Your iPod and The Long and Winding Road

In car entertainment has moved on a lot in the last few years. The advent of digital radio has meant the reception has improved, and the use of DVD and games system are great for kids. The family is pretty much sorted out. What do you do however, if you are on your own on a long trip, and either cannot get good reception on your radio, or you just can't find a channel that you like? Is this the time that your iPod would come in useful?

The iPod is perfect for personal entertainment, but how to you get it work in your car? The answer is to get an iPod adaptor for your car. One of the leading brands is the Itrip Auto FM Transmitter from Griffin.

So now you have access to your iPod library in your car entertainment system. That's great in itself, but there is more that it can do. No doubt, once you reach your destination, you will leave the car parked and have need of your iPod again. Surely the power would have been spent? Well, not with the Itrip Auto FM Transmitter it won't because it features a power charger, so whenever you need your iPod to revert to its original function, it is ready to roll.

These iPod car accessories are easy to use as well. They simply plug into your lighter socket and you are good to go. You adjust the volume on your dash, and choose the tracks from the iPod. The best solution is to create a 'Road Trip' playlist so that you don't have to worry about the music that's playing and can concentrate on what's in front of you.

There is another great benefit to iPod car adaptors and that is the fact that they are completely portable. If you work for a company that has a pool of cars for example, and you never know which one you are going to use, then you have no need to worry. The cigarette lighter is the same in all cars, so your adaptor will work no matter what the vehicle you are using.

So once you have you iPod music collection, you no longer have to go through the pain of having to burn a CD for a trip because you can just use your iPod with it's adapter. It has never been easier to listen to your own music in a car than it is today.

Radar Detectors Unearthed In All Their Magnificence

What is a radar detector? It is an electronic device that tips a motorist off if radar trackers, as used by law enforcement for example is anywhere nearby. The object of the exercise is therefore to miss radar traps and therefore speeding tickets.

The radar guns used by law enforcement officers is used to measure the speed of a moving vehicle or object, relative to a fixed point. There are two critical components to a radar detector, a transmitter which despatches a radar signal, and a receiver which collects returning information.

In its simplest sense, radar operates to work out the distance of one object from another. It stands to reason therefore that if the distance of a moving object from a fixed point can be recorded a couple of times, and the distance travelled by the object, the speed of that vehicle can be quickly calculated.

A radar detector can find law enforcement radar guns with a simple radio receiver. More sophisticated detectors also use a transmitter as well as a receiver, which can usually block the radio waves of the radar guns, scrambling the information that is sent back to the police radar.

Science has moved forwards in an attempt to beat the radar detectors, using laser science. Instead of using radio waves, laser guns use concentrated light beams to isolate the velocity and movement. Because light travels so much quicker, the offending car is usually detected before the detection equipment has realised the vehicle is being recorded. Not to be out done, laser detectors have been made in order to disable laser guns as well. The technique used is like that used for radio detectors.

The bottom line is that, you pay your cash and then you choose as to the best system available for the money you can pay. The more pricey systems will give you a wider range of protection, but you have to pay top dollar for the facility.

Find out the best in radar detectors and find out how to get out of a speeding ticket as well.

Digital Tyre Inflator

A Digital Tyre Inflator Should Be Top Of Your Shopping List

It's true!

A digital tyre inflator should be absolutely top of every motorists shopping list for addition to their motoring toolbox. Let's face it, I am sure that everyone who has ever had a flat tyre, has gone to look at their spare, only to find that it was flat as well, at some stage in their motoring career.

If you had a lightweight device that would fit into a tiny cubby hole, like a glove box, and was powered by your onboard cigarette lighter, you would be laughing, especially in the face of a dead tyre. Well that is exactly what a digital tyre inflator is and does. It is a potential life saver.

A good tyre inflator is a doddle to use. You can inflate your tyre to the correct pressure in minutes. It is simply a case of setting the correct psi on the gauge, and then letting it rip. You need to know the correct tyre pressure of course, but that is usually a case of digging out your repair manual which will have the information you want in it.

Failing that, just use the Internet. It is ideal for discovering facts like this. Even if you cannot find the answer, just set up the question at somewhere like Yahoo answers and someone out there is bound to know and be able to tell you.

If you have ever had to pump up tyres using a conventional pump, you will find a digital tyre inflator an absolute Godsend. There is so little effort involved on your part, you would hardly believe it. Some units are said to be a little noisy, but for a five minute job to get you out of a hole, I don't think that you can go wrong. I have also heard that some units do vibrate quite a bit as well. If your unit does this, you might need to hold it whilst it works, but again, for a quick and easy result to a potentially disastrous problem, you cannot go wrong with this little gadget.

To conclude, here is a short video that you might find interesting. It shows one particular inflator in action.

How A Garmin Friction Mount Could Save Your Bacon

How A Garmin Friction Mount Could Save Your Bacon

Let me tell you a little story, which will explain how a Garmin Friction Mount could not only save your bacon, but a ton of cash at the same time.

The guy in question doesn't want to be named, but we can call him Roger for the time being. His livelihood has depended for years on the need to drive lots and lots of miles throughout the country. I won't give you any more specifics, because any more detail might make him traceable, and this story is too embarrassing for that.

The need to drive means that Roger historically needed to be able to read maps to get to where he wants to be. Sadly, Roger is not very good at reading maps. So the advent of the Sat Nav was like the first dawn of spring to him and he threw himself wholeheartedly at the new technology.

Unfortunately, Roger is not very technical either, so a GPS caused as many problems for him as it solved. Having got the rudiments right, he could get basic information from the unit, but any tweaking was not something he could do easily. Roger's lack of practical skills also mean that the sat nav was not set on his dashboard properly, and it slid to the floor at an inopportune moment. Roger forgot to stop before retrieving it, and drove straight into the back of 4x4 owned by a local celebrity.

Not one to be downhearted, Roger decided to get some glue and fixed the GPS onto his dash. His first effort resulted in the unit being outside tweaking distance. Roger lived with his own folly, until an altercation with a parked car in mid tweak forced Roger to reconsider his actions.

Having learned important lessons from his previous failures, Roger carefully measured the distance between his seat and the optimum position on the dash for the sat nav, and reset the unit in a better position.

Here is a video that shows off a Garmin friction mount

Success! A whole month went by of successful navigating, before the unit was stolen from his car. His employers were rapidly losing patience, and it was only Roger's offer of footing the bill that saved his job.

In desperation, Roger asked his wife to trawl the net and to see if there was a solution to his predicament; one that would leave him employed, yet that would also allow him to retain a sat nav, which had proved its value to him in the preceding months.

The answer arrived in the form of a Garmin Friction Mount. This little baby only cost a few dollars, yet allowed Roger the freedom to place the Sat Nav wherever he wanted on his dashboard, and yet gave him the flexibility to remove the unit whenever we wasn't in the car.

Roger is happily still employed and is actually working more efficiently as a result of his expensive, painful but otherwise rewarding experience.