First thing I want to say is I love the interface. Probably this was my favorite of all four apps I have tested so far. The buttons are clear and large, meaning they are easy to read and easy to selection. The options make sense (such as “route”, “settings”, “navigate to”). I never found myself trying to figure out what button I needed to hit.

The routing overview options are great – you can see the instructions, see the route as images, see a summary, see a demo of the route, and even show a large map with your route. Likewise, when choosing a navigation point, there are a number of clear options – point on a map, GPS position, city center, address, POI, etc. Unfortunately there is no integration with your iPhone contacts – something that I would consider almost essential for any turn by turn GPS app.

When creating a route, you have some nice options I haven’t seen in some of the other apps. You can choose shortest and fastest (pretty standard), but you can also choose economical, pedestrian, and bicycle. Unfortunately you need to choose these in the settings, and can’t adjust them on a trip by trip basis. You do have the option of requesting an “alternate route” once your route is created, but it will still use your existing preferences. You can also choose to add an intermediate point (travel via…) if you want to go by a specific city or town. You can also choose to avoid an upcoming segment (the next mile, the next ½ mile, etc). Unfortunately, you can’t do this in advance to avoid a specific segment of the trip, it only avoids the next immediate segment. Lastly, you can choose to avoid traffic delays, but I am not sure if this downloads actual traffic data, or bases it on travelling through a city center (or historical traffic data). I tried it a couple of times, but didn’t find any change in my planned route.

When driving, you can have a speed warning option turned on, that will warn you when you are going over a speed limit by a user-defined amount. There is supposed to be an audible warning, but I never heard one. In addition, the speed limits seemed somewhat variable – sometimes they were accurate, sometimes they were wrong, and sometimes they were missing. You have the option of defining some of the data that appears on the screen – ETA, distance remaining, speed, time remaining, etc. I like this a lot because it enables everyone to choose what information they would find most valuable. The driving interface is nice, pretty standard with views like “night time view”, and it can be viewed in landscape mode as well. The turn by turn directions are good, although it doesn’t read the street names (it does read highway route numbers, though). The voice also includes little qualifiers like “turn immediately” if you need to make a quick turn following another turn. I find information like this helpful when driving. You can also see the POI on the map as you are driving (and can choose which icons you are able to see). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyway within the app to disable the screen off function, so my screen kept turning off as I was driving.

So those are some of the good features about the Sygic app. Unfortunately, there were two really big flaws that were glaring. The first is when it comes to routing options – the routing options make no sense. Just like the other apps, I used this app to plan a route from Edinburg, TX to Terlingua, TX. A trip that I know is about 600 miles. I choose the shortest route, and it had me driving up THROUGH San Antonio – adding about 100 miles to the trip. I tried to hit “find alternate route”, and it took me up through Fort Worth…adding another 150 miles to the trip. So if I followed these directions, a 600 mile trip would have turned into a 700 or 850 mile trip. It was only after driving for about an hour on what I knew was the shortest route (or at least a shorter route) that the app finally gave me the instructions I wanted (which was calculated out to be shorter than the 700 miles it had suggested originally).

In addition, if you go off route, rather than trying to calculate a new route based on your current location, it seems to try to only get you BACK on to the previous route. So this app was telling me, at various times, to take a u-turn, drive back another 15 miles to the point where I went off the planned route, then continue from there. If I cancelled that route and created another one, that’s when it would then give me the best route from my current location.

Lastly, the maps seem very out of date. One of the first things I noticed was that the map for my home town didn’t have my street on it. Now, my street is fairly new (within the past 5 years) so maybe that was a simple mistake. But when I was planning my trip to Terlingua, TX, Terlingua didn’t even come up as a town in Texas! So in addition to missing roads, the app is missing whole towns. This may not be a factor if you are living in a large metropolitan area, but if could be a concern if you are living somewhere less developed (or travelling somewhere like that).

Driving around town I had no problems with this app. It seemed to have most of the POI that I was looking for (although the database was a little bit lacking). It also generally suggested reasonable routes to take (even if they weren’t the exact same ones I would have suggested). The real problems with this app came with the long distance travel.

Except, of course, like the iPhone 3GS, that outward assessment doesn’t tell the inner story at all, and while Apple marketing didn’t see fit to call this the iPod touch S, that inner story is again all about speed.

Note: You’ll see a lot of “like the iPhone 3GS here” because, frankly, it is and we reviewed that member of Apple’s mobile platform family first. That also means we’ll focus on what differences there are, and we’ll also take a look at whether the iPod touch G3 is a good choice for those who want in on Apple’s iPod and App Store ecosystem, but don’t want an iPhone or smartphone contract. (Yes, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, Android, and feature-phone users want an “App for That” too…)

Strictly as an iPod, the iPod touch G3 is an evolution that will appeal to those who really want a faster device or the expanded memory 64GB offers. If those are your primary criteria, it’s an easy choice.

If you already have an original iPod touch G1, and certainly if you have last year’s iPod touch G2, you might want to hold out for the next revision which — hopefully! — will get that camera and mic.

If you’re new to the iPod ecosystem, this is the flag ship device for a reason. It’s super snappy, a media beast, and can access the App Store. However, you may still want to consider an iPhone first.

Now, if you have kids and don’t want them to have a phone, but do want to share all your iTunes media and apps with them for fun and vacation, then the latest iPod touch is a dream device. If you really can’t cut that other (smart)phone cord but want a taste of the iPhone experience, then this is definitely the way to go.

Just make really, truly sure you wouldn’t prefer an iPhone first. And if you get that taste and decide your really want that always-on connection and video goodness, hey, you can always upgrade to an iPhone later.

For existing iPhone owners, it’s a tough sell. If you already have an iPhone 2G and don’t want a new one, the iPod touch 3G can give you some new hardware, but it’s one more thing to carry around. Same for iPhone 3G owners.

For iPhone 3GS owners, unless you’re an uber-geek who needs a device to develop for beta firmware, run jailbroken or otherwise experiment with, or just to keep around the house as an ultra-compact web tablet and iTunes remote, you’re already covered.

Another perk of this soft plastic is that it’s not tacky like most silicone cases out there. The biggest complaint I hear about silicone cases is the amount of dust and lint they attract. This is not the case with the iSkin solo. So, while it does provide you with a material that will ensure that your iPhone will not go slipping out of your hands, it’s also great news for those of you who put your iPhone into your pocket or purse and want to be able to remove it easily and — lint free.

To use the app, you simply choose your destination (either as an address, contact book entry, local business, etc). From there you can choose to “Bo Navigate” (which is the Gokivo app). Warning – don’t choose “directions” – this is the Google map directions. I had a slight problem once where I went into “directions” and actually got into Google Maps, and I couldn’t get back to the Gokivo app. There are no settings initially to choose route types or preferences – those can be adjusted later.

The directions provided seems pretty straightforward. It didn’t have some of the features that the other apps has (like speeding warning) but it did have traffic warnings. You can also view standard options like ETA, distance to arrival, etc. The POI database appears to be based on local Yahoo data, so it is pretty robust. I put in some obscure locations and it was still able to find them with relative ease. The choice of routes was pretty standard, no real problems or anything, although as with all the apps the ETA was slightly longer than I have seen in reality.

You can review your directions before you take the trip, either in a list form or in a simulated trip form. It does have text to speech, so it reads the road names for you (a feature that I think is great). Because the maps are (seemingly) based on Google maps, there is little footprint on your iPhone. So you do need to have a phone (or internet?) connection to use the app – the maps aren’t stored on the device. You can also play your music while in the app.

The app use is very nice – the voice is clear, the directions are announced in plenty of time before the actual turn, and the map itself is easy to read. There wasn’t any option I could find to add an interim destination, but all destinations are saved in recents, so you can easily reroute yourself if you change your plans. The maps are very clean – not a lot of clutter making them very easy to read while using the app.

The battery in an iPhone is a lithium-based battery which is most common in consumer portable devices. A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles in its lifetime and the following tips are just a few ways to efficiently gain longer battery lifespans while extending overall battery life of your iPhone.

•Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
•Avoid heat – do not leave your iPhone in a hot car or in direct sunlight.
•Optimization of your settings. Yes, some of these are no brainers but can be effective. Simple things like:

1.turning off Location Services,
2.turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when not in use,
3.fetching new data less frequently,
4.setting the brightness of your screen below 50%,
5.turning of the EQ while listening to music,
6.turning off 3G while not surfing the internet (Yes, we said it…)

All of these add up to better battery life.

Apple once again shows that their attention to detail and customer experience doesn’t end with the device, it starts with the packaging. The Magic Mouse comes in small plastic box that shows it off similar to how the iPod touch is displayed in its packaging. Once open, you find the mouse and not much more, only some paper, and that’s pro forma.

Magic Mouse connects to a MacBook or Mac desktop via Bluetooth, once again showing Apple’s move towards fewer wires and farther range. It’s not rechargeable, but comes with a battery already in place, ready to use with a flip of the power switch.

If you’ve got the Bluetooth icon in your menu bar, click on it and choose Setup Bluetooth Device… The Bluetooth Assistant will launch, it will detect your Magic Mouse, and as soon as it does, you can choose it and pair it. (If you don’t have the BT icon in your menu, just launch System Preferences, choose Bluetooth, and hit the + icon at the bottom left to launch the BT Assistant).

Reality kicks in when I realized that Dell Mac 9 could not function what it was bought for, which is to enable me to trade while I am on the move. I am currently using Interbank FX’s Meta Trader 4 to monitor Forex and CMC Marketmaker to trade. Sad to say, both of these platforms are exclusive to Windows only. Heck, do brokers assumed all Mac users to be designers and none of us trade?

I learned from some traders that Mac users could install CrossOver Mac to run Meta Trader 4. However, this program does not function on my DM9 despite numerous tries. Undeterred, I googled for solution and found a godsend software call Parallel Desktop. This brilliant software enables Windows OS to run within Mac OS environment. Within hours, I am finally able to have Windows XP, Meta Trader and Marketmaker functioning in DM9. Yeah!

But again, my joy was short lived. Both Meta Trader and Marketmaker load and update so slowly that is beyond my acceptability. The candles are moving so slowly in Meta Trader that it was a pain to watch. Marketmaker takes a long time to start up and when it does, the price updates does not seems to happen at all and I missed a few entry opportunities. Windows have just given me a sucker punch when I was singing praises of Mac.

Not wanting to throw in the towel, I headed back to MyDellMini forums and found a perfect how-to Dual Boot guide to fix my problem. Within hours, my DM9 is capable of dual booting either to Mac OS X or Windows XP. Having the best of both worlds, I am now able to surf internet and do other stuffs with the gorgeous Mac OS X or trading on the move with Windows XP. Cheers!

When my Dell 6400 laptop’s battery failed and not wanting to carry along this heavyweight anymore, I toyed with the idea of getting a 13” Macbook knowing that its battery can last almost 4 hrs (Dell 6400 barely make it past 2). In the end, with the software compatibility issue lingering, I got a Dell Mini 9 instead for the lightweight and ultra portability factors. Ok, I admit price was the greatest factor and I got it at $321 from M1.

The Dell Mini 9 is a great device to bring along to almost anywhere. It empowered me to trade Stocks and Forex on the move, making and losing money easily anywhere when I am connected. The big minus point is the heat after using it for around 30 minutes, so placing it on your lap is not advisable.

I stumbled upon MyDellMini forums when I was trying to solve Mini 9’s resolution problem. This is when I realized the possibility to Hackintosh Dell Mini 9 into an ultimate Netbook running Leopard OS X. Though it is possible to run OS X on most PCs with various methods readily available on the Internet, the availability of certain drivers remain a major concern for those who are keen. However, looking at the compatibility chart show this issue is not a concern with Dell Mini 9.

Itching to try out the legendary OS X on a daily basis, I followed the excellent guides by Mechdrew to transform my Dell Mini 9 to Dell Mac 9. The biggest problem during installation was the STEC 8 GB SSD which gave me multiple surprises. Though it claims to be 8 GB, I can only see 7.2 GB available space and I have no idea where on earth the remaining went to. After I formatted the SSD with OS X Disk Utility to GUID partition, only 6.8 GB is left behind. I have to reduce the required space for OS X installation from 11 GB to 6.1 GB by removing options like Language Translations, Additional Fonts and Printer Drivers.

Still, the OS X installer indicates that only 5.8 GB is useable on the SSD which is not enough to accommodate the 6.1 GB installation. I would have to remove some Essential System Software which includes Mail, Address Book, iCal, iTunes, iChat, Safari and etc to fit the installation to the stupid STEC SSD.

However, I feel that if I remove most of these main programs, the OS X experiences may not be complete. So I ditched the stupid STEC SSD and upgrade to a $209 Runcore 32 GB SSD. Now I can install OS X without removing any Essential System Software and the Read/Write speed of this China Made SSD is excellent! I got OS X running in less than an hour and seeing the Apple logo kind of brighten up my day instantly.

Using Dell Mac 9 is so cool that people around me who noticed it will go “Hey, I thought this supposed to be XP?” Everything is running so well, even the 9” screen display seems to look better with OS X. Installing and uninstalling programs by dragging and dropping is hell easier compared to Windows. Best of all, the shutting down of OS X seems almost instant. I finally understand why Apple fans never return to the dark side. As of now, I am seriously thinking of getting Macbook Pro in the near future.