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What if one device could help you navigate anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, while offering travel tips, storing your favorite tunes and photos, providing translation assistance, and more? That device is here, and it’s not much bigger than a deck of cards. The Garmin nuvi 350 is set to revolutionize what we expect from a GPS navigation device, or from any device for that matter.

Design
With a total weight of 5.1 ounces and slim measurements of 3.87 x 2.91 x 0.87 inches (WxHxD), the nüvi 350 is just right for the pocket or purse. A bright, 64,000-color display dominates the front of the device and a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels means that there’s plenty of room for displaying map data and other elements of the device’s interface. An SD memory card slot is provided for expansion software, such as a points of interest database, media files and electronic guides (see below). The flip-up antenna includes an MCX-type connector for connecting the unit to an external GPS antenna. Meanwhile, a powerful built-in speaker resides on the back of device. A built-in lithium ion battery will give you for to eight hours of battery life, depending on use. In addition to an AC charger, the unit also ships with a 12-volt power adapter for vehicle charging, as well as a windshield suction cup mount.

Fortunately, Garmin has made it easy to interface with the nüvi 350’s 700 megabytes of onboard memory, thanks to “plug-and-play” USB mass storage support. Just plug the device into your computer’s USB port and you’ve got instantaneous access to all the audio books, music, photos, supplemental maps and other data on the nüvi 350’s internal and SD card memory.

Navigation
The nuvi 350 is first and foremost a personal GPS device. Wherever you go — in your car or on foot– the device offers extremely accurate position data, thanks to a high-sensitivity integrated GPS receiver by SiRF and WAAS-enabled, 12-satellite reception. Combined with detailed maps of the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico the nuvi 350 provides automatic routing, turn-by-turn voice directions, and touchscreen control– making it easy to find your way anywhere. Plus, the unique “text-to-speech” feature calls out turns by street name, and you can choose from either 2D or 3D mapping perspectives when you’re viewing your route on the display. Additionally, the nuvi 350 is compatible with Garmin’s GTM 10 FM TMC traffic receiver*, which allows users to avoid traffic tie-ups by simply pushing a button that will calculate a new route.

As mentioned, the nuvi 350 comes packed with mapping data for North America, but you can can also load up your custom points of interest. Set up proximity alerts for school zones, safety cameras, and more using Garmin’s free POI (points of interest) loader program (available from garmin.com).

Tools for the Journey
Navigation is just part of the journey, and the nuvi 350 is one of the first devices to recognize that. The built-in “Travel Kit” offers an MP3 player, an audio book player from Audible.com, a jpeg-format picture viewer, a world travel clock with time zones, a currency converter, a measurement converter, and a calculator.

In addition to the included travel tools in  the nuvi 350, additional software add-ons are available, such as the Garmin Language Guide, with data provided by Oxford University Press. This software suite contains a multilingual word bank, phrase bank, and five bilingual dictionaries. The multilingual word bank and phrase bank supports nine languages and dialects, including American English, British English, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, European Spanish, and Latin American Spanish. Now you can look up and translate more than 17,000 words or 20,000 phrases per language — right in the palm of your hand. Through the unit’s text-to-speech interface, users can get a spoken pronunciation of each entry in the word bank, along with gender and part of speech information. The nuvi 350 is a real thinking machine.

Another useful add-on software package, the Garmin Travel Guide, is loaded with information provided by Marco Polo. These guides put in-depth travel information such as reviews and recommendations for restaurants, tourist attractions, and more at your fingertips. The software allows you to navigate to an address or search points of interest– places like hotels, restaurants, shopping, and tourist attractions. The nüvi 350 automatically calculates the fastest route and provides voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions along the way. The unit also audibly announces the name of upcoming streets– letting you keep your eyes on the road while navigating through busy traffic and tricky roadways. And if you stray off course, the Garmin Nuvi 350 automatically calculates the quickest way to get back on track.

Buy the Garmin nuvi 350 today

Generation X by Douglas Coupland is a book that took my years to read. I initially thought “who the hell is this guy that thinks he is the spokeman for my generation?”. I was a little wrong, after the hype wore off I found that Douglas was not interested in being any kind of spokeperson but in fact the book is very groundbreaking for the snapshot of a people of a certain age in a certain time. Generation X follows some time in the life of three friends, Andy, Claire and Dag, young people with no responsibility and to much money for what they need. In the book Coupland has a great time by pigeon holeing a lot of social groups.

This book really made me a fan of Douglas Coupland as it is smart, witty and a lot of fun to read (and yes this is the best clich I could come up with).

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Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland is a bit of an inside look at the life of Beauty Pageants and the life around the stage moms in the business. In the opening of Miss Wyoming Susan Colgate, our main chracter who is an actress somehow is the only survivor of a plane crash and she lives the guilt of wondering why she survived when wo many others died. As the book goes on we find out more about her past, her friend John and her mother that had the small family move to Wyoming becaues it would be easier to get a berth in the Miss America contest, Wyoming by the way has the lowest population of any state in the US.

This is a great book as the quirkiness of Douglas Coupland is I believe at its best and maybe also because I went to see Douglas do a reading here in Calgary to promote the book.

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Microserfs by Douglas Coupland is a great book for looking back at the tech bubble of the 1990s. Microserfs follows a few main characters from coding at Microsoft to getting involved in a horribly underfunded startup in Silicon Valley.

Microsoerfs is full of injokes about technology and with the pace that tech changes it can at times feel a little dated but is a great ride nonetheless. There are even rumors around that it will be turned into a movie YAY!

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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is one of the great American novels of the 20th century. John Steinbeck won the Pulitzer prize in 1940 for the Grapes of Wrath. The story is about a family for Oklahoma, the Joads that are forces from there farm during the dustbowl of the great depression becuase they can not afford their land and the crops are not growing anyway. The main character, Tom Joad has just been released from prison and the family all pack up and go to California to make a new life….they hope.

Tis is easily one of my favorite books mostly because it tells a story about a family at a turning point in american history. The pacing is excellent and the narrative of the people and places is just fantastic. If you want to know about the 30’s in California this book shows you the underbelly of how the fruit industry really got its start.

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On the Road was the book that launched the beat generation into international prominence in the 1950’s. The story although not autobiographical, was still a reflection on a part of Jack Kerouac’s life. The narrator of the story Sal travels back and forth across the US by car and train moving in and out of a group of friends including the now famous Dean Moriarity. Dean part saint and part petty criminal helps Sal to realize the direction his life is taking him.

Highly Recommended

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