Motorcycle Misadventures

Heads-Up Displays Move From Cockpits to Cyclists' Helmets

Now we can concentrate on the scenery! The New York Times reported today that "Fighter pilots have long been able to view flight data projected onto jet windshields within their line of sight. Soon recreational motorcyclists and bicyclists will be able to take advantage of that technology. Motion Research, a Seattle company founded in 1993 by a former racecar driver, Dominic Dobson, said that next spring it would begin selling an inexpensive information display system to be attached to a motorcycle helmet.

What tools do you need to create an online travelogue?

People keep asking me what tools they need to create an online travelogue. It's a big list, and I'm co-teaching a class about it at the Wild Writing Women Weekend Conference, with Lyn Bishop, a digital artist whose online travelogues are photography/art intensive (whereas mine are word-intensive). In the class we'll be talking about hardware (laptop computers, digital cameras) and software (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat) and connectivity (FTP, wireless), as well as design skills (if you're developing a website) and storytelling skills you need for the task. You may just want to create a travel weblog with TypePad, like this one, which is probably the easiest entre into hi-tech I've ever experienced.

Check out my Motorcycle Misadventures dispatches and Lyn Bishop's Wanderlust and her new Global Fusion site (where this marvelous animated gif came from), for example. And if you want to break into online writing, come to the W5 conference and take the class.

Get wireless, stay connected

I put an Airport (wireless) card in my iBook this year and I've never been happier. I get to surf anywhere in my house and garden, I get to surf at my sister's place, at local coffee shop, in my client's offices, and in the airport, anywhere there's a "hot spot." Here's a good article (Cutting the Cord by Bob Tedeschi) that appeared in the New York Times today (free, registration required) on WiFi, the what, how, and where. "Wireless Internet connections are available in an ever-growing number of public spaces. And a growing number of laptops and portable devices are equipped to connect to wireless signals automatically. The buzzwords often associated with this phenomenon are Wi-Fi - shorthand for wireless fidelity, the signal standard used to transmit data over local networks using radio signals - and "hot spots," meaning those networks." Tedeschi helpfully points out the "plenty of online resources to help map out the locations of free hot spots before you leave for a trip. On sites like jiwire.com, you can type in your location and find a list of nearby paid or free hot spots in 30 countries. In the United States alone, the site lists nearly 11,000 hot spots." Other sites are Wi-FiHotspotList.com and locfinder.net, and NYCWireless.net. (Here in San Francisco we have SFLan.)
Read the article.

iBook laptop is sturdy enough for motorcycle travel

I love my Sony VAIO but I carry my Apple iBook. Why? No dongles, external drives, and no Windows operating system, and its case is sturdy enough to take day after day of motorcycle travel. The System X operating system is wonderful, too; when you plug in your digital camera System X thinks "oh, you must want to download photos to your hard drive...hey, I'll open iPhoto for you!" I love that. You'll love that. The only sturdyness test an Apple laptop failed was the one where the tow-truck ran over it.
Price: from $999.00
iBook website

Treo 600 Phone and PDA

Read why ubergeek Craig Newmark loves his Treo 600 phone and PDA. I've been holding off on buying a PDA until they got the phone thing down...now do they offer a chip switch to the European phone system?

Apple's iPod handles your music, data, and even wakes you up in the morning

Consider that Apple's iPods come with up to a 40GB of storage. Then consider that, while you're on the road, you really need to backup your data. That's right. You can use the iPod as an entertainment system and for traveling data backup, storage, and transfer. Just plug the USB or firewire connector into any computer to transfer data: music, photos, documents, your address book...or just copy all the data that lives on your computer hard drive at home. Built-in features let you maintain contacts, calendar, and to-do lists. It's got a notes reader that lets you download text-based information and read it on its (tiny) screen. This could be the ultimate travel gadget. It has a sleep timer so you can fall asleep to your music, or wake you up with it. This is the third generation design, and Apple's really got the interface, connectors, and ease-of-use fine tuned. The feeling is that the others don't come close.
Website: http://www.apple.com/ipod/
Compatibility: Windows and Apple compatible
Price: Starts at $299.00

Hot New Gamin iQue 3600 GPS

I'd love to take a GPS on my next motorcycle trip. CNET has just reviewed this hot new unit, the Garmin iQue 3600 Palm-based organizer with an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. They say that "Though the device lacks some of the software found on high-end Palm handhelds and could have better battery life, the iQue proved itself an all-around capable PDA and a top-notch copilot." Read the entire CNET review and visit the Garmin iQue 3600 website.
Price: $550.00