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I have another review up on pocketnow.com, this time I poured over PhatPad, a note taking application for the Pocket PC, I was very impressed by its function and usability. Read the review for the details.

This past weekend I had National Guard drill again. First formation was on Thursday but because of an important interview I arranged to meet the unit at Ft. Irwin, CA instead of at the Riverside Armory like I usually do. This presented some complications for me because Google Maps (my used-to-be favorite online map) showed the route as 2 – 3 hours longer than the drive to Riverside and I would have to drive up the 15. The problem with the 15 is it connects the LA area to Las Vegas so on Fridays everyone and their mother is on that road heading north, the same direction Google was telling me to go. Google was telling me it would be just under 7 hours but I knew better. Plus I did not want to drive on those roads on a Friday for that long. See, I live in Phoenix so I know there has to be a better way. Something has to be more direct.

Google’s Advice

Now Yahoo has a neat feature that allows me to add additional destinations and it will route through those. I could play with the route a little bit to see if I come up with better times and distances. I know in my head that the little highways are 55MPH to the computer telling me how long it would take, but in reality you can easily do 65MPH without any issues. Unfortunately, Yahoo was not giving me the route I wanted. It was telling me the same thing Google was. Except Yahoo was more up to speed on those road conditions and said it would take almost just over 10 hours. Way too long.

Yahoo’s Route

Yahoo’s interface is heavy on the AJAX and Flash for an interface, which is bad because it doesn’t like my keyboard for some reason. I have to hit a key around 9 times before it registers in the text field. Yahoo is a step ahead on options as it allows multiple destinations and live traffic for most cities.

Playing with Yahoo

I added Parker, AZ as an additional route and Yahoo gave it up this way. The route above was calculated at above 10hrs! This would not do either. I tried many different cities between Phoenix and Ft Irwin and nothing was coming up right. Phoenix -> Kingman -> Ft Irwin was even worse. I had a feeling I should try something else.

Live Search – Shortest Distance

Live search returned the above route at 6 hours and 27 minutes. I knew this to be more correct so I took a closer look at what lay along the way.

Using the aerial view I could see some greenery along the Colorado River. A section of the road between Blythe and Needles ran along the river so I figure this might be a scenic drive.

    

As you can tell the green fields are part of the Colorado River Indian Reservation. It had been awhile since I had an adventure and I figured I could have one along the way and explore some new territory. All in all Live Search provided the best tools and features, it will be handy to use for route/trip planning. Yahoo Maps did allow for multiple destinations which the others did not, but the AJAX/Flash interface is cumbersome (Yahoo fix the typing problem!). Google Maps is great for around town, quick and simple but not feature rich.

My drive ended up being more enjoyable than the map could say. A good part of it was nice winding canyons and valleys that occasionally touched on the river. I arrived at my destination within 20 minutes of my planned time (I stopped for gas and food). I even arrived with enough time to do some training. I am glad I took this alternate route. It made the weekend much better, and left me with a better understanding of the area.

The Moral of the Story is:
Always check 3 sources for information before embarking on a trip. You might discover something you didn’t know or find a better route.

I stared in disbelief as I watched these printers spit out color photos faster than I could hit print. Supposedly the fastest competition printer costs upwards of $15,000 and this company is going to churn out $150 model printers this year! Click here for the video

For those of you that have not seen it. This is a video I made of one of our patrols while in Baghdad. Enjoy 

This time I reviewed MuskokaTech’s PathAway GPS 4 Pro. Read the full story to find out how it did. For those of you who do not know what is going on, I am a contributing writer for PocketNow.com now! I am still very excited about it!

Okay you can call this blog spam but this video had me laughing out loud. If you like dogs check it out.

It was not as great as I planned it to be. The cooler did not work all week so I laid in a puddle of sweat every night and barely fell asleep. However it is back to school with 1 test and a speech tomorrow, 3 tests on Wednesday, 2 speeches next week. Busy, busy, busy. March looks to be a very busy month with various important activities like an annual meeting and election for the HOA board, midterms, more National Guard training, some interviews to attend and interviews to conduct. It is all good though because I feel like I am getting into a good stride. Also I will have a new review on PocketNow.com this week as well so keep your eyes open.

 

 

Ever been to Stockholm? Yeah me neither. If you do go, take the subway and check out its prehistoric style more pictures after the jump.

As the semesters wind by there are a few things I have noticed that students are lacking a few critical simple skills/pieces of information that would make their lives easier. Study skills seem to not be taught anymore. Many students study under the myth that they need their favorite music blasting into their ears while they study. What is the problem with that? Come test time, you won’t have that music blasting in your ears, recall will be more difficult.

Speaking of recall, your knowledge should not be ‘recalled’ like it was in a filing cabinet in your head. It should be intuitive. In the army we train at crawl, walk, run speeds, and it is very effective in training soldiers on important tasks. The information is also given in different formats to appeal to the different ways we learn; listening, seeing, and doing.

Learning

A typical training session looks like this: The instructor tells the group what task they are going to learn. She/he also relates the conditions under which the training is going to occur. Additionally, the instructor also informs the group the standards at which the task should be performed before they are considered trained. As the instructor continues through the class they read how-to perform the task as the group
listens, shows how to perform the task as the group watches, and then the group actually does the task.

When performing the task, the group is led through slowly, then performs on their own slowly (crawl). The task is then performed a little faster (walk) and finally at what we call combat speed (run), which is basically at the real life speed the task should be performed at. Ultimately the task should be practiced many times until it is intuitive to the soldier/group, NOT recalled.

Tip: Studying for a test should be done at the same time of day that the test will be taken at. Your brain chemistry will be more similar. You want as many conditions to be similar while you study as there will be during the test. If there is no music, do not study while listening to music (although ’studies’ have show certain types of music help)

The table below shows an example of using the Army instructional method and the educational equivalent.

 

A college student can replicate this in their own home by role playing the instructors role, using examples with known solutions and testing themselves until it is intuitive. This method will greatly increase their chances of success come test time AND real world application. That is our goal right? Real world application? It is also important to know what kind of learner you are. If you do not know here is a quiz you can take to find out (sorry about the annoying popup).

Once you find out what kind of learner you are, here are some study tips.

In addition to learning better, Brian Kim suggests some courses every student should take.

This one is called PostieCon and its speakers are the stars of the Internet. Video killed the radio star and the internet killed the video star. So get your bags on, get your badge on and get out there. The preconference meet up is Thursday, May 31^st, and the main show runs from Friday June 1^st to Saturday June 2^nd. Featuring Internet whizbam bloggers like Robert Scoble as the keynote speaker and other speakers like Michelle Madhok the founder of Shefinds.com.

This blogging conference is held at the Ballroom at Church Street in Wonderful Orlando, Florida. A hop from the I-4 and a skip from great hotels, this conference is a jump in the right direction if you feel that blogging is the way for you. Speakers will cover such awesome topics like Living in a Google World and Turning Visits into Cash. When the internet was first blossoming few people had visions of what it would turn into but now everyone has vision, its important to get a feel for whats going on out there if you are going to succeed. So put down that keyboard, pick up the mouse and book a flight, a room and an all access pass to the biggest blogging conference yet!