This I vow... | The Coffeehouse

dahat

The next time I find myself in a strange and far away land (Seattle) where I have never been before... I will NOT get a rental car without first setting up my laptop, GPS and Streets & Trips ahead of time in case I lose my way... or I’ll just go with a taxi so I can find my hotel without going around the block several times due to poor instructions (and/or my getting lost ahead of time).

... this I vow.

</rant>

And now... to go off and find some dinner in this strange land.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

dahat wrote:
The next time I find myself in a strange and far away land (Seattle) where I have never been before... I will NOT get a rental car without first setting up my laptop, GPS and Streets & Trips ahead of time in case I lose my way... or I’ll just go with a taxi so I can find my hotel without going around the block several times due to poor instructions (and/or my getting lost ahead of time).

... this I vow.

</rant>

And now... to go off and find some dinner in this strange land.

An I hope you contact your peeps at Channel 9 for dinner tomorrow Smiley

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Or you could just get a rental car with satellite navigation built-in next time. Tongue Out

rjdohnert
You will never know success until you know failure

Do I see a Channel 9 video witha Dahat video soon? As my good friend Patrick Stewart would say "Make it so number one"

dahat

PaoloM wrote:
An I hope you contact your peeps at Channel 9 for dinner tomorrow

I dunno... I tend to think that they see me as a bit of... a provocateur and an occasional thorn in their sides when I push against certain people/arguments.

Sven Groot wrote:
Or you could just get a rental car with satellite navigation built-in next time.

That will be on the list next time (should I do a rental again)... along with lots of leg and head room.

rjdohnert wrote:
Do I see a Channel 9 video witha Dahat video soon? As my good friend Patrick Stewart would say "Make it so number one"

Doubtful as I'm here for an interview with a completely different group. Just ask yourself… what MSFT product do I love above all others?

Harlequin
http://twitter.com/TrueHarlequin

Ditto. I had to phone my wife so she could hit Goggle Maps when I went down to Seattle for the webdesignworld conference last summer, damned if I couldn't find the Seattle Mariott Waterfront. Tongue Out

dahat

I also vow to look at the map when I leave a campus parking garage on a side of the building other than where I came in to avoid driving around for 15 min completely lost.

I vow as well to put a greater emphasis on eating during a lunch interview.

I vow to give myself more time on either side of my interview so that I have enough time to look around a little more, see and do other things… like have a long breakfast with GM in the morning (instead of the short one we’ll be doing), a short time before my departing flight.

Strange thing though walking around a building on campus having never been there and yet it all seeming so familiar thanks to seeing many of the same halls so many times here.

jason818_253.33
Yippi skippy

How did the interview part of your trip go?

John Melville-- MD
Equality Through Technology

dahat wrote:
The next time I find myself in a strange and far away land (Seattle) where I have never been before... I will NOT get a rental car without first setting up my laptop, GPS and Streets & Trips ahead of time in case I lose my way

</rant>

I just splurged the $120 to have a cheepie, but dedicated, GPS unit in the car. All the work to set up the computer and connect to the GPS simply wasn't worth it. This thing is great -- push on and it tells you where you are. Say where you want to go and it routes you to it. No configuration, no wires, no fuss.

Even for a geek who always has a computer, DEFINITELY worth the investment.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

I got myself a Garmin Nuvi 350. Cute little unit that can be pocketed easily.

We call him Desmond, due to his annoying English Butler accent Smiley

dahat

jason818_253.33 wrote:
How did the interview part of your trip go?

Overall quite well I think... although grueling (think 7 people over 8:15 (and ignoring a 30 min breakfast the next day with the GM)).

I've got a couple of hints that things went well... the most recent being a voice mail I got from the recruiter today while I was flying home through Denver.

I'll give her another ring in the morning and see what the word is then.

John Melville, MD wrote:
I just splurged the $120 to have a cheepie, but dedicated, GPS unit in the car.

What did you end up going with? Now and then I look at what’s on the market for dedicated units but walk away every time thinking that there is only rather expensive stuff and/or crap.

punkouter

i think we have 'navi' (japanese like to call the GPS service as 'navi') in our cell phones here in japan. only available on the higher-end, but its quite common for someone to have. you can simply download the java apps if your phone support GPS, and with a subscription plan you can start using it. here's a sample pic:

notice the line, dots and the girl icon along the lines... Wink

HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code

I moved from Indiana to the Seattle area when I got a job here. I was lost for the first year. For having so much tech around here, they sure didn't put any (meaningful) thought into making anything around here easy to navigate. Expressionless

Glad your interview went well. Good luck! Smiley

And to the best of my knowledge you're not a thorn in anybody's side. There aren't very many Niners we wouldn't want to meet.

Massif
aim stupidly high, expect to fail often.

PaoloM wrote:
We call him Desmond, due to his annoying English Butler accent

Here's a cultural disconnect, I see Desmond and I think of black hairdressers.

If I want butler name I think Jeeves, Simkins or maybe Winston.

My brother's SatNav is stuck on German, he likes it that way. He's learning to take directions in German.

dahat

PaoloM wrote:
I got myself a Garmin Nuvi 350. Cute little unit that can be pocketed easily.

Yarg! $300-$400? Maybe I need to quit being so cheap.

HumanCompiler wrote:
Glad your interview went well. Good luck! And to the best of my knowledge you're not a thorn in anybody's side. There aren't very many Niners we wouldn't want to meet.

Well crud... I guess next time I'll send an email or two ahead of time. In retrospect really I should have tried to stop by yesterday morning as it turned out that my flight was super delayed.

Massif wrote:

PaoloM wrote: We call him Desmond, due to his annoying English Butler accent

Here's a cultural disconnect, I see Desmond and I think of black hairdressers.

Interesting... when I hear the name I think of this man saying "You're going to die brother"

Lloyd_Humph
If Blackberrys are addictive cellphones, Channel9 is the ultimate addictive website.

Google maps for WM is good. Unfortunately I pushed something and now it wants to connect to my GPRS, when I have no credit Tongue Out

So that's screwed until I get some credit... so long as it doesn't eat it all Smiley

zian
Exploding heads since 1988

I hopped back to this thread after noticing the trackback in your celebratory thread.

Wanted to let you know that you can get the Garmin StreetPilot i5 for considerably less (see http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Garmin%20StreetPilot%20i5%20GPS%20Receiver:1993024491;_ylt=AgvfnsLfHY0l7f81PEO6ljfif7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBucjZ1N3JiBF9zAzk2MTE2OTQ4BGx0AzQEc2VjA3Ny?clink=dmss//ctx=sc:cgps_receivers,c:cgps_receivers,mid:59,pid:1993024491,pdid:59,pos:3). That's the model my family uses and it works remarkably well for the low price.

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop
Seven of Niner! Resistance is Futile!

just buy a cheap phone with symbian 9 like the E51, or a windows mobile 6 PDA (touch screen is mandatory),and then use tomtom or garmin XT on it. you can buy garmin/tomtom kits with both receiver and memory card for many phones or just spend 60$ for a 3rd party GPS receiver with sirf star III or better and 20/40$ for a 2/4Gb memory card and get the application and latest maps from unspeakable sources [6]. there are also phones/PDAs with GPS on them but they're painfully slow, pretty expensive or both.

you could also buy any nokia symbian phone compatible with nokia maps, that is free unless you want voice instructions (needed if you want to use it while you're driving a motocycle or a car). garmin/tomtom software can also be used like Nokia maps for consulting the maps without having to own a receiver so you're good even when you don't have the GPS receiver with you

note: garmin and nokia maps can load the latest maps, tomtom instead changes maps format with each version so when your phone gets old and can't run newer tomtom versions you're screwed