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Reviews Written By: A10FGXGHS2VS9

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	Garmin nuvi 260W Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
	"Widescreen wonder."	2009-06-25
This is the second Garmin product I have used; the first is the Garmin nuvi 200 that my mother owns. I'll use it as a comparison from time to time. I purchased this product from Amazon when planning my move from Maine to Virginia, a drive of over 600 miles. I had made the drive down once before using the aforementioned Garmin 200, and after seeing how invaluable the GPS proved to be in the first case, I decided I needed one for myself. The nuvi 260 is widescreen, and has considerably more screen real estate than does the nuvi 200. You don't really notice too much while you are just viewing the map, since most of the detail is concentrated in the middle of the screen anyways. It does make text entry easier - the widescreen is a better analogue to a standard keyboard, and by default the touch screen keyboard is laid out in QWERTY style. You can switch it back to alphabetical if you wish, but I found the QWERTY to be instantly usable. The other main distinction between the 260 and 200, and more generally between it and the cheaper models, is the text to speech feature. What this means in laymen's terms is that instead of saying "Turn right in 400 yards", it says "Turn right on Wendy Lane in 400 yards", or "Arriving at Best Buy on right" as opposed to "Arriving at destination on right." Hearing the streets announced is very helpful; when driving through crowded urban areas, there are often multiple streets in quick succession, so knowing you have a turn in 400 yards isn't always very helpful. Hearing the name of the street ensures you make the turn. I have definitely missed turns or made the wrong turn before when using the nuvi 200; that has not yet happened with this 260 model. The voice is slightly robotic, but it's not distractingly bad. Finally, I just want to say that this has been invaluable for my move, not just for getting me down to Virginia safe and sound. Half of its utility has come after I arrived. When you are in a new area and without Internet access, it's very hard to know where things are. With this unit, you can browse nearby attractions, e.g. the local library, without knowing specifically what you are looking for. Not only does it then show you the way there, but it also lists the phone number for said locations. Again, when you are without Internet and telephone book, this feature is priceless. I wish this featured traffic integration out of the box; I believe you need to get the nuvi 255 or similar unit for that. In general it's very hard to understand the numbering convention that Garmin uses for its products. Higher doesn't necessarily mean more advanced. If you do a lot of driving but don't absolutely need traffic routing, get this unit. You won't be disappointed.
	Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator Earphones ER6iC (Black)
	"Sounds great, comfortable... brittle and fragile"	2009-06-09
I got these a few years ago and was initially very happy with them. I was coming over to them from a pair of Shure e3cs that had given up the ghost. In both cases I used the foam ear buds to ensure a tight seal, good noise suppression, and a good fit. The ER6i foam buds fit very well and were very comfortable. The sound was likewise excellent. One problem is that the wires are exceedingly thin. This makes them get very stiff in the cold, and one of the earbuds stopped working within a span of probably 3 months. Customer service could do nothing for me, so my headphones are now in the trash. Be wary of these - maybe these would be much more durable than a place like Maine, but just as a point of comparison, the Shures these replaced had lasted longer than 2 years in the same environment. Again, the biggest difference I saw between them was a much thicker wire in the Shure's case.
	Effective Java (2nd Edition) (Java Series)
	"A student's perspective: New insights on every page"	2009-02-28
I am thoroughly enjoying this book and learning a lot in the process. The author is responsible for many of the successful APIs in the Java language, such as the Collections framework, so he certainly knows what he is talking about. I am still a student but I can relate to some of the things he talks about, and see where I have deviated from his suggestions in the past. The author is clear to point out why these things are problems in terms of either code reuse, extensibility, type safety, or some other aspect, so even though it wasn't necessarily an issue in the context of a school project, in the real world it certainly might be. The author borrows the format from Scott Meyer's Effective C++ series of books, and it works very well in this context. While the chapters are logically organized, they are set up in such a way that you do not need to read from start to finish; you can jump around and read the interesting bits at will, and often items in one section of the book refer to later (or earlier) items. Finally, I appreciate that the book explains some of the less well known or understood features of recent versions of Java. For instance, I had never heard of the annotation feature added, but he goes on to show a great example of how you can use annotations to build a simple test framework for a class. Even if you are not yet a software professional, you owe it to yourself to get a jump start by reading this book.
	Xbox 360 Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock Wired Bundle (Xbox 360)
	"An improvement over GH 2, but not perfect"	2009-01-18
This game has given my roommates and I a lot of entertainment over the past year or so. If you're in the market for this game you probably know the gameplay formula by now: colored notes stream down the screen which you press in time to music. Such a reductionist view does not really capture what's so fun about the game, however. Part of the appeal to me is the mastery of individual songs and the challenge of keeping up on the highest difficulty levels. It's also very entertaining to play in a group setting where people egg you on and insult your poor playing (not that ever happens to me, mind you.) If you are used to Guitar Hero 2, you should know that some of the mechanics have been tweaked slightly. You can expect a LOT more notes to be coming at you (whereas most songs in GH2 probably have less than 700 or so notes to hit on expert, expect over 1000 in a fair number of songs in GH3 on expert). To alleviate some of the difficulty, hammer-ons are much easier to play in GH3 than GH2. Not only are they more visually distinctive (in Guitar Hero 2 the hammer-on notes are all but indistinguishable from normal notes when you have star power activated) but the timing window is much more forgiving - you can play the notes slightly ahead of time and still have them register. One gameplay addition added from GH2 to GH3 is that of guitar battles. In this mode, you play against such legends as Tom Morello and Slash. The purpose of this mode is not to rack up points but instead to make the other player "fail out" through the use of special powerups. I found the addition more frustrating than fun. Fans of achievements should know that they are incredibly difficult to attain - after playing this game for many dozens of hours over the past year, I probably have only 100 or so achievement points. According to [...] Finally, with regard to the hardware itself - make sure you are not situated too far away from the TV or the cord might not reach! The cord is plenty long in a room with a 32" tv, but at home where we have a 55" DLP TV I've yanked the cord out more than once on accident.
	Sony BCG-34HE4 CycleEnergy Super-Quick International Battery Charger with 4 AA NiMH Batteries
	"Batteries last forever, charges quick enough"	2008-09-25
I have now purchased two of this product; one stays at home for my family and their digital camera, and one comes up to college with me for my digital camera. The product is well designed (the plug folds into the body when not in use) and dead simple to use. Finally, these batteries last an inordinately long time in my Canon A590IS camera. I should say I am a casual photographer, but when I was in China for 11 days and took a few hundred pictures, I never ran out of batteries, though I did change them once just in case.
	Frost - Melodica
	"Cannot stop listening to this"	2007-10-30
I bought this on a whim after Amazon recommended it. The singer has an absolutely gorgeous voice and the music is very relaxing. If you like some of the older Bjork stuff, there are some similarities. Very catchy songs and melodies, and I am absolutely glad I bought this album. I've listened to it about 6 times in the week or so I've had it.
	Samsung X495 Prepaid Phone (T-Mobile)
	"Perfect for my needs"	2006-12-20
I do not make many phone calls, but I wanted a phone for emergencies plus to be able to make contact with friends while driving (there's nothing more nerve wracking for me than driving to some place I've never gone before with no phone). Anyways, I bought this phone and then got 1000 minutes off of TMobile for $100. Now I'm considered a gold customer which means any minutes I buy do not expire as quickly as the normal minutes, and they are slightly cheaper. The quality of voice output is great, but my parents sometimes complain that my voice doesn't transmit quite as clearly unless I am sitting down. One miscellaneous complaint: I use this phone as an alarm clock and sometimes the phone doesn't recognize that I pressed the OK button to turn off the alarm; it registers as a snooze attempt rather than the attempt to shut off the alarm. This results in the phone going off again in 5 minutes while I'm in the shower, waking my roommate up again. I've taken to shutting off my phone after the alarm goes off just to avoid this. Not many extras on this phone, but if all you need is a barebones phone for emergencies and occasional phone calls, this will be perfect for you.