Like many people, we are reluctant to give Google a list of our acquaintances and our calendar. After all Google is not known for it’s regard for privacy and even if they were, putting your private information on the internet is asking for trouble. So what should one do? Why, simple: scour the web for a solution.

Look and thou shall find: MyPhoneExplorer

The program is free and installed with no problems. MyPhoneExplorer can connect to both Android and Sony-Ericsson phones. We tried both and it worked flawlessly. There is a catch though: you need to install your phone’s USB drivers (which are not part of the program) and without which the program can’t communicate with the phone. These shouldn’t be too hard to find.

Our Android is a Samsung GalaxyS Vibrant and the Sony-Ericsson is an old Z525. We tried connecting the Samsung using Kies – a program that Samsung lets you download from their website. It worked after a fashion but had several bugs and was VERY slow even on a fast machine. It never properly synchronized the calendar and added items to the phone-book every time we synchronized leaving us with multiples of the same contacts.

In contrast MyPhoneExplorer worked flawlessly: it synchronized the phone-book and no matter how many times we ran it never added anything unnecessary to it. It also synchronized the calendar very well. When you synchronize repeatedly it offers to remove events that have expired and lets you review what is going to be deleted and what is going to be added to the phone. You can also decide to synchronize Outlook with the phone, the phone with Outlook or both.

The program has other useful features: it allows the user to look at and manipulate phone-book on both the phone and the SIM (if you have one), look at your call history and manipulate it, set the calendar notes and alarms, manipulate messages and look and manipulate flies on the phone.

If you have a Sony-Ericsson phone and are using the program that Sony supplies for free consider moving to MyPhoneExplorer. It is much faster than the Sony program, takes up much less disk space and is not as intrusive as Sony’s.

All in all a great little program that will come handy to all privacy fans. Highly recommended.

Of the two Acronis has more options and capabilities. There are a number of functions both programs perform well:

1. Backup a hard drive partition to a file on a different drive, external drive or a DVD.
2. Backup only the used sectors of a drive or the whole drive (create a clone).
3. Restore an image from a file.

Acronis has a number of options that Macrium lacks: it can create one file containing several drives with the ability to restore them separately; backup files and folders – only the paid version of Macrium can do that. Acronis also has the option of monitoring chosen files and directories and backing them up automatically when they change.

Macrium has some advantages over Acronis: the program opens quickly whereas Acronis is slow. Acronis True Image 10 is as fast as Macrium but when started from its emergency boot disk lacks the ability to recognize SATA drives. When started from its emergency disk Macrium is MUCH faster than Acronis True Image 11 and somewhat faster than 10.

In our tests both programs created files of comparable size and took about the same time to create them. We noticed that Macrium was about 15% slower than Acronis in restoring a 200GB drive image. If you don’t do this every day it shouldn’t be very important.

After using both programs for a while we lean toward Macrium Reflect Free Edition. It lacks the incremental backup capabilities of both the paid for edition and of Acronis but it’s difficult to beat the price. Free is free. We also liked the fact that the program opens and responds quickly as well as the fact that it runs only one process in the background whereas Acronis runs three. A benchmark test showed that Macrium has a negligible load on the system while Acronis uses about 1% of system resources when not in use. Our future backups will rely on Macrium Reflect Free edition.

iGO Primo was published several months ago. It took us a while to lay hands on a copy and test it on two different devices: Mio MOOV and a Chinese made Nextar. Here are the results:

Primo looks a lot like Amigo. The opening screen is nearly identical to Amigo’s and it uses a very similar graphic interface. This is about the limit of similarity. In general we found Primo to be better than both version 8.3 and Amigo that it replaces.

Those familiar with Amigo know that it has very limited customization options. This is not true for Primo. There are numerous adjustments available through both the menus and the sys.txt file. Primo seems to be as customizable as iGO 8.3. We highly recommend the gurjon skins which make customization even easier. As an aside: these skins used to be easily found at gurjon.com. Not anymore. Apparently Nav’nGo pressured gurjon’s internet host to take the site down. It is back up again but offers no downloads. Nav’nGo’s action is completely inexplicable seeing as the skins enhance the Nav’nGo product and add value to it without costing the company a dime.

In our tests Primo proved superior to version 8.3 at least in one respect: it is much more stable when run from an external memory card. Our Mio MOOV rebooted once in approximately every 5-6 power downs with iGO 8.3. Meaning that after power is disconnected and iGO shuts itself down and than power is reconnected and iGO powers up again the Mio will reboot on the 5th or 6th cycle. Primo doesn’t do that and keeps working. According to Nav’nGo this was one of the improvements in the program introduced in Primo.

Primo’s interface and graphics are much better than iGO8.3 resulting in an more readable map display and a very convenient menu structure.

Primo can use Text To Speech (TTS) files and voices from both Loquendo (the original TTS used by iGO versions up to Primo) and a new one made by Nuance. We found the Nuance version much better than Loquendo. It requires much less memory and processing power to run and is easier to customize.

Primo has also much improved traffic radio detection and interface. It easily discovered the TMC receiver in our Mio and also discovered that the two available broadcasts are pay for use. Previous versions of iGO couldn’t find the receiver. To actually use the broadcast traffic data one needs a subscription to either of the two providers’ services.

Nav’nGo also introduced an intelligent routing option. We had no opportunity to test it as it is supposed to work best with TMC active and with TeleAtlas maps that have a database of past average speeds at different times of day on specific roads.

Since Primo uses the same maps and other information as iGO 8.3 it is easy to transition to for anybody who already owns version 8.3 maps.

In summary: we highly recommend Primo. The stability and improved graphic interface are worth the switch.

Both Navteq and TeleAtlas published new maps at the end of 2009.

We tested the North American version of both providers on the iGO navigation program.

The results were mixed: TeleAtlas still has the problem we reported on in the previous version: some major roads are marked as “Unnamed” when driving in one direction and named properly in the other direction. Navteq didn’t have this problem.

Navteq still has some roads named using names that disappeared from paper maps years ago. This makes finding a handful of addresses impossible.

In our opinion the Navteq defect is less problematic than the TeleAtlas one. If a major road is unnamed the navigation software tends to give instructions like “keep right” instead of “turn right”. This can be dangerous if you are driving in heavy traffic on unfamiliar roads. Especially so in inclement weather.

Regarding Points of Interest the situation is reversed. Navteq significantly reduced their database. We discovered that few religious institutions are included, restaurants that are about two years old are not there and probably more POIs that we didn’t discover.

TeleAtlas increased their database. They removed some religious institutions but have many more restaurants and other businesses than Navteq. The TeleAtlas database is about twice as large as the Navteq one.

In summary: an ideal combination, if you don’t mind the price, would be to use Navteq maps and TeleAtlas POIs. If we had to decide on one or the other we would chose Navteq, due to the accuracy of its maps.

We acquired a Nextar ME 3.5″ GPS online. It arrived in a sturdy cardboard box which we opened and promptly discovered that a part was missing. The Nextar is advertised online, and according to the ads the package is supposed to include an AC power adapter. It didn’t.

What was in the package:
the GPS itself – a fairly well made unit as far as fit and finish go,
a windshield attachment with a magnet,
a plastic disk with adhesive on one side that allows attaching the suction cup to the other, shiny, side,
a car power supply with a long cord and a mini USB plug,
a carrying bag for the GPS,
manuals in both English and French.

The Nextar runs the iGO 8.3 navigation software, which is one of the best on the market. A good description can be found here. There are several things missing from the Nextar iGO package, the main being building and terrain descriptions. Usually iGO8 will show 3D images of buildings or at least major landmarks and also terrain features like mountains. The Nextar version is missing this information. Nextar also included only the default skin and color scheme. This though is easily corrected as we will discuss below.

We tested the Nextar navigation system indoors and, when placed next to a window, it acquired the satellites within 40 seconds from a cold start. In a single story house it managed to keep a lock on the satellites anywhere in the house. Quite impressive.

The Nextar version of iGO comes with TTS (Text To Speech) as well as regular voices. The user can select a TTS voice and have the system pronounce the name of the street to turn next. Alternatively one of the regular voices will give just the minimal “turn left”, “turn right” directions, which are actually quite good.

We tested the Nextar on a 16 mile drive in Las Vegas, NV. The display was visible if somewhat washed out in the bright sun. It was useful. The sound is another matter. The speaker is extremely tinny and iGO doesn’t play well with the hardware. If volume is set to dynamically increase with speed it does so in large increments. A speed change from 30 mph to 40mph can double the volume. The speaker’s power range is narrow and setting the unit to a high volume distorts the sound and makes the whole contraption vibrate. At medium volume with dynamic volume control disabled, the unit sounds reasonably loud, though still tinny. The best compromise we found was to set the dynamic range from a minimum of 55mph to maximum of 110mph. At this setting the volume changes were not as abrupt.

Our other gripe is with the maps Nextar chose to install. TeleAtlas and Navstar maps are available for iGO. Both companies update their maps at least once a year. As was mentioned in a previous post on this blog TeleAtlas maps have serious errors in the US. In addition to installing TeleAtlas maps Nextar has no provision for updating the installed maps. On our system, which was made at the end of 2009, the maps are from 2008.

The Nextar ME is easy to hack. It connects to any computer running Microsoft’s ActiveSync. From that point you can open the file viewer and, for example, add skins and color schemes. It also makes updating the maps possible by just buying and update directly form NaviExtras at https://www.naviextras.com/shop/portal.

If you buy maps and a new version of iGO on a Secure Digital card it is a simple matter to direct the Nextar ME to start the navigation program from the card. Just modify the text file SHELL.INI in the root of the ResidentFlash directory.

Nextar provided a MP3 player and a picture viewer. Both are of limited utility. The display is only 3.5″ diagonal – about as large as the displays on many cameras. Why you would want to use it to view pictures is unclear. MP3 may sound OK through earphones but would be torture to listen through the internal speaker.

Conclusion: the Nextar ME 3.5″ GPS is a reasonable system, especially for the price. It has some good features, like a sensitive GPS receiver and excellent navigation software. It lacks mainly in the sound department. It is hard to find anything competitive at the price, but probably paying $10 or $20 more would be worth it.

The ME 3.5″ could be useful to travelers: it’s light and compact. The fabric pouch that came in the package should be useful to carry it while traveling.

The car holder includes a sticky disk and a regular suction cup with a mount. The mount is very convenient. It uses a strong magnet to hold securely the GPS, which makes it easy to remove the unit when necessary. No fumbling required.

Where to Buy: These GPS units are available in many places, including eBay. There is at least one place from where you shouldn’t buy it: ChipsDigitalPC.com. In our experience this company doesn’t ship what it promises on its website and never responds to customers emails.

Edit: after several weeks we finally did get a response from the seller. Their explanation to not responding earlier was email malfunction. Maybe.

We tested several navigation programs on the Mio MOOV 300. The Mio needs to be unlocked before running programs except its own internal MioMap. There are a number of unlocks for the Mio. Actually any unlock that works for a WindowsCE system will work for the Mio, though it will have to be tweaked for the specific system.

All unlocks allow running the navigation program of your choice from an SD card. This way you don’t have to mess with the device’s internal memory. On some devices, like the MOOV 300, there is not enough internal memory to install the navigation programs and their maps (if you want all of the U.S.) – even if you delete the maps and unessential programs from the device.

Running the navigation program from an SD card seems like a perfect solution, but there is a problem: in normal usage you put the device to sleep after you are done using it. This suspended mode is activated either by a special switch or by a partial movement of the regular power switch. Some programs, like iGO, have their own internal module that will put the device into hibernation when external power is disconnected. for this to work the normal hibernation switch has to be disabled, but this is for a separate post.

The problem may happen when the device is re-activated. Since the program is still in memory it comes up instantly and discovers that parts of it are missing – the parts that are on the SD card. If WindowsCE connected the card by the time the program starts looking for its missing parts, everything is OK. If the card is not yet available the program will crash and, in most installations, reboot the device. It’s not a catastrophe but is annoying.

We found no way to avoid this problem with all the programs we tested, except iGO.

In the sys.txt file that defines the starting parameters for iGO you can add the following:

[folders]
app=”Internal Storage/iGO8″
exe=”My Flash Disk/iGo8″

app=…. tells iGO where to find the application folder. Absent any other instructions it will assume that the executable is in the same folder. This is where the exe=.. comes in. It tells iGO that the executable is in a folder in the devices internal memory (My Flash Disk is the name in MOOV devices, others use different names).

These two should be enough to enable installing everything, except the iGO8 executable, on the SD. The iGO executable and several other files will go on the device memory which, usually, has enough space to accommodate them.

One idiosyncrasy: if you are using the Loquendo TTS voices, the .dll files that are normally in the iGO root directory have to be in the same directory as the iGO executable in the main memory.

You can also add the following to the Sys.txt file:

data=”\Storage Card\igo”
content=”\Storage Card\igo\CONTENT”
textures=”custom”
models=”custom”

This will enable you to put the save folder, data.zip and branding.zip also on the SD card. In our tests this was unnecessary: everything worked fine with just the first two lines.

After the above modifications iGO is completely stable and doesn’t reboot occasionally because of timing problems with the SD card.

Please use only legitimately purchased navigation software.

Both maps had newly introduced bugs. Navteq’s was annoying to use with a Text To Speech (TTS) GPS. Apparently Navteq writes the names of highways twice: US95 (US 95). The result with a TTS system is that is says the name twice. Very annoying, though not really interfering with functionality.

For some reason Navteq still hasn’t updated some street names and refers to streets that have been renamed years ago by their old names.

On the positive side there is even more lane information then was in the earlier version. The maps are generally accurate and usable.

Now to TeleAtlas: The new maps introduced a serious bug: there are many streets that lost their names and now are “Unnamed”. This creates some potentially serious problems. For example: while driving on a highway in the southern direction the map showed us on the correct highway. On the way back we discovered that the northbound lane is “Unnamed”. As a result, before we had to enter the highway the GPS told us to “keep right” on the street we were driving on instead of saying “turn right”. Having many unnamed streets also influences the ability to find an address. If the one you are looking for is on the side of the street that suddenly became “Unnamed” you’ll never find it.

On the positive side TeleAtlas added more lane information which is useful.

We hope that both Navteq and TeleAtlas will correct the errors. Until then we will live with the annoyances of Navteq. TeleAtla’s map is potentially dangerous and somewhat useless, especially if you are driving in a place you are not familiar with. Isn’t the whole purpose of GPS navigation to bring you safely where you are going?

The program has all the regular options: change the routing between Fast, Short, Economical and so forth; change the map display from 3D to Flat to Flat North, locale customization, language, distance units and keyboards.

We liked the way the program gives spoken instructions. It is probably one of the best around, though it has no Text To Speech and therefore doesn’t say the name of the next street (according to the company this option is coming soon). It does say the distance to the next turn and warns again before the turn. It also says the distance to the turn after that, if it comes up soon. The program is very good at telling the driver when to keep left or right in cases where the change in the road is not a clear turn. When driving on freeways it says the name of the road and also says the number of exit to take.

The program’s weakness is in finding Points Of Interest. The database was VERY slow on our WinCE 5 machine. Since the same machine runs iGO, Destinator, MioMap and others at a good speed, we suspect that Sygic Drive is to blame. There are several ways to search for POIs and all have the same weakness: they are slow and sometimes don’t find a point that is in the database. A search by name is normally painfully slow (one search took us close to 10 minutes) and often comes up empty. This is a serious defect.

Sygic Drive has no trouble finding addresses. The maps are supplied by TeleAtlas and, depending on locale, are fairly accurate, though we found the ones we tested not up to date.

Summary: Sygic Drive is a fairly good navigation program with very good non TTS spoken directions. It is quite bad at finding POIs, so be sure to know the address of the place you are going to. iGO and Destinator are better than Sygic Drive, but if the price is right Sygic is not a bad choice.

Navigon is supposed to have a number of advanced features:

Panorama View 3d is supposed to show a 3D view of the terrain you are traveling through,
Reality View Pro shows a realistic view of freeway interchanges and city streets,
Clever Parking is supposed to find parking near your destination,
Lane Assist Pro shows a detailed view of an intersection to help staying in the correct lane,
Text to Speech (TTS) is supposed to say the name of the next street you are going to turn on

We were unable to test most of the features on the US map we had – they didn’t work. The only two features that did work was the Lane Assist and TTS (to some extent).

The software has a nice interface, though it shows a warning screen and asks for assurance that the user will drive carefully. It is a bit annoying and takes unnecessary time every time you start it. It does have a feature that shuts Navigon off when the power supply is unplugged. This may be useful in a dedicated device.

Installation went smoothly, but Navigon’s wizard couldn’t find the GPS on the HTC phone. I had to enter the information manually. After that it acquired the satellites reasonably fast.

We first tried navigating using a US map. The routing was reasonable, though the program is slower than others we tested (especially iGO). The TTS worked only to a limited extent – it said the names of freeways and freeway exits. It did not say the names of any other streets. The only direction was “turn left” or “turn right”.
There was a problem with one of the major interchanges: the instructions were contradictory and confusing. This particular interchange requires a right turn from the freeway and than an immediate left. Navigon said: “keep left” when approaching the interchange, which was misleading as keeping left would prevent a safe right turn.

The Lane Assist was a disappointment since it shows a small image of the lanes you need to chose. The display is marginal on a 4.3″ display and is useless on a phone display. The way it is designed, to much attention needs to be dedicated to this display making it useless while traveling through a complicated interchange.

We continued testing with European maps. Since we are located in the US we could only simulate (Demo) the routes we chose. We didn’t find significant differences between the European and US performance. Our test didn’t show the advanced feature Navigon is advertising. I am sure they exist, but we were unable to check them out.

Our conclusion: Navigon is a fairly good GPS program. The US maps seem to be up to date, at least in comparison with other vendor’s maps. Finding a Point of Interest or an address is easy and routing is reasonable. It is possible to add a via point to a route. We didn’t find a way to view a complete route on the map. For some reason when we tried using Clever Parking the program always told us that there are no known parking places near our destination.

After testing Navigon we would still recommend iGO or Destinator. Even if all the features Navigon advertises work as they are supposed to, they would still be quite useless on a small display and distracting while driving.