light weight even with the battery inside

The whole enchilada, this is what you get from buyGPSnow.com all the GlobalTop package PLUS a Universal PDA vent mount, so you can conveniently use your PDA+GPS as an in-car navigation system

This is the vent mount after taking it out from the plastic bag

And this is the Universal PDA Vent mount in its full glory!!

My Dell Axim on the Vent mount

As you can see my PDA fitted nicely into the mount which is cleverly designed to accommodate all kinds of smart-phones and PDA’s

After all the unboxing fun and no matter how eager we are to try this baby out, we have to fully charge it for four hours before its first use.

Our first trip together!!!! the next morning after fully charging it I went for a ride through the city… but that story I’ll save it for my full G33 Review.

GPS Unboxing!!!!

My GlobalTop G33 Bluetooth GPS Receiver arrived today!!!!!

expect unboxing picture in the coming days

Microsoft Rocks!!!!!

As you read through the lines of my blog you will witness my devotion for all things Microsoft, but how can you not love them??

I just received on my e-mail inbox a complimentary Microsoft Technet Plus Subscription absolutely free. (For the non-Microsoft crowd, that means licenses to use almost every product on the Microsoft catalog for a full year.) This subscription is worth almost US$600.

Although Microsoft is very generous with its community, is not like they just picked me randomly. I’ve been hard at work on Microsoft’s Beta Team since October 2003, long before the “Connect” era, back on the days of http://beta.microsoft.com. I started on the Windows XP SP2 Beta where I actively participated and finally earned a spot on the Microsoft’s Insiders Group. Since then I’ve been on the Beta Team for Windows Update, SQL Server 2000 SP4, Internet Explorer 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server and recently Vista SP1 and XP SP3.

This is the back cover of the Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Commemorative Edition CD-ROM

I’m honored with such a gift and very happy to look back on all the extraordinary things I’ve learned on the last 4 years and all the technologies I hope I’ve helped shape up.

The iPhone’s Missing Buttons

Even though it hurts for a Windows Mobile hard core like me, it’s true that those four buttons on the face of the iPhone are worth millions.
How much would your charge for a few inches of your WM Home screen?

read more | digg story

WM6 so far…

Being in an upgrade mood thanks to the Vista incident, a week ago I decided to upgrade my beautiful Axim X51v. so I downloaded WM5 A17 Cooked ROM from XDA-Developers but after giving it a spin I didn’t like it much (Come on!! Message windows are not even centered), so I decided to take to plunge with WM6 A03 Cooked ROM also from xda-developers forum.

HTML Mail on WM6

The first few days it was great I could not believe it. It was like new life was bred to my Axim, everything worked perfectly, even WPA-PSK and Windows Live. I love WM6 and now I can’t live without, HTML Mail is the greatest thing that happened to Windows Mobile and high resolution browsing on VGA Devices is just the jewel of the crown.

 
High Resolution Browsing on WM6 VGA Device

One of my main applications PocketRSS had some compatibility issues (font is HUGE and there’s no way to make it smaller) so I uninstalled it and decided to try SPB Insight, later I noticed my device was slow and unstable and since the only *new* thing in my device was SPB Insight I decided to turn off the home screen plug-in and I regained performance.

Everything was smooth until Thursday when WPA-PSK stopped working for no apparent reason!!.
The first thing I checked after switching to the new ROM was WPA-PSK connectivity because it’s a huge deal for me as I connect through WPA-PSK both at home and at the office and I’m a 100% sure it was working. Now when I try to connect I get a warning message that reads “Cannot connect to the network. Check your network and service provider settings and try again”. Fortunately I can connect using Odyssey Client, but I’m not a big fan of it and I would prefer not to use it.

I posted my issue on xda-developers forum hoping for some Russian guru to help me solve this thing. I’ll keep you posted.

Vista SP1 and XP SP3 on beta now!!!!

Maybe I’m a little late with this news but Vista has had me busy all week long.

I’m on the official Microsoft Beta Team for both service packs and I’ll be installing SP1 on my Vista Work machine and SP3 on my XP Home machine.

I’ll let you know how that goes…

Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1

Being a Windows Mobile hardcore moving to Windows Vista obviously meant moving to Windows Mobile Device Center.

My experience has been very, very pleasant so far. I had read a few posts about it so when Vista finished installing I knew exactly what to do… I plugged my WM device and fired up Windows Update so it downloaded WMDC to my machine. At first installation failed, but I tried once again and then it got it right. Set up was a breeze it did asked me to delete one of my current partnerships, so I deleted my “work” partnership, but after that synching started and finished without a glitch. Office was not installed at the time so it wasn’t much of a challenge but it definitely worked better than activesync.

When I arrived home I cradled my device and strangely it looked like my “home” partnership was erased too!!! Finally after mumbling with activesync I recreated my partnership without any loses and was able to sync as normal. The next morning I installed Office and completed the WMDC configuration to find out that it keeps working faster and better than activesync which made me very happy.

Unfortunately my share of Vista cursing begun when I tried to set up my USB Bluetooth dongle!!!!! It took me two days, three different Bluetooth stacks and plenty of installing, reinstalling and safe mode rebooting but I finally got WMDC working with my USB Bluetooth dongle and my Windows Mobile device.

So far I can say WMDC is a GREAT improvement over activesync and the Microsoft team behind it deserves big KUDOS for a job well done!!!!

Enjoying the “Vista”

After fondling with the idea for a while I finally moved to Windows Vista at work (big move for me since I spend approximately 9 hours every day in front of that PC).

Everything started two weeks ago when I installed Vista Business on a virtual machine in my XP box to reproduce a bug a client of ours was getting. That helped me get acquainted with the new features and all the stuff that changed since XP. Ultimately I got the hang of it.

Unfortunately with all my development tools, the Vista virtual machine and all my other stuff my poor old Dell Dimension was getting a little slow for the job, so my boss decided to get me revamped with a brand new Dell Optiplex 320, dualcore Intel processor, 2GB RAM and 19” LCD Monitor.

The new machine arrived on Thursday with XP installed on it, but I decided to jump and catch up so I installed Windows Vista Enterprise Edition (which is the corporate version of Vista Ultimate only available to partners).
I’m very happy so far, it works great and I already moved the main project I’m working on to IIS7 and I’m really impressed with all the new features.

All in all I’m a happy dev that finally and happily hopped on the Vista bandwagon.

Course Syllabus

The Syllabus for the Microsoft Learning course I reviewed is now posted on their site.

 http://www.microsoft.com/learning/syllabi/en-us/6066aprelim.mspx

It seems the course is not yet live, but it’s scheduled to be released this month!!!!